Welcome to day 2 of our 5-day challenge to get your kids to listen
without yelling at them. -Day 2 of 5. Hope day 1 went well. Did you have fun
with the smiling? Go over to Instagram and share what you're learning. We'll have
corresponding posts over there. This is number 2 of 5. We've got a whole new
challenge for you today. Remember to keep journaling because it's important for
you to remember what you're learning and experiencing as we go through these
challenges. The objective for day 2 is to accept and acknowledge that slip-ups
and mistakes are going to happen. -Definitely. -And as they do, we want to
learn from those but also we want to practice very speedy self forgiveness.
They say self-forgiveness but I mean forgiveness in general. We want to be
very forgiving toward our spouse, toward our kids and especially towards
ourselves. This past weekend we decided to watch a movie that we had watched a
long time ago. We haven't seen that a long time. It's called Sully. And it's
about the miracle on the Hudson River when Captain Sullenberger
landed a plane on the Hudson. All 155 people survived. -Which is unheard of. But as he
was reviewing his life as a pilot, he remembered back on the movie to a time
when he was first learning to fly as a young man. And his flight instructor said,
"You're going to make mistakes. Everyone does. Just be sure to learn from
them." And I think that's so important. I mean, if we are expecting to be perfect
and then we get tripped up by our mistakes, it's really hard to recoup from
that. But if we know we're going to make mistakes and we say, "Okay, this was
expected. What can I do to learn from it?" That's where we are coming from today.
Accepting that we are going to make mistakes. AAnd what are we gonna do with
those mistakes? -Exactly. Vicki, I love that you shared
that example because we're going to make the mistakes. And if we can learn from
those, then they actually become a valuable part of our experience. A lot of
the times when we end up yelling at our kids, it's out of frustration because
they didn't go the way that we planned it to.
Well, welcome to earth. How often do things go the way you
planned them to? -Our mantra today on day 2 is, "I am a kind, benevolent, generous,
loving parent." -Say this over and over to yourself. This is one thing, Vicki when
I'm doing my coaching with parents. The personal coaching that I do. When I say
this to parents, they stop. It's like..."Am I?" And they appreciate it. And sometimes they
get tears in their eyes. I want you to know this. The fact that you're here on
this channel watching this video tells me that you are a kind, benevolent,
generous, loving parent. You want to do your best. Thank you for that.
Acknowledge that and say it to yourself. That's why that's the mantra for today.
And that brings us into our challenge for the day. -Yes. Let's get into that. -This
is... If you've watched the videos, you know this is one of my very favorite
challenges. Our very favorite tools that we're going to practice today and that
is the do-over. -You're going to make some mistakes, hopefully. -Actually,
yeah in our challenge, we're going to hope that today you slip up at least 2
or 3 times. Watch for them. Watch for the times that you start to lose your cool a
little bit. -Because that gives you the opportunity to do today's challenge
which is the do-over. I'm guessing you're going to have a couple of
opportunities to do this. So, remember how the do-over works. You have to notice
first that you've slipped. -Right. -That you're going down the path that you
didn't want to go on. So, when you feel that anger bubbling up or when you hear
yourself yelling... Which is what we're trying to
stop with this 5-day challenge anyway. That's the time you get to do this. Vicki,
talked us through the process of the do-over. -With the do-over, you recognize
what went wrong. And you kind of noticed that points. Like, "Oh! If I could
have responded this way, things would have gone differently." Perhaps. And so, I
come back and I say, "That didn't quite go the way that I really wanted it to. I
would like a do-over. When you said this, this is how I wish I would have
responded." -Yes. -And you practice it. Now, there's so many reasons for this. I am a
speech-language pathologist and so practice is absolutely key, right? But I'm
also a piano teacher. I don't know how many of you know that. I
taught piano for probably 27 years. And if you make the same mistake in a
song and you just go, "Ugh, next time I'll fix that. I'm going to remember the b-flat
next time." And you play it, almost never. You don't remember. And the only
way to really correct that is to go back in the moment and practice it 3 or
4 times with the correct note so that when you are performing it, the correct
note comes out. -You know what's really amazing to me? She said that she teaches
piano our daughter does as well. And somehow both of them can tell if a kid
has not practiced. -Or if they practice correctly. -How do you know this? The skill set
changes as you do the practice. And that's why I said up front, I hope that
you're going to make some mistakes today. Probably you will and that's good. So,
rather than being tipped over by that. It's simply an opportunity to practice
exactly what Vicki has just shared. The do-over. Now, it doesn't have to be with
someone else. You can do a do-over internally as well. -Right. You know, it's
so funny because a lot of the times... And you you'll recognize this. How often to
get done with an interaction and in your head you're going, "I wish I would have
handled that differently. I did not like the way that went at all." And so, you think
that but what are you going to do about it? If you don't practice a do-over even if
you're not like you said with that person. But if you're not practicing, "Okay,
I'm going to run through that whole scenario and change the way that I did
it.", You're not making any new muscle memory
if you don't practice the do-over. So today, we're going to have you try and
find a couple of situations where you can do the do-over. Just practice a new
way of responding. I recently saw the new video representation of Little Women.
I loved in that movie. At one point one of Joe says to her mom, "You're so
patious." She goes, "All I have a lot of anger. I'm angry every day. But I have had 40
years of practicing to be patient. It's not in my nature." And you know, a lot of
times when were angry, we don't want to let go. "I don't want to do over. I'm kind
of mad. I kind of like feeling upset about this." But what we really want is to
become a person who's able to take control of our emotions and be patient. I
mean, that's what we're saying. -While we're on movie references... And
we saw also, it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
-Yeah. -Story about Mr. Rogers and some of the things that he taught. And the
depiction by Tom Hanks I thought was really nicely done. There was a part in
that movie also with a similar reference. Do you remember when somebody was talking to
Mr. Rogers wife about this man that seemed to good to be true - yeah - and she said -
"oh, he's not perfect, it's his practice. In other words, he had
intentionally chosen to do this. I get this about positivity. "Oh, you're so
positive. Well, hello? It's my practice - yeah - this is what I do
day in day out. I'm here in this office for 8 hours a day - practicing. What we
talk about here on the channel. So, I hope I'm good at it with all that practice.
What are you practicing and that's why the challenge is there. Alright, Vicki
let's shift over to the parenting aspect here for a minute too. Because obviously
this do-over is going to help in any relationship you have in any setting.
Whether it's work or your marriage or parenting. I want you also during today's
challenge, to look for an opportunity to offer a do-over to your child. Yeah,
notice the word "offer". You can't do it in a demanding way. "Wait, come here! I want to
do that again - do that again." It's an offering of your own. So it might sound like, "Hey
buddy, maybe that didn't happen the way you really wanted it to. Would you like a
do-over?" You can actually say it that way if you want to.
Giving that chance to your kids to learn the same thing that you're learning
through practicing the do-overs. Which brings us to another point and that is
find a way to say, "You know, we learn a lot from our mistakes. Let's take the
taboo out of mistakes." Again, remember we talked about that. One of our greatest
tools of parenting is example and modeling and so as we model for a child
that we learn through mistakes, they're going to learn that and it's a great
life lesson. The modeling is so important and one of the greatest resources we
have as parents is all the mistakes that we make. Or that our kids make because
every one of those becomes now an opportunity to learn this and how
valuable for your children to learn from you today. That a do-over is not only a
possibility but it's a powerful way to turn things around where it could have
just gone off of this cliff and instead we're using that to elevate things to a
higher level. This is day 2 of 5. Please commit to yourself and to your
kids that you will do all 5 days. We have 3 more challenges for you and
keep practicing the ones that we've talked about already. Connect to us on
Instagram, where we can interact and share ideas with each other and we'll
see you on day 3.
hammers down facelock down to the phone I wish I had