Episode 205

Kyle Wester (00:11.224)
So many parents seek out help because they don't know what to do when their kids' emotions get really big and out of control. And also we hear so many questions about like, what are the consequences? Should I be using timeouts? I mean, these are just like evergreen questions that, you know, kind of pop into every parenting conversation, all kind of around these evergreen problems that every parent in America or around the world.

is facing as they're on this journey to parent. And Sarah and I wanted to bring in an expert on those very topics to talk to you today. Dr. Vanessa LaPointe, an international speaker, bestselling author, she's just so entertaining, so many fascinating ways to explain to you how to do things like how to hulk up, right? Talking about what are the dangers of time?

It's like when you do those, what does it do to your relationship with your kid? And she's gonna dive into these topics and really give you examples about how to handle those big emotions and how to move away from consequences and timeout. So you're gonna really love this conversation because she was just a joy to talk to and we had so much fun getting to connect with her. If you haven't already, before you dive into it, take a moment to pause and rate and review the podcast. We'd love to see the five-star reviews and we'd love to hear your feedback and comments about what you thought of the interview with Dr. Vanessa LaPointe.

And she's gonna talk about her book also, Discipline Without Damage, came out a long time ago, but it was a book that really transformed my thoughts on parenting. And I think it would be a big asset to you. So take a moment to sit back and listen to this interview with Dr. Vanessa Labarge.

Kyle Wester (00:00.834)
Hello and welcome to The Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi everyone, I'm Sarah. And you know, Sarah, one of the books that I think really, really opened my mind to parenting a different way was a book that I really loved called Discipline Without Damage, you know? And in that book, it really challenged some thoughts that I think are pretty popular about timeouts and about those kind of ideas. And as I was reading it, I remember at that point, our youngest had been born and I put timeouts out of the way, but I still had a hard time explaining how come

ideas like that just aren't helpful to raising kids who are regulated and all that stuff. And so today guys, we are very excited to bring the author of that book onto our podcast. She is a best, you know, a best, what's the word I'm looking for? All time best seller book, right? I kind of, I'm looking for, and she's also speaks throughout the world. I love this, this term. She's, she's not only a psychologist, she'd been a psychologist for 20 years.

Vanessa Lapointe (00:48.859)
Got it.

Kyle Wester (00:58.882)
but she also is a global parenting advocate. And so without further ado, I wanna introduce Dr. Vanessa LaPointe. So Vanessa, welcome to our show.

Vanessa Lapointe (01:07.847)
Thank you. So good to be here with you guys.

Kyle Wester (01:10.286)
Yeah, what is the word I'm looking for? You're like, thank you. Oh my gosh. Thank you. What is my problem? figure out where you were. I'm sorry. I was so confused. Best selling author. Yes. Okay. And it's been it's been a while since you wrote that book, right? I mean, how long has that been? 2017? 2016? Okay. Okay. And so right now, you spend all your time like getting to help parents all throughout the world, right?

Vanessa Lapointe (01:13.221)
bestselling author.

Vanessa Lapointe (01:27.623)
2017, yeah. 2016, yeah.

Kyle Wester (01:39.54)
And just if you could tell us like, how did that come about? How did the book Discipline Without Damage come about? Why the focus on timeouts and those kinds of ideas?

Vanessa Lapointe (01:49.553)
You know, I had been running a clinic for many years at that point. And what I had noticed is we would get a lot of referrals from parents, like, fix my kid. And the issues were generally, you know, the child was presenting with really challenging behaviors. There was no peace in the home. They were refusing to finish schoolwork. Like, there was just like a lot of stuff was up. And invariably, those families would come in for support.

Kyle Wester (02:13.678)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (02:19.587)
And as we of started drilling into what the issues were, I realized that a lot of the problems these children were presenting with were actually a direct result of the way they were being disciplined. And so they actually didn't have a behavior problem themselves. It turns out with all the love in my heart, their parents had a behavior problem and their parents behavior problem was trickling down.

Kyle Wester (02:32.066)
Mmm, yeah.

Yeah, yes.

Kyle Wester (02:40.97)
Yes,

Vanessa Lapointe (02:44.909)
and affecting the way that their children were then able to show up for life. And I actually believe those parents to be really well-intentioned. You like you do the best that you can as a parent with the information available to you and with a little dose of perception based on where it is that you have come from, which often affects the way that we show up as parents. They were well-intended and they were inadvertently causing their children more challenges.

Kyle Wester (02:52.439)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (03:04.312)
Yes.

Kyle Wester (03:14.22)
Yeah, yeah, no, we definitely witnessed that too. I mean, it's just such an eye opener, I think Vanessa, especially for me as I was making the change, because I grew up in a home where spanking and those kinds of things were used frequently. But the change was realizing the power I had wasn't to control my kid, it was actually to control myself. And once I realized, that's where the power comes from. I think that was a big game changer. And I'm sure it is for the parents you talked to as well.

Vanessa Lapointe (03:42.919)
Yeah, and rather than being a blaming, shaming kind of discussion with parents, I always invite parents to think about it as an empowering discussion. The answer is within you. In fact, you are the answer. So let's prime your best self to come forward so that you can show up for your child in the way that nature intended, not in the way that the parenting industry or the pop culture around child raising has presented to us.

Kyle Wester (03:47.725)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (03:56.172)
Yes.

Kyle Wester (04:13.1)
Yeah, that's great.

I love that because I do feel like it's a real sensitive spot as a parent because you really are, we all are right. We love our kids and we've been given what we've been given to parent from and we're doing our best and then trying to sort through all the messages, all the parenting sites and the books and the do this and don't do that. And so much information. Yeah. can get very overwhelming and to just know that you have it, you, you can be that person that can bring change.

Vanessa Lapointe (04:34.993)
Wait.

Kyle Wester (04:44.278)
I think one of the top things I hear from moms, especially because I'm around a lot of moms, is just, I have this kid who gets really, really upset.

You don't understand how upset they, mean, it's to, know, it is really, really big. And I believe them. It is really big. And they, they feel like they're, they're coming in with empathy. They're coming in with, they're trying to shift into understanding them. But it, but I hear, just recently had a conversation with a mom where it's like, but they just seem to get more upset. They just, don't, I feel like what's next. I'm meeting them with, you're really upset, but.

Then what? Yeah, that's great. And so that was one of the first things I wanted to ask you is, know, we've got these big upset feelings and I'm meeting them with empathy and it's not shifting it. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (05:34.311)
Hello.

You know, I don't know and I find that, you know, the bigger the reaction, nine times out of 10, that's linked back to a child who is actually facing the world with an incredibly sensitive nervous system. So there's something about the way they experience kind of day to day life that just is flooding and overwhelming and behavior will always be communication. And so

Kyle Wester (05:40.713)
Hahaha

Kyle Wester (05:55.117)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (06:05.291)
And it seems like the parents coming to me, and I have to wonder if it's the same for the both of you, they represent a significant section of the population who are parenting these very sensitive children. And so that's a big thing to be considering. The other thing is that humans are wonderfully wired to actually really deeply understand

Kyle Wester (06:12.524)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (06:21.793)
Yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (06:34.639)
what it is that we need if we can just get out of our own way. And one of the things that we need is to feel what we feel. And so if you're a really sensitive and intense child, you got a lot of feelings that you're gonna need to feel. And we actually wanna prime that, right? Freud said that which stays in festers and comes forth later in uglier ways. So you don't actually want your kid to swallow that all down. And the good news is,

Kyle Wester (06:44.247)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (06:55.17)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (07:03.705)
emotions are cyclical. So there will always be a down followed by an up. And if you don't, you know, if we're on the way down, it's kind of like when a ball falls to the earth and it hits the earth, it compresses and then you get bounce back. If you get too uncomfortable with the fall,

Kyle Wester (07:08.664)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (07:22.69)
Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (07:26.267)
with the more challenging emotion and you start trying to kind of climb your way back up so you don't have to feel that challenging thing or sit in the messy middle of it with your child who's feeling the challenging thing, then what happens is you never actually fully cycle and you end up getting stuck in the feeling that never got to move. And so I always say to parents, you know what, if your kid has happened, the mother of all meltdowns, that means that you have made it safe enough

Kyle Wester (07:42.446)
Hmm.

Vanessa Lapointe (07:55.601)
for them to release what it is that they are holding onto. So allow it to happen and trust that nature exactly knows what's needed and will ensure that that plays through. Now, there's one little sneaky thing. Sometimes we can go in with good intentions to be empathetic and really let our kids know that we're hearing them. And we stay in a little bit too long. And it's kind of like we...

Kyle Wester (08:10.486)
You

Kyle Wester (08:14.2)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (08:22.082)
Mmm.

Vanessa Lapointe (08:25.147)
contribute to them being stuck on a hamster wheel of whatever the current emotion is. And so just watch that you aren't hamster wheeling your child's emotions every now and then. You wanna actually help them sort of find a different way, give them a cold glass of water or something to kind of like jolt the system so that your wheel can be quieted.

Kyle Wester (08:42.178)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, mean, Vanessa, that perfectly describes a lot of talks Sarah and I would have about our oldest because she just would have these big, big emotions and we would be like, okay, we know empathy helps. So we would do empathy and it's almost seemed like she consumed the empathy. It was like she's kept eating the empathy and then was like bigger and bigger and bigger. Like, are we feeding her the right thing? I don't know what it was. And so yeah, we did have to

Vanessa Lapointe (09:07.057)
Right. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (09:16.066)
with her help, kind of think of some of these different things to do, right? Like it seems like us just sitting here in it, it's just getting bigger, honey. Like I think at some point, so even sometimes we'd even say, as she got older, it seems like you want to stay here for a little bit.

And if you do, that's okay. We're gonna go ahead. I'm gonna go do other things, but I will come back and check on you in five minutes, right? And then she would say that would help because it would give her a moment to like, she'd end up, I'd come back, she'd be drawing or she'd be writing or she'd be listening to music. And she would have started to find her own way, maybe to get out of it, right? Is that kind of what you're talking about?

Vanessa Lapointe (09:53.391)
Yeah, her own way to adapt to whatever the situation was. like, what a wonderful gift to give our kids to just trust that they're gonna figure that out. And adaptation is kind of like a muscle. You have to have some experience with it. Not that as parents, we need to go create opportunities for that because life is going to create those opportunities.

Kyle Wester (09:55.884)
Yes. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (10:13.25)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Vanessa Lapointe (10:18.021)
And when they arrive that we can, you know, seize the moment and be really at peace with the idea that this is an opportunity. It's not a problem. It's an opportunity and there will be growth that occurs in the muck of that opportunity.

Kyle Wester (10:30.444)
Yeah, that's great. great. Yeah, I was gonna ask you also then along with that, tell me more in your book you talk about this idea of hulking up.

you this idea and it did cause a lot of conversation with the group I was reading your book with, because they're like, what is this? What does that mean? It almost looked like some of them were taking as she's saying, be authoritarian and get control. like, I don't know. I don't think it's what she's saying. So we had this kind of good discussion. I'd love to hear you kind of discuss why that's so important, the ability for a parent to hulk up.

Vanessa Lapointe (10:42.481)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (11:05.463)
Thank you. I love this question. There's a real natural hierarchical ordering of the big person, little person relationship, the parent-child relationship, the teacher-student relationship, the coach-athlete relationship, where the grown-up is here and the child is here. Not in a yucky way, not in a gross, you know, I'm going to like overpower you way, but in the way that, you know, by the time my boys were

Kyle Wester (11:24.782)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Vanessa Lapointe (11:33.479)
I've been walking the planet for three decades. I am asked a few experiences. I sort of understood maybe a thing or two about life. So of course, I have a role to play because I am the grownup in the dance of the relationship. The child comes into the relationship with really, you know, if we're talking parent child and it's a newborn little baby, I mean, they come into the relationship with a brain that's barely online and

and no real life experiences in front of them or behind them that will help them kind of figure out their course. So there's this natural hierarchical ordering. And because of that, the desire, the deep-seated desire of the child, if you can imagine that the grownup is like this steady backbone, and then the child gets to just lean in through the mechanism of the relationship.

The child gets to lean into that backbone and find a place of emotional and relational rest. Now when the child's at rest, they don't go to work. You know, they don't go to like earn your love and keep you close and all of those kinds of things, because they're just at rest in it. So all of their energy now gets redirected to the task of growing and developing and maturing. Babies are born into the world knowing if they don't find a best bet.

If they don't find their person, they're out. They will develop a condition called failure to thrive and they will die if left untreated. And I've had those babies that have been in my practice over the years who've come in to the foster care system or whatever it is, and they just haven't been able to get there and they start to die. Their bodies start to give up. So babies know I must get connected and I must...

Kyle Wester (12:59.34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (13:24.325)
lean in. they're literally born into the world looking for us. What they want is to find rest in that connection so that they can be released to the process of their own developmental journey. Part of what gives them rest in that connection is knowing that you've got it going on. Right. And so if I were to say, I don't know, if I were to go to my physician and be like, I've got this owie on my face, can you help me?

Kyle Wester (13:41.304)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (13:51.702)
Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (13:52.315)
fix it and the physician was to be like, I don't know. Like, what is that? Well, how long have you had that? I'm going to leave the physician's office feeling very unsettled because the person who's supposed to be in charge just threw a big question mark at me, right? Our children are the same. They're looking to us to be in the lead, not yucky in the lead, but beautifully loving and wise and caring.

Kyle Wester (13:55.052)
I know, yes. Yeah.

Yes.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah

Vanessa Lapointe (14:21.699)
leaders who will show them these are the ropes of life and this is how we're going to find our way forward. It's the only way that children can actually truly mature if they have the enduring experience of getting to lean into the rest of the relationship with their big person, their parents.

Kyle Wester (14:40.566)
Yeah, it's great. What that brings up when I hear that, I think about boundaries and all the conversations I've had about boundaries. And I'd like to hear your thoughts. What does that look like if I'm that person in my child's life? How, you know, what are we talking about? What does that look like to build that?

Vanessa Lapointe (15:02.961)
So if you are that person in your child's life, you better be real boundary. This isn't about just like releasing them to the flowery meadows and watching them blossom, nor is it about being controlling and manipulative and dominant and all of those kinds of things. Really what it's about is the experience of holding self within. So lots of people talk about boundaries these days.

Kyle Wester (15:08.278)
Hahaha!

Kyle Wester (15:13.42)
Yes.

Kyle Wester (15:33.144)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (15:33.189)
And I like to distinguish between a TikTok boundary and a conscious boundary. So the TikTok boundary actually takes us back in time. The TikTok boundary is not really what we ought to be focused on when we're talking about boundaries. The TikTok boundary is you will respect my boundary. You will, you know, all of this will. If you listen to the narratives around that, it's a lot of...

Kyle Wester (15:38.326)
Okay, okay.

Kyle Wester (15:43.8)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (15:50.786)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (15:59.789)
against the other person and it's a lot of how I'm going to control the other person. Under the guise of it's my boundary, you have to respect it. So, conscious boundary is I'm going to, it's not about keeping other out, it's about holding self within. So a conscious boundary is never going to be against other, it's always going to be for self. So with my child that is a parent, I'm doing a lot of checking in. What do I want?

Kyle Wester (16:04.994)
Yep. Yep.

Kyle Wester (16:24.162)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (16:29.723)
What is to the greatest good right now? What is my truce in this moment? And how will I speak that truth with power and also with grace so that hearts and ears stay open and the message can land? And if somebody's unhappy about the message, that's okay. Now I shift into the experience of getting to witness them in safe and loving ways, still holding the line. I'm not changing the line.

Kyle Wester (16:29.9)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (16:37.418)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (16:56.494)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (16:58.671)
And now I'm going to let you know that I understand why and how that might be hard and we can have a conversation.

Kyle Wester (17:04.334)
Vanessa, can you give me like an example? know, like let's say, I know how I do it, but I want to hear you because too often like my setting those boundaries, I would say for me is kind of easy for me. Like what you're saying, I naturally do it. I feel like it comes natural to me. But I know for a lot of parents when I say it to them, they're like,

I don't know if I could say it the way you're saying it. Because they're so insecure about doing it the wrong way or whatever. So like an example, a typical would be the kid's yelling at you. The kid throws something at you, something like that. obviously, none of us want that. So how would you set that boundary with the child?

Vanessa Lapointe (17:46.119)
So I would use the sentence starter of no, N-O, dot, dot, dot, I know, dot, dot, dot. So if a child's just thrown something, actually one of the worst things that you could ever allow to play out continuously without really checking it and containering it is allowing your child to do something that hurts you physically or otherwise, but especially physically, because we are literally the hands that feed.

Kyle Wester (17:50.626)
Yeah, Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (18:15.131)
And when you allow a child to bite the hand that feeds, on the other side of that impulsive reactivity, they're actually gonna be completely panicked and really distressed that they just hurt the person that's their best bet. And remember, we just finished talking about if I don't have that person, I die. So it's a very distressing experience for a child to realize on the back end of an impulsive reactive moment, no, I just.

Kyle Wester (18:19.32)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (18:25.902)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (18:34.509)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (18:44.199)
hurt the person who is my best bet. So you would never just stand by and be like, oh, you're having a big feeling. Tell me more about that. What you would want to do is step in and step in very swiftly. When it comes to physical reactivity, there's a few rules, three to be specific. You cannot hurt yourself. You cannot hurt anybody else. And you can't hurt our stuff. Meaning like, you know,

Kyle Wester (18:51.99)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (19:02.616)
Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Kyle Wester (19:10.638)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (19:12.581)
I have one family years ago, their child when I met them had trashed not one, but not two, but six. Six televisions had been trashed. No, we don't do that. That is a hard no. And so let's say your child's just thrown something at you. There's gonna be an electric fence response. So not just a, whoa, response. If you can think about the boundary as a fence, we're gonna put a little charge in it.

Kyle Wester (19:20.6)
God, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (19:39.559)
And we're not, there's no anger because then you're no longer a leader. You've now become reactive. So it's not about being from anger, but it is about being big. So something's flying through the air. You can see they're reaching for the next thing to send it flying through the air and people are going to start to get hurt. Well, one of our core, our core rules is you can't hurt other people. can't hurt our stuff. You can't hurt yourself. So that's a real quick reaction, which might sound something like,

Kyle Wester (19:39.736)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (19:48.301)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (20:01.548)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (20:08.613)
That must stop and now you're moving in. And I've got a face that shows I'm not angry. I've got a face that's open. I've got a face that's got the light up in it for you. I'm right here. I might even step in if I can see whatever the next projectile is, is already in their hand. I might even step in and just grab the hand and not in a nasty way, not in a way that is being interpreted as physically intrusive. And then I will say something like, you're really upset.

Kyle Wester (20:11.67)
Yeah,

Kyle Wester (20:27.086)
Yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (20:37.462)
Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (20:37.807)
I really get that. And it's so hard. And the words right now don't matter as much as what's coming out of me. It's so hard to be a little brother sometimes, isn't it? I really get that, my son. Come on, we're gonna go get you a drink of water. You know, if I was a little brother, I think I'd probably have the same feelings that you're having right now. So I'm normalizing everything. I'm making sure the connection is feeling really strong in the moment, because when connection is high,

Kyle Wester (20:44.758)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.

Kyle Wester (20:58.444)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (21:06.511)
resistance will be low, but it's like a teeter totter. If I come at my kid and I'm not relationally focused in that interaction, then connection drops down, resistance is now gonna be through the roof and best of luck because there will be another projectile flying at your head within five minutes, right? Now, as follow-up conversation to that, just because you've done it beautifully and you've done the relational route, no, I know,

Kyle Wester (21:08.291)
Mm.

Kyle Wester (21:23.18)
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (21:36.231)
Don't think for a second that that means your child is never going to throw something again. Because child development is real. You know, it's called development, meaning they will develop into the capacity to regulate from the inside, to manage impulse from the inside, to sort their big feelings out from the inside. They will develop into that if external to them.

Kyle Wester (21:46.148)
huh. Yeah.

Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (22:03.277)
i.e. in their experience with you as their parent, you are able to show up and show that nervous system. What it means to go from being fired up, I just launched a projectile at my parents' head, to being settled down and now I get to be adaptive again and choose a better or a different way going forward.

Kyle Wester (22:25.326)
That's so good. Would you say Vanessa, in your experience, when I'm hearing you explain that, I think there's so many parents who they can't even imagine what that looks like, right? It either in their childhood growing up, was either the parent was completely passive and just was like, the kid would just get violent and the parent would just cower, right?

or it got really violent, you know? And so somebody blew up. And so typically one parent would lean passive, the other one would go aggressive. And I just think a lot of like what you're describing, I mean, I did see my parents do that, even though there was a spanking and there was stuff, if we ever crossed a line, there was a very firm line setback, you know? And even I'm talking about in my home at times, where we get violent, where, you know, one of my siblings would pull their fist back, you know, this is like in the teenage years about to like,

punch my mom or punch my dad and it was clearly stated, you will not do that. You know, and it wasn't like there had to be a threat tied to it. It was just like, you will not do that. It was just basically, and as soon as they did that, my sibling would put their fist down and then that would revert to maybe yelling, but they would move away from the physical violence. And so, so that's where I think since I saw that I can envision it when I do it with kids, like even at school, I would have to do that sometimes where a kid would try to attack me at the school.

Vanessa Lapointe (23:35.407)
Right.

Kyle Wester (23:46.446)
Man, but did you find that to be a struggle that parents just can't imagine what you're saying that they assume if they go where you're saying it's got to turn into aggression?

Vanessa Lapointe (23:55.607)
Absolutely. And that the idea that you could be kind to your child and not dominate them with coercive power and actually see that they would come around through kindness and kindness alone, I think it's a foreign concept. And I think for a lot of grownups, because, you know, we parent as we were parented. And our first template for a parent-child relationship was often

Kyle Wester (24:00.692)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (24:04.226)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (24:16.568)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (24:23.087)
a very behaviorist parent-child relationship, a.k.a. using punishment to dominate children. And so it's tricky. It's tricky to see it any other way when you've never experienced what that might look like, feel like, sound like.

Kyle Wester (24:26.082)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, yes, yep.

Kyle Wester (24:35.466)
Yeah. Yeah. What do you, I can imagine that there's a lot of concern about not giving a consequence to this child. They did something they knew they weren't supposed to. There needs to be a consequence or they'll keep doing it. What do you, what's your response to those concerns, you know, that we need to consequence? Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (24:47.995)
Yes.

Vanessa Lapointe (25:02.455)
My response sounds like this. That's not true. And so here's the thing. If I as a grown up, you know, like I love me a good cup of coffee in the mornings. And I'd be lying if I say like, it's not one of my first thoughts when I open my eyes. Like I just like I long for it. I love I love me a good cup of coffee in the morning. And let's imagine

Kyle Wester (25:07.47)
you

Kyle Wester (25:24.738)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Vanessa Lapointe (25:30.629)
I've come home from a terrible, no good, bad, awful day at work and I walk in the front door and I'm tripping over everybody's shoes, even though we built shelves for the shoes to be put on. And my husband rounds the corner and I'm like being kind of, you know, not kind and I lash out and I admonish him for not managing the footwear in the front entry. What has he been doing all this time he's been home? Blah, blah, blah. Can you even imagine if my husband turned around and said to me,

What's the matter with you? Why are you talking to me like that? No coffee for you tomorrow.

Kyle Wester (26:06.018)
Right, yes.

Vanessa Lapointe (26:08.433)
So in that moment of no coffee for you tomorrow, I'm not like magically inspired to now like morph into this angelic being who's going to be like so beautifully behaved and talk to you so kindly. In fact, in that moment, I am now plotting how it is that I'm going to circumvent your attempt to control me, how it is that I'm going to show you that you can hear all that. So what's happened is my husband in that moment has invoked

Kyle Wester (26:12.355)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (26:25.474)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (26:33.442)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (26:38.271)
disconnection, a break in relationship in order to try and control me. And we spoke a little bit earlier about how children need the connection or they die. So connection is life to a child. If you rupture the connection, then you're going to get a response pretty quickly. And the response will usually be that they're going to bring their behavior under control in your eyes.

Kyle Wester (26:44.514)
Yeah, yep.

Kyle Wester (26:51.49)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (27:06.083)
in order to restore the connection back to the parent. It's like we send them a message. It's not unconditional. It is conditional. You do as I say, you shall receive my love. Don't do as I say, no love for you. Right? So what the child is actually learning in those situations is that they are not worthy, they are not good enough, and then they have to start to now send messages.

Kyle Wester (27:16.334)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (27:29.762)
Yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (27:34.609)
Children never attention seek, but they will attachment seek. And if you're creating an experience where your child feels not worthy and not good enough, then there's gonna be a lot of kicking up in terms of attachment seeking. And that's not gonna be fun. Like if you wanna make yourself and your kid crazy, then use consequences all day long. And if you wanna grow them into a wonderfully well-rounded,

Kyle Wester (27:45.454)
Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (27:51.98)
I know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (28:02.471)
stable adult who's able to manage their own big feelings and all of those kinds of things. If you want to do that, then retreat to relationship and seek to create conditions that are conducive to growth around your child. Don't lodge your connection with them over their heads as a control tool because in the same way your wife isn't going to like that or your husband isn't going to like that, your children who actually count on you for their very existence

they're gonna have a big reaction to that and you have now created a circumstance that's gonna result in your child behaving more badly and possibly even developing mental health issues.

Kyle Wester (28:41.71)
I love how Vanessa used that example. Because all the time Vanessa, when I'm coaching parents, if a spouse says that to me, what should I do when they do this? I said, what would you do with your spouse? And they'd say like, well, it's.

How's it different? Like, isn't that what you're trying to do? I'm trying to raise a kid who someday has a healthy relationship with their spouse. So wouldn't what you do with your spouse be effective with the kid? Because that's all skill building, right? And it typically that that really helped me because anytime I ran into a situation where what do I do when my daughter does this? I'm like, what do I do if Sarah does that? Like I would never default to, you know, I'm going to punish her or I'm going to take her phone or I'm going to like that. I would never think if I did that, that was ever going to bring about a better relationship.

Vanessa Lapointe (29:12.44)
Kyle Wester (29:23.83)
it was typically gonna create more conflict in the future, right? So if you could wrap up with this, tell me, because timeouts are still so commonly used, so a lot of parents we know have moved away from spanking, which is great, but many of them still feel the need to do a consequence, and lots of times that consequence is a timeout, right? And so I know in your book in particular, and if our listeners haven't read her book, Discipline Without Damage, there's a beautiful letter you kind of write from the kid to the parent.

Vanessa Lapointe (29:26.609)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (29:52.054)
And so if you could kind of describe what it's like for the kid and what the kid's thinking and feeling when they're in a timeout. Because the parent thinks, I'm just telling them to go calm down, or I'm just telling them they need some time alone. But really, what's the kid getting?

Vanessa Lapointe (30:01.543)
What's so bad about that?

Vanessa Lapointe (30:09.413)
Yeah, so you can imagine, so when we do a timeout and I was very thoroughly trained on the art of the timeout as a doctoral student, like the whole thing and all these manualized programs that use timeouts in one version or another. And a timeout, even if you give it a pretty name and make the little timeout corner really pretty and sensory based and whatever, if you're sending them away from you to

Kyle Wester (30:19.212)
Yes.

Vanessa Lapointe (30:37.807)
you know, think about what they've done and come back ready to make better choices. It's a time out. So the idea is that the timeout creates this physical separation between the parent and the child or the teacher and the child, whatever the situation might be for growing children, i.e. kids that, you know, haven't hit their twenties yet. To face separation, a relational break

Kyle Wester (30:42.733)
Yeah.

Kyle Wester (31:00.863)
Hahaha!

Vanessa Lapointe (31:06.853)
because you've sent me away from you to go and think about what I've done, to face separation is to actually remove from my access the opportunity for me to be regulated again. So the developing child does not have internal to them the regulatory capacity in terms of their nervous systems capabilities. They cannot actually manage.

the restoring of their own emotions. So they get really like heightened about something, really frustrated, really angry, feel really misunderstood, whatever it is, they get very heightened about something. The young child does not know how to find their way back to a restful, calm, and peaceful state all on their own. And so the problem is when we continuously put them in those situations, of course they shut down the behavior really quick because they want to restore their access to us.

But they've learned two really difficult lessons. Lesson number one, I'm not worthy. Lesson number two, we've robbed them of a real life opportunity to actually create a neural circuit that would be part of them being able to regulate internally more effectively. So there's something in neuropsychology called Hebb's Law, which is neurons that fire together, wire together. So we have to repeat the cycle, fired up, settled down. Fired up, settled down through co-regulation, which means

Kyle Wester (32:20.12)
Yeah.

Vanessa Lapointe (32:28.231)
The adult outside of me is lending me their nervous system so I can settle down. Fired up, settled down. If you have an infant, you're doing that 150 times a day. You got a toddler, you're doing that 50, 60 times a day. You got a middle school age child, I mean, maybe you're doing that five or six times a week. You got a teenager, now you're back to five or six times a day. Now until, until their brains are fully mature, somewhere between 25 and 30 years of age.

Kyle Wester (32:36.878)
Sure. Yeah, yeah.

Kyle Wester (32:45.208)
Yeah, yep.

Hahaha!

Vanessa Lapointe (32:55.675)
They just need a lot of practice to grow that neural network. is billions of trillions of neurons to the power of infinity. Going to take a minute. And so lots of repetition is what we want. Timeouts actually work against that and create a deficit that then needs to be fixed, for lack of a better word on the other side.

Kyle Wester (33:03.278)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Wester (33:15.884)
Yeah. Well, Vanessa, this has been a blast. And that is well said. I mean, really love just hearing your voice advocating for.

for kids to no longer be put in those situations, right? But also trying to teach parents how to trust that thing in them to get bigger without aggression. All of that stuff is so helpful. And I'm really glad our audience got to hear all that. Can you tell them kind of what you're up to? And if they wanna know more about you and be involved in what you're doing, they've been inspired, how do they connect with you?

Vanessa Lapointe (33:47.623)
Yeah, so drvanessalapoint, drvanessalapoint with an E on the end dot com is my website. And basically, you know, everything that I have on the go is there. I have the discipline book, as you've spoken about. also have a book for parents of young children called Parenting Right From the Start. If you have a child under the age of three or if you were ever a child, it's a good read.

Kyle Wester (34:01.358)
great.

Kyle Wester (34:08.494)
Yes.

Vanessa Lapointe (34:09.735)
And then I have a program for parents called the Parent Transformation Journey or the PTJ where I do one-on-one and different kinds of community and group work with parents. I'm very active on social media, which is free 99, my favorite price for everybody. So I'm posting very regularly content that's intended to illuminate some of the things that we've spoken about, but also to uplift so that you can really feel affirmed in your journey as a parent.

Kyle Wester (34:25.292)
Nice.

Vanessa Lapointe (34:36.773)
And every Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific, I go live with my husband where we talk about, you know, real life stuff that's going down and applying some of the principles that we teach about.

Kyle Wester (34:40.736)
great.

Kyle Wester (34:48.182)
Love that. Love that. That's so great. Vanessa, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, insight, taking the time. I know it took a while to be able to get you on our calendar, but it was worth it. It was worth it. yes. Thank you so much for joining us. And I know our audience is gonna feel so just full of insight and wisdom from you and be able to take it back to their family. So thank you for making the time.

Vanessa Lapointe (34:59.399)
Yeah

Vanessa Lapointe (35:11.419)
Thank you, was great to be home with you guys.