Sustainable Parenting
Are you tired of power struggles, whining, and tantrums with your kids? Does it seem no matter what you do, they just. won't. LISTEN?!
Friend, you are not alone. I have been there. And I can't wait to share with you the pathway to more joy and ease, getting kids to listen in a way that is still loving, kind and connected.
Welcome to Sustainable Parenting.
Here we bridge the gap between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline, so you can parent with kindness and firmness at the same time.
In this podcast, we share simple transformational shifts, so you can finally be the calm, confident parent you always dreamed you'd be.
With my master’s degree in counseling, being a mom of 2 young kids, and 12 years of experience coaching and mentoring parents internationally, I have found the secrets to being a calm confident parent.
These 15 min. episodes will drop each Wednesday and boil down parenting theory and psychology into bite-size strategies that are easy to understand and implement, and for that reason...finally feel sustainable.
Sustainable Parenting
97. Gentle Discipline: How to be firm, not punitive, to redirect behavior
This podcast addresses a common concern among gentle parents: How to set and maintain effective boundaries without resorting to punitive measures.
Here are Sustainable Parenting I know the importance of discipline within the gentle parenting framework, and want to highlight the need for balance between empathy and structure.
Research indicates that gentle parenting can face challenges such as inconsistent discipline and a lack of firm boundaries, which may impact a child's ability to develop self-control and decision-making skills.
Additionally, misconceptions about gentle parenting, such as the belief that it means no discipline or that children get their way all the time, can lead to unrealistic expectations and stress for parents.
By focusing on balancing boundaries, this podcast aims to provide gentle parents with strategies to navigate discipline effectively, ensuring their children develop essential life skills while maintaining a nurturing environment.
Remembering that discipline is really about teaching our child better behavior, let's take a look at how gentle parents can discipline without needing to use harsh punishments.
By the time you finish listening, you'll know:
- There are many ways parents can set firm boundaries while maintaining a gentle approach.
- Through practical strategies you will leave with skills to redirect misbehavior in a loving way.
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You're listening to Episode 97 of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast with me, flora McCormick, licensed Clinical Professional Counselor, parenting Coach and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant, and I want to talk to you today about how to hold firm boundaries in a gentle, gentle way. Sometimes these can feel like opposite terms kind and firm, gentle and firm but they aren't. They can really live hand in hand and if it's a priority to you to be able to hold boundaries with your child without being punitive, without being harsh, today's the episode for 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 and friend. If you have enjoyed content from this podcast, please leave us a five-star review by going to the bottom of the show episode descriptions and clicking on the fifth star and then leaving a comment. It really helps others to know about this podcast and have tools so that their lives can feel more enjoyable in parenthood. And just so you know, our goal this year is to impact 1000 families through either our lunch and learn workshops or in-person workshops here in Bozeman, montana, retreats for moms and couples and also my parent coaching work. So I hope you get to be a part of some of that impact this year by checking out events at sustainableparentingcom slash events. By checking out events at sustainableparentingcom slash events.
Speaker 1:And first of all I want to share a piece of feedback that came from a mama that I just worked with and her name, I'll say, is Melissa, and she is sort of a gentle parent, overly gentle parent, in recovery. She came to me because she was trying really hard to use tools of gentle parenting and, as a single mom of two kids under five, she was noticing the ways that it was not working. She loved being able to attend to her child's feelings, but she also was having her child routinely hitting her, her child routinely yelling and throwing tantrums, and she was feeling really powerless. And in those moments of feeling powerless and she found herself doing this thing I call ping pong parenting, which was bouncing back and forth between gentle mom and monster mom. When she was only having the tools of overly gentle parenting, she was able to be nice and kind and supportive only to a certain level, where then, when she felt out of control, she would bounce into monster mom and she didn't like how that felt. And this is something that I hear in at least 40% of the parents. I work with 40%.
Speaker 1:So if you are in this cycle too, trust me, friend, you are not alone. And trust me, friend, it's not a personal problem, it's not you, it's the tool. It's not you somehow needing to magically just be more kind, be more calm, be more patient. Those are the words I often hear from moms that are in this spiral of going back and forth the pinball parenting. What you are missing, friend, is the tool of how to be more firm in a way that's not punitive. I like to say firm is not the same as harsh, right, and that may be what you have felt is any moment you've tried to elicit firmness that you were coached in or learning or reading about, it felt too harsh, and sometimes this takes nuance. Sometimes this takes person personal coaching to understand that nuance. What does, what are the words, the phrases, the actions that are firm but not harsh? If you're thinking, yes, that's what I've been missing. I want to know how to be firm in my boundaries without being harsh. That may be a good space for us to move into some coaching, but I am going to give you one of my key secrets today that I believe is a really effective beginning place to start in how to be firm, not harsh. So here are three key things I want you to think about that are going to help you be more firm and kind in your discipline and not punitive. We don't need to get into punishment to still effectively have good boundaries with our children. And how do we do it?
Speaker 1:Okay, tip number one of how to have good discipline without punishment is make sure you're making agreements in advance. Do the thinking in advance of how to prepare for your possible challenges so that you're not doing just putting out fires. Put your energy in prevention so you don't have to spend it putting out fires. What does that look like? That means, if I don't want to be in a battle constantly with my child over whether they can watch one more cocoa melon or whether I'm going to go make them one more snack or whether I'm going to read one more book, I want to make some agreements in advance that we both can operate from. Let's make an agreement in advance we watch one show while we're eating our breakfast, or that I make you one snack and when that snack is done, then we can make get another one. But if you haven't finished it and you're hungry again we're going to finish that snack or with books. You know we're always going to do three books for nap time and that's our agreement. When it's done, it's done. If you'd like another book, we can listen to that after bedtime, after you've woken up, or next time that we're going down for a nap. So the agreement in advance helps decrease our power struggles, which decrease moments where we feel like we have to set boundaries, which decrease moments where we feel like we have to be firm against the child being upset. Make agreements in advance.
Speaker 1:The second key thing that's really going to help you to parent with gentleness that is, not have to involve punishment is to make sure that you're using the term whenever you have to say no to your child, using the term whenever you have to say no to your child, that you say no with a yes. There are lots of great moments you can prevent an upset by saying no with a yes. So if they are wanting to get up and play, you're saying oh, my goodness, as soon as we have finished what we're doing here and cleaning up this area, then you absolutely can go over and play over there. Oh, wait, wait, wait, hold on. As soon as you're done here. Friend, you can definitely go over there. So it's a way to be keeping the boundary. I'm not letting you just run over and do all these other things, just dump things out and not attend to what needs to get cleaned up first. But I can redirect you to that in a positive way. As soon as is a key framing to say no with a yes Again. To just make this crystal clear instead of saying no, no, no, you can't go over there, you need to come back, I say it with a yes by saying oh, I see you want to go over there. Yes, as soon as we pick this up, we will absolutely go play over there. As soon as you pick this up, you can absolutely get out that next activity.
Speaker 1:I'm emphasizing yes, while still holding a boundary, and I'm happy to say that the mom I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, melissa, now, after our just one month of working together, has been saying that she's amazed at the change she's noticing. Last week when we talked in our coaching, she said the little things are adding up so much. Things are just really going so much better. My daughter is regulating herself, my son is not hitting as much as he was, and even bedtime is going better. And then this week she said on Monday you know, my kids actually were pretty naughty and misbehaving over the weekend, but what I really noticed was their energy didn't penetrate me the way it used to. I knew exactly what to do, so I didn't get riled up by their misbehavior and I took the steps you've been teaching me and it redirected things and it felt so good. I was the calm, confident mom I've been wanting to be.
Speaker 1:And the third key thing that can really help you to hold firm boundaries without needing to be punitive is to use the phrase I love you and the answer is no, and this is translatable to lots of different things I love you and insert boundary. So if they're climbing on you, begging to want to nurse one more time and you just nurse them and you know it's more of a soothing strategy and you're trying to transition them to also soothing with other tools, like maybe their lovey, and not just lifting your shirt up or yanking on your shirt, it's okay to say honey, I love you, I'm going to hug you, I can, you know, gently hold you close and say I know that we don't need to nurse right now. Let's get our lovey stuffy, or let's get you a bottle or a sippy cup of milk or whatever you're transitioning the child to, if that's a moment you're needing to set a boundary for your own body, or if you're in a space where you have been wanting to set a boundary on their screaming and ask begging for things, and that scream has led you to want to say okay, okay, you can hold that firmness to love them and say I love you. I can tell you'd love to have that toy, and then the boundary might be a pivot Like let's absolutely put that on your Amazon wishlist for Christmas, that'd be a great thing. Or Easter's coming up, let's see if we can put that on a list and let the Easter Bunny know that's something you're interested in so we can say I love you. And this is where my boundary lies.
Speaker 1:And just as a side note here, friends, since I know this nursing boundary especially might be pushing some buttons, I just want to highlight that I recently was introduced to Pooja Lakshman's book about self-care, and it's a wonderful book that talks about five key areas that actually help us, as mothers, to decrease burnout, and that self-care is not just bubble baths and juice cleanses. But what is it really that can help sustain us in this role of motherhood and decrease our sense of burnout? And so one of the key tools that I took from that was boundaries being able to have boundaries with our children of what we are and are not willing to do. 17 books, nursing for the 15th time when I know they are fed and nourished and this is more of a different habit we're trying to transition.
Speaker 1:It's okay to have those boundaries if they've been pushing you to the edge of your mental and emotional enjoyment of your child and friend. I say this with great compassion. I want you to know if you are sitting there listening and thinking I have felt so guilty that I want this boundary. I have felt like I'm a bad mom. If I want this boundary, whatever it may be, if it's that I don't want to lay next to my child for an hour at bedtime or a different boundary I've mentioned already today, I want you to know it's okay.
Speaker 1:You are entitled to be able to sit down and eat a warm meal.
Speaker 1:You are entitled to be able to say no to your child about the things that you feel would preserve your mental sanity and if you need support in that, a friend that's rooting you on, cheering you on and helping you really understand what's clinically still supportive to your child and your whole family system. Let's talk that's one of my other favorite things I get to do in coaching. Be that cheerleader, be that sounding board that's very educated in this topic, has experience in training in gentle parenting, attachment parenting, clinical best practices of evidence-based strategies to hold firm boundaries that are also really aligned with attachment. Let's connect, friend. I'd love to be that sounding board and that support for you, but today these are your three top tips to be able to hold firm boundaries that don't have to feel harsh, to be able to feel more sanity in your gentle parenting role. And, as always, I hope this helps equip you to be kind and firm at the same time in parenting so that your role as mom or dad or caretaker finally feels sustainable.