This topic keeps coming up because we as parents keep yelling at our kids. When
that happens, how do you rebuild trust with a child you feel that in the past?
We've been running some positive parenting coaching groups. And this
has been so much fun for me over the past several weeks is I get to work with
you, personally, individually in these groups. I'm getting more stories all the
time. -Right, yes. -And and it's the same story with different phases. We as
parents get frustrated. We yell at our kids and then we feel bad.
-Yep. -For having for having yelled. I had Jonathan in a group
recently who's the unseen dad just feeling badly that he had lost his
temper with his little three-year-old daughter. And she's so sweet, right? But
didn't she's also 3. -Right. -So, she's going to do typical 3-year-old things.
We have a 3-year-old grandson. -Uh-huh. -And he's sometimes doing very typical
3-year-old things. Which for us as parents can be kind of frustrating.
Anyways, Jonathan was expressing this on the
group the other day. He just felt so badly and he felt like he was a bad
parent for having done it. -Yeah. That happens a lot. -Jonathan, if you're
listening, I want you to know you are a good parent. You are a benevolent, loving
kind father. And you're human. -Mm-hmm. -So, it's going to happen occasionally.
Thankfully, many of the people in our group are also reporting, "Hey, I'm not
yelling as much now." Because once we connect with principles, we're able to
stay in a higher level of control over our own emotional life. And so that's
encouraging but maybe that's where we start.
-What are the principles? Let's talk a little bit about
those principles to help us. -Well and remember that you're human. So,
give yourself a little bit of tolerance and forgiveness as we move forward with
it. Now, the principles behind this how about... I'm not sure how to best word this.
Humility comes to mind. If you are humble what do you do after you've hurt
someone? -A sincere apology. -Right. Okay, so
we can do that as parents? -Yes, matter of fact, I love this. Because we
need to teach our children how to engage in sincere apologies. And sometimes, we
need to talk it through. Okay? I was reading once in a book fairly recently
about if there is a you know somebody hurts somebody out at the recess or
something. -Yeah. -Rather than saying you need to go
apologize to them, we're going to give them a chance to kind of think through their
feelings and say "How do you think that your actions affected that person? What
do you think needs to happen now?" And so, you kind of help them come up with that
idea that I need to apologize. You as a parent can do the same thing. You know,
"When I snapped at you, I imagine it really kind of hurt your feelings might
have made you feel anxious or scared or whatever." You know, kind of talked through
it. -So, you're modeling empathy? -And you're modeling empathy and you're saying, "In order to make this right, I'd
really like to apologize. And tell you that I don't like it when I do that and
I'm sorry that I did." And so, your modeling how to apologize and you're apologizing.
-Right. And please don't spoil it with 1 of the 2 most common spoilers
of an apology. -But.... -But you deserved it. -You shouldn't have done this or that. Okay?
Or being insincere. That's the other spoiler. "I'm sorry.
Gosh!" -Yeah. How many of us have had children apologized that way? And I think
that's one of the reason instead of telling a child to apologize, you
actually help them see what would have to happen next to help them,
your friend or your peer sibling feel differently. You know, change the way.
And you're going to do the same thing. So, if you can go through that with yourself,
you know, "What do I need? I really crummy about this. I can tell my child is sad.
What needs to happen?" Walk yourself through it and then walk them through it.
Go ahead and be sincere and avoid any exceptions to the apology. Let the
apology just be there. There's going to be a chance to reteach this principle
that was broken probably that caused you to be upset. We'll come to that.
Now, Megan. When you asked the question, this came from one of our viewers, okay?
How do I regain or rebuild trust with a child after... Here's the thing:
Your child will not trust you if you are not being authentic and genuine. No kid
expects their parents to be perfect. I mean, sometimes they do but we lose that
pretty quickly. When we find out our parents are actually human. They are not
going to trust that you're always right. They will trust you to make mistakes and
then make an appropriate apology. So, what we're talking about here actually builds
trust because you're showing them a real person. A human being who has weaknesses. Own it.
We've covered this in some other videos too, Vicki. But I think it bears
some repeating here. Would you just give us a quick overview of the do-over
concept? -My favorite parent tactic. -Love it. -So, the do-over is exactly what it sounds
like. And experience came up. Like I.. You know, I yelled at my kid and I think, "Ugh! I
hate the way I feel. I don't like his reaction. That wasn't good. I want to do
over." And it's okay to go up to your child and say, "I would like to do over.
When you came and said this, here's how I wish I would have responded." Now you're
doing 2 things in that. You're showing your child that you're human and you
want to improve and you're showing them how to be humble and to change the
trajectory. I mean how many of us get on the wrong road. If you just decide, "Well, I
got on the wrong road. I'm just going to stick with it." You know, we're on
the wrong road. Let's show them how you change trajectory. Because in our life,
we're going to have to do that a lot. But it also gives you a chance to practice a
different response. You know, a lot of the times, our response is just kind of
immediate. You don't even really think about it. It's like you just go straight to
irritated. -Right. -And so, you think. "Oh, I'm going to do that better next time." But if
you've never practiced doing it better, you're probably going to respond the
exact same way next time. -Right. -So, do-over actually
gives you a chance to change some muscle memory and practice "When you said this,
here is how I wish I would have responded." And now you're practicing it
so you're more likely the next time situation comes up to respond in the
more intentional way rather than reactive way. -I love it. And that concept of
practice, you're doing it with the person who needs not only to have a different
experience with you but you need to practice a different response for. We
can have these conversations in our coaching groups or in our private
coaching sessions and you can say, "You know, I wish I would have said this. And
you can practice it with me." That's not the same as practicing it with your
kiddo. So, that do-over is a powerful strategy. I
love it. Right along with the do-over concept, Vicki, I think is a practice
opportunity related to consequences in discipline. Because honestly, when we're
yelling at our kids, we're usually frustrated. They're probably
misbehaving. They're breaking some of the rules or expectations that we've set as
parents. Well, as we discussed in other videos, one of the things we have to do
is get better at consequences. When you are good at stage one consequences, then
stage one behavior won't tip you over. -Right. -If you're wondering what I mean by
stage 1, get into the Parenting Power- Up course where we talk about that in
detail. And there's also a video here called teaching kids responsibility. You
can go see that video here on our channel. That's where we get into the
details. But basically our frustrations come when we don't know how to handle
this child's behavior right now. -Right. -So get better at the consequences with a
calm voice, calm face and calm body. You are in control as a parent. And that
takes some practice. -And you're going to practice that. You know, I have a real
vivid memory of one time being upset with one of my kids. We're in the car, he
was in this car seat. And I remember I'm driving down the road and I'm realizing
that my eyebrows are just like this. And I'm thinking, "I'm going to hang on to it
just a little longer..." And then I finally is like,
"I'm going to relax my eyebrows." And I was ready to turn around and have a
different interaction with my son and he'd fall asleep. And I just remember
that I kind of missed that window. And so I had to try to find a different one. But
just get that calm face. Become aware of what face you're projecting to the
child. What voice you are projecting to the child. Just be very aware of that. And
maybe be a little more humble to me about changing it faster. -That's so funny.
I can remember times when I'm thinking, "I'm just going to be mad a little longer."
Right? How long do you want to be upset? And do you realize that you have
something to do with it? This brings us back to where we maybe should have
started. -Yeah. -What is your job as a parent? -Just focus on loving them. -Love
them no matter what and even if. Kids don't keep. Really. I mean your kids turn
into your teenagers and your teenagers turn into adults. And where did your kids
go? Now, all our kids are gone. -Yeah. -All of them. Gone. We have young adults that we
really love. And some of them live in their own homes now. -But you're focusing
on the love. That doesn't mean you're not still showing up as a parent. But you're
focusing on the love and let that love drive your actions rather than the anger
or fear or frustration. -There will be a time in the future when you will wish
that you could have these years back. At least for a moment. And I've talked to
parents sometimes in tragic situations where their child has died or
they've lost them. And they wish that they could have that misbehavior again to
deal with because they would prefer that to not having their child. And that's a
perspective thing. And I don't want to end this on a downer note. But that's an
important perspective. Children don't keep. Pay attention to the relationship.
Your job is to love them no matter what and even if. We'll help you with the other
stuff. Hey, I mentioned during that video that we do these group parent coaching
sessions. That has been so cool. Hasn't it? -it's been fun.
-We've seen some real breakthroughs. And the place you can start with that
because we would love to engage you in that process. Start with a breakthrough
call. You can do that in the link down below. Just check out DrPaulJenkins
.com/breakthroughcall. There's a link down there. That's where
you start. It'll take you right to our scheduling page and we'll get you live
in-person with one of our coaches. we look forward to seeing you on the inside.
you