People often come to me and say, “My kid is pushing my buttons. How do I get him to stop and behave?” The first problem here is the question itself. When you’re asking, “How do I get my kid to ______________?”
Now, I know that you have the best intentions for your kid.
AND…when you ask that question, you are focused on trying to get someone else to change, so that you can be happy (and that doesn’t work)….it’s Demand Parenting™.
Your Child Isn’t The One Triggering You
In Demand Parenting™, we are focused on controlling our kid’s behavior so things can be the way we think they need to be. So we push, then we yell, then we try not to yell and we bring kindness… and NOTHING works, so we go back to yelling.
Demand Parenting™, where we try to control our kids behavior by telling them how they need to change, does NOT work.
Neither does the “free for all” approach of letting kids just do “whatever” and having no order or predictable patterns.
What does work?
Instead of nagging them to study and correcting their homework and riding them about their grades… we allow them to live in the consequences of their own results and LEARN from life.
I’m NOT saying to just RELEASE all control and have NO rules and the kids do whatever.
In Relationship Development® Parenting, we teach how to parent in a way that creates harmony in your home and BUILDS UP your relationship with your child at the same time.
The key is to understand our role in parenting: to teach THEM how to navigate life, not to control them and their lives. What we do for our kids, needs to be for THEM and what they need, not for US and what we want.
So, when someone asks us, “How do I get my kid to stop pushing my buttons?”
The truth is, your child isn’t triggering you—you are allowing yourself to be triggered. Your triggers are YOURS. Your spouse, your kids… their job is to SHOW you your triggers, not solve them for you.
The parents that have implemented our Relationship Development Parenting tools & processes are enjoying harmony in their homes, things getting done and moving smoothly… and, most importantly, they are building rapport with their children, they are becoming the ONE that their child comes to for guidance, they are developing their relationship with each child!
But how do you step out of Demand Parenting™ and into Relationship Development Parenting?
- Become aware: Notice when you are pushing because it’s what YOU need to be happy or quell your own trigger.
- Ask yourself: “Is this for me?” (be honest with yourself about whether what you want is about YOU or for them).
- Act: Stop pushing, controlling and nagging. Take actions to empower your kid to navigate life, not navigate you.
Real Life Example:
Let’s say you have a kid who keeps waking up in the middle of the night, and that’s triggering you. We’ve all been there!
A lot of times, that waking is stemming from fear. They’re afraid and need you to come do XYZ for them. But by the third or fourth time, the knee-jerk reaction for most people is to start to lose it. But that only leads to more fear and more panic. The disconnect from you scares them more than the monster from their dreams!
The other extreme doesn’t work either: “I’m never going to sleep again because what you want is more important than what I need.” Some of us fall into that because we grew up in a Demand Parenting™ household and we want to be closer to our kids.
So, the Relationship Development Parenting process goes like this:
Serve them. Help your child navigate what they are going through. Master your state, so you do not SNAP in the middle of the night, and you can be there to bring your best self to help them navigate the moment.
Then, the next day, outside the moment, start working with them to understand what is causing the kerfuffle and work together to figure out what they need.
When we make it about us, and say things like, “You can’t wake me up five times in the night. I work hard all day and I can’t do this without sleep.” All you are doing is trying to use control to make them stop the behavior.
And from THEIR perspective, they feel bad about themselves or the opposite, they hate you for being selfish, and they are still stuck with their problem of being scared during the night. But now they have a second problem… my mom is mad at me, or doesn’t like me, or maybe she won’t take care of me if I don’t fix this.
But during the night, the fear is too big, and as a little person, they just can’t help themselves and they call out for you… even though they know you will be mad.
When our daughter was going through a phase of getting up in the night, our #1 goal was for her to feel more secure in her relationship with us.
So, we mastered our state during the night, and we were kind and compassionate with her in the moments when she called because we were the ones that chose to have a baby. We decided that WE wanted to be pregnant and have that child. So, this was our responsibility.
We showed up during the night as if it was the first time she had ever called for us. Offering reassurance, security and calmness.
Then, the next day, we sat down with her to work together towards a solution. We reassured her that we loved her, validated that it was understandable to be afraid and committed to her that we will work with her until we reached a solution (using age-appropriate phrases).
As the adults, we created a process for what we would and would-not do as part of supporting our daughter and communicated it to her calmly and clearly ahead of time.
She was allowed to call for us 3 times in a night and we would come to her room, calmly.
After 3 times, we would still come and not be mad AND she would have to go to bed 30 minutes earlier the next night and lose 30 minutes of screen time the next day, for each time she called for us more than the first 3 times.
After 2 nights, she never called for us more than 3 times again in a night.
By navigating the situation from a Relationship Development Parenting approach, not only did our daughter learn how to sleep without fears, but we BUILT UP our relationship with her. Her kerfuffle was an OPPORTUNITY for us to build up our relationship with her… which is PRICELESS!
My goal is not to give you the tools to parent through one article. It’s to let you know that it is POSSIBLE to create a harmonious household, have things get done better than they get done now AND build UP your relationship with your kid at the same time.
Subscribe to our podcast, Relationship Transformers Podcast, for more strategies. And join our 14-Day Boost program to start getting Relationship Development solutions for your parenting and all your relationships.
