When Your Kids Push You Over the Edge

0:02 hmm hi welcome my name is Kathy Gordon I'm your host here for this zoom meeting hand in hand zoom webinar for hand in hand parenting and is our first time we doing a teleseminar on zoom so bear with me I guess let's

0:39 see so I can see who's here great we've got a few participants while people are coming on the webinar I'll just tell you a little bit about me and a little bit about hand in hand I'm Kathy Gordon I'm a certified instructor of hand in hand and I've been I'm a single adoptive mom of a 15 and a half year old he was born here in Los Angeles he's been with me since he was 10 days

1:11 old so I'm his mom have always been and yeah and we we live here in Los Angeles and I've been I discovered hand in hand when my son was about five we were really struggling with bedtime and tantrums around bedtime and I won a consultation with patty actually and it really had changed my parenting it changed my relationship with my son changed my life and I've been a teacher

1:43 of one thing or another all my adult life so it was sort of natural there's like oh I'd really like to teach this so I've been a certified instructor since 2000 summer of 13 I teach a starter class Iko made moderate the parent club and and I just love love love of this work it's really transformed my little family and I really love bringing it to parents so to tell you a little bit about more about hand in hand we are

2:17 because I'm going to just do this little introduction as people are kind of coming on then we'll get into the meat of our discussion today I'm going to talk maybe for about 20 minutes and then open it up to questions and hopefully be able to take as many questions as I as we can but to tell you a little bit about hand in hand we are a us-based public benefit organization and we help parents when parenting gets hard we

2:46 bring you good information tools and lots of support for this vital work of parenting there's four main ideas behind the hand-in-hand approach and then we have four or parent to child listening tools and one parent to parents to support tool so our main ideas are that parents need and deserve support for the emotional challenge of parenting and we can build that support and have much more success meaning both our own needs and our kids needs and secondly our children are born

3:19 to feel connected with us the sense of connection is what they need in order to learn to build friendships to build resilience and confidence as they grow when children don't feel connected their behavior goes off track and that's a signal for us to help - sorry just check in the again for those who are just coming on this is my first time doing a teleseminar on zoom so if I get a little

3:49 befuddled with the technology please bear with me so I was just talking about really four of our over oh you know the core of our approach our thinking around children and parenting and and lastly I was going to say that we have tools where we can learn to reconnect with our children and and and help them to to get back on track and leave that difficult behavior behind those for those those

4:20 tools are special time setting limits stay listening and play listening and those are our four parent to child listening tools and then we have our parent to parent connection support tool which is our listening partnerships that's primarily what we're going to be talking about today listing partnerships along with some other specific strategies to do in the moment when our kids push us over the edge so lastly hand in hand helps

4:53 parents strengthen and rebuild the parent-child connection so we can feel successful as we love our kids and so our children can thrive on the love that we have for them so that's my little introduction about hand in hand I'll talk a little bit more at towards the end about the resources that we have because we're big believers in that parenting is a tough job and we we need

5:25 support you know it's probably the only well it is you know it's the only job where you don't get any training you don't get any breaks you know you just we certainly don't get a paid vacation you don't get mentored you know and sometimes you and your partner you know you could be parenting single you could be you know parenting with two households but even if you're in a two partner household sometimes you're you and your partner aren't even on the same

5:56 page which you know you wouldn't be in a regular job you have a you know you'd have standing operating procedures in your regular job so so um Riaan hand-in-hand try to make that manageable for you by providing support and providing lots of resources for that support particularly in regards to what to do when you know your kids push you to the edge so that's going to be my topic for today and as I said I'm going

6:28 to talk here for about maybe 10 or 15 minutes and then open it up for questions and hopefully answer the questions that you've brought today so what so I'd like to give you like a little bit of a picture of what's happening in our brains when we feel like we're at the end of our rope so for the person

6:59 purposes of simplicity we're just going to talk about how the brain how there's really three well parts or systems to the brain you know we have this higher reasoning Center our our prefrontal cortex we have an emotional processing center where we were kind of we process emotions we ticularly process fear we also store memories there then we have kind of at the base of our brain we have alarm Center so here's the

7:32 interesting thing about memories when they go into our brain this is true for all human beings but when those memories go into our brain they go in with some feeling or some association some feelings associated with that memory kind of like the here's the experience and then the feelings get glommed onto it so in hand-in-hand we'd like to take this big picture view that in the moment when we're feeling really tight and

8:04 tense it's not just the stuff in the moment that's affecting us but it's actually know all the other times in our lives particularly back in childhood when we felt powerless when we felt hurt when we felt disconnected when we felt not seen or not hurt right so Dan Siegel in his book parenting from the inside out talks about this and he really does a lovely job of explaining the brain science behind this but one of the

8:34 things he says is that when something happens today and it you know hears that it that experience from the past and hears the feelings right and that that experience from the past is kind of triggered then our body responds neurologically as if we were back in that moment I got heart rate and you know we feel the same way we felt when we were small and this experience happened to and this these feelings got glommed onto

9:04 it right so if we take that broad perspective that in the moment when I'm being when I feel like I'm at the end of my rope when my kids won't listen when they're fighting when you know there's just you know it's bedtime has gone on for hours that that it's sort of the feeling is magnified or exacerbated by our own early childhood experiences now the good news about this is that we can

9:34 take responsibility for that we can do something about that we can heal those feelings we can heal those old memories so that in the moment we can we have more capacity to we have more patience we have more capacity to listen we we have more thinking because literally when you note again Dan Siegel uses this hand model like here's the prefrontal cortex here's our emotional processing center with all those memories here's our alarm Center and when this emotional

10:06 processing center there our limbic system our nervous system gets triggered and what we stand single cause it like we flip our lid like we have no access to this prefrontal cortex like our the thinking part of our brain right so we have this wonderful tool called listening partnerships where you exchange listening time with another person and in that listening time the all that person's gonna do is they're just gonna listen we're not gonna give

10:37 advice this is right this is like it's like so much some more powerful than just venting to your friend who then it's going to turn around and sort of give you advice or tell you it's not so bad or they're gonna commiserate with you so you're listening partner is just gonna listen and it's gonna be like this safe space like they're just here holding the space and you're just dumping you know the current upset into in here and then and when and oftentimes

11:04 if you let it you know stream-of-consciousness because again this person's not going to interrupt you what happens is then you start to get to those early feelings like oh yeah I remember when my dad was screaming at my mom I was little and I how scared I felt so you get to those early feelings and you get to you actually what happens is like here's the experience here's the feeling and in a listening time as I'm sharing

11:29 that early experience it again my partner's just listening they're just holding the thought that I'm good and that I'm gonna figure this out and what so what happens is that the feelings through microlight as I'm laughing or crying or trembling or sweating as I'm you know sharing these early experiences like it literally like the feelings release from the early experience the early experience is still there but now when my kids are not listening to me and

11:57 I feel super disrespected and super powerless that that this early experience is not like that prickly thing like that like if you like if you think like a cactus you know like that that sticks out that you keep getting snagged on right so like yes you feel like yes it's frustrating that they're not listening to you but you still your brain still stays integrated you don't go to that huge feeling place like

12:29 you're at the end of your rope you can still think you can still think well about oh how could I get playful about this like okay hand-in-hand tells me that kids are more willing to cooperate when they feel connected so how can i connect with them in this moment so that we can get through this bedtime so that we can get through we can get out we can get ready for school we get out the door

12:53 so that's the first thing I want to you know talk about or just offer to you is this broader perspective that in that moment when we feel like we're at the end of our rope that it's early stuff early hurts that are that are that were that are getting snagged and that listening partnerships is this powerful way to again it's not that early experience is still there but the feelings that got globbed onto it or gonna you're gonna get to release and so

13:25 it's not going to be you you're not gonna get caught so much in the moment and we're all gonna lose it I mean even you know I've been doing listening partnerships since my son was five so that's like 10 years and actually through another when I was not a parent there was another form of listening partnerships that I was introduced to so I've had a lot of years of working on my early childhood stuff

13:56 and you know and and laughing crying shouting you know using listening time to yell at my dad you know to yell at the teacher who humiliated me to yell at that girl and sixth grade to make fun of me on the playground you know like I've had a lot of opportunity to do that and still I get frustrated I lose it so what do you do in the moment especially like

14:27 you know you're in the middle of bedtime it's you can't I mean as much as you'd like to go stop and call a listening partner you know it's not practical so here's some things you can do in the moment so number one is you can lay down there's something about you know you're feeling you're already feeling powerless and so Patti calls this kind of like just giving in to what you can't control like in that moment you're feeling out

14:59 of control your kids are out of control just laying down it it it does first of all it does something to our nervous system where no I find that you know if I try to keep moving and try to keep muddling through I just get more agitated when I lay down not only does it shift my nervous system but then my son gets curious as he got older he actually get

15:29 embarrassed and actually I did this one time in the parking lot I laid down right in front of the car and then he was like begging me to get up but then and you know and then he started trying to pull me up and now we you know you know and now we're starting to laugh hey so completely defuse the power struggle and the same thing can happen you know sometimes your kids will get curious or

15:55 they'll want to come over and sit on your tummy or you know so it can really shift you out of that place of feeling like you're gonna lose it and you know like you're gonna start screaming so that's the first thing you can do that the second thing you can do is and this one requires a little preparation and and I and one of the things it's really good to do is like practice in the moments when things are good so we have

16:27 an article and when the replay of this goes out I'll make sure that it goes it but it's called crazy mad these ideas including laying down or in this article and then the article goes on to talk about how to empower your kids in that moment to to assist you not that they're responsible for you for your feelings but you know when you're feeling out of control and you're about to lose it they pick up on that

16:58 that adds to their anxiety so that's how things can just really snowball so if you've practiced some ways in your family to for them to empower you when you start to lose it then and you practice it in a light humorous way this is a good way for you to have what I call like an emergency fire drill like we you know we do fire drills or you know maybe you do them in your home your

17:25 kids certainly do them in school and and so you want to have an an emotional fire drill so some things you might do is you might put a list of numbers on the fridge and that your child can call when you start to lose it and there's a mom who actually did this and her mom and her daughter picked up the phone called her friend and said mom needs to talk to you and handed the phone to her mom and

17:55 it was I think it was one of her listing partners so you know you can practice that like you know like we teach our kids to down 9-1-1 this was like an emotional 9-1-1 so that's one thing is that you empower them to reach out to a friend who can then you know give you like 30 seconds of listening time you you you know you make signs again in a

18:26 good time that are like that say I love you mommy I love you and and so you know when and so you practice this emergent emotional fire drill that when you you start you know you pretend overdramatically you're gonna lose it you know you're very silly you're very you know you know like you're falling down you're doing pratfalls you're you know you're walking to the wall but it's like it's a it's a you know in a very light-hearted way you're

18:53 practicing I mean you're you're demonstrating that you're going to lose it and you say okay show me the sign and so then your kid holds up the time that says mommy I love you so you know that's another way to empower them a third way to empower them is something that you like there's a lot of parents that report that like going in and having a you know plastic baseball bat or taking pills and like pounding on

19:22 the bed you know to really motor out those feelings these is a you know and get those feelings out of you is a good way to to to stop you being ramped up it's a it's a good release at the physical release it isn't actually healing it doesn't heal that you know the the little old hurt that got triggered but it is a release in the moment and so again in a very light-hearted dramatic

19:54 way you say okay this is what we're gonna do when mommy starts to get mad or daddy starts to get mad you know I'm gonna I'm going to go in the bedroom and I'm gonna pound on the pillows and I'm gonna and so you do this again at a very light-hearted like we you start to pound on the pillow but maybe they fall on the floor you know so you get some a lot of laughter going around it the reason for

20:15 getting the laughter going around it is that you are talking about a serious subject no mommy or daddy getting angry as and starting to yell but you're doing it in a very but you're doing it in a very light-hearted way so that any tension anxiety that they're already feeling from maybe when you got upset in the past they're releasing so that in the moment when you actually do get angry they can still think you know you've practiced this you've practiced

20:43 this in a very light-hearted fun way a very connected way and so in in them in the moment of the when you really do get upset then then they can still think long enough to go like mommy go hit the pillows mommy go hit the bed no so these are some ideas no there's some you know everybody has some good ways of kind of snapping themselves out of it a couple of other things I'll throw out there is

21:14 you know going in the bathroom and splashing water on your face drink you're trying to drink water backwards you know to see if you can give yourself a case of the hiccups you know going into the bathroom and using the mirror as a listening partner you know and and just saying to the listening partner you know like I can't do this I can't do this the mirror you know for 30 seconds

21:44 to two minutes so you know there are things that you can discover about yourself and again the best way to do this is in when it's good and you're just lightheartedly practicing and so you know encourage you to discover what those kind of things are for yourself so I think that's primarily what I wanted to talk about in terms of when your kids

22:17 push you over the edge uh you know there's lots more to talk about about around it but I thought I would end there and just open it up for questions and let's see if I can figure out how to do this so I'm opening up oh so I think you can raise your hand if you have a question and I can actually well here I'm going to open up the chat so you can

22:47 you can type a question if you're on your computer if you have called in or even a front you're on your computer and you can use audio I think you can raise your hand and then I can I can actually talk to you let's see oops nope I'm gonna do that

23:19 sorry Q&A so does anybody know somebody raised their hand so let's see how I do this ah allowed to talk okay me hi can you hear me yes I can writing modern technology um I guess I was wondering kind of what your thoughts are or how to go about like I have a

23:50 four-year-old son and and a baby but when there is a moment where I do you then kind of lose it like afterwards that's happened like how do you communicate to your kid that like it's not their fault or or kind of explaining what happened or do you even think that's necessary or kind of just like what are your how do you deal with that yeah so great question so I think yes

24:27 you can absolutely apologize I think you know that's a good practice to start in a family you know I'm sorry mommy lost it you know I'm sorry I yelled you know it wasn't your fault but since the experience of you getting angry went in on a nonverbal level it like went into their emotional processing system into their nervous system you you want to also work with it

24:58 non-verbally so you want to then offer special time where they're the one in control and you are so for anybody new if you don't know what special time is so special time is one-on-one undivided attention it's a for a finite amount of time so you set a timer you you know it is possible it's it's not a hundred it's not as not quite as potent but you you could do this with babe and

25:28 arms you know because you're following his lead him right your older is that boy yeah yeah you know you're following his lead for five minutes he gets to do whatever he wants he you know so what your when when you put yourself in the less powerful role for that finite amount of time you're not going to answer the phone let's see if I did i tick off the undivided attention one-on-one you follow their lead you try

25:56 to say yes to whatever they want within safety and and financial and time constraints you know if they want to go to Disneyland you can't do that in ten minutes kind of thing and you know you're you're not going to answer the phone you're you're gonna give them your undivided attention yeah so those for anybody knew those are the those are the elements of special time but the idea of you taking the less powerful role and

26:24 giving him the power for that five or seven minutes were you just delight in him that is that helps counter some of the fear that went in when you got angry and you know on a nonverbal level the other way you can do it is by offering rough-and-tumble where he gets to get you like it only takes like he just touches you and you fall over and and there there's a article on our website

26:55 called three ways to connect with your older child again I'll make sure that that goes out but that's a there's some great games on there that you can play with babe in arms like where you sit so how old's your younger nine months nine months yes so you could sit on the bed with the younger in your arms and he gets to like push like like push you back or push you over you know so you're

27:23 safe you've got the babe in arms or he gets to jump over you so there are some games you can play with babes and arms but if you can give him some rough-and-tumble where you're gonna take the lesson powerful role because two of the best ways to help a kid release fear are through laughter and physical play where they get to get you so yes it's great to apologize and just know that since it went in on a nonverbal level to

27:52 to help release it through special time and rough-and-tumble are really going to help him feel safe and connected again does that make sense it does do you think it's important to do it like as quickly as possible after yeah I do I do and then the other thing to look for is that because fear can drive off-track behavior is that you might you know his after you get upset he he might be you know like cowed for a

28:25 little while but then you might start to see some off-track behavior and just know that if you bring a warm limit and you listen to his feelings that again that's his natural it's his limbic system-- natural way of releasing any of the fear that went in you know just like the kid who goes too fast down the slide and they go whomp and they kind of they hit the back of their head that child who's allowed to cry you know that that

28:49 little fear that went in they just release it and then often that's the kid that goes right back up on the slide so you know you know look for those moments as well but and then of course the other piece of this is you know we want to then take our guilt to listening time so that you know we're not looking to our little one for forgiveness that's an inside job we want to do that for

29:14 ourselves and so a listening partner can really help with you know us you know as I said like they're just listening they are holding the truth that you are good and you are already forgiven like you know you did nothing wrong but then you get to you know just dump your guilt there and you get to forgive yourself there in listening time so is that that makes sense it does yeah thank you great all right so so Gina asked a

29:44 question here when talking to listen partner I can't seem to get feelings out any ideas how to do this oh yes those are my favorite subjects and in fact I took a Komada of the parent club in the parent club I created a post called how to get to feelings that's got a list so here's my recommendations so first of all you need to make sure that you're listening partnership your time is really protected that in that listening

30:14 partnership you that your partner is following the guidelines of not interrupting no advice no commiserating no and and it's great if you can also like even if you're doing listening time your partnership with a friend that when you're doing listing time that you that is away from any other socializing that you do so that creates more safety in your listening partnership you you have to be able to you have to feel safe you have to be able to presume safety and a

30:46 listing partnership in order to get to feelings and and that's why sometimes is as as counterintuitive as it sounds it's sometimes easier to do a listing partnership with somebody with whom you have no history like you're not friends you're not going to see them in the preschool drop-off line you know you're not going to see them at mom's club book club mom the mom Club mom's club book club eating so so that's the first thing is to make sure that you're following

31:16 the guidelines and and and and so that there is safety then here's my recommendations make sure you're in a place a private place well you can make a lot of noise and you can move around I'm now in a living situation where I have to do listening time in my car and I miss being able to move around one of the things that really helped me was I would bend over and when I would release my lower back feelings would come I

31:45 don't know why but it just you know so be putting yourself in a private place where you can make a lot of noise and and and move is ideal now you know there may be the those times where you're trying to get like five minutes of listening time and your kids are in the other room like that's different I'm just talking about like you know for a regular like ongoing listening partnership it's great to try to get that privacy and and be able to

32:13 move then you can start with what's happening um in you know today but try to get to like what's underneath that so some good questions to ask yourself are does this remind me of anything our mantra is work early so does this remind me of anything does you know you know and I tend to think in pictures so often like a

32:44 picture or sort of a image I don't know if it actually happened so I was talking earlier about like work you know like like this like this picture came this image popped into my mind this one time of my like my my mom was holding me in my in her arm so you know let's say I was maybe under a year and my dad was screaming at my mom now we don't have that kind of memory like memory with a

33:13 time date stamp on it until we're about somewhere around a year and a half to three years old that's the hippocampus that controls that so I probably don't have that actual memory but given given my childhood that's probably a likely scenario but how interesting that that picture popped into my mind so kind of allow yourself stream of consciousness to just whatever comes up along with that's um skip the details skip the details your partner doesn't need to

33:42 know your partner your partner is holding the space and holding this mantra you're good everybody you're talking about is good you're gonna figure it out that's that that's their job and and I say to new partners I say the less you talk the better because I what asking me questions or giving me directions sometimes that interrupts my process so everybody's different somebody some people like a little bit of a prompt like what does this remind you of anything or or you know what's

34:18 underneath this some people like that little prop I've been doing this so long that I that interrupts my process so I if I find myself like telling the whole story of the details I'm like I'm tap-dancing around my feelings here so I try to get right to like what's underneath this what does this remind me of and and work early and then sometimes I just make sounds like that like gets me out of my head dropped me into my

34:50 feelings and and so you know those are so those are the some of the ways I get to feeling some other things you can do sometimes it works really well to start with what's going well like sometimes if you if you're you're stuck in the Banting like see what happens if you start with like what's going well and sometimes that can open you up laughter is a really like like I can't remember

35:23 what like often times like that's odd things will pop into my mind like I remembered like this phrase like queen for a day popped into my mind I know I don't even remember what I was working on but you know that was an old commercial from the 50s where you were you got a new you got a new washer and dryer you were queen for the day or something like that that popped into my mind and I started

35:44 to laugh and then I started to cry so remember that laughter is also the release of feelings so it's laughter tears trembling sweating yawning so so laughter can also be a way to to get you know just thinking of the absurdity like like one time I I got to great place with all of the things I was imagining I was going to do to my son to make him into a Stepford child to make him into

36:11 this obedient child I was going to try hypnosis I was going to duct tape in depth you know I was you know like I just turned her to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh and I don't know if I ever got to tears in that listening session but it but it certainly did release a lot of the tension that I was feeling so I hope Tina I hope that gives you some ideas oh

36:36 I'll say one other thing and that is that it's good to save a few minutes of your no let me let me back up because you can use this almost at any time to get to feeling so sometimes a good way to get to feelings and also a good way to heal some feelings is to do what we call countering which is where you stand on your own two feet and you get to

37:08 blast the people that you know you know inadvertently will say will presume their goodness hurt you when you were small so you know I recommend like doing ninja kicks like hi-yah hi-yah you know and imagine punching them punching in the nose now remember you don't have to be nice in your listening time because your partner is holding the truth that they did the best they could in the moment and what's really powerful about

37:40 that is you don't have to do that thing that we do in normal conversation where you flip back and forth will you go you know there's makes me mad they're doing but I can understand how they might be you know you you know you're not do that thing we flip back and forth where you like see their point of view or you apologize for your feelings you know your partner's gonna hold the truth that you're that you're that whoever

38:09 you're talking about was doing the best they could in the moment so you get to blast them you get to imagine punching them in the nose pick up pillows you know beat on beat you know punch the pillow and you know it's it it's not that in and of itself is not healing but sometimes standing up for ourselves can break this open and and lead to those deeper feelings those deeper feelings of sadness and grief and hurt and fear so

38:38 those are all some of the ways that I have found that it's really powerful to get the feeling so you know I hope that helps let's see who else how do I do this any other questions we scroll down here and see if there's any other oops okay any thoughts any

39:12 feedbacks anything you wanna want me to talk more about oh there it is okay anybody see let's see that lien did you raise your hand again let me see yeah so then think it kind of goes in

39:45 the same thing but when you start feeling like you're losing like you can feel that pressure mounting yep I wanted I'm gonna try the line on the floor thing but I was what I've done and I'm wondering if you think this isn't a good plan or again I tried to communicate something to my son and I'm seeing now that words are not the way to go but I'd say something like I'm I'm getting frustrated or something like I'm

40:12 sorry buddy I'm getting really frustrated I'm gonna need a minute or something like that what is that okay - does that communicate anything or yeah I guess you think just stay physical like lay on the ground or so it's a great question maybe because I think we want to um we want to make it okay for people in our family to have feelings in an on in

40:43 an unfriending non-scary way so this is great because it gets me brainstorming about some more things you can do in the moment so you know so you start to feel frustrated right so what if you then started to do your own like oh I'm gonna check out these Crabbie's like you started to be light and playful oops sorry last night microphone so if you started

41:14 to be light and playful with yourself then you're modeling for your son that the way that when we get frustrated one of the ways that we can handle that frustration is to get play is that we can we can dance our Crabbie's out we can shake our Crabbie's out we can put on music we can put on and this is going to really help you like when he's struggling you know that you're starting these practices in your family where you

41:46 know when we're having a tough time we do things that are playful and connecting and and and this you know so what this requires is giving up the right like okay so so yes it's understandable that we lose it but we want to give up the right to get angry if that makes sense

42:16 mm-hmm so you know so you make this choice that you start to feel the pressure build so what so you're gonna do something silly or goofy that's gonna get you laughing because again laughter is the release of tension laughter is the release of fear of light fears laughter is connecting laughter creates safety so it's a it's a great way of create

42:47 this practice in your family where there's some silly things that you do one of the things that we we talk about in the parent club a lot and we've actually created like a whole list for people to put their ideas is something called mock threats so your kid you know your child won't do something you're starting to feel the frustration build so you put your frustration right into the mock threat which is like oh you know what if you don't if you don't

43:17 brush your teeth I'm gonna have to turn you upside down and kiss your ears you know if you if you don't if you don't get if you don't get dressed I'm gonna have to I'm gonna make I'm gonna start making stinky farts in this room and then you're never gonna have to run to school naked you know so again you know we've got a whole list of them we've created a whole post of like okay what

43:45 are your favorite mob threats no and there's one mom we even posted that like now her son asks for the mock threats you know because one of her mock threats is like you know I'm gonna have to pick you up by your ears and carry you so you know you know he he you know she starts to get frustrated he sees that she's frustrated and he says you know oh you better pick me up by my ears you know so

44:10 she scoops him up and and and you know so let me just speak for a minute to that this idea of like whoa but then aren't we rewarding the bad behavior you know aren't we being inauthentic because you know they're doing something that is chronic Oh making us angry so I want to go back again to that so two things one is let's go back to the broader perspective of in that moment our own childhood hurts and powerlessness and

44:41 feelings of powerlessness are being re simulated our child is not making us feel anything you know and and and secondly that as opposed to quote-unquote rewarding the bad behavior we're embracing the idea that chilled and are willing to cooperate human beings are willing to cooperate when they feel connected when if they're not cooperating it means that they can't think it means that their hurts are

45:13 they're just feelings of disconnection or they're you know limbic system-- their emotional processing center is running the show and they don't have any access to the thinking part of their brain as soon as we get playful and there's some laughter this happens their brain reintegrates and they can think so it's not a matter of quote-unquote rewarding the bad behavior it's understanding how the human brain works and how relationships work and how human

45:44 beings actually are default is to Co regulate rather than to self-regulate I mean yes we learn self regulating skills but are but we're wired actually to Co regulate so in that moment of our own frustration if we can get playful if we can get if we can put our frustration into something like a mock threat where we get laughter going now we're connected now our child can Co regulate now our child can think does that make

46:13 sense yeah yeah it does cool awesome great question let's see anybody else have any questions oh intimate here we go somebody there's a question here in the chat great okay so my daughter with whom I've lost it quite a few times who I did not who I do special time regularly does not release the fear she surely has stored inside she rarely cries she did once a couple of days ago and I was happy if I may say

46:45 so but she only began to release some tension and that was such a rare occasion she's a joyful child lasts quite a bit but what about all this accumulated tension and fear seems she barely started to release some of it great question so first of all I want to reassure you that laughter is the release of fear so it and caution you that whenever we get an agenda that our child needs to cry

47:15 and I'm going to sort of talk out of both sides of my mouth here because definitely our our tool of setting limits where we bring a warm limit and they bump up against it and they have a tantrum the intention of bringing that warm limit is to have them to help them release the feelings so that they can think and then they can change their behavior rather than bringing the limit as a consequence or a punishment we're

47:40 we're bringing the warm limit so that they can bump up against it and have have some feelings but if our but even in that setting limits tool our primary intention is connection rather than I'm bringing this limit so you can have a good cry because as soon as we get tight about the fact that we think they need to cry that actually erodes the safety so it's a it's kind of an advanced nuance that I'm sharing with you all

48:09 around that too of setting limits but but you can I just want to um let's see he didn't say who posted this Sabine we assure you Sabine that that you know laughter is the release of fear and that that if if you put your intention into lots of especially lots of physical play lots of rough-and-tumble where you take

48:40 the less powerful role and she gets to power over you then you're countering any of those times when you lost it and and she is releasing the fear she is feeling powerful if you take that when you take the starter class which I hope all of you will do in fact I'm leading a starter crust that starts in July I'm gonna say July 10th at noon pacific which is eight UK i think it think dirts

49:10 on a time changes in there and so when you take take the start of class there's this great video where this dad's doing special time and and you can see that he's that his daughter was working on fear because she she keeps put kind of pushing for riskier and riskier physical play to where the point where she's holding on to the back of his pants and he's like running around the room like that kind of snapped the whip if you

49:39 ever played snap the whip when you were a kid um you know like she's being whipped around and she's laughing and laughing and and she's you know that laughter is the release of fear so if you put your focus on physical play where she gets to power over you and and just and creating this culture in your family where like you are silly like you are this you are the bumbling one like things like you know you walk into walls

50:10 you you you she asked you to for orange juice in your hand or the pickle jar and you're completely the funk didn't like to be funneled like well how did that happen you know it's time to leave and you walk into the closet um you get up in the morning and you you you put your underwear on your head now you come and you wake up and you've got your underwear on your head and it's an underwear wearing head day

50:31 you know so you create this culture of laughter by by you being the bumbling like Larry Cohen is booked playful parenting calls you being the village idiot if you if you're not a playful parent we've got a great article on the website called what if I'm not a playful parent and there's 25 ideas my favorite is the feed your funny and you know watch old videos of Dick Van Dyke and Lucille Ball and the original Three Stooges and see

51:03 how they made fun of themselves the laughter was in them making fun of themselves so the more you know you literally counter any times when you've lost it by creating this culture where you are the you know you're making fun of yourself you're being the silly one you're the one who can't figure it out you're the bumbling one and and it's that that culture and your family is good for so many things it's good for

51:33 working on fears good for perfectionism it's you know it's it's it's good for separation anxiety it's good for aggression it's just you know because the good news is that fear is fear is fear is fear as fair as there is fear so you know when we're creating laughter in our homes then you know the fear that's being released will you'll show up in all different areas of maybe bedtime

52:04 will get a little easier leaving house in the morning you'll get a little bit easier you know so great oh good to bean I'm glad that was helpful okay so any last minute burning questions before I wrap up here or any thoughts um I do my little okay so I mentioned oh

52:39 let me talk about resources yes so of course we have our wonderful hand in hand hand in hand parenting got or website or there's all kinds of articles there's articles on listing partnerships in particular you know there's they I've mentioned a few of the articles today there's all kinds of articles on playing in different situations or one of our instructors Kate Orson has done a wonderful job of creating these

53:10 different lists so tips for getting out of the house in the morning twenty ways to heal playful ways to heal separation anxiety twenty playful ways to heal eggs I aggression fifteen playful ways to intervene playfully with sibling rivalry so there's all kinds of you know how to be playful around teeth brushing there's all kinds of great ideas on how to be playful on our website we have a Facebook group called hand-in-hand parent connect it is a free Facebook

53:45 group where you can connect with other hand-in-hand parents that group is primarily for people who are just discovering hand-in-hand because we do a lot of posting of the basics of what the tools are the in terms of learning like really some of the nuances that I shared with you today there's a couple of ways to get that actually three one is the parent Club which is a monthly

54:15 membership program the parent club is just from so many parents they've said well this is a game changer because you get in that parent club it's a private Facebook group you get pretty much coaching on-demand we really it's myself and Emily gray Marie we really try to get back to you unless your post slips down the timeline and we we missed it we really try to get back to you within a few hours really coaching you on your specific

54:47 situation and how to use the tools specifically in you in that situation how to get to specific issues that you're struggling with enlisting time so you get that daily nuanced coaching you get a weekly Q&A with an instructor you get a weekly instructional mail that's got a video and an article attached to it and we kind of focus on whatever that is this week the focus was a

55:20 step-by-step plan for handling aggression next week I think it's going to be a step-by-step plan for a sibling rivalry so you get that weekly instruction you also get monthly access to patty patty does a Facebook live every month in the in the in our private Facebook group you get 25% off all of our products and and in particular 25% off our starter class which is the next way to kind of take these tools to the next

55:52 level for yourself oh let me also say the parent comes a great place to find listing partners because the parents there are really working hard on healing their childhood stuff so that they can really think well on using these tools in in their family and really helping they're really being leaders what I call the CEO or the chief emotional officer of your family so the parent club is also a great place to get listening partners is to you know pair up with

56:20 people who are really doing this work well and then and then he had 25% off the starter class which I get the sort of class of the next way to really take using these tools to the next level it's a six-week online course we do have instructors that offer the courses locally so there is a place on our website you go up to the top the very top under who we are and you look for certified instructors or actually no let

56:49 me tell you an easier way go to calendar if you go to the calendar and you look under they online we have online castle classes and we have in-person classes there may very well be an in-person starter class in your area but the online class well the starquest in general is six weeks when you do it online you watch the videos the instructional video so you get patty every week then you get a weekly support call with an instructor

57:16 who who then you know coaches you on the tool you focus on one tool each week and and you also get listing time so again it's a great place to like oh I'm gonna I'm gonna take a starter class so that I can jump in and get into this practice of listening partnerships and then the last way would be a one-on-one private consultation with an instructor and as I told you that's how I got into hand in

57:43 hand where I was I got a consultation with patty and that's what really as I say changed my parenting changed my relationship with my kid and changed my life so so those are all our resources of course our newsletter I hope you're all signed up for our newsletter because that's also got a lot of tips in it every week and let me see what else so series what I'm supposed to say so thank you very much for joining me today and I

58:13 already told you all of the resources and about going to hand in hand parenting gorg oh sorry this is where I'm supposed to say I'm doesn't recommend the self-guided course listening partnerships which is amazing we have five different self-guided video courses sibling rivalry separation aggression

58:43 setting limits sleep oh six and listening partnerships I highly recommend particularly for this subject of what to do when your kids push you over the edge is the listening partnership a self-guided video course again if you join the parent club it's 25% off and we're also giving you some of those videos in our weekly instructional a male but it really it's it's an amazing way to really learn to heal all of those triggers that get triggered when you

59:18 know when our kids are having a tough time and really that's the way to think about it like they're having a tough time and that triggers you know some early stuff in us and now we're having a tough time so now we get to people having a tough time so the listening partnership course is a great way to heal all of our stuff so that when they're having a tough time we don't get triggered that way let's see um and

59:45 again I mentioned my starter class that's happening July 10th at noon that's a Wednesday it'll be 4-6 Wednesday's great time to take it in the summer when you know your kids are home a lot of course if you're in the southern hemisphere it's still school last thing I want to just mention again is that hand in hand is a nonprofit organization and you know with everything we send out and on our web our website there is a donate button so

60:13 you know if you've gotten value from this today hopefully we'll donate because your donation then supports doing more of these free zoom teleseminars or webinars and also you know we have scholarships that we can offer to parents so your donation really supports a whole lot of parents and then I think just lastly we're going to send you a link to the course and a copy of this talk and again I just really want to thank you and I

60:45 want to appreciate you for carving out the time to be here and although those of you who are listening to this we are so pen in hand we are so proud of you we are inspired by you for all the work that you're doing to get the support for yourself and your family and you're all are just doing a great job so thanks again for being here and hopefully we'll see you in the parent club or on the

61:11 next webinar all right bye-bye everybody have a great day or if you're heading to bed sweet dreams bye