Make Sense of Your Son's Aggressive Behavior

0:00 is new-money pro hunt and I'm an interim CEO today we're gonna talk about getting to the root of your son's aggressive behaviors and learn how to understand where they came from Tasha Shores joining us today and she's at she has an MA and she's at a hand-in-hand trainer parent coach and writer she is a co-author of listen five simple tools to meet your everyday parenting challenges Tasha is a mother of three boys and an advocate for boys

0:25 and their families worldwide she is committed to creating a more powerful world or a more peaceful world one sweet boy at a time by supporting parents to care for themselves and connect with their boys deeply setting loving limits and play wildly I'm really excited to have Tasha on board with us today so why don't we get started and bring her in hi Tasha how are you you know Lonnie I'm good thanks for having me of course I'm

0:53 so excited to have you here today this is a great topic to talk about my favorite I hope so you got three boys so why don't we just kind of just again so why boys why are you talking about boys and their aggressive behaviors yeah I'm glad you're asking me because this is one of the most common questions I receive well you know I have a girl she acts aggressively sometimes too I get it the reason that I focus on boys is not

1:23 because there are huge innate differences between boys and girls but rather because we treat boys very differently than we teach treat girls as a society and when I say as a society you know I have clients all over the world I feel like I can say this that this is true for pretty much any society at least any society that I've encountered we still have some really really old school behavior patterns as parents and as adults and beliefs that

1:50 we have in boys some of which well all of which I think or most of which I think hurt them and the ones that I kind of hone in are are this belief that our boys still need to be like the traditional male strong and any sort of little sign even of showing any belief that's or any feeling I'm sorry that's a little bit feminine that's labeled feminine so like you know vulnerability or sadness disappointment

2:22 those types of things our boys just get shot down as I see it and I can I like to just tell my story of why I started focusing on boys because I think it just kind of helps put things in perspective and that is one day I was just sitting at my at my table having tea reading the paper before my boys were a bit older they were off to school it's not like sometimes we need a break so absolutely

2:50 we do but I wasn't there yet now I could do that but I wasn't there yet and I was reading the paper and I was just noticing that it was just one pathetic headline after the next rapes and murders and terrorist attacks and and they were all everything that I was reading that day it was all that all these acts were perpetrated by men and I had this aha moment where I just thought you know what every single one of these

3:13 men terrorists rapist murderer whatever he was was at one point just a sweet little boy and I started to asking myself like okay what happened and I'm not naive I know that there are a lot of factors that go into what makes a person a person but what I wanted to do is figure out what was in my power to do to help the situation improve for boys and girls and I feel like you know I grew up

3:40 as a feminist I am a feminist I grew up with a single mom and I never thought much about both boys until I had no one of my own and then another one and then another one okay like I want to be part of a solution I have a real responsibility to raise these boys in a way that's gonna help this world be a more peaceful place and so I just made it my mission to help others do the same

4:08 the good of us all boys and girls men women well that's fantastic and thank you I think that this is a really important topic like you said a lot of times boys it they have to push down their feelings and there's a lot of stuff that comes up with these types of you know situations that are there I'm and I really commend you for taking it upon yourself and you know you have a really unique situation

4:34 and I thank you so much for sharing it with us so why don't we dive in a little bit more and talk about when boys get aggressive parents often worry that there's something seriously wrong with their sons when they get aggressive what would you say to those parents yeah so um first of all I say there's there's there's probably nothing wrong and one of the things that gets really really hard for our boys when they're struggling with aggressive behaviors is

5:05 when we're worried about them so one of the steps in my five-step process that I teach about is to really care for ourselves so we are really well positioned to support our boys because if you just think about it let's say like a boys having you know he hits his brother he's like flipped out over something his brother took his toy he he's flipped out and he goes to like hit him if we flip out we're just adding you

5:35 know sort of lighter fluid to a campfire if you will know Lonnie are you still with me I am so with you I lost your photo yeah I am so with you I'm just trying to see if I can I want to make sure that people are hearing me let me see if I can see anything here can somebody just looks like I can see live comments yeah can somebody just let me know that you can hear me cuz Noah

6:02 Lonnie seems to have disappeared on me Julie and Julie can you give us a thumbs up can you just type into the comments yes I can hear you and all I don't continue okay I can hear you thanks Emma I just ii-i've lost my interviewer okay good you can hear me so let me see where was I got a little just discombobulated here oh so if we thinking oh no Lonnie's there okay my screen is black where she

6:28 is I can't see her at all okay perfect odd okay sorry about the technical tease here so yeah so what would I say about you know a parent worrying that something's wrong with their child so no nothing's wrong with your child then I'll get back to this in a second but but the piece that I went to start with was to say that is important for us to not flip out okay because when we flip out let you know going back to my

6:51 example this boy's flipped out like his brother took his toy and he's like going on you know punch him and we flip out imagine what he is feeling okay he's just over run with emotion he's bursting with emotion and upset he doesn't want to be in this horrible place but he is that he's feeling out of control and what he really needs is to help is an adult to come in and help kind of bring calm to the situation and if we're

7:19 throwing oil on the fire we're doing exactly the opposite and what ends up happening is heat and the aggression increases and he ends up feeling worse about himself so we want to be sure we're caring for ourselves and the other thing I want to say about that is that aggression you know Minar society we look at it as something you know really really horrible if a child hit somebody at school you know they can be suspended

7:46 for it really really you know kind of harsh consequences a lot of time for aggressive behaviors but in fact aggressive behaviors are just another way that kids show us that they need help it's just another way that they're calling for connection that they're letting us know life's not going so well for me right now I'm feeling out of control I need help and we would just really really be doing a service to our kids and if we could answer those calls

8:14 rather than punish them or or you know push them down so I don't know where Noelani as I can't see here but I can see the live comment so Caroline I see your comment that you say my son slaps me and then laughs okay yes so first of all I'm sorry it's a hard situation and I don't want to make it sound like it's just you know easy no big deal whatever I get it I work with parents who's you

8:42 know son you things I do understand um oh good I can see you again no line so one of and maybe this is a good Caroline I want to answer a question but I think maybe like a kind of a segue into it would be to tell you a little bit about the five steps but I talked about in terms of being able to help our son because there's no magic pill I can give you but

9:10 what I do want to say is that we need to if we're seeing this aggressive behavior as a call for help which is in fact what it is then we need to play adult even if we're not feeling like adult in the moment and that gets back to the caring for yourself peace we need to play the adult and do whatever it takes to make the behavior stop the trick is that we want to do that lovingly and we want to

9:30 do that peacefully so the first step that I talked to parents about is setting yourself up for success and that's really I like to say getting yourself into good parenting shape and hand-in-hand parenting teaches about listening partnerships as do I there are lots of resources on their website to teach you about that no Loni can point put you in that direction afterwards but essentially I don't care what it is that you do but you've got to have support

9:58 parenting is not a hobby is not something we do by the way it's an incredibly difficult job and it's not a job that's meant for any of us to be doing alone so you need to be either a part of some community or you need to be going to your therapist or chatting with your girlfriend or your guy friend or whatever it is journaling I don't know you you've got to reach out and you've got a process you've got to figure out

10:22 what your triggers are and work through them so that you're not reactive in the moment because you've got someone's got to be the adult and it's not gonna be your kid who's slapping you okay so we gotta get ourselves in good parenting shape and then the next step is all about infusing connection and really building a strong relationship so connection is what drives quote unquote good behavior and when kids are not feeling connected when they're feeling

10:51 scared which is essentially what's driving the aggression be aggressive aggressive behaviors is just fear I just lost my train of thought sorry I was watching I like looking at the live comments this is not a comment and so you were talking about aggressive behavior and and the way okay right I'm just talking about the steps because I

11:22 want to get to like my son slaps me and then laughs like what do I do so because I can't just say like one thing so it's like it's caring for yourself first okay it's getting yourself in good parenting shape it's infusing connections so that you guys have like a good base to work off of so that in other words when your son slaps you okay you're dealing with that situation in the moment but you've got a basis of connection underneath

11:43 right because because you have to have some reserves in there if all you're doing is fighting fighting his aggression or struggling with him or battling all the time there's sort of no foundation upon which to stand so we've got to do that and then the other thing that they have the next stuff that I asked parents to do is to play detective I call it play detective and essentially it's looking at the patterns okay you can take some time to notice when these

12:11 patterns arise because when we do that when we're able to look at patterns we're able to be put ourselves in a more powerful position rather than a victim II position and make the change that needs to happen create that change that we want to happen right so if we notice that that slapping for example happens every day after school when he comes home then rather than hoping that tomorrow it's not gonna happen we're got a plan for it to happen and

12:38 we're gonna then come up with a plan to make it stop kind of a thing but not just go like oh my god I hope I hope it doesn't happen to him it doesn't happen happen yesterday the day before the day before the day before let me tell you something tomorrow it's gonna happen as well so we're gonna be the adult and come up with the plan and that's where the community comes in or support comes

12:54 in because you know I'm not expecting you to figure this out on your own I'm just saying we have to be the adult after you kind of figure out what's going on then it's about setting limits and really listening to the upset that comes when you set that limit so in this case of a boy slapping you I do what you want to do is get there before it happens and and you want to just lovingly and like your tone of voice is

13:21 gonna have to be key you want to be loving you want to just minimize your words you can just say and if you're familiar with Hendon hand-in-hand parenting you've probably heard this phrase before but it's amazing and if you start doing it it will turn your world upside down it will rock your world totally you just say sweetie I can't let you do that okay and what that does is it is a couple things I mean one

13:46 what I'm saying to you I can't let you do that he's hearing there's somebody else taking control here okay I can't I I'm I'm acknowledging that I am the adult and I'm taking responsible he taking responsibility here and what that does is that helps him not feel so out of control I'm not saying you're gonna say can't let you do that and he's gonna stop but what you're gonna do in conjunction is actually what I like to say make stop happen so you're

14:14 gonna use your hands but again lovingly so you might have to hold his hand down and say sweetie I can't let you slap me okay it's not a time for lecture his brain isn't in thinking mode it's not a teachable moment but you've got to make stop happen the thing is is that we mistake these behaviors for like my kid is bad or my kid is in trouble or mean or manipulative or trying to hurt me or

14:42 trying to make my life difficult and then we start spiraling down into a bad place instead I want you to think like my kid is scared scared as hell he needs help and you know if you think about how you feel when somebody's scared I mean let's say I mean just think in any situation if you have a friend who's scared with a child who's who's scared I mean let's say you walk you're walking with your boy and a dog starts barking

15:04 and barking and he gets scared you want to go comfort him you acknowledge that he's feeling scared and you want to help if you can kind of conjure up that image with the aggressive behavior it's the same thing because it's essentially fear coming out in a different kind of a way okay so if we can in our minds realize okay this is a scared boy and he needs help then we're less likely to react in a harsh kind of a way

15:28 and be able to move in lovingly just bring that loving limit either with your hand with your words together but very few words and then just listen to the upset so something is underneath that aggression something is driving that behavior and the reason that I don't advocate you know punishing or giving rewards if they cannot hope you know not act aggressive for any certain amount of time is that it's not getting to the root of the problem but bringing a limit

15:57 does allow us to get to the root of the problem if we're willing to let our kids feel whatever they feel about that limit okay so I'm gonna stop my boy from slapping me and he's gonna you know try to fight or scream all sorts of horrible words at me how I'm like the worst mother ever and I'm gonna keep it totally rated G because we're on Facebook but let me tell you I've heard it all and it's way not G it's more like

16:23 R and X and I've heard it so if your boys calling you all those things you're not alone just try it you know it's just it's just words I'm not worried about the words if you can just listen after you've brought that limit and allow him the explosion while keeping everybody safe he'll move through it and these instances of aggression will peter out over time Caroline thank you so much for your question below and I'm gonna have

16:49 Julie idle men who's our director of marketing answer some more of the questions in regards to food allergies and maybe some other ways that hand-in-hand can support you down below if you want to ask some questions we'll definitely be able to answer them we have a question from Dawn Marie she's got a seven-year-old son who hits her and their dog usually when he doesn't get his way they've been working on connection while setting limits and trying to stop it or it happens

17:18 and she's been following the hand-in-hand training so hopefully it gets better her notion is what do you do with grandparents who say it's okay just stop that noise what do you do to kind of get everyone on board board and he's a 7th 17 month old Sandhya mother yeah okay yeah what do you do to get everyone on board this is a good question so um I guess one idea that I'd like to throw out there is

17:43 that we don't have to do things the same all the time I think there's a fallacy out there this false belief that if we're you know practicing this hand in hand parenting philosophy then we have to do exactly the right thing all the time in every situation well not every situation is going to call for the same response and what I want to encourage you instead is to really go for flexibility and taking each moment as

18:09 the new moment it is so there might be times then I'm just sort of you know I'm kind of just say it the way it is kind of a thing you know or first time I guess I'm not a thing but sometimes I feel like a thing but sometimes you're gonna just let it go I mean sometimes you're not going to get everyone on board you know you're a family dinner and and and he starts to

18:32 hit the dog and you need to bring that limit and he has upset about it and you want to listen to it I mean okay you might just kind of pull them into the other room and not do that right there you might decide that it's okay you know what that I'm not gonna worry about the onlookers and I'm just gonna stay here and do this because this is what I feel like is the right thing and this is what

18:56 makes sense you might anticipate I mean this is what I mean when I'm talking about when I talk about playing detective like one of the things that you can notice is okay well every time we go to a family function this happens or you know every time the dogs around he hits or whatever it is then you can plan for it so you could say and I encourage parents to do this all the time talk to Grandma talk

19:20 to Grandpa beforehand and say give them some information and say usually what they're worried about is like it's not really worried but but they just don't know it like they've done things completely different and they don't get like why what you're doing would be a good thing and how it could possibly even bring any positive results and not just turn this kid into some spoiled child or something okay so it helps if you could just educate them ahead of

19:45 time and you could just say like hey you know I know that child X whatever Johnny is struggling with hitting the dog and I'm trying something new with him so if you see me do this and you hear him get upset I don't want you to worry okay I want you to know that I've gotten under control sometimes it's just information but I guess the main thing is everybody doesn't have to be on board you just kind of have to

20:14 figure out how to work around like what the workarounds are do I need to take the child out into the another room can can I do it with everybody there can I prepare people ahead of time because I have kind of played detective I know when things get hard and I can because because if somebody else is like I use as an example a lot like people will say okay this happens in public like my kid

20:36 will start hitting me in public and they'll get harsh back the parent and I say okay well let's stand back for a second we've all been in a supermarket where a kid is like you know hitting or kicking his mom or yelling at his mom or dad because he can't have the fruit loops or whatever it is okay we know what that looks like and then we've also been in the situation where the mom or the dad or the caregiver is doing the

21:01 same thing okay what happened we know we know how I feel in those situations but how do you feel if you see like the kid like flipping out and kicking but you see let's say mom in this situation kneel down and let me only bring that limit and say sweetie I can't you let you hurt me I can't let you kick me and the kid might be making a huge scene and screaming and crying and whatever but

21:23 mom is grounded and centered you think about it like that's pretty amazing Wow like that's one mom who can really keep her stuff together hey exactly and so we're scared about what people are gonna think so we flip out and like act in ways that we feel bad about afterwards but actually I want to encourage you to just like go for what you know is right which is just connecting loving with me in that moment not only will it bring you the results

21:52 that you want but actually people are going to really look up to that and be inspired by it and be inspired to do the same but what a great answer thank you so much and you know what I throw fits when I want food Froot Loops in the grocery store too so we all those days wanna be yeah so we have a bunch of questions but so can you take about five minutes and talk a little bit

22:16 more about the vigorous snuggle oh the vigorous snuggle sure let's see what do people want to hear about it but we haven't really talked about play much but one thing that happens one thing that I think people often surprised about with aggression and this is the fifth step that I didn't get to is and I call it play like your life depends on it because it kind of does well I want you to play vigorously with your kids

22:41 because laughter builds connection in a super intense kind of a way if you can just think about like the last time you had you in a good friend like had like that belly laugh that deep laugh like how much closer you felt to that person afterwards laughter builds connection and physical play and physical closeness builds connection so vigorous snuggle is kind of like a way of doing that and people have a real aversion to moving towards

23:06 their boys when their boys are acting aggressively because it feels like a reward but it's not it's remember we said it's a call for help and connection so if you're gonna accept that and it's a call for help in connection and you're gonna play adult even if you don't feel again then play is a great tool to use and so you could come at a child who was acting aggressively and you could say oh my goodness did I just see you grab that

23:35 dog's tail do you know what happens to little boys who grab their dog's tail and you know you grab him and you nozzle in his neck and you say they get big swivels in their necks you know they get muzzles and big fat hugs from Mama or whatever it is and you just like vigorously get in and just wrap them up and cuddle them and pour in the love it's not a reward for bad behavior okay

24:03 it's a plea for connection and an offer of connection to a disconnected child who will be able to transform his behaviors once he feels seen again and loved and connected and not scared so by holding out like that's a reward where making life much more difficult for ourselves than it needs to be right that's that's great and just so everyone knows I am definitely paying everything Tosh is saying I'm also reading all the comments so as you see my my eyes go up

24:35 and down it's not that I'm not listening to her I just so everyone knows so we have a really great question here from Karla Louise she says my son is nearly three years old and has started pinching sometimes if he doesn't get his way he says he is crossed and folds his arms and might be it might be because he's not allowed to do something because it's dangerous or if someone sits where he wants to it's not too often but any

25:00 ideas on how to react would be great he's incredibly quick when he does it and sometimes runs off before I can get just mm-hmm yeah well this would be an example where you could start with some play right you could do that what was that the pinche monster just come out of here hang on a second did I see you pinch you know and then you can sort of come at him with your little pinchers is this you know is this

25:25 the lobster game is there a lobster in the house you know and sort of go with your pinchers towards him or something like that again it's not rewarding you're going for laughter see if you can figure out what makes him laugh it lightens everything up right it essentially is like relieving the pressure in the emotional center of your brain or of his brain so that his thinking brain can come back online so I definitely would use play there there was something else

25:54 I want to say the first part was that was the first part of the question again first question was that her sand pinches and it's usually when he doesn't get his way or home because it's dangerous and he's super fast so he pinches and takes off right okay so so just know that he's doing this so that you're prepared so that you can kind of prevent it if you can the other thing that I want to say

26:19 about that is that part of what these behaviors like okay let me let me give you an analogy if you can think about like a boiling pot right you have a boiling pot you can keep kind of trying to shove that top on that pot for a certain amount of time some point it's gonna explode and it's kind of the same with our boys and their feelings right so if you imagine him um let's just say you know he's a

26:44 preschooler and he's going to preschool and stuff happens all day long you know he he somebody cuts in front of him in the line when they're going out to recess or he was going to play with the toy and someone got at first or he went up and wanted to play with somebody and they excluded him I mean they didn't have what they went for lunch I don't know you cut the sandwich you know diagonally instead of

27:03 straight across whatever it is a million things happen little things happen and he sort of got all these feelings piling up in this boiling pot okay so when he gets home like we're all we've almost reached boiling point and then you know he wants to have spaghetti for dinner and you say well sweetie we already made lasagna tonight and that's like the straw that breaks the camel's back and the water starts boiling over and that boiling water looks like a pinch okay so

27:34 be prepared for it and and I think what I want to say is that there needs to be some space for that steam to come off so you could preempt it by doing some vigorous play you could up the play in general will probably help reduce the the incidents so if it's like games of tag where you're not quite catching him but it gets him laughing or pillow fights or whatever it is those would be some some really good things to try yeah

28:08 those those are that that would that would be where I would start I mean but I mean when I just emphasize that the healing happens with the release of the emotion when I say healing I mean healing from all the hurts that have happened that you know that he's piled up like that in that example I just gave like he's got a heal from those hurts or it's gonna come out in these other behaviors so so you've heard

28:30 hand-in-hand talk about the tool of stay listening and essentially one way to allow a child to have a safe place for safe place for a stay listening is to bring a limit around the pinching you know I can't let you pinch me for example even if he already did it even if he already did it and then you're like whoa you know I can't let you pinch me and that will probably be enough to allow him to cry

28:54 or have a tantrum or something and if we can remember that that's actually a good thing that's what's gonna allow him to stop the pinching that's what's gonna allow him to get back to his sweet self and sit down and eat the lasagna and notice that it actually tastes good and it doesn't matter us not spaghetti remember that make sense it totally makes sense thank you so you have another person from Han Han End she's having a hard time liking her boys

29:21 right now they fight all the time really all the time they're doing a starter class right now but oh boy it's so hard and they have two girls two so it seems much easier because they're very because they're more verbally aggressive than physically aggressive so there's interesting some people actually find the verbal aggression much more challenging than the physical aggression so it's just all about how we are so you're pointing to yourself yeah how we got hurt and our own experience you know

29:52 our triggers are all different so but I want to just say that I'm glad you're saying you feel like your hate your boys because probably if everybody on this call or on this Facebook live we're being honest we would all raise our hand if we if I said have you ever felt like you hated your boys I have felt like I hated my boys I don't hate my boys I love my boys and I know that you do too

30:14 but we also need space to just feel like we hate them it's okay it doesn't mean you're a bad mom it doesn't mean that anything's wrong with you and that goes back to the the step one of setting yourself up for success in order for you to be able to really help them navigate their sibling relationship aggression or not you are going to want to find a community of people who are working through similar struggles it's just

30:44 going to help you because when we feel like we're alone we're the only one whose kids were struggling in this way or were the only one who feels like we hate our boy we tend to hide out and get more and more triggered because we feel like we're something's wrong with us I feel like we're something oversized and or something's wrong with our child so nothing's wrong with your child nothing's wrong with you you can hate

31:07 your voice sometimes I hate my voice sometimes you know on top of the love that I have for them so I I guess I just want to normalize that I just want to normalize that and encourage you to find other people so if you're in a starter class that's great so I would encourage you to in your listening time that you get in that starter class on your support calls to be able o are there support calls on starter classes I don't

31:33 know maybe I'm wrong there we do have calls once a week well depending in person versus on the phone but yes okay so right so so wherever you have the opportunity I should just say don't be shy about sharing those feelings be sure that the person you're you're venting them to understands that they're just feelings and that you don't want to be you know please you know please don't judge me I want you to know I need you

32:02 to remember that I like it's like I could say that Leilani Leilani okay I'm about to scream bloody murder and tell you all sorts of horrible things about my boy because I'm furious right now I just need to know before I go into this that you will remember that I really do love him and then I know he's a good person but I have to get this out right I could just say that and then later

32:22 sorry Leilani is my other friend I keep talking to no money no say no Lani can you can you just listen and that's it and then if she's just listening that I can vent and I've sort of cleared the space a lot I'm confident that she's not going to get confused about me because that's where it gets hard to share if we're just sharing like with our average friend they might get flipped out because there's such a taboo against saying

32:49 anything like that and it's sad because we've all felt this way it's like we get can we get confused we think that feelings are reality feelings are not reality they're just oh no we we lost Tasha oh there she is I'm here mmm yeah yeah I can feel like I hate my boy it doesn't mean that I hate my boy it just means I'm feeling like that right this moment well and I appreciate that in one of the

33:16 other ways you know just a quick plug for the parent club so we have on Facebook the parent club and it's a monthly subscription I think it's twenty-five dollars right now but you get the first month free and what I see is a lot of parents in their number one supporting parents so when you're feeling you know that frustration that you know upset that you know that you hate your kids um a lot of parents can go in there and they vent about

33:41 things and it's a safe space that our moderators are created for people to vent and then also get support so there's other ways besides just the listening partnerships I really want to emphasize how important that is I want to say just a you know I said but I want to say it again that it is not not only does is it not advisable it is not really possible to raise our kids on our own and most of us don't live in

34:06 tight-knit communities as our you know our our parents or grandparents did okay we we live in pretty isolated we live pretty isolated lives most of us and and that's just it's just not possible to get the resource that we need for this important job of parenting that we're doing we have to seek support for ourselves so since it's not built in anymore like it once was into the fabric of society we need to make it a priority to

34:34 create those communities for ourselves that is the only way I believe that we are gonna be able to parent peacefully right you can watch a mill read or million books about peaceful parenting and all of these things and conscious parenting and positive parenting and all of these things and the ideas are fabulous and I back them 100% but in the heat of the moment we're gonna react to our triggers unless we do something to work on our own stuff to heal from our

35:03 own hurts and to acknowledge that these feelings that pop up and not confuse them for reality right and and listening partnerships are crucial to making sure that happens so I have we have a bunch of questions in here and we're not going to be able to get to them all so I'm gonna try to get to as many as possible those of you who did ask questions that we haven't been able to answer and we're going to try to answer them all

35:27 but those that aren't answered we're definitely going to get back to you by message by Facebook message to be able to answer your questions so I have one from Sarah plazas she says my tuna half-year-old has taken to screaming full volume when we're in the car with his four month old sister making her cry and driving me and my husband crazy I know he's looking for connection but were on the road right then and there's only so much we can do do you have any

35:56 advice for the car when we can't get physically connected yeah yeah cars are probably one of the hardest hardest things to do and so this isn't this I'm not going to throw out a hand in hand to land in this situation I will say well let me start with that I would say that it's good that you notice that in the car is where the problem is where where he's struggling right now so I would say

36:22 that it might be useful to do either some special time but we haven't really talked about special time but essentially it's just like a unique kind of one-on-one time and maybe Julie could put in the comments or something a little a little link to the article about how to do special time for beginners but essentially it's just kind of building building closeness before that separation and you might be like separation what kind of separation I'm in the front seat he's in the back seat

36:52 like house for that separate but but to him like we can argue but to him if it feels that way it's just a feeling you can't argue with a feeling in you know any more than you can argue with you know a preference for chocolate over vanilla there's nothing to argue about it's the reality is what he's feeling so it might be really useful before like car rides if you could do even just five minutes as one on one special time with

37:17 him that might help or it might help to do some physical play how old did she say she said he was two and a half yeah two and a half so great I mean just sort of some running around outside or some pillow play or some jumping on the trampoline if you have it but together not like not the idea is it like okay get your Yaya's out before you get into the car it's not what I mean it's not like get

37:40 out the extra energy while I pack the car it's about how do we play and connect before we get in the car together so it could be some kind of a tag game or it could be a piggyback ride or a horseback ride something that just gets him laughing and you know and allows him to feel seen so you might try those things before you get in the car once you're in the car I don't have any

38:04 magic pill I will tell you that the libraries in the United States have been amazing what do you call it my English i'm still just moved back to the states i'm missing a bunch of vocabulary words that i'm trying to get back but they have a great selection books on tape mm-hmm not really tape anymore but any way that you can listen to so audiobooks let's call them so audiobooks are awesome and the other thing that I found is awesome

38:34 and a lot of parents use our podcasts there are podcasts for every age and stage there are podcasts that are stories there are podcasts that are like you know asking questions like how things work even that that kids can submit to and then listen you know listen to see if their question gets answered how things work etc etc curious kids and there are also musical podcasts musical stories for young like there are podcasts what I'm saying for

39:02 two-and-a-half year old kids so that might be something that you could do together like work together to go on iTunes and see if you can picks them out that that he likes and give him some agency in terms of being able to choose or something like that so those are some things that I would try and to just end by saying it's hard sometimes you just got a screaming kid in the car and that's I've been there and it's okay I

39:28 mean it sucks it's not so fun but it's okay it's like nothing's horribly wrong it's just really annoying I get it and so we've had a few questions that involve special-needs children I have one here but if we could do maybe a general one this one's from just a car Corwin and she says thank you so much for doing this we have three and five-year-old boys they role model aggressive behavior for their

39:58 two-year-old system Noelani i need to repeat because you cut out oh sure so they have a three and five-year-old they have three and fibroid boys and they're all modeling aggressive behavior for their two-year-old sister and they aim to practice hand in hand techniques most of the time one of the boys has sensory process disorder which adds fuel to the fire so any tips that you might be able to give for those children who have special needs or you know this specific

40:28 question is sensory processing disorder but we've had other special needs questions yeah okay so i'm gonna preface this by saying this is not my area of expertise I am NOT claiming to be an expert in this area that said I do know lots of parents who have both diagnosed and undiagnosed you know so mystery processing kids who do make great process using the hand in hand sorry progress using the hand to hand parenting tools sometimes in concert

40:59 with other therapies so the one thing that I can say that I see but one thing I'll say is that we do sometimes need to modify the tools a little bit particularly with stay listening sometimes the child who has sensory processing disorder can be super super overwhelmed by our presence during stay listening and so we might have to kind

41:29 of hold back and like so for example we haven't really talked about stay listening but essentially it means stay and listen when your kids with us with a sensory processing boy who has sensitive sensory processing disorder they call it disorder it sounds bad sensory it's just whatever our sensory processing issues I don't like disorders that just goes like blah blah but anyway um I don't

42:01 know what whatever he calls it but you might for example sit on one side of the door while he is on the other side of the door if he's having a big cry or a big tantrum and just let him know verbally you know I'm right here sweetie on the other side of the door so in other words it could be that you're full-on presence is too overwhelming for him but that being on the other side of

42:29 the door and just making your presence known could be helpful so that's just like one example but that's the one main modification that I know that parents of sensory processing kids use with the hand and parenting tools that make a big difference we also do have I know hand in hand parenting has at least one instructor who's also a therapist who deals with you know who supports a lot of families who have sensory processing issues yeah thank you that was a great

42:57 answer and Julie we'll put some more information down below in the comments for those people the sparing for a little bit of extra help with those children who just need a little bit extra help so I have a question from Nicole Hanson smithson she says hi sorry I'm late my five-year-old started a month ago and has been hitting kids daily at school the classroom is in chaos due to four boys running wild one of them being my son he also refuses to

43:26 participate in the class how can I help him oh yeah this is the beginning of school is this the beginning of kindergarten that sounds like yeah yeah so this is a big big complicated question but essentially but totally answerable essentially I would do all of the things that I've talked about so far first of all I would remember first of all if we talk about mindset I want you to number one that he's just calling for

43:53 help he is not a bad kid okay so like if I could say one thing it's like do not let him get labeled as a bad kid I understand that things are in chaos because of these four boys but he is not bad he's just struggling we need to change that mindset otherwise we're coming at the healing process from licious like kind of an energetically not a very good place okay so he's good he's doing the

44:21 best he can and that best isn't good enough so here we are we get to play a dolt what can we do for one I would be in contact with the teacher or I would find out what's going on find out as much information as possible I would come to the teacher from the perspective of hey you know I get that he's really struggling I know we both have the same goal of helping him thrive and helping

44:46 the classroom you know run smoothly I would ask do you have any ideas for things I know you have a lot of experience in the classroom do you have any ideas of things that we could do to help you know to help curb this behavior help things go better for the class throw the question out first and then offer your ideas and essentially is always going to come back around to connection and again it's going to come

45:10 back back around to the adults need to make stop happen okay there should not be four kids running around in the classroom somebody needs to make that stop without sort of saying you're a bad kid but to actually just you know come up and come up to your son and say you know I can't let you run around the room now it might not be that there's it might be that there's not enough staff and this is something that you have to

45:36 address five is super young to be in the school okay a lot of times what happens and I see this so often with boys is that the expectations that schools have for them are just not expectations that they can meet so you want to investigate that are we asking more of this child then is actually possibly possible for him to give I think we need to really ask that question seriously because if we're putting our boy in a situation

46:02 where he's not gonna be able to succeed he's not gonna be able to do people are asking of him it's just going to his frustration is just gonna compound and his behaviors are gonna get worse and worse and he's gonna get labeled a bad kid and that is bad news you don't want that to happen so think about that up the connection at home if you're not doing special time regularly like every day before school or every day after

46:28 school right now during this huge transition to school I highly suggest you start doing it so regular special time where he really gets to do whatever he wants to do you're just there pouring in your love not trying to make him do anything a specific way I mean there's so much to say about school stuff and Nicole is that she has observed the classroom so there's 25 kids in the class she has observed the classroom and

46:55 checks in with the teacher daily and the teacher has just kind of given up as she's not getting any support from the administration so I'll let you finish with your thought and then I'll chime in on a few things okay yeah so so first of all good for you for reaching out that's awesome and I'm sorry that that teacher is in a place where he or she is given up I think that that she yeah so she's

47:19 giving up I would assume once again that she is just incredibly frustrated not that she doesn't want to help so you know sometimes what happens is when we have boys like this we get to really become huge advocates and that sometimes extends beyond the walls of our houses so if she's not getting support from administration I would suggest that you also try to reach out and to the administration and see if you can set up a meeting because you know if you're if

47:52 if you come in the administration's get scared of parents who come in or just like we know why is this teacher getting my kid in trouble and why is my Nona and what yeah that's not gonna work but if you come in from that like you know that loving place that you know nobody's in education to become a millionaire like they're in there because they love kids and they wanna make a difference in the world right so we want if you're gonna

48:15 I mean with the idea that I want to help I want to see what we can do to help these boys thrive I see there's a problem like let's figure this out together I bet there would be other parents who would also be willing to hop in on the on the project with you and and do some grassroots work like what can you do there are certain things like for example I don't know if she's using

48:34 like one of those I forget what you call this thermometer those up-downs you know up for good behavior bad for down behavior those things like seriously create anxiety and young kids like for reals yeah so like there might be things that are going on in the classroom that are contributing that could be fairly easy fixes it could be just like if she could start really connecting with each of them as they come in the door with

49:02 like I've seen teachers who have like unique greetings your hand shapes or whatever for each kid or a couple of the kids or just a high-five or something something that they can be seen having the teacher and invite your boy in like even just after school not because he's in trouble but just to talk about something that's maybe of a common interest like she knows that he's really interested in brown bears I don't know random and she saw that the

49:29 librarian saw this book and she's like hey you know I know you love brown bears and I saw this book I wanted to know if you wanted to take it home those kind of things those kind of things help him feel seen anything you can think of that's about connection and just don't get confused and think he's bad he's not yeah and then if I could just kind of add in a little bit in regards to

49:50 talking to the administration Tosha is definitely right administrators get a lot of people getting complaining to them all the time and what they love is a parent who comes in with that problem solving and trying to work together with them so you could go in and just you know let them know that you're frustrated and you want to work together as a team to figure out what's best they are just going to be so extreme Mueller

50:14 extremely receptive but if you don't get the results that you want there are other avenues and you can contact us and we can kind of give you some more information on it really quickly down below know Naomi peek is asking there's any parents who are in attendance of this call who have a boy who's about 6 to 7 and want to pair up for a listening partnership if you do message Naomi peak our message below and

50:40 you guys can definitely hook up and figure it out so let's see that's great advocating for yourself you rock I know so us it's so amazing so we have ton of questions and we're definitely not going to be able to get to all of them but let me get to one that kind of covers a few a few questions and it says my five-year-old son is a convoy but his friends are not so I'm concerned about

51:06 how to manage the probability that he will learn to behave like the others hmm yep well you take to listening partnership that you don't get to choose your kids friends you start there there just don't and let me tell you my boys are 11 13 and 16 and sometimes I think back because I remember my mom said to me once I don't worry about you because you choose good friends and I've thought about that several times in my parenting

51:33 when I've been in situations thinking like oh man I cannot say that to my boys I don't feel like they're choosing good friends but then I step back and I go like well what does that mean if I'm saying that they're not choosing good friends because really every kid is good and I think that you're actually in quite a powerful position if you have a boy who's pretty mellow and his friends aren't I mean the opportunity for I

52:00 think I would switch it around and the opportunity for him to also have an influence on them and for you to have an influence on them is great if they're over at your place you get to keep whatever house rules you have you get to respond to them lovingly and maybe something you know maybe differently than them they're getting at home for example but to just keep in mind that there's no bad kid good kid maybe this

52:25 and we haven't touched on bullying at all but you know some of us have kids who have been bullied some of the stuff kids who have who have been bullied many of us have kids who have been both at various points in their child's career so I think a many much of circumstantial and it's going to be really paramount for us to remember that all kids are good they're all doing their best at all times and it's really

52:50 upon us the parents the adults the teachers to help life go even better and to help them through their struggles so don't be afraid find the good in them okay find the good in those kids you know they're a while and see if you can get in and play with them if they're over your on the schoolyard sometimes it's like you worry because you don't know rights like we're scared of people who don't know they look different for

53:12 me I don't know I don't know what they're like you know but once you get to know somebody your perspective completely shifts so I would say you know if the kids are all playing together on the schoolyard after school or at your house dive in you know they're playing tank dive in and play with them they're playing you know shoot whatever tree branches at each other don't play shoot tree branches that each other with them get in there and be a

53:35 part of it and see what's going on yeah great thank you so we have a couple minutes left so I wanted to give you some time to talk a little bit about the classes that you have that are coming up I think in October right me yeah your classroom if you want to talk a little bit about them before we go and then I'll just say a few things here yeah yeah so what we have coming up in

53:59 October and I'm not going to think I think we're gonna open doors the 5th of October through the 12th I believe we're gonna be opening doors for my online course I have an online course called out with aggression a step-by-step practice for to stop your boys aggressive behaviors and lift your parenting confidence and we talked about all of these things that we've been talking about here and it's really it's really a step-by-step go at your own

54:25 pace you keep the course forever you can you can download the worksheets you can download the videos you can listen in your car on the way to you know on the way home from drop-off on the way to work whatever so I try to make it really really simple and break it down into little bite-sized pieces and the thing that I'm super super excited about is when I first put this class out a year ago I offered just six one-hour Q&A

54:50 sessions but I decided that I'm going to just go all out and make them weekly because well for one I really love talking to you guys and I like to kind of be be in the trenches and hear what's going on and really be able to you know really be able to kind of have a back-and-forth and and and help you in your specific situation and I know not every situation is exactly the same and also because I

55:13 really want to get you results so I'm I'm not about saying there's only one way to do anything about what works if you're here and you want to get here then I want to give you a roadmap to get there and that's really what I think I've done without with aggression so yeah so you'll be hearing more about it through hand-in-hand you know in the next few weeks for sure and I would love to have any of you in it who are who are

55:37 interested so there's the online piece and then like I said every every week you know be an hour where you can ask me questions great thank you and there's a link down below for Tasha's class I know that we weren't able to answer everyone's questions so we're going to take some time out the staff and some of our certified instructors to take time and answer some of the questions you have so you'll see a direct answer from

56:00 us in your messages I want to take a couple seconds out to just plug a few of the things that we do have going on at hand-in-hand we are a non-profit so we are fundraising throughout the year we would love any support that you are able to give us we're in our fourth quarter and fourth quarters for nonprofits are always the most difficult so please go to donate Julie we'll put a little link below if you're interested in donating

56:25 we also have our really exciting a parent club that we released back in July it's one of our ways to get back to the to the Facebook community wide it is a subscription a small subscription I call it the five star bucks a month subscription because it's twenty five dollars and you're able to get all the support you need as a parent and and then some from a large group of people and our moderators taffy Gordon and

56:53 Emily are fantastic they've created a really safe space for parents to really voice frustrations are going through ask questions about the hand-in-hand techniques and it's just fantastic so we hope to see you either there in the parent club Arwa Tasha and her on her classes it's been great seeing you guys and we'll see you guys soon and have a great day everyone and I just my to you well no I just want to appreciate each and every one of you for taking the

57:25 time out to join me here I know I don't get to see each of your faces but I appreciate the comments and the questions and your commitment to helping life go well for your boy great Thank You Tasha and you know thank you everyone for being here with us and we'll see you next time bye bye are you guys