Sustainable Parenting

77. The Three H's to Use When Kids are Crabby or Complaining

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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Do you get frustrated by your child's irrational upsets and crabby or resistant attitude? 

Do you find yourself saying, "She just gets so irrational and upset about things that don't matter!"

Join me today as we explore parenting strategies built around the "Three H's" that are my favorite solutions to difficult (and what feels like irrational) emotions.

From early childhood to the teenage years, these methods will be useful and effective at building a more positive and cooperative relationship with your child. 

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Speaker 1:

You're listening to Episode 77 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with me, flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach and early childhood mental health consultant. It's a pleasure to be with you If you've been following along for a while we're so honored to have you as a regular listener and ask that you share this podcast and or, if you haven't left a review yet, please do so by going down to the very bottom of the homepage of episodes and seeing where you can leave a star and a comment. And, friend, today we're talking about the three H's that help kids when they are crabby and emotional and struggling. So if you've had a little toddler or elementary school kid coming home from school having a difficult time with peers, or they're resistant when you're asking them to get dressed in the morning, or they're emotional and telling you all the reasons they hate what you're asking them to do, these three H's are going to be crucial to help you get into a more peaceful, calm place as a family quickly. Hello and welcome to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast. Let me tell you, friend, this place is different. We fill that gap between gentle parenting and harsh discipline that's really missing to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time and give you the exact steps to be able to parent in ways that are more realistic and effective and, for that reason, finally feel sustainable. Welcome.

Speaker 1:

Before we get into the episode, I would like to quickly share a review from Sierra, who said the most asked question I get when I took parenting classes with Flora was is it worth it? In the beginning, I was asking the same question. I was scared I wouldn't follow through with the class. Spend the money on something like this instead of something else for my family. Truth be told, flora helps you every step of the way to success. I wasn't alone in this. The money we spent in the classes was for our family to become better. It wasn't just our two-year-old son who needed to learn a few things. It was us as parents. It wasn't our son's fault. We didn't know how to react to his many emotions and feelings. He now is a three-year-old who goes to bed when told, cleans his room, eats all his meals, less temper tantrums, if any, and is teaching his baby sister all the good habits. If we wouldn't have taken the class then, the days would look much different. Thank you so much for sharing that, sierra. And now that's what a piece of what I want to give you today in our episode. But please, if you have follow-up questions or you know in your heart you're ready to dive deeper and have personalized support every step of the way, reach out, friend, let's connect. There's a link in the show notes.

Speaker 1:

So this topic of the three H's that help any kid that is struggling, crabby, emotional, resistant, is something that I often hear. People may oversimplify these, think they're oh, that's simple and yet, like so when they hear it, they're thinking, oh, my gosh, that's so easy. Why didn't I think of that? That's what many parents say when they hear these three H's. And yet they also, as well they tell me stories of I've tried everything to help these moments. I've tried reminding him, I've tried having threats, I've tried, you know, telling him why it's important to do the thing that we're trying to get through. I've tried explaining this. Emotion is like you know, I see what their emotion, their emotion is. But here's a different way to handle it. When all those things don't work, they say, uh, oh, I don't know why I didn't think of doing these three H's. I thought I had quote, tried everything and yet I have not tried these three things as my focus when my child is crabby or emotional or defiant. So, friend, let's dive in. These are three key things that I think can really help you quickly.

Speaker 1:

The three H's are have you helped your kid, first of all, to be patient, heard. When kids are crabby, resistant, emotional, it is very easy for them to think I, you know, to be saying things that don't seem rational. It's so easy for them to be complaining about stuff that feels like are you kidding me? So easy for them to be like melting down about something that really doesn't seem like that big of a deal to us. And so we get in this space as soon as we hear the irrational statements to then rationalize and instead what often helps first is to help the child feel heard. Help them feel heard is a really easy template. One of my favorites is boy, honey, you seem feeling word. Or if you want to go a little more advanced, you can say boy, I can hear it bugs you blank and you wish blank. We call that the bugs and wishes tool. So, boy, I can tell boy, you seem very frustrated.

Speaker 1:

One client, who I'll call Stacy, was an elementary school teacher. She went through my program as an elementary school teacher and I've had many folks that are very well educated in child development. I've had even a pediatrician go through my coaching program and she said, as we worked together, she told the story of a time that her daughter found a candy cane stick, like a candy cane shaped stick, and she thought it was so cool and she made friends with this girl on a playground and she gave it to her, which was such a kind, gracious thing. And then yet, about 10 minutes into walking home from the park, she totally melted down, realizing wait a minute, why did I do that? I'm never going to find a candy cane stick like that again. And, of course, easy situation to be like. This emotion, this like, is just so silly. Let me just explain to her why. It's not that big of a deal, but instead, instead, stacy took the wise step of saying wait.

Speaker 1:

One of the H's is that children want to feel heard. So let me start there. Oh man, that sounds frustrating. You seem very disappointed that you gave that stick away. And you know, as she kept in that space of letting her child feel heard, it tamed the emotion. This is where we call, we name it to tame it. So she continued to express. This is why I'm upset. This is why I think it'll be so awful to never find a stick like that again. And she held with it and just kept saying the words back to the child. Oh man, that does sound so frustrating. I can hear why that would bother you and I can notice why that would bother you and I can notice why that would feel like so disappointing. And every phrase that helped the child feel heard decrease the emotion and the crabbiness. Until then they were able to move on to solving and moving forward. So the first H that helps is to help your child feel heard. The second H is that it might help your child to be hugged. It might help your child to be hugged in a difficult, resistant, crabby moment.

Speaker 1:

It's one of my favorite tools to give a 30 second silent hug. I just talked to a family whose son is having a lot of afterschool restraint collapse, we call it which is holds it all together at school, doing fine. There comes home and it's just like a bomb goes off and he is sensitive and snappy and even aggressive in the household. And and so we talked about this being a wonderful first step to start with is, every time he is starting to seem crabby and snappy, pull him in for a 30 second silent hug. And now they said well, what if he you know, sometimes he's only like a 10 second hugger Are we supposed to like kind of hold him there? And I'm like, no, no, no, we're not doing like a chokehold of connection.

Speaker 1:

It's meant to be more, though, that you, you really give space for a long hug, and if anything, you feel like you need words to invite him into that more, you could say something like boy, you're having a hard time, come here for a second and hold that hug. Oh, yes, would be like the only kind of phrases or vocalizations to make, not any explaining, just boy, let's just pause and hug for a sec and see if that can help us move forward. Okay, so sometimes those crabby, emotional kids do well when we can either help them feel heard or hugged. And the third one is helped. Help them feel helped. What I mean by that is sometimes what a kid needs most is to be heard, hugged or helped. In some situations, when their emotion or their crabbiness is about being frustrated with someone else, sometimes they actually do want our help, and so sometimes that is what we give to them.

Speaker 1:

Now, this is the one that we usually want to jump into first. So there's a reason I put a third because I think it is more often good to start with something like listening or hugging and then, after you feel like you've helped that emotion a bit, saying, well, and honey, do you want me to just listen more, or would you like me to help you with some ideas on this? And that asking permission is something that's great, from like four-year-olds all the way up to 40-year-olds. Let me tell you this is something that if you hone the skill of being able to ask permission, it's going to help you for a long time. It's going to help you in your relationship with your teenagers and your tweens like a thousand percent that ability to first listen, offer a hug, some emotional support by just letting them feel heard and then asking permission. Do you? Do you want me just to keep listening or would you like some ideas to help with this? And if they say no, you say yeah, okay, and I've had my kids do that.

Speaker 1:

I've had times where they were talking about a girl at school and how she was being mean to her. Eva was telling me this and we did the listening. We were actually driving in the car so I couldn't do the hug thing. But when I had listened for many phrases then I said you know, would you like some ideas on that or do you just want me to listen? And she just said nothing's going to make it better. And I said, yeah, sometimes nothing makes it better. I just let that. Let her choose that option. She knows I have ideas if she wants them. I'm not going to force them if she's not wanting them anyways.

Speaker 1:

So the three H's that often help when our kids are crabby or emotional or defiant are to see if it, if they may just be needing to be heard, hugged or helped. Heard, hugged or helped. All right, friend. So this is my advice for you this week. Again, if you are looking, you've got questions, you're looking for someone to be able to help you through this more specifically on what that means for your unique child and her or his unique strengths and challenges. Reach out to me. That's what I love to help with, and we do have a few more spots right now in our sustainable parenting coaching program and would love to have you join us and let this be another week that you're parenting with skills that are kind and firm at the same time, so that parenting finally feels sustainable.