Eps 101: Casey is Solo with Wisdom from an 8 Year Old on the Power of Offers/Counter Offers

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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Joy, joyful, courage. Parenting podcast episode 101

we are in July, and it is hot, hot, hot. I don't know how many of you are following me on social media, but if you are, you know that I'm currently on vacation with my kids. We did an epic road trip. Drove from Western Washington down to Orange County to spend time with my brother and his family and my mom and I've gotten to visit with good, close friends of mine that live down here. It's been a super, super fun trip, and today is a super special day today, the day that I am recording this short episode for you. I'm actually here with my niece, Mullaney, and it's a super special day today. Mulaney, why is it such a special day?

Malaney 0:53
Because it's my birthday,

Casey O'Roarty 0:55
it's your birthday, and how old are you today? Mulaney,

Malaney 0:58
eight.

Casey O'Roarty 0:59
How does it feel to wake up and be eight years old,

Malaney 1:02
epic. Oh, it

Casey O'Roarty 1:04
feels epic. Yeah, that's a nice word, isn't it? So I asked malaney to come be on the podcast with me today, because she asked me yesterday. She said, I want to learn about what you do with Rowan and those table offers. And it was so cute that she said table offers. And at first I didn't really know what she was talking about, but then I realized she was actually talking about counter offers, which it's understandable why you get a table and a counter confused, right? Both places where you serve and fix meals, but So Elaine and I talked about counter offers and offers and and how to use them. And then this morning, we were talking about it, and Melanie, you told me the reason that you like doing offers and counteroffers. Will you share what you said today up on the patio with me about why you like the idea of offers and counteroffers,

Malaney 1:57
because it gives me more options to tell, to tell my my my dad, because I want options to be able to do what I want. I want options,

Casey O'Roarty 2:11
right? And sometimes grown ups don't give a lot of options, huh? Yeah, and when grown ups don't give it a lot of options, and they say things like, Well, what does it sound like when grown ups don't give a lot of options,

Malaney 2:24
like, they just tell they just tell you that you can't play on your iPad. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 2:29
Are there any other things that the grown ups do? Whether they just tell you things I don't really know what about? Like, it's time to put sunscreen on.

Malaney 2:40
Sometimes they sometimes even though, even though I want to go grab my pool toys and stuff, they sometimes just say, No, you have to put on your sunscreen now.

Casey O'Roarty 2:53
So if the grown ups in that scenario were going to give you options, what would it What would you like for it to sound like? What might it sound like,

Malaney 3:02
like I I could say, if I could go get my toys and put on my bathing suit. And then they could say, if they don't agree, I could say, How about after that, I'll do my sunscreen by myself. And they could say, Yes,

Casey O'Roarty 3:19
oh, yeah. So you all have listened to me talk about offers and counteroffers on the podcast. If you've listened to a lot of the shows, this has come up before as something that I try to remember to do with the kids, and what I notice about offers and counteroffers is that the message to kids is that their voice matters. Right? Their voice matters. They can have an opinion. And I get to slip out of rigidity and control, and I get to share some control and share some power. How does it feel to you? Malaney, when you feel like you have some control over the situation? How does that feel for you? I

Malaney 4:05
i I feel happy because then my parents, my parents, let me have choices that I could choose, and we can both decide on something we both agree with. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 4:18
what do you notice about how everybody feels when that's the way things are done, when, when the parents remember to give options and to give choices and to give counteroffers and the kids get to be involved. What do you notice about how everybody feels?

Malaney 4:35
I think, I I think they feel, feel happy that their parents are giving them choices, and both and they and they both agree on something. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 4:48
do you think it's more fun to be together when that's the way we act with each other?

Malaney 4:52
Yes, I

Casey O'Roarty 4:53
think so too. I think so too. Melanie, thank you for coming and being on my podcast.

Malaney 4:58
You're welcome so.

Casey O'Roarty 4:59
So I'm going to give you an offer right now. Okay, because we're going to the pool today, because it is a hot day here in Newport Beach, California, so we're going to go to the pool. So Mulaney, I would love it if you would put your bathing suit on and we could put some sunscreen on you. That's my offer to you. Do you have a counteroffer

Malaney 5:21
I could put on my bathing suit, and then I'll put on my sunscreen, and then I could get my pool toys and finish up cleaning up the couch.

Casey O'Roarty 5:30
That sounds like a great deal. Will you go do that right now? All right, bye. Mulaney, okay, so a little wisdom from a real life eight year old. So let's just kind of tease apart the offer counter offer idea. The way that I think about it is that, you know, we come into a conversation knowing what we want, as far as a boundary or an expectation, and our children also have some ideas about how they want that boundary or expectation to look, and so this is a great opportunity for them to get to practice a skill that will serve them their whole life. And I always start off with the question of, well, this, if this could look any way you wanted it to look. How might it look, right? And then, and I say, and they tell me, you know, with my daughter, it's been around texting, and she'd say, Oh, I could text all the time, or screen time. I could use my screen anytime I wanted. And then I go and say, Okay, I'm gonna give you a counter offer to that. My counter offer is always the other extreme, right? It's the other extreme, which typically they are not super excited about. And then I remind them, okay, now it's you get to give a new offer, and then I'll counter offer. And the way that it works is you slowly whittle down the expectation or the boundary until both child and parent is satisfied. This is not to say that everything is an opportunity for offers and counteroffers. There are still non negotiables, just like we talked a couple weeks ago, my last solo show when we talked about boundaries. You know, there are the non negotiable boundaries. There are those situations where you get to say, actually, this is not a time for offer counteroffer, this is how it's going to be. And the exciting thing that happens is, the more often you can be in conversation with your child about, you know, inviting them in to the process, the more forgiving they are, the more willing they are to be cooperative. When you've got to say, Yeah, I know this would be a great thing to that you'd like to counter offer this, but actually, this is the way it's going to go down. Because remember, it's the kids who are getting their belonging, significance and influence needs met that show up as the most cooperative. And so any opportunity that you have where it feels okay to you to do an offer, counteroffer, that is going to kind of fill that Bank of belonging, significance and influence, and it's going to make the whole rest of your experience with your child that much easier. Okay? So I don't want you to hear me saying, oh, everything's an opportunity for an offer and a counter offer, but really play with this tool like look for one time a day, look for once or a couple times a week. Look for certain challenges where you can say, Huh, I wonder if I can get a better picture of what my child wants here, and if there's some flexibility that I can create so we can come up with, you know, an agreement together that is useful. I dare you. I dare you, to try that this week. And as always, head on over to the live in love with joyful courage Facebook group and let us know how it goes. You.

Okay, so as you know, I'm a Young Living girl. Now I am playing with these essential oils. You heard me talk about them on the last couple solo shows. I was fortunate enough to run into a gal who is teaching me all about how to bring essential oils into my daily life, and so I signed up for the starter pack from Young Living and I've just been slowly making my way through all the different oils and using this as a venue to share. So today, today I'm going to talk about pan away essential oil. And this comes in the starter pack, and it is a mixture of wintergreen and clo and. And peppermint oil, and it's really dreamy and is often used after exercise, or you apply it to the neck and back anytime for a soothing and stimulating, aromatic experience. So we've been on this trip, and the first couple nights of our trip, I did not sleep well. I don't know what my deal was with my pillow, but I just had that, like, really annoying kind of kink in the neck. Simultaneously, my husband flew down to meet us on our trip, and he had to sit in the plane and got to my brother's house, and had a lot of back pain, and so all of a sudden, I remembered, oh, I've got these oils. So I took out my pan away essential oil, and I added it to some coconut oil, and I decided to rub some on my neck, and I rubbed some on my husband's back. And sure enough, our experience was that it really helped with the pain that we were having in our body. Panaway essential oil, it really, really helped us both with the pains that we were having in our body. So there is one more essential oil that I'm really excited to have at my disposal to use, to use on myself and on my family as a way to help us with pain relief. Yay, right. And hanaway is a oil to use with a carrier oil. Remember I talked last time about some of the oils being hot oils, so I added it to coconut oil and kind of created my own salve that really was helpful in our experience with the pain that we were having. So if you are interested in finding out more about essential oil, if you want to ask me any questions, feel free to look in the show notes, and you'll see a link to my Young Living page, and you can order through me, or shoot me an email at KC, at joyful courage.com, and ask away. And if I don't know the answers, which I probably won't, because I'm just learning about essential oils, I can definitely get the information from the people that are supporting me, plus essential oils make you smell really good. Okay, friends, so just wrapping it up here, this is a short show for you this week. I'm just finishing up my vacation with my family, but next week, get excited because next week, Kate Orson is on the show, and she is fabulous. She is a hand in hand parenting instructor, and she's going to come on and talk to me about the hand in hand approach around letting kids really cry and cry out their emotions and really move through the emotions that they're having in a way that allows them to heal from past hurts. So Kate's going to come on the show. She's going to kind of tease that apart for me, because I'm really interested in learning more about this, because it's something that I've read about. It's something that I've heard some of my clients talk about, who have studied Hand in Hand parenting, and I'm just really looking forward to being in conversation with her and understanding it better. And if you have not listened to last week's 100th episode, oh my goodness, you need to go back and listen to Tina Bryson. Dr, Tina Bryson was on she's the co author of whole brain child and no drama discipline. She was on the show last week. It was fantastic. You'll love it. And yeah, if you are not already following me, you can find joyful courage on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And of course, we have our amazing community on Facebook. Live in love with joyful courage. Come over and join us. We'd love to have you, if you are not already a subscriber to the show check the links in the show notes to learn how to subscribe through iTunes and Google Play, you automatically get the shows each week as soon as they're published. It's the way to go. All right, my friends, have a beautiful day. Drink lots of water, enjoy the sunshine, hug your kids and I will see you soon.

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