4yo didn't want to go to school today. Because we practice the first principle mindset at home, 4yo can make her own decision about going to school, we just need to do a good job at guiding and teaching her. But ultimately, challenges arise and I let my anger get the better of me. Here's what you and I can do better next time.
4yo stays at home with 2yo and for 1.5 hours, it's pure bliss. They work together, play together, and eat together. But of course, that bliss can't last forever.
On this episode, 4yo makes the decision to stay home from school, and I spend the rest of the morning trying to convince her to go.
Hello, mamas and Papas. Welcome to dads smarter, not harder. The podcast for loving parents looking to do better. One step at a time. I'm your host, Jun Loayza. I live in San Francisco with my wife and two daughters, Juniper, who is four and Kimball, who is two. And today on the podcast, we're going to talk about two things. The first is the first principles mindset, essentially. I don't do rules for the sake of rules in the household.
Second. I also want to talk about my failure as a parent today. It was a really, really challenging day. And I want to talk about how my anger got the better of me and what you and I can do the next time to be better.
This morning, we woke up and it was going to be a beautiful, wonderful day in San Francisco. Now we have a challenge. Kimball's class is under COVID protocol. So for the rest of the week, Kimball can not go to her class. Now this creates a challenge.
Juniper sees that Kimball gets to stay at home. So of course, what does she want? She wants to stay at home too. Now at home, we follow the first principles, mindset. We don't have rules and we try our best not to tell our daughter specifically what to do. Instead, what we try to do is we try to guide them with principles.
We try to teach them and educate them. So that they themselves can make the best well-educated decision for themselves.
So Juniper tells me. Puppy. If Kimball doesn't go to school, I don't want to go to school either. And I let her know. Jennifer. It's your decision. If you don't want to go to school, you don't have to go to school. But let me tell you why it's important for you to go to school
and then I'll break down all the reasons why it's important to go to school. In order to learn in order to grow in order to socialize with our friends, I do make it more fantastical to be specific. I tell her stories about how, when you go to school, your brain gets bigger. You get more knowledge, you learn more.
And we don't go to school and you don't learn. Your brain gets smaller and smaller and smaller until it disappears. And you can become a zombie. Oh, no, not. Zombie. That's what she says. So she knows that if she doesn't go to school, her brain is going to get smaller and smaller because she doesn't learn. And then she could turn into a zombie.
So understanding this, Jennifer tells me. Well, puppy, I've been going to school a lot. So how about today? I don't go to school and it'll be okay. My brain will be okay. I think about it and I'm like, you know what? I think you make a good point, Juniper. Okay. If you don't want to go to school today, that's fine. You can stay home, but mommy and poppy have to work. So you and Kimball have to take care of each other.
Juniper being the curious little child that she is continues to ask questions. Puppy. Why do you have to go to work? Well, Juniper, mommy and poppy have to work because we have to make money. Poppy. Why do you have to make money? Well, we need money to pay for everything we need money to pay for this house.
To pay for our food to pay for your clothing. And I use this opportunity to continue teaching her and giving her answers to her curiosity. But after a while I put a stop to it and I let her know.
Okay. Juni, mommy and poppy have to work. You have decided that you don't want to go to school today, but remember we have to work. So we can't focus on you, you and Kimball have to focus and take care of each other. So, what can you do? Juniper and I am brainstorm and she herself comes up with the idea that she is the teacher and Kimball is her student.
And I kid you not for the next hour and a half. It is. Pure bliss. Or almost pure bliss. There were still some hiccups. But for the next hour and a half. Juniper is painting with Kimball. Juniper then says, oh, it's lunchtime. And it was like 9:00 AM. And she sets out the food and then they start eating together. And then after eating, they're playing with their magnets and it's going very well.
Until I have one of my longer meetings and Juniper can't come into my office. Then she starts throwing a fit. She starts yelling she's under the table, crying, not fully crying, but complaining. After my meeting, I go to her and I use this opportunity to ask her. Juniper. Why are you crying? And she explains to me.
Because I want to talk to you and you're in a meeting. Okay. We'll Polis poppy in a meeting and we go through this, we talk back and forth again. I remind Juniper that it's her decision to stay at home. Now, let me pause right here. All of this is crazy amount of effort. It's really is. It's a crazy amount of effort
because my wife and I want to make sure that we're not telling the children through rules about what they want to do. That they need to make those independent decisions. Juniper decided to stay home. On a Workday and now she's going to see what those consequences are.
And I know it would be so much easier to just force her to go to school in the morning. It honestly short-term wise, it would be so much easier, but in my head long-term wise, what benefit is that going to do? Essentially the next time that Juniper doesn't want to go to school for some reason. I'm going to have to force her to do it again.
My hope and the goal here is that. She will eventually be able to make that decision herself if she doesn't feel well today. Fine. She doesn't have to go to school and she knows that she has the power and the agency to do that. And she also has the agency to understand why she should go to school, to learn, to socialize with their friends and to grow.
Okay. Back to the story. Juniper is throwing a fit. We're able to talk calmly. To be honest, I was very proud of myself. I did not get angry throughout this entire morning session. I was cool, calm, collected. We worked together through these challenges and Juniper said, I want to go to school.
And then internally I'm like, yes, I got you. She herself wants to go to school. It's not because I told her to it's because she now wants to go to school. She understands if she stays home. During a Workday, unfortunately, she's not going to get our attention. Okay. I package her up. I also bring Kimble with me on the bicycle and we go to school.
Then the challenge hits. It's 10:00 AM. We're walking to class. And Juniper. It doesn't want to go in. Her eyes start getting teary. And she does not want to go into class. And I have a meeting at 10 30, so I'm starting to get a little frustrated and by a little, I mean a lot, and I'm starting to escalate internally. I'm trying to take my deep breaths, but I'm getting frustrated.
Juniper doesn't want to go into class. She starts tearing up and I asked her Juniper, why don't you want to go to class? And she says, well, if Kimball doesn't go to class, then I don't want to go to class. But if I go to class, then Kimball should go to class. And so I go on this little rant to try to explain to her that there are different people.
That sometimes Juniper will do things and other times Kimball will do other things and that's okay. It's okay to be independent and different because you're each your own person. So I go on this soliloquy and I try to explain to her nothing's getting through, she's getting really emotional. And this is the mistake that I may come, trying to go too much logic.
I'm trying to reason with her upstairs brain they're upstairs. Sprain is the logical side. And right now it's deactivated because her downstairs brain is taking over. The downstairs brain is the one that it does fight or flight. So she's getting emotional. She's not logical and I'm hitting her with all this logic, but what she really wants is a hug.
And they're on my side. I'm also feeling frustrated. So I don't give her the hug. I kind of pat her on the back. Shipper out. And then she goes to class, she's crying. She has an accident. She wets herself because she was crying and she didn't do a tactical P before leaving the home.
It was a really tough situation. And then I beat myself up for it because afterwards. After the emotional part, I tell myself, why didn't I just hold her? Why didn't I just come for her until she felt better? And then she could go to class and you know what it's because there was so much pressure.
Kimball was there with me. If I held Juniper, I knew that Kimball want to be held as well. I wanted to avoid that. I also knew that I had my meeting coming up, so I wanted to leave fast. It was just a bad situation.
So what could I do differently? Oh, and I want to add. One more thing. Not only was it a bad situation, but I let that bad situation seep into the rest of the day. So I was pouty. I was moody with my wife. I was moody with Kimball who was still at home. I did not perform well. I need to be able to be smarter, a better person and understand that those angry situations I need to be able to overcome.
And it's easier said than done. Now, if you're listening to this. I don't know where you are on the anger spectrum for me. I'm on the angrier side. I let that emotion. Dominate my life at times. I've taken CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy, and it has helped. But there's still a lot of room to improve.
So I wanted to talk about what can I do better in this situation? What can I do? When I'm feeling angry and I'm feeling like it's going to get the better of me. The only thing. That has helped me, is this book. Called. Hunter gatherer parent.
And there's this part in it that talks about how. Parents should stop letting that angry emotion, get the better of them. Stop being angry at your kids. And there's two things that have helped me. Number one.
There is an ancient culture that sees anger. As a childish feeling. When they see somebody getting angry, they tease him as. Childish or acting like a child. And that has helped me because when I'm getting angry, I think to myself, Acting like a child. I don't want to be a child. I'm a big boy. I'm an adult.
And I don't want that childish feeling. To take over my life so it's okay to be angry. Hey. Don't get me wrong. Anger is very useful. And I also teach Juniper and Kimball that it's okay to feel angry
and we can control that anger through our breathing and through meditation. But. Labeling anger as a childish emotion has helped me through those tough times. Maybe we'll help you. That's number one. The second is to appreciate the awe and the beauty in life. What this means is that when you're feeling angry with your child,
Instead appreciate. The awe and the beauty of your child. Wow. Isn't it wonderful that Juniper is able to communicate with me. Wow. Isn't it wonderful that even during these tough COVID times, our school is open and Juniper and Kimball are able to go to school. And you can just think and be grateful. So that's what it is. It's being grateful for the things you have.
Appreciating your child for who they are and who they're growing into. This has helped me tremendously when Juniper is talking back to me when she's having a tantrum. When even Kimball is now starting to get more emotional. This has helped me taking a step back and being in awe at my children and watching them grow up and appreciating it's like, wow, Juniper or Kimball is angry.
I love that they're able to express that to me. It has helped this is not going to solve everything.
But it has honestly helped me.So to close the loop, I felt bad for being angry. So I decided that when I pick up Juniper later, I'm going to take her to whole foods and she's going to get to pick any snack that she wants. And I'm going to apologize. So I go to school later that afternoon, I pick her up and I let her know Juniper. I'm so sorry.
And she says. No poppy, I'm sorry for crying. And we have this wonderful conversation. I say, it's okay to cry. Puppy should have been more calm. Next time. I'll comfort you when you're feeling sad and then I'll walk you to class all the way to the door.
Okay, Papi. And we have this nice conversation and close the loop.
So that's where I want to end this. Kids are so resilient. Kids are going to model our behavior. And kids understand when we apologize. They learn when we apologize. It's so important that when we mistakes and we always do, when we get angry or we blow up. These things happen. And it's wonderful to apologize to our children because now they learn that it's okay for them to apologize to us.
Or to other people that it's okay to blow up and get angry because you can make it up to other people by apologizing, by explaining, by having a conversation. So the next time you have a blow up the next time there's friction. And maybe you don't perform. As good as you could have. It's okay to tell your child, you're sorry.
All right. And with that, we're going to end this episode right here. Thank you so much for listening. If you have any comments, questions. Please hit me up on Twitter @junloayza. Thank you very much.