A challenge presented itself today. I could easily tell my children what to do and drag them through it kicking and screaming. But there must be a better way. Today we explore how we can help a child identify a challenge and walk them through solving it.
4yo and 2yo both wanted to be carried up the stairs today. My back hurt, I was hungry, and I was in no mood for arguing and bickering between them.
So instead of obliging to their requests or telling them what to do, I turned it around on them: I see we have a challenge -- what can we do?
Hello, mamas and Papas. Welcome to dads smarter, not harder. The daily podcast for parenting through first principles, as opposed to rules. I am your host, Jun Loayza. And I live in San Francisco with my wife and two daughters, Juniper, who is four years old and Kimball, who is two.
Whatever you do, don't tell your child what to do, because what ends up happening. First of all, they're not going to do it. Second of all, if they do do it, it's only because you told them to, and that's not what we're about. We're about intrinsic motivation. We're about instilling this intrinsic motivation in our children so that they can operate in the world independently from us. Because if they're depending on us to tell them exactly what to do, then how are they going to operate in the real world where they have real challenges when they're in school and there's friction with somebody else when they're in the workplace and there's friction with a coworker, if they start their own company. And of course,
There's challenges with that as well. How will they operate? So this all starts from the very beginning and instilling that intrinsic motivation through first principles into our children.
Instead of telling our children what to do, we need to help them think we need to help them identify a challenge and think through that process in order to figure out the solution to their challenge. Let me give you a real world example from today.
Today. I went to pick up Juniper and Kimball from school on my bicycle. When we got home, we parked in the garage. And as we're getting off of the bicycle in order to go upstairs and eat, because I'm really hungry. It begins. Kimball wants to be carried upstairs and because Kimble wants to be carried upstairs our two year old, our four year old Juniper.
Wants to be carried upstairs as well. Of course. Anything, the little one wants to do the big one, want to do anything? The big one wants to do the little one-on-one to do. And what I used to do is I would just carry them both upstairs and their backpacks and it was heavy, but I would just power through.
But by this point, I'm tired of it. I can't take it anymore. And as they're complaining, carry me, carry me as they're complaining, I start to feel inside that I'm starting to get annoyed. I'm starting to get angry. So I take my deep breaths.
And immediately what I want to do is I want to tell them what to do. One option is I could tell Juniper Juniper, you're a big girl. It's time for you to walk Kimball. Come on. I'll carry you. But what is that going to accomplish? First of all, they didn't work through the challenge. Second of all, I'm going to create animosity between the two kids.
Cables going to feel happy because she got her way. And now she's going to always expect to get her way. And then Juniper the four year old, she's going to feel anger and jealousy towards Kimball. Not something that we want to do. We want to help our children. Co-exist lovingly together as a team. And this would not accomplish that.
Uh, second option is to ignore them completely and just tell them to walk again. We don't address the challenge. They're both going to be sad. And then I'm just going to force them walking upstairs, crying, complaining, and everyone's going to be in a bad mood.
So let's get to the third option, the better option, the one that we all need to work towards naturally getting there, and it's not going to happen naturally. It's going to happen through practice. Instead of trying to solve all of the problems presented by our children. Let's turn it back to them.
We are not going to solve everything for them. Instead, what we need to do is help them identify that there is a challenge. And that this is a good thing. We love challenges and we're going to tackle it together. So Juniper, Kimball complaining. They each want to be carried. So when I let them though Juniper Kimball.
I can't carry both of you anymore. You're both getting bigger. You're heavy and it hurts my back. We have a challenge. You both want to be carried upstairs? And I want to go inside because I'm hungry. What can we do?
That's how I pose it. And then I wait. I let them think. Kimball, of course, the two year old she's kinda just walking around in circles, marching around. I think she saw a leaf blow into the garage and she was chasing it. So I let her be, just let her do what she wants to do. And my attention has focused on Juniper.
Juniper our four-year-old's first suggestion. Was for me to carry her and Kimball can walk. Okay. So I don't want to reject any ideas. Let's let them come and I'll let her know. Okay. Juniper. If I carry you. Then what's going to happen to Kimball. What do you mean? Well, can Kimble walk up the stairs by herself right now.
No. Okay, then what can we do? Juniper goes back to thinking. She gives me an idea. I let her know the consequences, walking through the idea. It's a nice little exercise. She pitches the idea. We walk it through, see what would happen. Eventually she says, poppy. How about this? I'll walk, Kimball up the stairs.
And then once we get up the stairs, you carry me. I love it. I get so happy I say yes, Juniper. I think that is a great idea. I give high fives all around. And now the next and very crucial step. I tell Juniper. Please deliver the message to Kimball. Juniper walks over to Kimball. And they start talking.
Kimble, of course, she's starting to understand a lot. She doesn't really verbalize too much. Well, let me change that she verbalizes a lot, but she doesn't have full sentences yet. So Juniper lets her know that she's going to carry or walk her upstairs and then I'm going to carry Juniper up.
Kimball kind of goes. Yeah. Okay. So we start walking. Right. We're going to walk upstairs. Kimball sees it as she starts complaining no uppy, uppy. I want you to carry me. And I don't address Kimball directly. I say. Kimball talk to Juniper. Juniper just told you the plan. She marches over to Juniper.
Juniper tells her again. I'm going to walk you upstairs. She holds out her hand, they hold hands and then together they start marching.
they March up the stairs. It's working. Great. I help them. We opened the door came. My wife is there. She carries Kimball upstairs. Juniper reaches her arms out and she jumps in my arms and we go back upstairs.
So let's do a quick recap. Let's not tell our children what to do. They're not going to do it. It doesn't help them learn and grow and to face these challenges, head on.
And if we keep telling them what to do, they're going to depend on us, or they're going to depend on other people to solve their challenges for them.
Instead of telling them what to do. We need to help them think through these challenges. So the challenges presented. Hurray. We love challenges. We want to make them feel that they love it. It's not going to happen immediately. You have to do it over and over again. And you yourself, you have to believe it in your heart.
In your mind believe that this challenge is a great learning opportunity.
And then lastly, you got to have that patience. Because it takes time. I was in the garage, feeling hungry. I want to eat my spaghetti. But instead I'm in the garage talking to these two children, making it work.
Maybe you don't have the patience for it every time. Fine. Sometimes you have to tell them what to do. Sometimes you just grab them and you drag them upstairs. If that's what you gotta do, then you do you. But for the majority of the time, more often than not. Take that time take that. Patient's take it, the breath, whatever you need to do.
To walk through that exercise with them. It's on you. That's why you signed up to be a parent. Right. This is our job as parents, mentors, teachers to our children. No one else is going to do this for them.
So when you signed up for this job to be a parent, now you're this mentor for this child. And if it's challenging for you. To have that patience to go through all these exercises. I'm here to tell you, man. I feel the same. It's very challenging. But we take our deep breaths. We suck it up and we do it because we love our children.
And we learn to love these exercises because they grow and eventually. If we do this enough times with love and kindness and loving energy. It's going to become a habit for them. And it's going to be better for us in the long run. Great. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening.
If you have any comments, questions. Please hit me up on Twitter @junloayza. I love hearing from you. Thank you very much.