Sustainable Parenting | Positive Discipline for Raising Resilient Kids

144. Tiny Gestures of Love for a BIG Impact on Your Relationship with Your Child

• Flora McCormick, LCPC, Parenting Coach

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In this Valentine’s-season episode of the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, I share simple positive parenting strategies that help children truly feel loved while strengthening connection and cooperation. 


We explore how small, intentional gestures can meet kids’ emotional needs and support calm confident parenting—without lectures, yelling, or power struggles.

You’ll learn:

  • how positive character feedback helps with raising confident kids and raising resilient kids,
  • a powerful daily practice called the Rule of 6 that builds connection in just minutes,
  • and how meeting your child’s need for significance and belonging can help stop power struggles with kids and improve listening.

Through real stories from my own family and client work, I show how gentle discipline and kind and firm parenting can feel realistic and sustainable.

If you’re looking for practical ways to reconnect and learn how to get kids to listen while staying loving and grounded, this episode is for you.

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SPEAKER_01:

With Valentine's coming up, I thought this week would be a good one to talk about love. And how we get the message of love to really get through to our kids. Do you ever find that it seems like your kid has a hole in their bucket? Like no matter how much time I spend or how much I tell them I love them, they are wanting more and needing more. Friend, I have an answer for you today. Three key ideas that can get that message of love truly through and almost like patch the bucket. And today I'm gonna give you some strategies that to me are exactly like a tool I used in my hot tub. And you're gonna know why and how by the end of this episode. Hey friend, welcome back to the Sustainable Parenting Podcast, where we bridge the gap between overly gentle parenting and overly harsh discipline so that you finally have the joy and ease you've been missing. When you are parenting with kindness and firmness at the same time, ugh, parenting finally feels sustainable. You have dependable calm and resilience built in your child. I'm your host, Flora McCormick, licensed therapist, parenting coach, and I'm so glad you're here. Friend, before we jump into this episode, I want to share a quick client story that was a success in terms of connection and fun. This is a new thing I want to add into our episodes. So in one of my sessions this week, a dad had this super fun, playful thing that got his kids out the door way better. And even while his wife was out of town and he was parenting solo. He said, I tried this thing where as they're getting their jammies off and their clothes on and they're getting breakfast, I say to them that if they get done by 7:45, we will have a kind of Easter egg hunt for the lunch boxes. And so as it's getting close and they're like doing their last things, dad then rushes to like hide the lunchboxes somewhere in the house. And the kids come down and are eager to run around and find those lunchboxes. And it had it led to so much more ease and joy in their mornings. Just a fun little idea for you this week. I'm gonna be really honest with you about the McCormick family. This last weekend, we've been seeing some really high levels of dislike between our kids, and it's been heartbreaking. It is the thing that one of the things that makes me the most sad when I see it between my kids. And we're talking, like telling brother saying, You're the worst ever, and I don't like you at all, and even moments that led to some kicking, scratching, and hitting. And this is between a 10 and 12-year-old. It broke my heart. So, first of all, I want to say if you're struggling with siblings not being kind to one another, I hear you. I am with you. And also, there are moments that I have felt like my child just does not ever seem to have her cup get really filled by the little love that I'm trying to get through to her. And it comes out with her refusing to do what I ask or overreacting when I am giving her some feedback or what I call overreacting, because it's a reaction that to me does not make sense because I'm just trying to ask her to understand why something's not working. Anyhow, friend, I'm here with you. You've had some tough times with your kids. I want to just relate and also I want to offer you these two solutions that I am sharing today because number one, there are a few that I'm planning to step into this month that I have never tried before. And there are a few that I am bringing back from the past that we're working and we've let go of. And I'm like, we're in a place where we really need this again. First idea is something that I got from a positive discipline workshop that I attended over the weekend. Just as a side note, as you work with a parenting coach like me who's a licensed therapist, you get someone who does at least 20 hours of continuing education every year in their specialty field. You're not getting someone who's just claiming out of nowhere that they're an expert life coach. You're getting someone who has really skilled background on evidence-based practices. Um, and in this workshop, Positive Discipline reminded me of this strategy of how to enhance giving character feedback. Now, we've all probably heard that good jobs are not very helpful. Instead, what we want to do is look for ways to give character feedback that is really authentic and specific. So, the first tool I want to give you in this Valentine's month is an idea of giving that character feedback on some little hearts. Take some sticky note hearts that you can buy at the dollar store or at staples, or cut them out yourself. And on one side, write character words like kind, generous, thoughtful. And on the other side, write examples of when you saw that character trait shown by your child. And you can either put them in a jar or tape them to their door one at a time all month long, or gather them into a bundle and give them at the end of the month, whatever feels good for you. It could be a practice you even do throughout the year. But this is something that we often lag. We miss that chance of how to give positive feedback and we flip-flop the wrong way. Think about it this way: we often give negative character feedback. That was rude, that was so disrespectful, that was mean. And then when our kids are good, we're just like, hey, thanks for doing that. Think about being on the listener side. They get this experience of their character having a lot of negative words associated with it. Gosh, I guess I am someone who's rude, disrespectful, and mean. And those were just kind of some good choices. On the reverse, this gives us a chance. This activity, this practice would give us a chance to step into an idea that I talked about with my husband on a recent episode. That was episode 141, where we talk about how to raise respectful kids. But this is something we talk about that it is hard to look for those positives and to name them and do instead reflections on negative stuff with the choice wording. So let's flip-flop our knee-jerk reaction and go into looking for moments where we can say, boy, you are so thoughtful. That was so kind. That was so respectful. That was so responsible. And when they are not making the best choices, using choice word there. Flip-flopping our knee-jerk reaction from negative character to positive character, and also making that shift from talking about choices just as positive and instead letting the negative choices be where we use that wording. Negative choices, positive character. And let me say, friend, if this kind of artsy thing is not your vibe, there's another key way that you can talk about character feedback. And in episode 59, I got into this topic with Jane Nelson, the founder alongside Lynn Law of Positive Discipline. And Jane and I talked about the importance of family meetings. Family meetings in the structure of positive discipline are started with an affirmation circle, some form of saying, you know, okay, mom's turn. Everyone says something they like or appreciate from mom this week, and then brother's turn, and then sister's turn, etc. And then in the middle of the meeting, you have a solution on some sort of family challenge. And lastly, you end with something fun. Now, last night, with my kids having a really hard time being nice to each other, we dove into that specific method of adding some more positivity to the family. So we specifically did the affirmation circle. And boy, at first they had nothing positive to say about each other, but eventually they came around. And I will tell you that over the last two years that we've been doing family meetings, those moments of offering affirmation have built up our relationships so much. In our moments where we're not having deep conflict, it has led to more spontaneous kindness between the kids. It has led to more spontaneous messages of appreciation from the kids to us adults. It has blown me away how much that small practice of practicing appreciation has trickled into improving other parts of our family life. So if you want to know more about that, check out episode 59, which is the third in a three-part series where I interviewed Jane Nelson of Positive Discipline. But okay, first key strategy: look for ways to give some positive character feedback. Secondly, seek some ways to follow the rule of six. The rule of six is a lesson about how connection can be enhanced in much more bite-sized ways than we imagine. Many parents say like they think their kid is just this like um sieve, you know, like there's so many holes in their bucket of love. They're like, I'm gonna try to find a way that we take a whole day, we go, you know, get ice cream, or we see a movie, or we do something really special. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I do find A, it's expensive, B, it can be hard to make the space for that big of a time commitment. And lastly, it also can backfire. I've known many parents that set up situations like that, and then the kids like, they don't have my favorite ice cream flavor, or I don't want to play at this playground. And then there's like this big upset that you've put so much effort in and they're not receiving it well. So the rule of six gives us an alternative. First of all, we can improve relationship science tells us with just six minutes a day of intentional time with our kids. Six minutes a day where we are not yelling at our kids, where we are being positive in our experience with them, where we are looking for opportunities to just be with this wonderful, amazing child that we love, that can add up to the same impact that those other grand gestures can give, or that we imagine those will give. Six minutes a day. And that can be either coming alongside and just being with them in what they're doing, like playing the video game they're playing, going out there and shooting some hoops alongside them as they shoot. It doesn't have to be complicated. And most of all, we want to make sure it's not a place that we're teaching or coaching or lecturing or asking probing questions. We're just with six minutes a day. Secondly, in the rule of six, there's a lot of important research out there about how six hugs a day are like the minimum for us to be socially emotionally thriving. Um, Virginia Satir, a well-known child and family therapist, was known to say that we need eight or even 12 hugs a day. And I've tried six is the best I can seem to do. So I'm offering you that. That even when I strive for six, I see these little, it's like an emotional vitamin, these little touch points that really start building to make like a chain of love. Like each little thing may feel small, but put together, it really is bigger. And the last thing about the rule of six that I've been experimenting with lately, it just blows my mind, is looking for ways when my child's talking to me to give them at least six seconds of direct eye contact. Now that may feel so small to you, but I'm curious if I'm the only one. Like when I really make direct eye contact as my child's talking to me and hold it for six whole seconds, I find myself feeling like this is a little bit of an unfamiliar feeling, which tells me that I'm not doing that most of the time. Most of the time when they're talking to me, I'm cooking dinner, I'm, you know, trying to have to wrangle the dog, or I'm putting away groceries, or whatever else it is. I notice when I look directly in their eyes, it feels unfamiliar. And that tells me I don't actually do that very often. So I've been challenging myself to try to give at least six seconds of eye contact when my child is talking to me. And I encourage you to experiment with trying to do the same. So that's the rule of six. Lastly, and this is how it compares to the analogy of the hot tub, is looking for ways that we help our child feel a sense of significance and belonging. A lot of times, if our kid has that like seeming whole, like no matter what we do, they're still mad at us, or no matter what we do, they're so angry at their sibling. I find time and time again in my practice and in my own life that that's usually a symbol that my child is feeling a bit off in their sense of significance and belonging. And friend, that doesn't mean that we're like failing as parents. That doesn't mean we're not loving, but it is a piece of humanity that we can kind of lose sight of. I lose sight of it, absolutely. And I've been studying all of this for 20 plus years. But we know from the wisdom of Rudolf Dreikers and that has been carried through in positive discipline that a child's greatest emotional need is to feel a sense of significance and belonging. And guess what? It's actually not just children, it's for all humans. But especially we want to recognize it in our kids because we don't always think that they need that. We're like, we just need them to cooperate. We just need them to get their shoes on and come where we need them to when we want them to go, and we want them to just listen when we say what we need them to do, to stop or start doing. But wow, if we really frame it and step back, is that attending to their need for significance and belonging? How can we look at parenting differently that really honors that? Because to me, that's what fills the holes. And and what I think about as like we have a hot tub and we had a hole in it that got there from some mice in the tubing, and it didn't need a giant overhaul. Turns out there is this liquid that you can pour into the hot tub, and it kind of has some like plastic whatever. I don't know the science. When you pour that water in, it's like those plastics can search for and adhere to those spots that had holes. And this is what I believe these three practices today can truly do for our kids, also. It's when we really know where those holes are, we can fill them better in the small ways. It doesn't have to be a giant overhaul. Whether it's character feedback, looking for pieces of that rule of six that I offered, or looking for ways you can give your child a more of a sense of significance and belonging in your household. That's how we can really fill those holes so we can enjoy the warmth and coziness of our love and our family, just like we got to finally enjoy the warmth and coziness of our hot tub. Friend, if you're needing support with this, please remember that I'd love to connect with you directly. And I have several offerings right now, including a workshop series of six weeks live with me to be able to work through positive discipline material. And you can find that in the show notes description of this episode. Next week, we're going to talk about that child that's really pissing you off and gets you irked and feels like they're pushing you away and what they're needing most from you. And I'm wishing you well for this week ahead that you're able to parent with kindness and firmness at the same time so that parenting finally feels sustainable.

SPEAKER_00:

Listeners, if you need parenting advice, talk to my mom. Sustainable parenting with Flora McCormick.

SPEAKER_01:

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