Episode 214

Okay, I know you've been in that situation where you've told your kid three times and now your voice is slowly getting louder. Your body is getting bigger. The attitude is worse and maybe they slam a door. Maybe they yell back at you and suddenly you feel trapped between two fears. If I punish harder from what I've learned, I think I think I know I'm going to damage the relationship. But if I don't punish, I'm going to lose control of this situation of my home.

And, and, and I'm going to end up, it's, I'm going to pay in the price down the line. And this is where a lot of parents today are stuck with this type of tension. And today we want to help you know how to get out of that tension and do that situation differently. And if after listening to this podcast, this episode, and you're saying, man, I want to do that in my family, you know, the way Sarah and I were able to move through these fears and to learn the skills needed to create a home free of punishment.

We had a lot of great coaching in our life. And obviously we give that to our clients and give that to here in Tulsa and throughout the world. People reach out to us for parent coaching. And so if you're interested in finding out if you're a good fit for that, reach out to me at kyle at art of raising humans.com. And I'd love to connect with you and see if we could do some coaching with you and change these family dynamics for the better. Also, if you haven't yet rated, reviewed, commented, all those things are so important to us. We read all the comments, we read all the emails you send about

how this is impacting your family. We'd love to hear from you. And so today, get ready to sit back, enjoy how to change your family, what to do instead of punishment without becoming permissive.

Kyle Wester (00:01.614)
Hello and welcome to the Art of Raising Humans. I'm Kyle. Hi everybody, I am Sarah. And right now it's summertime. I hope everyone's having a great summer, right? Yeah, I mean it's not too hot in Oklahoma. I hope wherever you're at in summer you're swimming a lot and having some fun vacations and enjoying your kids. today what we wanted to dive into is kind of like, we continue Sarah to kind of hit upon the subject of punishment. And we find...

people that we run into, more and more parents are excited about the idea of not punishing. You know, they're saying things like, don't want to spank. don't want to maybe even do timeouts or maybe I think I need to, or maybe I need to ground them. And maybe, and there's this constant conversation we're having with parents of understanding if you're not doing punishment, then what else are you doing? Right. And it's, is definitely something we walked ourselves.

We definitely came from wait a second feeling kind of like you're just lost in the sea of it all. Yeah, if I give this up, what am I supposed to do though? What does that look like? Well, I get the concept of it. I believe in the science of it, you know, but then now what? and and that's a confusing place to be as a parent. And I know when when our kids talk to other kids or we talk to other parents and we say we we don't take things away from our kids or we don't ground our kids. We don't our kids don't even

even think about the concept of am I in trouble? Like that's not even a concept. But it took a long time to get there. And it took a lot of intentionality and obviously reading and you know, getting involved with experts in this field and talking to them about how, yeah, no, this actually, you can have a home.

where you're not doing any of those things. we're kind of, you know, we're 20 years into studying all of this and learning all of this in our education. We're reading all the time. So we definitely come from the place of we were down the road a bit.

Kyle Wester (02:04.031)
And so we want to share that, look back on down the road and without it being, well then your kids just run the house. Exactly. Yeah. So we are not talking about permissive parenting. And of course that was Sarah's and both of our fears early on was if we're not doing these things and as we kind of graduate, like, we don't need to do this. I guess I don't think we actually need to do this. It was like, well, this is going to become a free for all. Like these kids are going to be running everything. That was more my fear even than yours. But it's not that at all.

It's really about raising kids who are controlling themselves, who are self-disciplined, who like, they're not worried when they make a mistake. They think making mistake, doing things wrong is part of growing up and they come back and ask, how can we do that better? Right, right. They come to you, they take responsibility. It's that growing that insight into...

what did I do? Why did I make that choice? What were my other options? You know, it's all of those inside skills. Yeah, and so we want to reiterate this is difficult. We know what we're trying to teach parents to do is hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. We're not doing permissive parenting. Permissive parenting isn't healthy for your kids or your family, but we do believe in boundaries, in leadership, in accountability, and that distinction

It's huge. It's a big, big difference in how you're parenting. So first of all, we want to hit upon why we keep defaulting back to it. Because I know, Sarah, I talk to parents all the time I'm coaching who they are doing great changes. Like they are caring about their kids' feelings. They are seeing behavior as communication. They are trying to equip their kids with skills that they need. But then when push comes to shove, they still think, well, I've got to ground them.

When they do that thing, you gotta do something to them, you know? And they almost, it's very difficult to get out of that mindset. It is, it's literally wired into our way of working and living in this life. It's in a lot of places, it's in the sports field. it's in schools. Yeah, it's in the social justice. There's so many places where this is ingrained in our society and our way of functioning. So to turn here and go, wait, there's a different way.

Kyle Wester (04:15.798)
It goes kind of against everything that's in you. Yeah, everything you're seeing maybe on TV or whatever you grew up with. And I do want to draw a distinction, Sarah, between when you're seeing that kind of stuff in school or in society and these other places. I'm not always sure how necessary it is, like in a school, to have punishment. But you have it happening in those places because that school doesn't have something you have, which is a relationship with your kid.

You know, they're using fear based punishment in spaces in our culture because they're trying to make that kid scared to do that thing again. And they really don't have the relationship to use as influence to guide the kid in a different way. And you do. But the problem is if we keep using punishment, we end up becoming like those institutions and we start to lose the very relation we have, which makes it to where we can disciple our kids and guide our kids.

So when we're talking about why punishment feels like it works, we first have to be more intentional in understanding ourselves. So let's talk about fear-based compliance. This is something that most of us were raised with. The goal was, in using punishment, was to get immediate compliance. You want to quote unquote get your kid to do this thing or stop your kid from doing something else. And so fear,

is something that works. It can. Like if you threaten a kid, a kid will probably most times stop what they're doing and they will listen to you to do something else. But the problem is that's not sustainable and that's why we don't want to use it. Meaning you have to keep upping the fear. You have to keep upping the threat or the kid eventually gets numb to the fear you're using. And once again we see that in the justice system. We see that in so many areas of society.

and the school system at work, right? Do your job or you won't get a paycheck, you'll get fired, you'll get written up. So these are, in all those places you said where there's a lack of true relationship, they rely on this fear because they know, well, it's not conscious, but in our brain, we're gonna avoid that pain, right? We always wanna avoid pain. We live to survive and feel good, so we're going to avoid that pain. So yeah, it's a motivator.

Kyle Wester (06:37.196)
Yeah, and then there's also the nervous system urgency that happens inside of us whenever something's happening, when kids are, the siblings are fighting or a kid is quote unquote disrespectful to you, rolls their eyes at you, talks back to you, whatever you might, whatever might be the alarm that's going on on your head. And as you slip down the brain, your brain will say, punishment needs to be done here. Yeah, that person needs to hurt for what they did. I mean, and there's reasonable, there's ones that are, yeah, you see,

some kid beaten up on another kid or some real injustice happening and something inside of you, it's very natural to go, that is wrong, that person needs to be stopped and they need to pay for what they did to this other being person thing, whatever it Well, we slip into like an eye for an eye type idea. I've got to hurt that kid because that kid's hurting the other kid. I've got to bite my kid because my kid bit somebody else. mean, those are still examples parents are using. Then there's also inherited parenting. Like I said, most of us were raised in homes

where this was pretty common. mean, different levels of fear and punishment were used, but either way, we were kind of trained with these skills, these tools that kind of limit us as parents. So I know, Sarah, when sometimes our kids were little and they do stuff, my thoughts would be thinking, they need to be slapped. You're like, would my brain go there? It's because I was slapped as a kid. So if I talked back, I was slapped. So when Abby or Brandon were little and they would do that, my brain would be like, you should slap.

And even though wouldn't learn to pattern, right? So if I handed you a package and a pretty beautiful bow and all this stuff inside of you, there'd be this like, something great is coming my way. That's a price, right? So there's all kinds of ways that our brains just operate from this learned system. There's a pattern here. So for you, if talking back, the pattern was talk back, get slapped, back, get slapped. So of course that's a pattern. Your brain immediately goes to, I know this.

This now leads to the next step here is a slap. My brain, I wasn't slapped. So my brain never went there because I don't have that And how weird would that be if you thought that, if you've never experienced it? Yeah, it didn't have that pattern. So that wouldn't be where my brain would go, but we all have those. So it's just good to recognize the patterns inside of you that it's not even about what you think or you should or shouldn't happen. It's just your brain goes into, I know what's next. Yeah. Yeah. And then there is lots of times we'll use punishment or default to it because of short-term behavioral

Kyle Wester (09:00.224)
change that we're wanting to see. We're wanting that behavior to quickly, you know, they want them to do something different. We're in a rush, we're feeling stressed, we're overwhelmed. We don't have time for this, you know? So you quickly will threaten some form of punishment to then get that behavior to stop quickly. Yeah, you're in a panic. I mean, your own brain is going, we got to get there. We're going to be late. We were late last week, can't be late again. And whatever the situation might be, you're rushed. Yeah, and then the last one is just external motivation. A lot of parents

When we were kids, a lot of parents felt like they had to motivate us by threatening us. If you don't do this, you can't go do that. Or if you don't get your homework done, this is gonna happen. So there's this kind of belief system that I hear a lot of parents talk about where their kids are lazy, their kids are unmotivated. And from an early age, we start to believe without some kind of threat of punishment or some kind of reward system set up, our kids would just, left to their devices, they just play video games all day and do nothing of importance. I think we almost, this is a belief system in.

in society, right? Where even as adults, there needs to be a carrot or a stick. You're only going to do good things, quote unquote, good things, go to work, show up, be helpful, whatever it might be, if you're either being rewarded or punished for it. Instead of believing that humans can choose something helpful to themselves and others.

without that punishment or reward. Yeah, and I would encourage you if you haven't listened to our episode last week with John Fogle, we interviewed him. He has a book called Punishment-Free Parenting and we dive into the subject even more along that line about why punishment, why he stopped punishing and why he changed that and it really speaks to a lot of reasons why we've never done it. Okay, so the key idea here we want to leave you with is that punishment does often stop behavior temporarily and the key word there is temporarily.

but stopping behavior and teaching skills are not always the same thing. And so we wanna draw a distinction that we were really trying to do this, what we think is a harder thing, which is to teach a skill rather than just stop the behavior. So let's talk about Sarah. There is this fear that was really present within us, this fear that was kind of always bubbling underneath. And so we wanna hit upon why parents are afraid or unable maybe to take that leap to really then move beyond.

Kyle Wester (11:12.728)
Punishment these are just a lot of ones that we personally felt but also people have told us they feel so number one is Your kids will become entitled. They're gonna be spoiled little brats who think they can get away with anything. Yep I mean you do you see I think you look around you look at these gamma jump to another one But even when you see a kid misbehave, right you think that kid hasn't been you know

punished or hasn't, they just think they can get away with anything. That's permissive parenting, but that person's doing some gentle parenting. Yeah, so I think that goes with entitled too. They think they can just run things. They just think, you know, they walk down the aisle and they don't move aside for an adult. Yeah, well that goes into being disrespectful. If we don't punish, our kids are going to learn to be disrespectful. Our kids are going to learn to be lazy. They're going to be irresponsible. They're going to be unmotivated and unsafe.

Meaning they're just gonna be like impulsive and doing crazy stuff. And if we're not there to control the behavior, they're gonna do unsafe things. And so parents, we know parents aren't trying to harm their kids necessarily. Every parent I talk to, even parents who are still spanking, they don't think I want to go harm my kid. The parents aren't trying to harm their kids. Most are trying to desperately raise better human beings. And we really believe that's the intent behind.

Very much. every parent, I've heard talk to so many parents who they're being very, very thoughtful, whatever the method is, punishment, whatever it might be, they're trying so hard. thinking this is what needs to be done. They care very much about their child, how their child grows up and turns out, you know? And so they're taking the pathways and trying so hard. And there's a lot of guilt around it, you know, so much pressure and shame and guilt around this thing that

I, we walk, we walk that walk too. And I recognize how hard this is. Yeah. So we thought it'd be fun to kind of dive into specifically, some steps you can take that will help make this more practical, the shift for you, because we do have a lot of compassion for parents who want to make the shift, but low wiring is so strong. And, and, and we also though, feel such joy.

Kyle Wester (13:22.654)
on knowing that we have a home where we're just never punishing them. We're never punishing our kids. We're never punishing each other because it just doesn't help the relationship thrive. It hurts the relationship. And we know long term, our hearts and your hearts is to have a connection with your kid that will last a lifetime. And you know, in this day and age, so many kids are growing up as adults and they're saying, I don't want anything to do with my parents anymore because they've been raised in homes lots of times where there have been these mixed messages given.

about punishment, you know, that we are on the same side. We're on the same team. We're with you. And yet we're taking things away or we're punishing you with our words or with our actions. And the kids just say, I don't want to be a part of that anymore. And we don't want that for your family and we don't want that for ours. And so if you listen here, if you have a pen and paper or something to write these down, Sarah's done a fantastic job of making this into an acronym that I think we really helpful to you called guide, because that is at the heart of what we're doing with our kids. We're leading them. We're discipling them.

We are guiding them in every situation. We're modeling to them all the time. So let's start with G, Sarah. So here's what you can do instead. Start with G, and G is get regulated. So start with the parent nervous system first. We've got to start with our own nervous system first. Yep. So if you're feeling triggered, if you're feeling like this isn't a good space for you, tell yourself it's not an emergency. Step back, get yourself in a good space. We're not going to spend a lot of time on each one of these.

Cause we have episodes about a lot of this stuff, but, you want to start with you, then you need to go to your child and just realize, I just had to say, it might take 45 minutes. might be like, isn't working. Cause my child was upset for 45 minutes. That's okay. Realize each time you are building a nervous system. So yes, it's going to take a while and it is success. Getting them regulated is a success. So you just realize it's going to take time. It's going to take practice. It's going to happen over years, not.

in five minutes. know. Yeah. Yeah. So get regulated. The you is understand what's underneath. Get curious about the deeper need, the deeper stressors, the skill gap that's there for your kid, or even just understanding the emotional state. So you want to start seeking understanding what's underneath the behavior. Yep. And this, might be your child has ADHD or is neurodivergent in some way or hungry, sleepy.

Kyle Wester (15:47.95)
Yeah. They need attention. They haven't been around you all day. Their buckets empty. Yeah. There could be some stressor you don't know about at school or with a friend or so just being curious and thinking what's going on here because that's the thing you want to reach, not the behavior. The behavior is just the symptom. Yeah. Just trusting there is always something underneath. So let's figure out what's underneath. So the next one is I, which is intervene with calm limits.

So lead clearly and confidently without shame, fear or escalation. I think this one's really difficult. think especially that understanding clearly, lots of parents don't understand where they're wanting to go. Like where am I leading them? Because most of the time like we talked about earlier, when my brain is wired towards punishment, it's just about resisting the kid or stopping the kid's behavior instead of guiding and leading the kid. And then once you get that skill better, once you get to where your brain is more in the habit of thinking, where do I want to take them,

then your confidence grows because you more capable in doing it and the kid will calm down because they feel how confident you are. I like this one because I learned a lot about goals. We have a whole episode about that too. But whenever you're thinking of something like this, you don't want to think about what you want to leave. You're kind of going towards what you want to go to with your child, right? I'm not focused on stopping them from hitting their brother. I'm focused on

How do I help them regulate? How do I help them express their frustration? How do I help them negotiate this conflict? So I'm always kind of making it, where am I going with my child? And less of a focus on stopping this and quitting that. Well, even like a good example, Sarah, is like a little, little kid may bite somebody. So obviously, my goal is to stop him from biting. Well, no, that's not the goal. The goal is instead to help your son or daughter to regulate those big feelings.

and then communicate what it is they're feeling or thinking without aggression. And you can do that. You can do that with a two year old. You can do that with a kid. The kid actually wants to know that they're biting. That's just the symptom of I am dysregulated. I am going to communicate in an aggressive way what I'm feeling. And it's only a problem because we don't want our kid biting them. Right? So if you don't care about your kid biting, it's not a problem. But you want that to change. So like what Sarah's saying is what's underneath

Kyle Wester (18:04.256)
is that and then I want to intervene and lead the kid on how to communicate in a way that doesn't involve using your teeth. Yeah. Okay. Then the D is deepen connection through repair. So this is one that even we find if parents are doing the first three steps, lots of times this one is just, they're not thinking about this because they're kind of just glad it's over, you know? So here we're going to reconnect after the rupture. So we're going to reconnect, make that, make that connection back. We're going to restore safety with the kid.

And then we're going to move toward the child in a relational way. So this is where we're using empathy. We're using accountability. We're using reconnection and we're collaborating or co-creating with the kid. How we're going to do that next time. Yeah. And it's, even including their repair, you know, so they, they will feel better.

as they repair the thing that's messed up or what happened. And I'll drop a little hint, this works in marriage too. If you're going to marriage counseling and you're doing this for, I'm getting regulated, I'm seeking what's underneath my wife's behavior and then I'm trying to intervene in a calm way, like I'm saying, hey, can we lower our voices? Can we take a moment to take a break? Can we do this? And then.

I'm gonna, every marriage counselor would say follow up with your spouse. Like use this as an opportunity to grow closer together to then deepen your intimacy with each other. And if you do that in marriage, it works too. And that's why you're wanting to teach your kids to do this. And then the E in guide, the last one be equip and encourage new skills. And so I wanna point, this is where all the teaching happens because this is where the child is now in their prefrontal cortex, cause they're not.

Scared of you anymore. They're not overwhelmed with shame anymore, but now they're open-handed. They're receptive They're able to reflect they're able to practice maybe even role play a new way of doing it They're able to problem solve they're able to actually like certain learning skills to regulate their emotions ways to communicate and this is where you see the growth happen This is where teachers want kids at school. They want kids

Kyle Wester (19:58.19)
in this space when they're learning, right? mean, you know, when you were in school, if you were upset about something, you broke up with a girlfriend, you had a problem, you weren't listening to the teacher, you were just wanting to get through the class. So once we get here, this is where the teaching happens. This is where the change really occurs. Yeah. Children in this space, by this point, now they can learn, right? Now they can get those skills that they were missing and wanting. And all of this is very, you're very connected to your child through this process. It's all very connection based and you are leading them.

Okay, so now let's talk about Sarah. What does accountability, discipleship, guiding look like with your kids without punishment? Because the point of this isn't just so kids just get away with things. It's like a lot of times what we hear is like, yeah, the kids just get away with it. There's nothing happens to them. no punishment, so they just like off the hook. And I hear that time and time again. And I know where that comes from because I remember thinking that. Like if you don't punish them, they just got away with it.

Yeah, so when we say we're moving away from punishment, here's what we are not saying. We're not saying you ignore what happened. You ignore the behavior. That is never what we're saying. What we are advocating is for things like this. Restitution. What does that mean, How do we teach our kids restitution? I think it's sort of like repair. It's going back and saying, taking accountability, responsibility, responsibility for.

what just happened, what you did, what was the fallout from what happened. And now I'm going to go back and fix it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I might replace the broken thing. I might hug the person. I might offer them a bandage. I might, you know, but it's, saying, Hey, you know what? I just did this thing and I'm so sorry. here's what I want parents to imagine Sarah in that last part of guide that E in that part, you could even say, Hey, this happened. How are you going to repair? How are you going to fix it? And too often Sarah,

the parents slip into punishment and say, here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna go make that right by writing that person a letter and time and time again Sarah, I've heard when parents don't do that, kids come up with those ideas themselves. And then it's genuine and it comes out of a real place of remorse and repentance and they really do wanna make it right. And it might not even include a I'm sorry. Yes, it might. So I do wanna, cause I use that in my example, but I wanna say I wouldn't say to a child, go say you're sorry and give them a hug. I wouldn't do that because I would hope, I want something to come from inside of them.

Kyle Wester (22:23.854)
And each person, just like we have different personalities, one kid might draw them a picture. One kid might say, hey, let me go, I'm gonna do this for you as a way of saying I'm sorry for what I did. And I think it's really a really great experience to watch your child come up with a repair and guide them and support them, not in a shaming way, but in a support, let me come alongside you, because when we are adults, we mess up and we have to do the same thing. So let's let them kind of practice this skill and it's beautiful.

Yeah, and what's cool about it, when they mess up, the focus isn't what's gonna happen to me. It's what am I gonna do that's gonna make it better? Or what am I gonna do to fix the thing I broke or heal the thing I hurt? Instead of what happens with Punisher, kids start thinking, how do I protect myself? How do I hide this? And it's neat to have them experience that internal thing that happens in you when you do take responsibility, when you do fix something. There's this nice thing that happens to you and goes, okay.

You know, but if it's driven from the outside of someone else makes you do that, you don't always experience that the same way. then so another thing that can happen when you're not punishing and you're just helping the kid be accountable is problem solving. You know, you can really sit down with the kid and say, what's some solutions to the problem you ran into? You know, like the whole the whole behavior thing became such a big deal because you ran into a problem and you didn't know how to solve it. And the way you tried to solve it.

was not helpful or was hurtful to other people, you know? So how could we look at that problem again and solve it in a better way? Yeah, what a skill, right? Because kids are young and they don't know how to do this, even teenagers, to look back and go, okay, let me pull apart the pieces here. Let me see what led me to this decision, then that decision, and what outcome did I get? Did I like that outcome? I mean, it's a whole skill set to look at and problem solve and think through things and...

gain that insight into yourself. What was your motivation? Yeah. And then kids in this stage, Sarah can also practice new skills. You know, we talk about we, especially when our kids are younger, love to do a lot of role playing and see them actually feel what it feels like to do that situation again with a new skill. Because you see in our society, adults are lacking so many skills. They don't know how to resolve. I'm hearing stories all the time in traffic where adults are flipping each other off and

Kyle Wester (24:38.542)
cussing each other out and they don't even know how to deal with traffic for goodness sakes, right? And we want our kids to be safe drivers to know when things are frustrating in traffic, they know how to calm down, they know how to like regulate themselves and not just get into anger. And so it I mean, that's just one skill, but there's the skill of like, just empathy and just having empathy for that person that you hurt and empathy on how to actually be assertive and stand up for yourself when a bully is doing something. There's all types of skills that that moment happened because the kid was lacking.

And now this is a great chance to practice those skills. Then also, this is a great time to talk about calm limits. know, ways in which that we want to put limits or boundaries on how we express our big feelings. This is where this happens. And this is where the kids start to learn that, hey, it's not appropriate to just scream at me. You know, we want you to talk in this tone or this way or this volume, but it's also where the kids remind me that they want that from me too. That we're all going to agree to these calm limits. It's not just for the kid. Yeah.

And then we want to get into collaborative planning. So talk more about that. We talk about this a lot. think so if you haven't heard us talk about this, you listen to some other podcasts, but we love to do this with our child. I do not go to my child with a plan. want that. I want it to be their plan. If they own it, they're going to do it there. There's a lot more buy-in. So it's me just coming along as a helper to say, Ooh, maybe I can help you brainstorm. Maybe I can be a listening ear, but I really want my child.

to, it's a collaborative process to come up with, okay, now what? What happened? What are you thinking? What are you feeling? And also, man, parents, this is a tough one. We can't make this so long. It's a practice for ourselves to have few words to keep it short and simple, especially depending on the age of your child and watch their engagement level. It's gotta be a safe space to do this. If we make this go on and on, we lose them, right? And then they're like, now we got

But but you know, mean that even in scary situation just a few months back had a client who this kid was was upset and this kid went into the house and ended up locking locking himself in the bathroom because he was so upset and this scared the parents because in the past there had been some behavior there some some different ways the kid had harmed himself and all those kind of things and so The parent was very compassionate. The parent was very patient, but the parent was very scared You know, and once this situation calmed down the kid wasn't hurting himself

Kyle Wester (27:02.732)
The kid just wanted alone time. The kid just wanted to be away. And in talking to the parent and the kid, because they were collaborative, the parent was able to say, don't do that again. Like that really scared me. And the kid was able to say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I was just angry about the way you guys had handled it. And then she was, the mom was able to say, in the future, when you're feeling that, don't lock that bathroom door, okay? Let me check on you. And the kid said, okay. Cause the kid wasn't thinking about them. He was just thinking about himself.

And he didn't understand the fear he was causing. He just was angry at that moment. But in that collaboration, like that never has to happen again. And I believe with this family, it never will happen again because they were able to collaborate through it. Collaboration is so powerful. And that's a beautiful example of just watching some family come together. And we do it with our kids all the time, coming together, collaborating, creating a plan.

that is not just one-sided. Yeah and you're teaching them how to do that with their friends, with their spouses, all that stuff. then the last few things that you're also getting a chance to do when you're not punishing is you're able to teach them emotion regulation. So you're able to go back and talk about how can we do some deep breathing? How can we when we're upset go for a walk or do some drawing or play with those squishies that I got you or whatever it is right? You said like we were very intentional when they were young of having a space in the house that

when we were losing it, we need to go back there and we're gonna work together, collaborate on regulating and you could feel it, Sarah. Once we started to calm down and regulate, I could feel my own receptiveness open up and theirs as well. And then we're like, how are we gonna do that whole thing differently? And the kids had fantastic ideas on how to do that. But that's because we helped guide them into this better space. And the last thing I wanna say on this is this is where your practical authority comes in. I know for so many parents,

who are scared of being permissive parents and rightly so, is they wanna make sure the kid knows they have authority. Your kid wants you to have that. Like your kid wants you to in essence be in control, meaning in control of yourself and in control of all the scary stuff that can happen in life, right? But that authority is there to say, come to me when you mess up, come to me with your mistakes because I can help you and guide you to doing it better.

Kyle Wester (29:14.742)
And you want that to be the ongoing dance that you're doing with your kid like all the rest of their lives. You even when they're in their 30s and 40s and you may be going through a divorce or they're going through a hard time at work, whatever it is, you want them to come to you. Okay. Because they know you have that authority in their life. They've seen you as that safe leader, that safe guide who's been there helping them their whole lives. Yeah. Not to blow up at them or stop them or resist them. But to guide them. Okay. So we know

that punishment can create quick compliance. And all too often, I know in those moments of stress, that's what seems like what we want. But relationship regulation and skill building create internal leadership in your kid over time to where in the hard times when you are not there, when you're not watching, they're able to make better decisions that are gonna be healthy and helpful for their life. And they're not gonna be impulsive and just do dangerous things that could hurt them because they're gonna be able to sit back

and that they've been trained to sit back, regulate, think through it, and then do what's best in that moment. So we really hope that this episode helped kind of break it down for you. Focus on the guide. I'll go back and give you a quick synopsis of that. So guide, remember G was get regulated, and then U was understand what's underneath. I was intervene with calm limits. D was deepen connection through repair, and then E was equip and encourage new skills.

Hope to the summer as you have tons of opportunities to do this. And when you feel your brain slipping back to saying, there's got to be punishment, otherwise it's gonna go crazy. Go back to this episode, listen to it, because there doesn't need to be. And it can be very sweet and very beautiful, the connection you end up having with your kids, because they're not afraid of what's gonna happen to them. Okay, so hope you're enjoying your summer and thank you for listening. Goodbye.