Outdated ⬇️

It's worth stopping to think about whether you're operating on some vintage parenting beliefs that our grandparents used to use. Many are ingrained into us without us realising or making a conscious choice about whether we want to parent that way.

Here's an example of a big one for me:

❌ "Screaming, crying or whining in public isn't acceptable and I need to teach them that".

✅ Reality:
A young child's brain is super underdeveloped and they literally don't have the structures in place to have true self control or hold back their impulses. They also haven't had any practice in how to cope with their big, raw emotions so it all just bubbles out of them in the moment when they feel it.

Their reaction ISN'T manipulative, ISN'T wrong and ISN'T a bad reflection on you as a parent.
It IS a cry for help.

When your child is screaming, crying or whining in public, imagine they're saying "I'm really not coping with this, can you help me?".
When you recognise the cry for help and put your detective hat on to solve the problem, you realise how messed up it would be to respond with "stop that" or "You're embarrassing me".

SURE we want to teach our children better ways of coping with their feelings, but we DON'T want our kids to shut down and bottle up their emotions because they think thwy're wrong or that we can't cope with them. That begins with how we respond to them now.

WHAT TO DO:

1. Pause and get down to their level.
2. Try to work out what's causing the emotion and try to label it. "You're sick of being in this big shop and you're frustrated".
3. Acknowledge that feeling as valid.
"I get it - we've been here a while and it's tiring. It's pretty noisy".
4. Model the language they could say if they could, so they'll have it for next time. "I want to leave, mummy".
5. Try to meet the need or plan to.
"We won't be much longer in here then we'll head home to get some food. I think we're both hungry! Would you like to hold the keys so we're ready? You can beep the card for me too at the checkout - let's go."

😎out with feeling embarrassed, in with showing that you're unphased, understanding and you've got this! @youvegotthispodcast

Watch the full reel here