My 5 Year Old Has Been "Rude" Lately, Here's What I've Been Doing

0:00 what is up you guys welcome back to my channel so in this video I want to share a little bit of behind the scenes of my experiences as a mom namely or specifically with my 5 and 1/2-year-old she is currently going through a rough season right now a lot of testy behaviors a lot of moodiness very easily frustrated a lot of sibling competitiveness issues with respecting body boundaries you know moving very slow when I ask her to do something or

0:27 sometimes not moving at all again easily frustrated just having a hard time right regulating her emotions regulating her impulses and being more Cooperative if you will and so I wanted to share my experiences and what I'm personally doing as her mom to help us kind of get back on track and you know there's a lot of different ways to approach these difficult seasons and this is by no means an exhaustive list of all of the things that I'm doing but I wanted to

0:57 sit down and kind of fine tune okay well what am am I focusing on what are some of the mindset shifts that I have been doing just in case it's helpful for you if nothing else I hope that this video gives you some solidarity we could know all the things do all the things and we're still going to have tough seasons in parenting because at the end of the day our children are humans in of themselves they go through their own

1:19 challenges they go through their own rough seasons and so this is by no means what I always try to remind myself and remind you guys is that positive parenting is not about raising perfect kids it's not about being a perfect parent it's about being able to ride these waves and go through this journey with more intention with more awareness and with more love at the end of the day right that's what this is all about love

1:45 for ourselves in love for our kids so one of the things that I've really been working on lately is my mindset and this comes down to the labels that I place on her it's very easy when our kids are struggling behaviorally to run the tape right or play the tape too far into the future if they're like this right now how are they going to be in 14 years goes the common line of thinking of like oh my gosh it's

2:14 doomsday I'm doomed she's doomed this is not good and a sort of hopelessness can settle in if we're not careful surrounding the labels and the meaning that we make about their behaviors and so I'm really trying to work on how I view her is she a testy kid or even a sensitive kid or a moody kid or a rude kid or is she a kid going through some things right having some real challenges and struggling and needing more help and

2:46 needing more TLC right and I realized you know labels are really powerful they color the way that we show up for our kids because it influences our perception of them right and if we see our kids as Moody disrespectful mean aggressive then we are going to show up with fear okay if my child is this way that means I'm failing and I need to get him back on track which is not to say we don't want to do all of those things but

3:13 it's just to say that I want to be more mindful of the way that I perceive her because those things matter at the end of the day and so that's number one is just being mindful of the labels that I place on her and trying to see beyond her behavior to her real feelings you know it's really easy to focus on aggression to focus on defiance to focus on the lack of cooperation and the lashing out and the easily frustrated

3:39 right it's easy to focus on all the behaviors and all of what manifests with her big feelings right but beyond that it's so much deeper than that and often times when our child is struggling with really big emotions like anger and frustration a lot of it stems from stress and a feeling of disconnection from their attachment figures you know right now she's going through starting kindergarten which by the way I don't know if I mentioned this but she went

4:09 through a similar phase when she started preschool last year so this is kind of like deja vu for me in a sense right is like wow when we start new school years like we go through a lot and I realize that now that she's at school 8 hours of the day she's working so hard on making connections and building friendships not to mention learning and regulating her emotions and there's a little bit of a disruption that happens as she's kind of

4:37 branching out and finding her own way and making those connections there's naturally going to be a disruption in our connection that makes sense right and not to mention she's had to welcome a new sibling and move and there's just been so much change in her environment and disruption in her routines and so naturally there Comes A disruption in our attachment and I have focused that leads me to number two which is I'm really focusing a lot in this season on

5:06 more one on-one connection I am not perfect at this and I am not even able to do this every day as I would love to but what I do focus on and try my best to do is every day connect with her during routines we're doing routines whether we like them or not right we're waking up we're getting dressed we're doing our hair we're having breakfast we're getting ready for school where we're coming home we're taking baths you

5:34 know what I mean like the natural flow of routine and how to keep the family running like we're naturally already doing those things so if I cannot make time for one-on-one playtime which is the highest priority for me but if I can't do that because life happens what I do try to focus on is really being present and connecting with her during those routines really being mindful of my energy right am I Rush go go go go go

5:59 go go go am I just trying to just mindlessly focus on getting the task done and getting her to hurry up or am I being present am I softening up a little bit and seeing her and having fun with her and just being in the moment with her goes such a long way right and so I'm really trying to be more mindful of that more mindful of my Approach more mindful of my energy so that I can connect with her in the

6:25 everyday flow of Life the third thing that I'm focusing on or thinking about or reflecting on during this season is how our family has shifted with the entrance of her little brother who she loves and adores so much but naturally when we welcome a new family member it is going to disrupt the Dynamics or change or shift however you want to kind of think about it right everything kind of changes in the family when we welcome

6:53 a new sibling and rightfully so right things change and they naturally do right over the course of the years but one of the things that I've been thinking about is her birth order and birth order you know the research on this is mixed it's still being explored but I can see how she's falling into that typical middle child syndrome right where she's overshadowed by the older child who is more capable more helpful okay again I hate these labels but my

7:21 kids are naturally following into these roles of like the older child is the more helpful responsible critical thinker not to say my middle child is not that way but I can see how she could be overshadowed and I could see how you know the baby is so dependent right now in his phase of life and he needs a lot of attention and so I can see how easily she gets a little bit forgotten and this is all unconscious but I could see how

7:48 her behaviors are a way to say hey do you notice me hey do you see me hey do I matter in this family and hence kind of fueling the competitiveness of right I'm first I want to be seene I want to know that you care about me and that I'm important to you and to this overall family anyways I'm happy to make another episode on that but I think it is important to kind of zoom out if you

8:11 will when we go through difficult seasons and ask ourselves you know what else could be at play families operate from a systemic level meaning that we are each separate but we're also very interconnected with each other and we all influence each other and so if I'm just focused on her and what she's not doing right or all of the behaviors that she's exhibiting but I'm not taking a step back to look at it more from a bird's eye view then I feel

8:38 like I'm going to lose a lot of important information so that is another thing that I'm thinking about pondering reflecting on is her behaviors from a family system perspective so the fourth thing that I am considering during the season of life is switching up the routines and we recently went through a a huge big episode a couple days ago where she was not listening not following simple directions to get ready

9:09 which we decided me and her dad to switch it up and have her stay home while he went on a daddy daughter date with our oldest daughter and I stayed home with her and the baby this also happened after she had a rough episode just the day before and it reminded me of the quote of like nothing changes if nothing changes right we just started to feel like there needed to be something to shift in our routine we naturally

9:37 always do things as a family on the weekends we go out we you know explore new places and we go and do new things but we just started to feel like okay we need to change things up like we need to separate and kind of divide and conquer if you will and we need a little bit more one-on-one time and we need her to stay home and kind of slow down a little bit and of course she did not like this

10:02 so then it fueled even more anger and she started toam doors and yell and scream at the top of her lungs and she was just so highly disregulated and she used up so much energy that she ended up falling asleep that day when we stayed home but then after that it was followed by so much connection on our part so the baby was sleeping and then me and her got a chance to have a nail part

10:29 and debrief about what happened and reconnect and problem solve and talk about her behaviors but in the context of our teamwork if that makes sense right my go-to is not you need to change and this behavior is a problem but wow I'm getting concerned because I feel like we're not working as a team and I'm on your side I want to work through this I'm also thinking about how I can show up better for you and I'm open to

10:59 feedback but at the end of the day like we can't keep going on like this and I'm really a fan of when hits the fan if you will to slow down stop going on autopilot and doing all the things that you're used to doing like the patterns need to be disrupted and a lot of the times we need to take away the screens take away all the outings and extracurriculars and we need to focus on us if you know what I mean right a lot

11:25 of that is fun but it's also a distraction right I love screens I love outings and they're so important to the overall family right but when our child is going through a rough season a lot of those things need to be stripped away so we as a parent can think clearly we automatically free up so much time in our schedule to reconnect play do all of the things that are really important to getting back on track right so it's not

11:53 that these things are permanent it's not that these things are held over their head like a punishment but at the the same time I clearly let her know we can't keep doing all these fun things if we're not on track it just really doesn't work like that right and when we're not on track I as your mom am going to do everything that I can to get us back on track I'm going to remove those distractions so that we can talk

12:16 we can reconnect and we can focus in on whatever we need to do to get back on track and needless to say I mean it's only been a couple days since this happened but wow her behavior has been so night and day she is so much more Cooperative she's happier too it's just been a really interesting to see so if you notice a lot of what I am focusing on in the season of my parenting is me right and how I can

12:45 shift my perspective and change my Approach and zoom out and look at the family system as a whole versus only focusing on her right it's so easy when our kid gets testy defiant Moody to think about how how do I change him how do I change her how do I get them to stop doing what they're doing and I think the more fruitful question to ask is how do I need to show up differently to influence my child how is the family

13:14 system operating right now in a way that might perpetuate or influence their behavior or keep the behavior going if you will those are the more fruitful questions right and that's really at the end of the day what I have complet control over I have complete control over my Reflections my thoughts my attitude my Approach and the actions that I take ultimately to shift things in the family right that's what I have control over and that's where I try to

13:43 spend the bulk of my energy so I hope that this video was helpful I hope that it kind of gave you some thoughts of maybe you know some things that you can kind of think about if you're going through a rough season if nothing else so solidarity I see you I am with you I'm in the trenches literally with you doing this whole parenting thing together and so if you're looking for more help with cooperation help with eliciting you know

14:12 your child's teamwork and understanding their intense emotions and helping them with coping skills and calming down and all of those fun things be sure to check out my free discipline Workshop it's completely free it's 45 minutes Act full of information on positive discipline my research based formula for getting more cooperation without doing all the things that you hate doing like yelling getting impatient and bribing punishments

14:43 threats right like how do we turn the system around well it walks you through my formula to do that in a very practical way so you can go to the mom psychologist. Workshop to check out the workshop again it's completely free and that is it for this video let me know down in the comments below if any of this resonated with you if anything kind of stood out to you of maybe something that you want to try and above all else

15:07 keep me updated on your parenting journey I always love to hear how you guys are doing all right that is it for this episode I will see you in the next one [Music] bye