When Your Kid Is Rejected

0:00 why is it so hard to find reliable answers to parenting questions how is it in 2022 parents still search on google for answers from strangers well now there's a better way introducing the good inside membership an expert guided community-powered platform redefining modern parenting in our library you'll find hundreds of bite-sized videos articles scripts and workshops tackling the trickiest parenting topics and it doesn't stop

0:33 here we've created a private community guided by me dr becky and coaches trained in the good inside parenting method here you can ask questions connect with other parents or attend a live event on a topic that matters to you this is the parenting handbook that doesn't exist this is parenting advice at your fingertips where you need it when you need it the most this is good inside membership hi i'm dr becky and this is good inside

1:07 i'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children [Music] i love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away one of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available to us in that moment so even as we struggle and even as we are having a hard time on

1:38 the outside we remain good inside [Music] this episode is a little bit of a follow-up to a different episode which is episode number 38 entitled she can't play with us and other tricky friendship moments here's one of the things i love about this community after that episode came out many of you reached out and said

2:10 huh that episode was all about how to approach your child who rejects other kids what about helping your child who is rejected by other kids we could really use some strategies to cope with those tricky situations thank you for speaking up you spoke up you left voicemails and now i am going to share so many different ideas and strategies about that side of peer dynamics this truly is the best

2:41 community in the world you speak up you tell me what you want and as a result we can co-create important episodes together so with that in mind let's jump in [Music] our first caller is emily dr becky my name is emily i'm calling from the boston area and my kid is only two so he hasn't had any experiences yet of

3:13 being excluded or rejected by his peers but i'm actually calling with memories of my own experience as a child we moved across the country when i was turning eight and i was immediately rejected and excluded in my new school but i never told my parents and i'm pretty sure they never knew i think at the time i was aware that they were anxious about my happiness and i wanted to please them and make the move easier for them so i just never

3:43 told them that i remember crying myself to sleep at night as a parent now i wonder you know how would i find out if my kid were rejected and excluded if they were sensitive enough to realize that that might feel like sad news to me and i didn't want to share thanks so much hi emily first and foremost i wanted to share that i am so sorry you were alone with such tough feelings feeling left out feeling excluded

4:12 feeling rejected is literally a feeling of aloneness and then to feel alone in your family system around your experience of aloneness well it just makes it that much harder so i think it would be really really powerful if when you have a moment you imagine you today walking into that girl's room knocking on her door saying i can tell something's going on i

4:44 want to hear about it because i'm guessing there's a part of you that still would want connection and presence around those really really hard experiences now you ask a really really important question how do we set the stage for our kids to share tough feelings with us what can we do to increase the likelihood that when our kids are excluded they tell us when our kids are going through a tricky situation when they're 16 they come to

5:16 us instead of hide it from us well there are so many things we could talk about that can't all fit into this episode but i'll share some starting thoughts and i have three main things to talk about first we want to show our kids that we're more invested in their experience than in how their experience impacts us when we do this we essentially tell our kid you can always talk to me about the things that are hard for you

5:48 i will pay attention to your feelings instead of becoming overwhelmed by my feelings about your feelings because when we become overwhelmed with our own feelings about our kids feelings that is something our kids feel and then emily what you said is what plays out our kids notice it's really not safe to share certain things with my parents so how can we show our kids that we're more invested in their experience than in how their experience impacts us there are so

6:20 many different examples but let's take a common one your child says to you i hate you or your two-year-old has a major tantrum in public when we're more invested in impact on us we say things like this that hurts my feelings when you say that to me or stop you're embarrassing me when we are more invested in our kids experience we say something like this in the i hate you situation whoa okay i need a moment i need a deep breath

6:51 wow you must be really upset about something to say that to me let's figure that out i really care about what's happening to you or the tantrum in public we say you're having a hard time i'm going to pick you up and take you to a quieter area we'll get through this together what does a child learn in these situations my parent can tolerate hard feelings my parent is looking at my experience not at their experience of my

7:21 experience second idea let's talk about hard things that our kids notice early on this says to a kid in our relationship we can talk about hard feelings here's a couple examples i know you overheard me and your father arguing we were using loud voices i'm sure that felt scary tell me what that was like for you something totally different yes you just noticed a person sleeping on the street a person who doesn't have

7:53 a home what's that like to see or i'm not going to be here when you get home from school today i wanted to make sure you know that even though i know that's not what you want and though i know that might feel upsetting i want to be honest with you always even when things feel tough third example it feels silly to say that there's three powerful lines in parenting that help our kids feel safe talking to us but i also kind of feel

8:20 like it's true so i want to share those lines with you i'm gonna say them and then show you how you would use them especially as your child gets older first line i'm so glad you're sharing that with me two you really know you feel that way three tell me more my child comes home and says i wasn't invited to julia's birthday party i have no friends instead of oh i'll make you a playdate that day or you have lots of

8:46 friends i'm so glad you're sharing that with me it's so important my child is upset i might say you're really upset you really know you feel that way tell me more what these lines do is they really communicate to a child the part of you that feels upset the part of you that gets overwhelmed the part of you that has tough things happen i can connect to that part i'm interested in that part i can tolerate

9:12 those feelings and i feel close to you when you're having those feelings those feelings lead to a secure attachment and connection not to judgment or a quick solution or me distancing myself this really sets the stage for your child as they get older to think of you as the person they connect to when they're struggling instead of as a person that they need to avoid talking to when they're struggling

9:44 [Music] our second caller is erica hi dr becky my name is erica i have a 15 month old daughter and i have a newly six-year-old daughter my six-year-old's in kindergarten this year and we've had two tricky situations happen one last year when she was in preschool where a little girl that she played with quite often from her preschool class told her one day on the playground that she didn't want to play with her ever

10:14 again and she wouldn't be her friend anymore my daughter was obviously very upset when she came home from school and shared this with me and she just kept asking why why would this other little girl say this to me i did my best to explain that maybe that little girl was having a hard day i knew that she had a new baby brother at home and maybe that she was just feeling stressed and i tried to explain that as

10:38 best i could to my daughter of course the next day they played together and everything was fine but i still felt sort of helpless in that situation i didn't quite know what the right thing to say was and then this year in kindergarten her best friend in her class told her one day that she couldn't play puppies on the playground with her and two other girls and my daughter was confused since this is the little girl she plays with the

11:03 most and in that situation i did my best to explain that you know if this little girl is friendly and kind to her most of the time then she's probably still a great friend and we just have to forgive people when they make a mistake and have a rough day and that she has mistake makes mistakes too but again i was kind of feeling like i was digging down in the well that i couldn't quite find the right words to

11:26 say so i would love your guidance on when what to say when my daughter is feeling rejected by friends not just other kids that she doesn't play with often but actually friends that she does play with and connect with on a regular basis thank you so much hi erica first and foremost i just want to tell you that i can hear in your voice how much you care about your daughter and how you really want to support her in all of this and

12:00 i just want to tell you how i can totally feel that from you in your voice and that just says so much about the kind of parent you are so to me the first question is really what does a child need when they feel rejected when your child comes home and says no one played with me at the playground when your child comes home and says i'm the only one not invited to the sleepover when your child comes home

12:26 and says this person says i'm a loser what do they need our kids need to feel not alone in their experience being rejected by peers is a moment of total aloneness it feels like you're falling into an abyss because you don't have a friend right next to you being rejected by someone on the playground actually doesn't feel as bad if you have a friend who says don't say that to her you can't say that to

12:56 him that's my friend you're being a bully that is still something you'll probably hear about when your child comes home but not in the same way the reason our kids come off the bus in a puddle of tears telling us something awful that happened is because of the aloneness of what happened i want you right now erica to picture your child in some type of actual little hole like a little hole in the ground it's the hole

13:24 of pure rejection and now i want you to actually imagine the difference between putting your hand in and yanking her out versus seeing her and jumping in with her when you jump into that feeling with your child you do something so powerful you really say to them this feeling that feels so awful to you is survivable it's survivable because i'm jumping into it with you and so you know i'm not scared of it now the

13:54 feeling also feels less bad because you are there right next to your child when you try to pull a child out which is kind of the equivalent of saying we don't like that person anyway or you can get different friends or she didn't mean it the next time our child feels rejected they remember that nobody was in that hole with them that aloneness still remains we want our kids to feel our support and when they feel our support they can come

14:22 out of those feelings on their own they kind of feel bolstered to climb out of that hole okay let's put this all into practice i want to go over those lines i just shared with emily because i can imagine you saying them almost line for line with your daughter when she tells you about something someone said to her that was mean start with these words i am so glad you're talking to me about this or a different version of that is i'm so

14:48 glad you came to me with this this is the exact kind of stuff i want to be talking to you about this is so important what would happen next you really know how bad that felt i believe you i believe you are words all of us should be saying more often to our kids when our kids get those words from us they stop the spiral of am i crazy did i feel this too big would someone else

15:16 have felt this way they feel so validated and then tell me more specific questions are actually really helpful when you're hearing these story to kids because it really infuses your supportive presence back into the story where they felt alone what does that mean where were you on the playground when that happened oh the bench the one on the top of the hill or the one on the bottom of the hill oh the one at the bottom of the hill and

15:41 who else was there oh those kids were there you're really getting into the story it's almost like your child now has you the supportive parent with them to feel less alone in the memory one other thing comes to mind erica about this sometimes our kids aren't really looking for answers to the questions they ask but rather the questions are please to help them with their underlying feelings

16:13 and the question why would she do this why would she say that it really feels like that type of question i don't really think your child is looking for an explanation but when i hear a kid saying why would she do this why would she say this i feel like i translate those words into mom it felt so bad mom that felt so awful mom i've never felt so alone so embarrassed and so when your child says but why why would

16:41 she say this i would take a deep breath and say i'm not exactly sure about the why we can keep thinking about that but sweetie i think you're letting me know that it felt so bad not normal bad but like huge bad like as huge as this whole room maybe as huge as oh as huge as this whole house whoa as huge as our whole neighborhood and then i think you might see erica how we can

17:03 even go back to some of those lines as big as this whole neighborhood i believe you i know how bad it feels to have things said to us by friends that feel awful i believe you and again i'm just so glad we're talking about this [Music] let's hear from our final caller kate hi dr becky my name is kate and i live

17:35 in upstate new york i have two kids um one boy who is ten and one girl who is seven and my daughter is seven like i said and she has a really great couple of good friends it's usually the three of them so my daughter and two other girls the same age they get along separately amazingly when all three of them are together there always seems to be a situation where the two other girls will reject my

18:04 daughter they will try to pair up and go off and do something else they will not include her in what they're playing with and always my daughter is very sensitive she ends up getting very upset always turns into something so i'm just looking for some sort of strategies to help her through those situations um to understand she's not doing anything wrong you know and that it doesn't mean that her friends don't like her because i i know they do

18:32 i know that they do when they are with her separately they play so so well together um and a lot of times when the three of them are together they're playing fine but it seems inevitable there's always a time when she becomes rejected so thank you so much i am i really look forward to hearing your response hi kate uh i'm taking a deep breath just thinking about group dynamics about friendship about what it's like to

18:59 have an individual friendship what it's like to be with that friend and other friends about the energy in a group about the potential to feel left out in a group i i think so many of us even find these things difficult to traverse as adults and i think a lot of us remember how hard group dynamics were as kids so just want to start out saying yep it's tricky to manage relationships in a group setting a couple ideas for how you can help your

19:32 daughter i think first normalize how tough group dynamics are and speak about it in your own life this really sets the stage for your child to feel safer and more open with you because they don't feel alone in this struggle i could see myself saying something like this to my daughter it can be tough to be in a group right i mean i don't know about for you i just i know it is for me i mean i can be with

20:01 one of my friends and i feel like i'm getting attention we're having a good conversation we're having fun and i feel like wow we're really good friends and then we're in a group with a bunch of people and it's like what like why am i not getting the same attention why is that person getting more laughs why is no one doing what i want to do why does no one want to sit next to me i wonder if it ever feels like that for

20:22 you now i don't expect my daughter to look at me and say mom thank you for opening up such a meaningful conversation yes actually it does and i've been waiting to talk to you about this no that doesn't happen i am through my own story normalizing something and i'm helping my child get closer to a place where they might speak about it to me where they might even be more specific about what happens

20:53 because i was willing to kind of go first and join in that same type of problem second idea help your child predict in advance what group playdates might be like so again if this was my child i could imagine not right before but maybe it's the day before or much earlier in the day just saying i wonder what it's going to be like when all of you are together and i know sometimes it can start out

21:24 great and then well someone ends up feeling left out someone cries someone says something hurtful no one's in trouble here just what might it be like you might go further hmm what's gonna happen when you're all playing that game together who's gonna go first who's gonna sit next to who what's gonna happen if you wanna sit next to one of your friends and they're already sitting next to someone else what's gonna happen if two of your

21:52 friends are i don't know like telling a secret to each other and they say to you sorry we can't tell you what might that feel like again by talking about these moments in advance i'm normalizing them and i'm actually maximizing the likelihood that we can think through this together now if you're thinking okay what if my child says it's gonna feel bad what do i do with that don't underestimate the power i'm just

22:23 saying yeah that would feel really bad for me too i'm glad we're thinking about this together because just by predicting that you're actually pre-regulating some of the feelings because once again we're removing that awful feeling of aloneness we're removing it in advance by kind of getting into a moment that could happen before it even arises now i do think you can do one more step if your child seems open to it after

22:54 those questions what might that be like i wonder if i felt an opening i can imagine saying hmm well if they are telling a secret and say to you we can't tell you sorry i wonder what you could do like do you want to do something is there something you'd want to say hmm right and now i'm building a coping skill for a tricky peer situation because i've been willing to name

23:26 what i know probably will happen i'm doing it without judgment i'm not blaming the other kids or my child um essentially just walking through the arc of the story and pausing so me and my child can think through some coping skills i would want to give my child the option of not saying anything i think too often kids feel pressure like i have to say the right thing or i have to stand up for myself and

23:54 so i could see myself saying look it's really hard to tell your friends you're really upset with them i get it it's something that's important but it's something that takes a lot of practice and so you don't have to say something to them i wonder even and this might sound a little weird but bear with me i wonder if there's something you could say to yourself even if you don't say something to them just so you can remind yourself really

24:21 that you're a good person that you're likable that you're valuable that you know you can talk to me about it after i wonder if we could practice something like that like i'm allowed to be upset i'm gonna talk to my mom about it later i'm allowed to be upset i could talk to my mom about it later the truth is so often when our kids are rejected we jump to what they should say to someone else

24:47 but helping our kids build self-talk to kind of ground themselves in a moment of exclusion is a precursor to being regulated enough to have the composure to talk to a friend and stand up for themselves so actually just focusing on that moment of essentially helping your child regain their self-worth is both going to help them get grounded and actually is that first step to being able to stand up for yourself

25:21 [Music] thank you emily erica and kate for calling in about this important topic let's tie it all together with three main takeaways one these three lines are truly some of my favorite lines in all of parenting i'm so glad you're talking to me about this you really know you feel this way tell me more write those lines down say them out loud to a mirror a few times to practice them

25:53 and see what happens when you use them in a conversation with your child two our child doesn't need our solutions to their peer problems as much as our child needs our presence in their peer problems now this doesn't mean you have to physically go and insert yourself your presence is the way you respond to your child's feelings when they share them what's worse than rejection is feeling

26:26 alone in rejection when you share it with another person and remember that once our kids have our support their tough feelings become more manageable three think more about what your child needs to learn to say to themselves when they feel excluded and less about what your child needs to say to others or at least focus on self-talk first this is an often overlooked step and it's critical for a

26:58 child to regain their sense of value of worth before they're able to speak up to others thanks for listening to good inside i love co-creating episodes with you based on the real-life tricky situations in your family to share what's happening in your home you can call 646-598-2543 or email a voice note to goodinside

27:28 podcast gmail.com there are so many more strategies and tips i want to share with you head to goodinside.com and sign up for good insider my free weekly email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox and follow me on instagram and facebook at dr becky at goodinside for a daily dose of parenting and self-care ideas good inside with dr becky is produced by beth rowe and marie cecile anderson an

28:00 executive produced by erica belski and me dr becky if you enjoyed this episode please take a moment to rate and review it or share this episode with a friend or family member as a way to start an important conversation let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves even as i struggle and even as i have a hard time on the outside i remain

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