Transcript:  Raising Gritty Kids
Hi,
It's the Us and Kids podcast time, your time to absorb a bit of anything that will encourage you to stay married forever while you parent together. I am Jan Talen, a marriage and family therapist, a wife, a mom, and a grandma. And I know, like you, the ups and the downs of trying to do it all. This podcast is all about living your busy life as best you can each day and as you do, we know that you will avoid that ugly D word of divorce. It will not get in your way. We write and post each podcast with a printable so that you can truly get the info you need so that you can have more joy and more connection out of each day, each kiddo, each kiss and each cry.

We are entering our second set of a hundred podcasts with some good changes in store. One of them is, is that our podcast is going to come to you every other week with a reminder and a printable link out on the social spaces in between, giving you more room to listen and use what we talk about. Of course, our other podcasts are easy to find on the us and kids website, so that any refresher you want, any printable you want again, because you used it or you lost it is easy to find, they're up on the website.

 And today we're talking about how to help your kids be successful. We sort of think of it in terms of how to help your kids be gritty. How do you help them get along in life?

So we're going to split this into two different thoughts. This is more about parenting, than it is about what's happening for kiddos. It's more about how to help you parent well. We're doing this now because we know there's a lot of changes happening as we move into the fall season. And for many families, that means that we're trying new schedules and introducing new people and new ways of the family functions. And we want our kids to be able to do this and be successful with this transition skill in their everyday life as well. Let's remember, they're not adults. Their brains, their way of thinking, understanding, coping with things, is not the same as what your’s or mine are. 

So we are going to be the leaders. That means that often we have to start with us. The first part of this podcast is what's happening for you and what’s happening in that adult relationship between you and your spouse or your partner. 

First of all, for you, adults, work on that relationship, that healthy relationship between the two of you. Getting along with each other helps the kiddos know that they are safe. And that there's double strength here with being connected as mom and dad,, but your kiddos also notice if you're connected nicely as husband and wife. This is not easy to keep in balance. So don't go for the A++, work yourself towards a solid B plus at both.

There's always a little bit of something that happens in this transition time so work to keep those conflicts low. And when the conflicts are high, move them to a time and a space where kiddos don't need to hear this intensity. We just posted Podcast 101 about anxiety and nervousness. For kids, this tension between mom and dad is something that really frightens a kiddo.

These are adult matters and they can be taken care of as adults. Our two, three and four year old kiddos do not have the ability to process this anymore than their body has the ability to process alcohol. Don’t go into those intense spaces when they are around. Move and work on having healthy relationships with each other and develop that relationship in healthy spaces. 

Kiddos know that they can catch a feeling. Now they don't know the language for that, exactly. But you and I both know this, right? When someone lights up the room with a smile, you feel a little lighter. When your spouse walks in and puts their arm around you and says, “Hey, gorgeous”, you know that they feel in love with you, connected with you .

Now, some of you are going, no, that's just a catchphrase for….., and maybe it is, but it still is a sweet thing to say. You see, your kiddos are going to follow your emotional lead. As you live into your home space with a positive attitude, with positive kind words, (probably not every one of them), we understand that. Overall where you can move it into a positive space that suggests something kind like “Let's eat, we'll all feel better.” That says, I really liked that nice big bite you took. Now, it could be the only bite of dinner they've taken, but you're not going there, you're just going to accentuate the positive. The more you move that positive into their everyday living world, they become more positive, more optimistic, and more willing to cooperate because their brain isn't working to protect, their brain now is open to the possibilities.

This is an interesting idea I found. Kids that have “grit” have moms that are busy, that are engaged in other things. Now, sometimes that means the mom is working outside of the home, but sometimes that also means that that mom is a creator at home. That she is busy providing and creating things.

So she's helping with things at school. She is helping with making things for neighbors. She's helping grandma and grandpa. She's doing things that are helpful to other people. And what we know is that when kids see both their parents being productive, they want to follow that lead.

The kids also see that when their parents value their effort, it encourages them. The idea here is that in parenting we want to say more about our kids' efforts than successes.  It might sound like this: “I love how you thought about that (jumping their bike) and then you really worked to make your bike go over that bump!”  What we're saying is not so much whether or not it was a win or lose, we're talking about the effort and the way they thought about it.

Their thought process, courage and effort is what we're going to emphasize. Because it builds confident kids who are not scared of trying things, but are very willing to invest in effort. It's not whether they won or lost. The bike might've gone over the bump, but it might be that the bike tipped over and didn't make it over the bump, but we can still say, “I love how you thought about that and you gave it your best try.”

 Now we can sit down with them and say, “What would you do differently if you really want it to go over the bump, what else would you have to do?”
Now you might be evaluating that and have some ideas, give them a minute to think about it.
And then you might be able to say to them, “Well, I have this idea.”  Do you want to try making the ramp a little wider? Or adding another piece of stability here because the two places here where your ramp connects isn't quite tight enough.”
And then give them the choice to say yes or no. We're working towards a growth or learning mindset that experiences and experiments with things.

And that builds this value of effort in all places of life. We want to be able to look back and say, “I put forth a good effort or my best effort, and it's not whether or not I am good or bad.” That's the difference.

Our kids that are more engaged, more courageous in life often have parents that are more authoritative. 
What does that mean? An authoritative parent is a parent who tries to direct their child rationally. It's not a bossy or a really pushy parent who tries to move or manipulate their kids into behaving out of their fear, or out of bossyness or power. That's more authoritarian than authoritative.

Authoritative says my child can learn from me and is able to learn. I'm going to work with them to help them learn. We're engaged with the kiddo.

This is also different from the really permissive parent who just wants to let the kids do as they please. (
(Now I'll go with that permissive place in some ways, because I do want room for kiddos to just be able to play, to be fully two years old or to be fully messy three year old.  Rearranging things loud and runny and very, very busy.)
So I'm going to give them that space, but with rational spaces and rational directions. It might sound like this: “Your Legos can be all over this floor because we don't walk over here. This is where you build. Your Legos can not be thrown down the stairs because that's what hurts our feet and our knees when we go up and down the stairs.” 

You see how I'm just going to set a little boundary in a direction around that that directs the child into this is a good place to play, this is not a good place to play. 

You see what happens here is that the kiddos grow up respecting your authority because you've demonstrated it kindly and because they don't feel strangled and really held back by it. There's room to explore, to play, to be fully them and then these reasonable boundaries add some good protection for fun that stays fun and no one gets hurt.

Another thing that parents do to help their kiddos grow and develop nicely is that they pay attention to them. They listen to what their kids are saying. Now there's no way a parent can listen to every word a child says. Sometimes, (especially if we have two, three or four kiddos running through that house), you just can't possibly absorb and respond to each little voice.

So hold your standard in a very reasonable space. When there is time to listen, take some minutes out of every day for your kiddo and you. And listen to them. They might be telling you something absolutely silly. And then you're going to just enjoy their silly brain. And sometimes they're going to tell you something like a secret, and you're going to sit down, put your ear by their mouth and say, “What's the secret?”

I can't always understand when a kiddo tells me what their secret is. So sometimes I say, “I really got to hear that secret a little better. Can you talk a little louder?” And I moved my hair a little farther away. “Can you talk a little louder to me?” And sometimes I say your secret is a mystery. “Give me another clue.”  You see what I'm doing here is that I'm listening to them so that I can respond appropriately. When they say that their secret is that they can't get their shoe one, I can respect that. They're not trying to be naughty. They're trying to say there's something wrong with my shoe. You see,  more times than not, I have given an instruction without looking at my kids and then, when I actually look, I see why the kiddo can't get their shoe on.

They have their foot trying to jam in between the laces and the tongue and the tongue of the shoe is underneath their foot instead of on top. It was important information and I didn't pay good attention, so my kiddo put their shoe on, but it wasn't comfortable. And I apologized.
That relationship with them matters to me. What we're talking about here in terms of parenting is that we're applying behavioral impact and direction, not psychological.
We're not really trying to totally control how a kiddo is feeling or what they're believing. We're trying to help them to develop behaviors in spaces that are safe and helping our kiddos understand what is safe and what is not safe.

Often giving kiddos a timeline is a behavioral direction. Telling a kiddo how to feel - like, “Now it's time to be happy” is a little bit more of psychological control. Does that mean we never tell her kiddos it's time to stop crying? We have to move to a different place. No, we probably will tell them that a time or two. The difference is that we're also going to model those emotional transitions along with them.  So, we will become less intense and crabby and they will follow by becoming more calm and happy. 

And so we're going to say something that's going to be more positive or uplifting and show those emotions through our actions. For example, “ I'm ready to smile and giggle for a little bit. How about you?”  And we're going to say, “Let's go skipping!!” and then, away we go! We're giving good boundaries and spaces for kids to play and interact so that they are safe. And then we help them learn how to play and how to interact with other people. 

This moves us on to that next space where parents teach their kids social skills. This is one of those things where we help our kids practice yes, and no, thank you. And please. And “May I have…” And excuse me, I have something to say. I have one granddaughter who learned at school that if she wanted to interrupt an adult, she was to put her hand on their forearm instead of saying, “Hey, wait, wait, I got to say, I gotta say…!!!” That was the adult’s clue from the student to the teacher, that the student had something important to add.

The teacher then could say, “Tell me more about what you are thinking.”
It was a social skill. And it worked when I had six grandkids running around as well. When she had something to say, she came and put her hand on mine.  I knew she had thought and planned what she was going to say and could trust it because she was about 5-6 years old. It was an effective way of communication.

We help our kids learn to understand that other kids have feelings that we have to pay attention to how the other people are around us, as well as what we are feeling and doing ourselves. We teach this to our kids. Don't just let them experience it and figure it out.

Talk with them about it as well.

Sometimes people say, “Oh Jan, those are way high expectations for a parent and for a kid!”  And on the one hand, I'll say, I think that that could true, that there may be some high expectation in there, but I can tell you I'd rather reach for a high expectation and fall short, then be sorry that I went for a low expectation and underestimated and under developed a skill or an attitude or an approach that would have been helpful to have.
What I'm saying here is to set the bar sort of high for our kids. It does have to be age appropriate, now help them do it, help them understand how to make decisions and how to change their decisions. Help them learn how to talk with you and take some of their information and some of yours and put it together.

For example, their thoughts about being dressed for the day might be them wanting to wear their fuzzy fleece pants. Your information for them might be about how very warm it’s going to be today, and that there is a lot of time for playing outside. So you want to inform your kiddo that those pants might be really uncomfortable and warm. But your kiddo is sure that they need to wear their fuzzy pants. As a parent, I'm going to let them make that decision, but I'm also going to ask them to, please, make a decision to take some shorts to change into when they want to.
Because now we (my kiddo and I) are going to cooperate and almost always the kiddo will grab another pair of shorts and say “FINE!” and leave. But then when they're too hot, they can remember (maybe with your help) that they have shorts to change into. 

What we're doing here is letting our kids make decisions and we're teaching them some self-control. This good sense of self control helps them more likely be healthy and safe. They learn and know how to make those choices.

Self-control timeout might work. I would rather have a kiddo, while in their space of timeout, practice what their better choice would be. And as you come and sit by them after they've gotten their self back together again or to calm them,  talk with them about your love for them and then, about what they could do better next time. I want them to understand what emotions led up to the hitting or the biting or the kicking. If they can catch on to what was happening earlier, inside their emotions, they will have clues (as will you) about when they could have asked for an adult's help and made a better choice.

You (the parent) could process with them when it would have been smarter to walk away or choose something else for a few minutes. If we can teach them those skills, it gives them a sense of power over their emotions and over what they do with them. Instead of the “Shame on you  - this went too far and go sit (in your shame)” message, we're going to teach them what to do with those big emotions and actions.

Our kids who have more self-control are more stable adults. And that means that they hold relationships and jobs and community dynamics in a more steady space. When do kids need this self control? Often when they're doing chores, that's what I think of. Especially when they don’t love the chore they are doing, or need to do.  Or when there is something more interesting to do. 

What do we want them to learn in doing chores? I think I wanted my kids to learn that the work has to be done and that we're going to work together as a family because everybody made some of this family mess. Do I usually ask kids to pick up other kids' messes? Usually not. I might ask kids to just work on picking up the playroom.

And sometimes I'll say to one kid, you pick up anything that has clothes on it and you pick up anything that could snap together. So somebody that is in charge of picking up the train and the Legos and the Duplos and somebody else is in charge of anything that is a stuffed animal or a doll or a soft play thing.Did they probably both play with all those toys? They probably did.

We're going to give them chores to do so that they learn that this is a part of what everyday living is. And so that they realize that what they do and use has an impact, not only in helping the house look messy, but also in helping the house look clean and be clean and be safe to live in.

What are some actions as a parent while you are talking and teaching these things? Use an approach we like to call GRIT. It's an interesting word. It's teaching the kids to imagine and to commit to a future that they want to create.

Now this is not thinking that a two year old is going to think what they want to be when they're 20. That's not what I'm talking about, but I'm thinking that even a two year old and more so, a three-year-old and a four year old can imagine what they want to build with those legos... What their doll house needs to look like... How far they want to ride their bike... What they want to do on the jungle gym.

And they're commenting on their thoughts, then they're committing to them by going to try it and do it. And that's what we want to build into them. This builds this powerful success driven personality trait. It builds the "I can!" The optimism, the willingness to be brave and try new things. Let your kids imagine.

Ask them how they would do it, help them build around their first idea. And then, when they're stuck in a bump and they can't get the Legos to stay together because it's really lopsided, give them another idea so that they can build that future of what they wanted with their Lego thing so that it’s work and their dollies or truck can go on it. 

You know, math is not my favorite subject. But listen in for a minute. We've talked little in terms of teaching kids how to read and if they know their alphabet.  Often they can sing it, but they don't know it. And often our academic interest and emphasis is if your kiddo can read or write letters.
The interesting thing about math is that it is also so important to helping kids move forward academically. If they can understand their numbers (why 3 is more than 2) and can use numbers appropriately  (- even if it’s just 1-10) then their academic success in reading and information processing is better.

And when you also help them with the skill of making puzzles, it further helps their brains develop. As we count the pieces, notice the pictures on the pieces and count them, our kids brains develop in so many good spaces. As you count with them: How many dollies do you have? How many fingers do we have? Our kiddos love thinking about it with us - and succeeding at
This basic math skill is often as important, if not more important than their reading skill. Oh, don't hear me wrong. In terms of, I'm saying it's not important to read to your kiddos because it is very, very important. It helps them build concepts. It builds relationship with you. It helps them understand how all of their people problem solve from Bernstein bears to Sophia the First to Fancy Nancy to Bluey, to Paw Patrol. They're all doing those same things in those stories - solving problems (relationships) and often using math as well!
These are interesting things in some ways, to me, as I did my research around this. I found this information about the importance of math very interesting to me, the other stuff I sort of knew. I'm sure that there's something in here that you have picked up that one or two things where you can say I can do better at this.

Now don't look for upgrading to an A, A+. Just move the needle in terms of how you're parenting somewhere between three and 15 degrees. Do it a little bit at a time so that your brain has enough room to really grasp it and make it more of a habit than just once a week. Your kids don't really trust you if you just do it this one time and then don't follow through.
Give yourself some notes about what you wanted to pick from this podcast, print out printable, and give yourself some circles.
This is what I'm doing this week. Write it on your mirror, put some notes in your car so that you can get a mindset around it that says, " this is where I'm headed with my parenting between now and the rest of the summer or between now and Halloween.
Set some goals for yourself and go for it.
You are worth it. You are a good parent. You're listening to this and you're learning.
Now go and do. Cheer your kids on.
No kiddos are perfect and no parent is perfect.
This is a long game. 

Stay with it. It's in the small spaces here where you make these little changes that our kiddos pick up and grow. 

Always a pleasure to have you with us. Remember that there is a printable for this, so you don't have to try to remember all of this. The printable will help you out.

Remember you could listen to it any time. And the Us and Kids Communication Program is about ready to go back online.
The Fall of 2021 it will be available for you. Be sure to check that out and join us. We'll give you a whole nother deep dive into the basic skills that I talk about here. Hands on support and energy for you.

Enjoy your kids.
Enjoy being a couple together and parenting your kids.