Eps 261: Solo Show- Getting Curious About the Belief Behind Behaviors

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:04
Music. Hey, friends, welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and a conscious human on the wild ride of parenting. I am your host. Casey overti Positive Discipline trainer, parent coach and mom walking the path right next to you as I am perfectly raise my own two teenagers. Joyful courage, in case you didn't know, is all about grit, growth on the parenting journey, relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. Today's show is a solo show. I encourage you to listen for how grit shows up as I tease the content apart for you. Thank you so much for listening. I am deeply honored to lead you. I am grateful that what I put out matters to you, and I am so stoked to keep it coming. Thanks for who you are and for being in the community. Enjoy the show.

Hey friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I have to tell you, I've been doing a lot of community research calls, talking to you all, finding out what parents in the community want, finding out what your biggest struggles are, and I just have to say that I am loving them. I am loving taking time to be in direct communication with you all. So thank you to everyone that has been willing to book a call with me and have some conversations around what you're challenged by and what you're looking for with parenting. If you are interested in jumping on the phone with me and sharing what you need. You can still do that. There's still space available. I want you to check the link in the show notes. There will be a link in the show notes that will take you directly to where you need to go to how to book a call. So check the link. Do that. Let's talk. All right, great. During I'm a little tired. I'm gonna be honest, it's the end of the day, and I feel like I've been on my computer for a long time, and I've been having too much caffeine in my life. I haven't been sleeping well, so I'm a little tired, I'm a little giddy, I'm a little wonky today. So you're just gonna get to bear with me. All right, just bear with me during my last solo show a couple weeks ago, I broke down the five criteria for positive discipline, often especially during adolescence, we parents can get really hung up on the question of, well, is this positive discipline? And sometimes we lean into inaction, because we just aren't feeling aligned with how to respond to our kids behavior in a way that makes sense to us, and behavior shows up. So, you know, I don't know if you've heard me mention it before, but I get it. I get it. And, you know, I know this topic was spot on, because I heard from so many people in the community about how useful the breakdown that I shared was. So if you haven't listened to episode 259 I encourage you to go back and check it out. It was a really good show to end it also motivated me to speak more directly on these solo shows into some of the concepts and theories of positive discipline, because I am a positive discipline trainer. You listen to the podcast, you're positive discipline curious, or you are actually, you know, working to practice more positive discipline in your life, and I want to support you with that. So today I'm going to tease apart another concept that is big with those of us working to be better positive discipline parents, and it's called the belief behind behavior. It's also known as mistaken goals of behavior, and as I wrote out this episode, I realized this is actually going to be a multi part episode. There's going to be like part one, part two, part three. We're going to dig deep into this, and it's going to take a few weeks. So be prepared for that. A few years back, you may remember, if you are a longtime listener, that I did an interview with Alison Smith. It was episode 110 and it touched on the importance of finding the need beneath the behaviors that we're seeing. And I have many shows where I reference the iceberg metaphor, right? Remember, the iceberg metaphor is that the behavior we're. Seeing is at the tip of the iceberg, and when we can go under the surface and really get to what's fueling the behavior, we can make really lasting, sustainable change in our home environment. Today, we're going to go even deeper and look at these ideas through the lens of positive discipline. Okay?

So for those of you who are new, I'm gonna give you a little positive discipline. 101, all right. Positive Discipline is a book and a parenting program written by Jane Nelson. Jane has authored and co authored many books in the positive discipline library. Positive Discipline is a stand alone philosophy of parenting, deeply rooted in Adlerian theory. And while positive discipline definitely fits under the umbrella of positive parenting. Understanding the mindset shift that is invited when you begin to study and practice positive discipline is really key. I think a lot of people think about positive parenting and they're like, Yeah, I want to do positive parenting. I want to not yell, I want to not spank, right? But when we're talking about positive discipline, it's a whole different mindset shift. Okay, let me get into that most of us were raised with what is known as the behaviorist model of parenting, crudely defined. It is the idea that with discomfort of imposed consequences and good feelings of rewards, kids will learn to do the right thing, and that there is power in the adults approval or disapproval. Okay, so let me say that again. It's the idea that if we use the right consequences and offer the right rewards. You know, our kids will be easy going, polite, contributing members of society. The assumption is that kids have the tools to be cooperative and in contribution, they are just choosing to act otherwise, right? So there's a lot of choice conversation. When it comes to behaviorists, you're you're making a bad choice and in positive discipline, right? It's roots, again, are an Adlerian theory. It's a different model altogether. The idea here is that behavior is motivated by our perceptions of belonging and significance. What that means a different way, is that a child who has a rock solid connection and sense of purpose is going to show up more cooperatively and easygoing than one that believes he or she is disconnected and that they don't matter. Okay, the assumption is that kids are doing the best they can with the tools they have in the moment perception matters, and that the most powerful tool we have for motivating them lives inside of the relationship that we're nurturing and we always want to be looking at skill development. Okay? So really, it's moving from the question of, what do I need to do to my child to get them to do the right thing, to what does my child need to support them in learning how to do the right thing? Right? Two different questions, what do I need to do to them so that they get it versus what do they need to learn how to live the life they want to live? Right? We're changing our lens from my child as being a problem to my child is having a problem. You've probably seen memes and things with that written on it, but it's a big shift. It's a small tweak. In words, it's a big shift. My child is being a problem. Two, gosh, my child is having a problem. How can I help, right? My child is being a problem. What do I gotta do to him versus my child is having a problem. How can I help? What do they need? It seems like it would be a subtle and simple mindset shift, right? And I see all of you out there who are raised with the behaviorist model, right, raise your hand. I'm with you. And that conditioning runs really deep, right? You've heard me talk about this. We come into parenting deciding who we want to be as parents, and then our kids get an opinion and continue to get opinions and turn into teenagers and want to live their own life, and man, our conditioning really gets poked. I'm going to keep using these solo shows, like I said, to talk about these concepts and go deeper. So keep tuning in. And again today, we're talking about the. Belief behind the behavior, the belief behind the behavior, and I'm hoping to bring this concept of belonging and significance to life a bit more. Okay,

so we're going to name a bunch of behaviors that make us crazy. And you know me, I firmly believe that while we have different flavors of challenges, we are absolutely on a collective journey. So I am confident that naming the things that drive me crazy will for sure be on the list for you, even if you have some other things to land on the list. So how about this? Dishes piling up in your kids rooms? Anyone needing multiple requests to help out, having drama around schoolwork, showing up to school, all things related to school, kids with snarky attitudes, disrespect, defiance, screen, boundary pushing, withdrawal, unwillingness to try new things, sibling conflict. Did you nod your head at any of those challenges? Right? Yeah, we are on a collective journey. It's happening in my house too, okay? And I really want you to hear that, because I think sometimes, you know, there's this idea that people that speak about, write about, podcast about parenting, somehow have it all figured out, and it's easy peasy, and once you have it all figured out, there's no challenging behavior in the home, and that is load of crap a lot. It's just not true. It's not just not true. Now, one thing that I would give myself credit for is a long standing practice in my own personal growth and finding stillness and bringing mindfulness and presence to my practice, yes, absolutely, that has helped me be with the things that show up. But there are plenty of moments where I get caught off guard, my emotions take over, and I am not a perfect, positive discipline parent. Okay, so we are the same. We are the same. Let's play with one of these examples in particular. All right, we're just going to play with one and kind of highlight what can happen. And again, we're looking for, because I often am like talking about the iceberg, and so at the tip of the iceberg there is school drama. Okay, that's a challenge. So we want to get curious about what's going on under the surface. Now, school drama can look different and the same for everyone. And the key to understanding what might be going on deeper in the beliefs of your child is starting with you getting clear on how you are experiencing your child's behavior. So again, here is an invitation to some personal growth and awareness people, right? We have to grow awareness of our own experience if we want to make sense of what's happening around us. Okay, we can't just ignore the fact that we are having an emotional experience, because there's a lot of information inside of that experience, and I'm going to share with you just how that can look. So we must start with us if we want to get under the surface and create lasting change in our life. And it's just how it is okay. So we're going to start with paying attention to how it feels when the school drama comes up with your child. My guess is when you really make an intention to pay attention, you will feel one of four ways, and let's just break it down. Okay, maybe your child only works on school when you are right there, over their shoulder, paying lots of attention, checking the dashboard of the sky, word. But when you walk away or you're not paying a ton of attention, they're on to something else, and they just don't care. My guess is that this feels annoying or irritating, right? It's like this kind of drama is like a pesky fly that just won't leave you alone. There might be a lot of eye rolling on your part, and maybe some Ugh, gosh, why can't you just do this without me? Right? But it's a light experience, like it's a surfacey kind of top of the body experience. It's annoying. Yes, it lives in your shoulders and in your eyeballs and maybe in the muscles on your face. It's annoying, right? It's annoying. Maybe your child won't follow the guidelines that you have set out for the school routine and is flat out defiant about it. This could invite you into feeling some anger and feeling of being challenged, right? There's more intensity in this response. You it's like the experience of your hackles being raised, like, ah, you know what you will do this. This is how it will go down, and there's a lot of rigidity and not a lot of flexibility. This is a place where threats can show up. And this might also be a place where your kids hackles get raised too, and you kind of come to this standoff, right? Or maybe the experiences that you're having is your child lashing out at you about school, saying they don't care about school. They don't care about you. They just don't care who cares. Now this might leave you feeling hurt, uh, disappointed, maybe even defeated. It tends to feel the experience in the body can feel like a punch to the gut, like, oh, we take it personally. How could you do this? Where have I gone wrong? You know, we make might just make this behavior about us. I know, I know I'm not the only one that does this, and I'm guessing I don't have the only child that is really good at pointing out when I'm doing this. But yeah, it's that feeling of, oh god. Why? You know, like we feel hurt, or maybe the fourth possibility, maybe your child quietly avoids school. Maybe they're really passive or disengaged at any attempt at conversation. They might seem unwilling to take any steps towards making an effort. You probably feel despair and hopelessness, maybe even inadequate to be their parent, right? This is not like a fiery hackles raise punch like this is a calmer, more helpless place. The experience is like as if you've just you've been wrung out, you've been rung out. You don't have anything more. You have no reserves, no more to give. It isn't this big explosive thing. It's more of avoidance from our kids than anything else. Now, do you see yourself in any of those scenarios? Do you recognize the dynamic of any of those scenarios, let me just say them one more time. So that first scenario is your child basically believing like I am important, I am connected to you when you are busy with me, when you are paying attention to me, right? And so the behavior is designed to keep us engaged in that, and it's annoying, right? And then the second scenario is a feeling of, I matter, I belong when I'm in charge, or at least proving that you can't boss me, right? And that's when we get our hackles raised. We step into power struggle. That third scenario is, you know, our kids feeling disempowered and disengaged to a place where it's painful, it hurts them, and so they don't feel belonging in significance, and so they lash out at us, right? And that's why that behavior is so painful because, ugh, it can be about hurting us. We're receiving the hurt that our kids are living with. And then finally, that last scenario is really our kids in a deep belief that they can't matter, they can't belong, they can't engage, they aren't good enough. And so of course, that's just a heart wrenching place to be, and we can start to feel like we have no reserves.

So this model, and there's more to it than this, and I'm going to get deeper into each of these scenarios in later podcasts. But this model was first designed by Rudolph dreikers, and he was a student of Alfred Adler. He found in his work that the first reason, typically, the first reason, for our kids to misbehave, is that they desire attention. They are seeking a sense of connection. I actually have a colleague who says, kids long for connection. They'll settle for attention, right? So if their perception of connection is skewed, right? And the classic example of this is when we bring home a new baby, but it can absolutely happen, I think, in the teen years too, because often our kids move into the teen years, and we feel a little bit like, Okay, now we can have a little bit more of a life, and maybe we turn away from them a little bit in, you know, in an effort to give them more space, right? And they're missing that connection. And so. So they are looking for ways to get us to pay attention to them right now, if they don't experience in draker's work, what he found was, if they don't experience the connection that they crave through their actions, good or bad, you know, doing well on a paper or throwing a tantrum, they move on to seeking power, right? So if they can't create the connection, they move into I'll show you, right? And seeking power, they look for that sense of purpose in grabbing control wherever they can. You are not the boss of me. They might, you know, in the homework example, they might refuse to complete a paper or study for a test, give us the big middle finger right now, if the power struggle you know exists, and we remain really rigid and maintain that sense of large and in charge, we the parents they might seek revenge, right? Not only do I feel disconnected, but clearly I have no power over my life, and that hurts. That's painful. I'm going to pass this pain around. And again, this is where things can really feel personal and hurtful. So you can be sure that if you are currently living with a teenager, who is, you know mean, who you feel like is so mean that there is some hurt going on for that kid and your job, your job is to be curious enough and time it well, to reach out to them in a way that allows them to open up and share. Now, if revenge does not achieve the desired outcome, right? If even in revenge, they aren't gaining back that healthy sense of belonging and significance that they're looking for, they start to feel inadequate, right? And so our kids begin to withdraw into themselves and disengaging at a whole new level that allows them to avoid any sense of humiliation. I know that you love your children with all of your heart. I know that it is the most vulnerable, tender, raw relationship that you probably have ever experienced, and I know that the last thing you want to do is give them a complex I know that you want what's best for them. I know that parenting is an emotional experience, and sometimes our best of intentions can be delivered in a way that sends a message that we don't realize that we're sending. Remember, kids are really good perceivers, right? We say they're always watching. Yeah, they're always watching. They're picking up cues, they're listening to conversations, but they're not great interpreters, right? So they're making meaning through a lens, through a filter that is only as developed as their life experience, right? And so sometimes we think we're sending one message, but they're receiving something totally different. So okay, if you're feeling any kind of feels about Oh God, what have I done? I want you to shake it off. Shake it off, because the good news about the dynamics in your household today can be shifted by how you decide to show up, starting now, starting now. And I'm going to give you one tip for today. We're like I said in the next few solo shows, we're going to dig deeper into this belief behind behavior piece, but one thing, one tool that shows up no matter where your kid lands, whether they're in that attention seeking, connection making tier, whether you're in the power struggle tier, whether you're in The Revenge tier, or whether you're in the avoidance helpless, hopeless tear, one thing that you can do that always makes a difference on the beliefs that they're holding is to connect and to create special time. Now I know you guys, we have teenagers, and a lot of us have teenagers who maybe don't want anything to do with us. Okay, I am not going to let you use that as an excuse. You have got to create connection with your teenager, and maybe this week, all it is is writing them a note. Write them a note to tell them how much you love them. Add to the note the qualities and the characteristics that you see developing in them, the good ones, right? And let them know that you would love to join them for a show on Netflix or a walk or E. And just inviting them, even nothing, just send the note, like, if all you're gonna do is send the note, great. How about we do that without any expectation? How about we just send the note without any expectation? And maybe, maybe, just maybe, you make it a practice to highlight things that you're noticing, and let them know in written form. Texts are good for this, and don't follow up. Just let them be and notice what happens over time. Notice what happens over time as you experience your teens softening, then maybe the invitation for coming to the couch and watching some bachelor or bachelorette or a sporting event, right? Or playing a video game or doing something that's interesting to them side by side together, that doesn't require a lot of talking, right? So that is what I challenge you with this week is special time with your kids, however it looks for you and your child is fine. Okay, we're not going to compare, we're not going to judge. We're going to start where we're at and make baby steps, and then again, in a couple weeks, I'm going to come back on solo like this, and we're gonna dig even deeper into this concept of belief behind the behavior. Okay, starting it off with nurturing relationship, because it's so awesome. You can do it. You can do it. I am excited for you, too. If you're listening to this and you're like, I really want to do this, but I'm struggling, feel free to send me an email. Send me an email. Let me know what you're struggling with. Let me support you. Okay, let me support you. And because I have faith, I have faith, and I believe that all kids want to feel connected with their parents, it's just a lot of layers, sometimes to peel back, and maybe even some behavior on our part to take accountability for and to own and to start again. All right, you've got this.

Thank you for listening, my friends, if you feel inspired, if you loved this show, if you love me and the podcast and you haven't already, please, please, please, do me a favor and head over to Apple podcasts and leave a review. This is huge. We are working super hard over here to stand out and make a massive impact on families around the globe. Your review on Apple podcasts helps the joyful courage podcast to be seen by even more parents. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Also follow joyful underscore courage on Instagram and Facebook. We love connecting with you on social media and again. Thank you to our sponsor teen counseling. Remember you can get 10% off your first month of counseling for your teenager at teen counseling.com/jc. Teen big, love friends. I'll see you next week.