Eps 279: Solo Show- Breaking Down the Process of Making Agreements

Transcription

Casey O'Roarty 0:03
Kay, Hello 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 raising our kids. I'm your host. Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer, parent, coach and mom walking the path right next to you as I imperfectly parent my own two teenagers, joyful courage 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. As you listen in on today's show, pay attention to how grit shows up in the conversation. Thank you so much for listening. I am deeply honored to lead you, so grateful that what I put out matters to you and really, really excited to keep it coming. If you love this show, please take a screenshot and share it on your social media. Let your friends know that you are listening and finding value in this podcast onto the show.

Hey there. Hi, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to summer. Yes, it finally feels like summer up here. So today, as I'm recording today, is my son's last day of ninth grade, which is very exciting. It's also his last basketball game for his high school. Our district did this crazy like late compact season, so he's been able to play on the JV basketball team for his high school, and he's even had a little bit of time playing on the varsity team, which is very exciting, because basketball is his passion. The weather up here in the Pacific Northwest finally feels like summer sunshine, warm air, my favorite. And I'm anticipating, in just a few weeks, getting on an airplane, I get to travel to Costa Rica to spend some time with some amazing women and be in my Super Soul care. Can't wait. And on the way back, I'm stopping in Southern California for my 30 year high school reunion. 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That is the space that is who is being served each quarter. Members get a 30 minute one on one call with me, two monthly group calls, so six calls total over the course of the three months. Yes, we do a book club opportunity, and always end the quarter with a half day retreat, the which is the Mama's retreat. And as members, you get to be a part of the retreat for free. It's part of your membership, plus ongoing support and community in an interactive forum space. Enrollment again, opens July 1. So be ready to join us. This is a really lovely way to just get that get that one on one support, get that group support. Have access to me. It's really yummy. You guys group calls are scheduled for the second and fourth, Wednesday, July, August and September, from five to 7pm Pacific time. So that's already in the books. That's when we're meeting for group calls. All the group calls are recorded and saved in an archive. So you can, if you can't make a call, you can listen to the replay. And like I said, the community is what is so powerful about this space. So yeah, love it. Stay tuned. Enrollment opens July 1. Okay, today's content I am glad to be talking about and sharing with you about the membership and the community, because the content today comes directly, as usual, from conversations I'm having in the membership, as well as I'm three weeks in to the parenting for the season you're in class. So that's happening. We've talked about this content there just last night on the call, I've been talking about it with the parent educators that I'm supporting, as well as one on one clients. The topic is making agreements with our kids, making agreements with our tweens and teens. Now there is what I love. You know, I'm a positive discipline trainer, and we have a great process to take parents through, to help them create co create, really agreements with our kids in a way that increases and strengthens connection. Also hands over the energetics of responsibility, and really just holds a place where we can have conversations about challenges and come up with solutions in a really positive and healthy way. And when I say positive, I really mean just connected and authentic and transparent way. So before we really even get into creating agreements with our kids, let me just tell you if there is a place that feels like a rub for you, if you're having a challenge with your child and it just is ongoing, and it feels like you can't You're not really landing on any solutions. It keeps showing up. That is a great indicator maybe that sitting down and doing this agreement process might be really helpful. Okay, so,

and before you even get into discussing solutions, it's really, really important to sit down with our kids and get clear on how they are experiencing the challenge. So keeping in mind, you know, as you move into these conversations, sometimes kids don't know what they want, so we have to give them time to think of a solution, which sometimes means we start this conversation, we start this process, and then we pause it for a bit and just say, you know, just pay attention the next time this challenge shows up, and really see what's getting in your way. Sometimes we don't really know what the actual problem is until we're willing to hear it from the child's point of view. This is where we have an opportunity to recognize where we're holding some assumptions, and the invitation is to lean into the possibility that maybe we parents have it wrong. This is a super important step. We're going to talk more about it in a moment, keeping in mind that this is a solution focused process. This is not a process where you come up with a bunch of consequences if the child doesn't follow through on what you want them to do. That is not what this agreement process is about. This is about finding solutions and just a reminder with positive discipline, we look at solutions as related to the problem. A reasonable, respectful of everybody involved and Helpful. Helpful. Helpful is the key word. We want the agreement we create with our kids to be helpful. We want to look for solutions that are going to support them the next time they're feeling the tension of the challenge. Okay, we're really deciding what both sides are willing to do. We're looking for a win, win and when possible, establishing a deadline, if that's appropriate for the agreement, establishing a deadline, really getting clear on expectations, right? So here's the four steps to making an agreement, and I'm going to pop in the show notes, a handout that you can use to move through this process with your tweens and teens. So and this is absolutely a great process if your kids are younger school age, absolutely you can use this process. So the very first step is having that discussion, having that friendly discussion where everybody is getting to voice, yeah, getting to voice his or her feelings and thoughts about the challenge, about the issue. Okay, this is super important for a lot of reasons. Well, first thing everybody needs to be regulated. So remember, brain in the palm of the hand and lid flipping like No, lid flipping here. You got to be regulated. You got to be feeling good, okay, feeling ready to be in conversation with each other. So this is not a heat of the moment as it's happening conversation. This is outside of that. Some ways to open up the conversation is to simply say, hey, you know, we're really getting into it around your curfew lately, or your schoolwork, or, you know, taking out the garbage or your phone use, tell me about how you feel about the curfew or schoolwork or chores or screens, right? So we're asking them like, tell me what you're noticing about our conflict around this thing. How are you feeling about the current situation, right? So we want to invite them in. And I will say right here, sometimes our kids will answer with, well, I don't know, right? I don't know, because they can smell a trap. So sometimes, if you're really getting a lot of resistance, you may need to take a couple steps back even further and say, you know, I am not looking to trap you. I know in the past, I have, you know, really been strict or rigid or closed minded about XYZ, like you might have to own some stuff. Because really what you want to do is you want to loosen up the environment so that your teens feel emotionally safe to step into this conversation with you, because they have really good bullshit radars, you guys, right? They know when you're coming in, looking to manipulate a situation, and you get to really recognize, like, Am I coming into this conversation with the agreement that I want already in my mind? If that's the case, then you get to do a little bit of work around that. Because this process is a collaborative process. This is CO creating agreements. This is creating a win, win, win, win means you feel okay with the solution, and your team does too, right? Might not be exactly what you want it to look like might not be exactly what they want it to look like, so you're going to have to do a little bit of stretching. So check yourself before you wreck yourself here, right? So starting off engaging them, trying to find out what it is that's getting in their way, also asking questions like, Hey, so what do you notice about me when I'm responding to you know you coming home late or not following through with chores or screens or whatever the challenge is like, what are you noticing about me? Listen right? Listen to this. Do not get defensive. You might hear some things you don't like. Their perspective is valid. Their experience of you is their experience of you, right? What an opportunity to get some outside perspective about how you're showing up. And I am here to say there have been many times where I feel like I've handled situations pretty well, and my kids offer me feedback and let me know that actually the message that I'm trying to give them is not the message that they're receiving. So it's really great to check in with your kids on this, and to be willing to be vulnerable enough to find out how they're experiencing you and also, you know, really coming to understand what is getting we want to find out what's getting in their way. Because kids, teens, you know, they're not on a mission to make our lives challenging, right? They want to be in relationship with us, ultimately, and things get in the way, and sometimes it's things that we don't know about because we don't ask, or they're feeling hurt and they don't want to tell us, because that's a great way to hurt us, right? Remember the episode I did about revenge? Right? Sometimes, you know, when the sabotage comes in or the unwillingness to connect comes in, you can make the guess that they're feeling hurt and disconnected, and the best way to maneuver that is to hurt you, right? That's an indicator, right? So we want to find out what's, what's getting in the way, what's making it hard for you to do the right thing, to follow through, to meet this expectation, right? So you want to figure that out. And then we get to offer our own like, well, here's where, here's where I'm at, here's what, why. This is a problem for me, using emotional honesty, without blame or shame, no blame or shame here. Why is the situation a problem for you? Right? Why is this a problem for you? So you have this conversation to get more clear on what the actual problem is. And again, I'm going to focus in on this a little bit more in a moment. But the next step, the next step after this friendly conversation where everybody gets heard, is to say, okay, great. So what are some things? What are some solutions that are going to support in this challenge, right? What are some things we can do that are going to be helpful around this challenge? All ideas are recorded. You want to really encourage your kids to share solutions first and really tell me more. Tell me more. What else? What else all ideas are recorded. You might even say, what are your wild and crazy ideas? Like, all of them get recorded. And then you get to add some wild and crazy ideas to the list as well. You want to generate a list of ideas. And then you and your child get to look at the list and say, Okay, what on this list doesn't work for you? Are they reasonable, respectful, related, helpful. You want to use that lens. Some things are not reasonable. Some things are not helpful. I've been in this process many times, but as far as helpful goes, you know, like we've talked, you know, this is often a process that we use that have we have used around screens and around chores, and like, one of the solutions is around chores, where the kids will say, just tell us what to do. And that's not helpful, because I don't, I don't want that job, so I will, I will cross that on and say, well, that that hasn't been helpful. So that's not really a useful idea. Or the kids might offer, you know, I'll

say, they might say, well, we'll just do it. Well, okay, but that hasn't really been working out, so we'll cross that off. Or they might have something that I want to cross off, I might suggest something that they want to cross off. So that's the thing. We want to curate the list, so that what is left everybody's okay with, and then we invite our teens to pick one or two of the solutions to practice for the upcoming week and see if it is useful, right? So we have, we've brainstormed a list, and then we've kind of narrowed it down to the things that are respectful, related, reasonable and helpful, and then we hand over the responsibility to our tweens and teens, and we say, pick two of these things or one, depending on the you know, if it's appropriate to practice this Week. And we'll talk again. We'll circle back up on this next Thursday, next Friday, next Saturday, a week from today, to see what was useful, what wasn't useful, we're going to revisit and revise if necessary. So this is really important, both for our kids to hear like this isn't something that's set in stone. This is something that we're going to try for a week and see if it's useful, and there's room to tweak it if we need to. This is also good for you parents to hear. You know, I think we have this idea that the perfect agreement means that here it is, we've signed it, and now it's good to go from now until forever, and that's just and then we get really irritated when it, quote, stops working, right? We're not looking for something to work. We're looking for what is helpful, what's helpful for our kids, right? And sometimes it's going to take a while and some revising and some tweaking and some more. Conversations to get to the place where the thing, the solution, the agreement, is helpful for a period of time, keeping in mind too, that what an agreement that's appropriate for a 13 year old might not be appropriate for a 14, which might not be appropriate for a 15. Like agreements are meant to be revisited, played with, tweaked as our kids get older, because the space around them, the amount of managing that we're doing, should be flexing as they get older, as they gain more skills, you know I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. So you invite them to pick the solutions that they're going to try for for the week, pick one or two great we'll talk again about this on Friday. We've written everything down, put it up on the fridge, put it up somewhere, or you will forget. I will forget. The kids will forget. And the fourth step is understanding our kids well enough to know and kids in general that the deadline the follow through probably won't be met, and you get to simply follow through with your part of the agreement by holding them accountable. Okay, holding them accountable sounds like keeping things simple and concise. So I notice you didn't get the dishes done. Please do that now. In response to objections, we simply say, Well, what was our agreement? What was the agreement? Broken record here, people, in response to further objections, just use nonverbal communication. Point to your watch. Point to the agreement on the fridge. Smile knowingly, give them a little side hug if they let you, point to your watch again when the child concedes to keep the agreement, sometimes with annoyance, eye rolls, stomping, whatever, right. Just simply say, Thanks for keeping our agreement. This is a simple process. It's not always easy. It does require, it does require our practice of self regulation, because it's annoying when they don't follow through. We go through the process, we we're all excited, and then they don't follow through, and that's like, again, annoying. Notice. Notice what happens in your body when your lid starts to flip. Notice what's happening for you. Parents, self awareness. Notice what's happening for you. Take care of you. Trust the process. Now I want to go back to that initial conversation, right? I want you to remember whenever we're looking at a challenge to keep the iceberg in mind. And I've done shows in the past about the iceberg metaphor, the problem isn't always the problem. There's always more going on under the surface. And if we really want to solve problems and challenges, that's where we go. We go under the surface, because the challenge that you're having may actually be a solution to a challenge that your child is going through that you don't even know about. This is why that initial conversation is so important. You want to try and discover what's happening under the surface, what's getting in the way, right? What's getting in the way of your child, you know, simply taking out the garbage or doing their laundry or coming home at curfew, or you know, not putting their phone away or whatever, right? There's a bazillion different challenges that we could talk about, but we want to try to figure out what's happening under the surface. So keep that in mind, like what's getting in their way. And I would encourage you to notice when your mindset goes to, well, they're just lazy, or they're just willful, or they just won't do it. And I invite you to challenge that like, challenge that a bit like and granted. And we're going to talk about a couple of four of the traps that we get into, one of which being like wanting them to have, expecting them to have the same priorities and values as we have. They just don't, and that's not a character flaw in the context of peer pressure. So sometimes our kids are getting into mischief due to the peers in their life getting into mischief, and them kind of pulling your child into it. That's real. You know, they've done scientific studies that show the more teens in the group, the higher the likelihood of risky behavior, mischief of that group mentality of like, Yeah, let's do this really stupid thing. So. No keeping that in mind, it isn't enough to say, just don't do that. Just say, No, you know, you know it's the wrong thing to do, so don't do it. It isn't enough to say that to our kids and expect them to to hear it and say, Okay, right? Like our kids, even when they know something's the wrong thing to do, they get in. They can sometimes get in a situation with a friend who is encouraging them, you know, to drink or vape or, you know, some other kind of mischief. And our kids don't have the tools to navigate that moment, that moment, because here they are with their friend. They care about their friend. There's a dynamic between their and them and their friend or friends or the group, and it's hard in those moments for our kids, especially our younger teens, as they get older and more like sure of who they are and what their values are. And by older I mean like 17, 1819, once they kind of reach, like the downhill, well, that's not really the downhill, but once they get a little bit older, and it's different for every kid, it becomes easier to just be like, Nah, I'm not into that, right? But at 12, 1314, there is a lot happening for them, as far as really searching for that belonging and that acceptance, hypersensitive to other people's opinions of them, sometimes just really worried about the fragility of maybe the relationship they're in with that friends, they want to please them. All of these things are true. And I want to say this again, not character flaws like this is just where they are developmentally and socially, in their Yeah, in their social development. And so really, what needs to happen is the conversation isn't like you won't do this thing. It's more about like, so what's going to help you the next time this happens? And I remember when we lived in it, my Ian was younger. He wasn't quite a tween yet, but,

you know, and I think I might have talked about this on the podcast before, but we had a neighborhood park, and, you know, the more kids at the park, the more likely it is that something weird is going to go down. And Ian came home and shared with me that I don't remember what the thing was, but he didn't like it, and he didn't, you know, and he kind of engaged in it. I can't remember, honestly, the challenge. And so we talked about because he loved being at the park. He loves being around all the kids. He's bigger than everybody, and always has been. So even as a young kid, he kind of tended to run with kids that were slightly older sometimes, or at least gravitate towards them, which was really annoying to me. And anyway, the neighbor across the street from the park had put a clock on the front of their house, which was super handy. And so we came up with a plan that if you know, Ian felt like conversation or things at the park weren't feeling good to him anymore, he could look at the clock and say, oh, man, I was supposed to be home in 10 minutes. I gotta go and just get on his bike and come home. That gave and we practiced that like we practiced that at home. I don't know if he ever actually had to use that tool, but he had it in his back pocket. He was able to navigate, have something that would help him navigate the peer situation while still saving face, right? Because that's important to them. You know, as we get older, it becomes really important to be able to speak our truths Absolutely, and when they're 1011, 1213, 1415, you know, when they're younger, when they're adolescents, it's okay for them to just simply have an out that feels good, right? So that's, you know, when we think about, oh, the problem is that, you know, you're vaping, we'll say vaping, not nicotine and not weed, just like the weird juice thing. I don't know what the kids are doing that, because once we get into addiction. It comes becomes very easy to become addicted to nicotine, and vaping nicotine, so that's a whole nother, like challenge beyond you need to stop. We, you know, if that's the challenge in their vaping nicotine, it's not enough to say you need to stop. I mean, any of us that have been addicted to nicotine know, like, it's all good to be like, I'm not going to do this anymore. And then our body takes over, and the addiction takes over, and we need more support than just that, when we find out they're maybe younger and just vaping the vape juice, you know, and it's maybe something that happens, you know, because their friends are pressuring them, okay, great. So what are some ways that we can be with our. Friends and we can not engage in this thing, but still feel like you're a part of the group. Still feel like those relationships are protected. Does that make sense? Do you know I'm talking about here? So we want to give them skills and navigate navigating the situation beyond just you should, you know, value your health. Of course they should, but they're 12, right? Or 14 or 17 or fucking, sorry, like 20. I mean, I'm just thinking back to all the terrible things I did to my body, well beyond early adolescence. Anyway you get where I'm going. I so the four traps that defeat the follow through right things that happen that that make it hard for us to follow through, is like I said, wanting our kids to have the same priority priorities as we have right, wanting them to have the same priorities as we have at this stage of their life, they don't right, and it doesn't matter how long we lecture them about why our priorities are logical, and we'll serve them in the end. We can, we can lecture and vent and, you know, do all the things, and it doesn't always play out, and results in our kids saying, Oh, great, you know what? Thank you for that. Thank you for explaining that to me. Now that's going to be my priority. It's just not the way their brains are wired right now. Again, not a character flaw, not a character flaw, just simply where they're at in brain development. So check yourself when you start to feel like, oh my gosh, our priorities are different. What does that mean? It means that you have a fully developed brain and all of your life experience, and you're looking through that lens, and they have, you know, a continuing developing brain, very little life experience, and are looking through that lens. That's all it means. Another trap is when we get into judgment and criticism during the process, instead of sticking to the issue. So in that initial conversation, when they're sharing with us what's getting in the way, and we start to judge them and criticize around that because we're frustrated. And I get why we do it and don't do it right? You're gonna, you're gonna interrupt the process, and it no longer is a safe space for your kids to share. When you say, you know, tell me about this challenge. Tell me about how you're feeling about it. You're going to continue to get resistance if you continue to go into judgment and criticism. And criticism is a sneaky thing, right? Criticism is sneaky. I want you to really pay attention, because sometimes we think we're giving quote advice and our kids are experiencing it as criticism. And you might say, well, I can't control how they experience it. You're right. You can't so and it still matters, because that's the biggest piece, is how they're experiencing it, how they're experiencing and I, you know, did a lot of learning around this, when I went through my stuff with Rowan, and, you know, thinking that I was doing the right thing and getting feedback around how I was just adding to her anxiety and adding to her stress, but not knowing until she gave me the feedback, and then being willing and humble enough to say, Okay, I'm going to do it differently, like, I accept that, and I'm going to work out some ways of doing it differently and doing it differently right? Another trap can be not getting agreements in advance that include a specific time deadline. So when we're talking about chores, curfews, screen time, like, really being, you know, it becomes critical, and you'll find out, like you might do the first round of the agreement. Move through the week and realize, Oh, my God, we should have said, like, this will be done by seven, or this will be done after dinner. Like you. That's the great thing about let's do this for a week, and then we're gonna revise is you also are gonna recognize where the gaps are, as well as your child, right? And then finally, when we don't maintain dignity and respect for our kids and ourselves in the conversation, so permission these conversations might get heated. When they get heated, take a break. Respect yourself, respect your child, and say, Oh, this is a tough conversation, and I'm really feeling it, and I and I'm always, I'm always all for like, being really explicit. Like, wow, my chest is feeling super tight right now. That's an indication to me that I need to just take it. Let's take five, take care of ourselves for a little bit, and then come back to this, because, you know, it's getting hot, and this is something that we both want to come to an agreement on. So, yeah, taking a pause, right? Taking a pause is really important, but that is what I wanted to share with you about making agreements. Agreements are so useful until they're not, and when they're no longer useful, it's time to recognize, oh, we've actually moved into a different developmental stage. Or, you know, it's just time to tweak and revise. Sometimes agreements stop becoming helpful when we kind of check out on the agreement. So the other thing too is I think we we parents think, okay, we're going to make this agreement, and then we are not going to have to worry about that challenge anymore. And it's just not true, like our kids are in development. I am not saying you have to micromanage them. I'm actually telling you, please don't micromanage them, but agreements do require that we check in. Like, how's that coming? How's that thing coming? What are you noticing? Have is the agreement done? Right? So it's not about babysitting them, but it is about finding that place where you know, we stay involved, especially younger teens, you know, we're gonna have to stay involved a little bit more. And as they get older, let go and let go and let go a little bit more. All right, so that is what I've got for you today.

I hope that was helpful. I know I've gotten lots of feedback about the last two solo shows that you really appreciated me talking about connected firmness and relationship. And so if you've missed those last two solo shows, I encourage you to go back and listen to them. I think they'll be really helpful for making sense of of this whole conversation around making agreements. I also got a lot of feedback about last week's show with Jessica Leahy talking about addiction inoculation. Loved that conversation with her. Check it out if you missed it. And yeah, I'll be back next week with a interview, and I'm really excited. So big love to all of you. Have a beautiful day.

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