Using Special Time To Help Your Child's Difficult Behaviors

0:07 hey isn't anybody there

1:02 [Music] no I mean I'm on there I'm on live they asked me to come early so I'm there okay all righty bye

2:18 I Sarah thanks for letting me know I'm on okay it's 12 o'clock I'm really happy to be here with those of you who are you know connected with hand-in-hand learning man and hand tools trying them out you know having lots of you know experimental AHA and experimental oh my gosh is it really supposed to work this way and I'll start out by saying that

2:49 parenting is one small experiment after the next we are scientists in the sense as we are raising our children the main problem is that we have not set up structures by which we can evaluate our experience experiments including how we are doing in the middle of the experimentation so that's what listening partnerships are for is just to give you a chance to process what is going on how you are in the middle of it what your

3:19 children are trying to tell you just a chance to really have a good tantrum yourself have a good cry yourself have a good laugh so that you are looser and more flexible and your heart has a chance to stay open in this process of parenting just you know we it's nothing nothing is wrong when our experiments do not work out the way we expect it there's just new information they're both about what maybe not to do and what

3:47 to do or our children are telling us a new thing and we just haven't quite you know McWhite opened our mind to what that might be but these experiments the ones that go well and the ones that don't every single one of them is important and you are important your intelligence is important as you as you parent and these are difficult times to parent in because there's the support systems that we had set up are are are

4:18 not still in place we're having to do a lot by ourselves right now and I'm sorry about that but listening partnerships will make a big difference so I'm here to talk about special time today I'm gonna get off my little initial sub box here and welcome you thank you for all of the good hard work you're doing thank you for the love that you're pouring into your child and to give you a little window in on how to

4:49 use special time and today's topic is using special time strategically and so I'm going to give some I'm going to try to remember some examples of each of the ways that that I can think of at this moment to use special time strategically there are lots and lots of ways but gosh so one is and this is not strategic use this is the recommended use so special time or that the way that we like to start parents out using special time and

5:20 that is using it like a vitamin you know a special time is the connection vitamin you know it's a little five minutes or a little 10 minutes as often as you can regularly offer it you want to try to offer it so that a child can look forward to it because it really does light them up it you know makes makes children's hearts sing to have special time to be in charge of the relationship with you so little special time vitamin

5:47 a mom I was just working with half an hour ago was saying that when she first gave special time to her daughter her daughter wanted to play a board game and they played board games every day her daughter's like four or five years old to a board game oh okay but the parent felt bad because the child wasn't asking for anything extraordinary and so they played a board game and then you know the next day it's like special time you

6:13 can do anything you want to do what do you want to do it could be anything and her daughter looks and goes on a plane board game hence in the moments at the end there's something wrong with this picture why is it the same old thing that we always do anyway but she paid attention and kind of talked to her mentor with hand in hand and her mentor said allow the process your daughter will you know come up with you know not

6:37 the same thing every every day as soon as she can but she's trying him out now so let her try you out just be warm and enthusiastic about playing a board game in special time so after about a week and a half she said her daughter's finally you know we want to play a board game and then she said okay I get two rolls of the dice and you only get one now and so she set it up that she would

7:03 win and she laughed when she won and the mom could you know pretend complain and make that make it even more fun and special time began to blossom out and go different places from there it's like sometimes it takes a while for a child to to use the full range of what's possible in special time but the vitamin happening on a regular basis actually increases safety increases your child's ability to use it really fully as a tool

7:30 for their advantage so second example is kind of I guess I think of this example like the like the warm-up you know kind of like a boxer gets into his into the ring and his coaches like you know rubbing the shoulders and you know kind of mopping them off with you know with with water and a rag and you know just kind of telling them they're great you know it's just it's a preparation for going into a difficult situation so

7:59 we'll call it a pit stop or a warm-up and that's when you use special time before maybe just five minutes before a challenging situation and the child doesn't you know is not facing the check the challenging situation happily but the parent uses special time as kind of a connection fill in you know pit stop so you refuel and then you get your child out there where they need to know

8:30 where there's something that's not easy for them to do and a good example of this I tell the story fairly often so pardon me if you've heard it before but one of our instructors was at an adult party that she'd been looking forward to all week long she really wanted to talk to the people that were there her friends there were some children there and they were all playing out in the back and her four-year-old did not want to go

8:56 out with the children and started hanging onto her leg and you know just having used special time before she just looked down to her daughter and said you know would you like to do some special time let's do five minutes a special time then I'm gonna visit with the grown-ups okay and her daughter said okay and what her daughter wanted to do is get under the hors d'oeuvres table which had a long hanging tablecloth on it to climb under there and be birdies

9:25 and her daughter wanted to you know be pretend that she was in a bird nest and that her mommy was feeding her little things so her mommy fed her for a while and just you know cooed over the baby birdie and then she said okay you be the baby and so you know she changed positions with her daughter in the pretend nest and then her daughter fed her little bits of food and they were birdies together you know when taking

9:49 care of the other and five minutes was up they crawled out from under the orders table and her daughter just ran off happily to be with the other children in the backyard it's like you know problem solved so it doesn't always work out so nicely but that's that's kind of your your pit stop in a special time before challenging situation idea and it can work really really well then there's kind of a grease the wheels kind of it's very like the pit stop but

10:21 you there is a thing that happens every single day that your child does not want to do and so what you do is you do special time you know right before that time and then you don't demand that they go do it you don't do your usual adult thing you just go well you know you know you need to do your homework and I'm sure you'll figure out a good time after this special time so it's kind of

10:47 greasing the wheels and particularly seing the wheels for enjoying things that don't look enjoyable when you don't feel connected and it's really good before homework so I think in the listened story Tasha tells a story about when one of her son's was you know she could just tell that this you know homework was just not gonna be possible it was edgy and you know kind of available sticking out all over and she just said hey how about a pillow

11:16 fight you know and he goes yeah you know and they get out the pillows and sort of clear the clear the family room and go whacking at each other lots of laughter and she's like whacking at his feet and he's trying to jump out of the way of the pillow and most of the time he can and is laughing at her incompetence at getting him down and she gets him down every once in a while and that goes on

11:36 for I don't know ten minutes or so and then you know she just kind of lets up on the you know the expectations pedal and you know within 20 minutes he's off doing his homework so it's kind of the greasing the wheels use of special time is really helpful around expected schoolwork and part of it makes it work is that you let go of your agenda and you tell your child that they get to pick when they when they go at it and so

12:08 they can they can actually know when their mind is open enough to do well at homework and you know if it's not happening and do another you know in certain others pit-stop special time in there and then say you know I know you're gonna figure out a good time and if it gets to the you know the end of the day and they still haven't gone there willingly then you can set a limit and listen to the feelings and they'll

12:30 kept there so you know it's not the only tool that's gonna work but so that's the kind of the grease the wheels you know just of a regular thing that they balk at idea then you can use special time as a container and there is just this wonderful story in the listen book about a mom whose child is using a lot of potty talk and especially in social situations and it's like driving the mom nuts and you know the child really is is

13:02 compulsively pulled to using potty talk and so the parent says okay you know we're going to have potty talk special time and they called it PTT PT I think it was or but talk because talk was mostly about butts so his butt talk time and so for 10 minutes every day it was but talk time and they would go off into a room so wouldn't you know the potty talk wouldn't pollute the rest of the family atmosphere there and the

13:35 mom brought some warmth and some interest it's like ok you know don't tell me all all you know say it all and her daughter would make jokes and they would laugh and pretty soon they were making songs about butts and and doing like dances about butts and her daughter got very creative and this one on day after day after day but what it did was it provided a container for this semi impulsive you know as only children get

14:05 impulsive about a behavior it's because there's a emotional tension behind it but all of the laughter was releasing this tension and also releasing a lot of creativity so that actually you know her daughter would leave the home in the morning and go mom you know I can't wait for BTT today but talk time and her mom would actually feel elated about it too because so much creativity was coming out of her daughter and around this you

14:32 know is socially some what if he subject and you know after a month of BTT her daughter was not impulsive about this kind of language or if she she began became impulsive then she got mom I need some BTT and so it just became a nice container for difficult behavior that others found difficult and that the mom indeed found difficult to until they focused on it and begin connecting around it and warming it up and her

15:03 daughter began showing you know many talents that were you know kind of blossoming because of the attention and it's just funny situation of making a lot of fun out of something that's socially not so acceptable and you can do that with aggression you can make a container for aggression you can make a container for like I hate my little brother you can but you know I hate X Y or Z I hate this

15:34 person I can't stand this person you can put that into a container okay you know I'm not gonna let you say how much you hate your siblings you know out in the family but every day we're gonna take ten minutes you can come in and I really want to listen to all of the things that have been hard about your little brother or your little sister and in the last day and I will write them all down I will

15:58 write them down and then after you've written them down and you've heard them you don't solve anything you don't try to teach them or guide them you just listen and let them unload you make a list and then it's like okay shall we burn the list you want me to light a match you know and you light a match to the list over the toilet and let the ashes fall into the toilet or the sink or you know you take the list out and

16:22 you you know scuff it in the mud or throw it in a mud puddle and let it you know float down the float down the drain so it makes a good container and it can really help children who are full of impulsive behavior it may not be the only I mean you still have to set limits at times but having a place where that behavior is okay and where you are paying more attention really makes a

16:49 difference basically the child doesn't feel isn't being treated like a bad child for having store in tension that shows like that and I guess the last one that I'll say is what what is I think there's some other psychologist that calls it a love bomb where when things are really impossible between you and one of your children getting some help so that the other children are cared for you know during the day and overnight and you can just go off with your the

17:21 child that you're just not connecting with that you're clashing with all the time or who's always clashing with somebody else in the family you take them off and yes you do maybe a half an hour of a special time during that time together but the rest of the time you just do what you can to have a good time together you go someplace that's not home that's not so familiar one of our instructors when she was at

17:47 loggerheads with her oldest boy I think he was 10 years old at the time and she was just ah you know everything he did really graded on on her nerves and everything she did graded on his um you know she set up time for their father to be with the other two boys and she you know booked a bunk at the local youth hostel which was I don't know half an hour away took him there they had a

18:14 night at the youth hostel they found something to eat they did a little special time but then they just did whatever came to them for about I don't know 20 hours or so before they had to come home and it really made a difference it's like and all of that can't be special time but just getting one-on-one time with some special time in there so they have full control over some small piece of it but just letting

18:41 things unfold together again without the extra pressures of what other people will think it's like if they act out in public you know you don't know those people and you're and they're never gonna see you again so you don't have to be so tense around what your child shows in the middle of their difficulty and often times you relaxing and them relaxing just begins to rebuild the relationship and a much more workable way so those are the thoughts about

19:12 strategic use of special time I hope they will be helpful and we are oh there's there's a question here how to how to do special time for the first time do I explain to my kids what is special time and what kinds of things they can ask for um I'll tell you a funny story I was doing a class a short class at a nuclear reactor facility the

19:46 research facility that had a nuclear reactor it's a national facility it's about an hour away and it's full of scientists very you know scientists on pretty heavy staff and so I'm talking about special time and I you know I send people away to try special time and to come back and one of the dads you know put his hand up and he said okay here's what happened in my special time now I explained special time very carefully to

20:14 my three-year-old I told him what it was I told him what it's called I told them when we're going to do it I told them he could do anything he wanted I explained it really really carefully to him and then I said okay we you know you can have special time now what you can do anything you want to do what do you want to do and he had a glass of milk there and he drank some milk and then he

20:37 looked at me and he he looked into my face and went and he splattered milk all over me everybody laughter really really hard it's like the least expected thing and it happened to you and I think you know the message was ID really didn't need all that explanation dad a little too much science there for me yeah so anyway that would be my guess but basically you just say you know I've got

21:08 five minutes I'm gonna put on a timer during these five minutes I'll do whatever you want to do what do you want to do then nonverbal communication is like 10 times more important than the exact explanation oh that's all and we're gonna be finished when the beeper goes off I'll do whatever you want you know and if you're introducing it to a ten-year-old then you say no I've got 10 minutes of special time I'll do whatever

21:36 you want but we're not taking the car anyway and we're not gonna anywhere and we're not gonna spend any money we're just gonna do it here at home so you put a little more parameters on it for older children so that they you know don't and they have a better idea of what you know what can happen in 10 minutes and you don't instruct and you don't teach anything and you don't tell them the right way to do X Y or Z

22:00 that they've decided they want to do you just let them experiment and enjoy them so your job is enjoyment your job is delight your job is yes you know unless they've chosen to play chess in the middle of a busy street in which case you say well I can't play chess out there but we can play chess on the sidewalk if that's what you want to do so you find the nearest best thing that's safe that's it thank you really

22:25 the the long explanations might get you milk in the face so the simpler the better and your child will catch on sooner or later okay right and so a leaky kept kid who can't get enough time with me how do you handle that right now while in lockdown this is quite difficult but what I would

22:56 do is say if you can if you have the inner capacity if you've had a good listening partnership lately so that you're feeling you know warm and the generosity in your heart you can you can feel it there I would do a special time extravaganza No so 15 minutes of special time do a larger chunk than you usually do if you have a usual practice if you don't have a usual practice start with

23:27 you know just a fair sized hunk a special time and expect fireworks at the end in a way special time is really a good tool to use with children who may have a leaky cup because there is a frozen need for more more more it's inside of them it's a feeling of me that comes from earlier hard times in that child's life when they couldn't possibly get what they needed you probably couldn't possibly furnish it because

23:56 they were sick where they were in the neonatal intensive care or because you had to take a trip because of a crisis in your family and so you were gone you couldn't furnish what they wanted and needed that feelings still there and every time you take two steps away from them that feeling you know kind of blossoms up and takes over their brain but special time offers the connection that they crave and then the limit at the end offers an

24:25 excuse to have a big cry about why there isn't more so in general Aliki kept kid will take you know like you might start with ten or fifteen minutes and then go you know give him a warm hug and say we'll do this again tomorrow now say but we didn't finish we didn't finish we've yeah I need you to finish and the tears will start coming down their face and at that point you say no I know we didn't

24:50 finish sweetheart we didn't look at that and just yeah look at that we didn't finish and just you know sort of note the fact that it's an it's imperfect there's an imperfection here just like you would say mmm the sky is blue you know oh we didn't finish and let them cry let them have their grief about it's not perfect it's not as much as I wanted I should have more you should give me

25:21 more there's many all kinds of messages that it's your fault that it's imperfect and you just go gonna give you more tomorrow I will I promise and let them grieve and this will slowly but surely help them work on the stored feelings that pop up fifty times a day that you know this isn't enough this isn't enough I'm not getting what I need as they can grieve about not getting all they want they will become more and more satisfied with

25:52 what is I guarantee you that it's hard to listen to a child but sometimes hard to stay relaxed while you're saying no we can't do more right now but you're not busy nothing else is happening I know I know we're gonna do more tomorrow and just you know basically show that you think the present situation is safe while they feel the lack of safety in the old situation and show you how they feel that will make a difference there's an

26:23 article online called when your kids will do anything to get attention and that article addresses the way to use other tools on a child with a leaky cup like that okay let's see special time taking time to connect roughhousing and stainless nee have been lifesavers for the four weeks we've been in lockdown I've been really sick with coronavirus but my two boys have handled it so well thank you thanks Amanda for giving us

26:54 this this feedback if you can write a little I mean you've been sick so but when you can write a little bit about what you experienced and what happened with your children we would love to hear your anecdotes and share them with other people who are dealing very directly with the coronavirus thank you there's a special time toolkit we hope that you'll have fun with it and also just the last thing we haven't talked about this much

27:20 but you do need to expect in general for the very first weeks and maybe even months that you use special time when special time is over your child is going to have some reason to have a good cry right at the end of special time or within 20 minutes afterwards so you do special time they seem fine they liked it you you know they asked for a sandwich you make them a sandwich they sit down the sandwich they take one look

27:49 at it and you cut it into triangles and in their mind they were expecting rectangles and all of a sudden I'm not gonna eat this sandwich it's triangles like you I don't want triangles you have to fix me another sandwich and that little tiny pretexts around a perceived imperfection is a child working on whatever the backlog is of feelings that they haven't that haven't been heard yet it's you know the sandwich brought it up or the jelly

28:22 falling out of the side of the sandwich brought it up or the readiness of their breakfast eggs brought it up it's like you can expect children to work on big important issues where they could you some reassurance and some connection and some sense of your presence and you won't know kind of what's down there in the disguise of you know 15 minutes of crying over the runny eggs but don't fix it if you can stand to listen don't fix

28:53 it if you can't stand to listen or can't stand to do special time I'll be back next week with what to do when you just can't stand to do special time and or listen to your children which I'm sure comes up 10 times a day for everybody these days so we have some strategies there that are fairly tried and true and once again just to say that um every you know you are an experimenter the tools

29:26 that we're offering may not look like they're working for you you know keep trying them this way in that way keep reaching out for a little help from people in our parent club or here on Facebook we've seen them work thousands of times but that doesn't mean that they're going to be the best thing for you you have to be the judge of that you know you have to use your intelligence you are the mom you are the dad and you

29:50 are the expert on your family and we'd love to be here to help you so thanks for joining us thanks for being part of our hand-in-hand community here and thanks for helping one another bye bye