Eps 37: Dr. Laura Markham on holding space for siblings to get along

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Peaceful Parents, Happy Kids
Peaceful Parents, Happy Siblings
John Gottman’s work with couples and marriage

www.ahaparenting.com
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Casey O'Roarty 0:00
Joy, joyful courage parenting podcast episode 37

the joyful courage parenting podcast is coming to you with support from Maslow. Maslow helps you kickstart new life skills with a combination of personalized coaching and experiential learning, you get two weeks of daily customized guidance and accountability from an expert coach, plus 10 minute daily activities to teach you new skills through the power of practice. It's all on your schedule. You decide when to start, when to practice and when to interact with your coach, while Maslow has tons of programs, from mindful meditation to time management, body maintenance, be sure to check out the link in the show notes and explore the program I coach for the common connected parenting program, Maslow We help anyone, anywhere actualize their personal growth ambitions. You

Unknown Speaker 0:58
Music.

Casey O'Roarty 1:06
Welcome back podcast listeners to another week of the joyful courage parenting podcast. I am so excited for my guest this week, and I know that you are too. We've been talking about how exciting it is to have an expert on the siblings raising siblings challenge on the show, and today it is Dr Laura Markham, and she, if you don't already know who she is, she is the mastermind behind AHA parenting.com she's also a trained Clinical Psychologist and has a PhD from Columbia University. Also, Dr Laura is a mom, and she translates proven science into the practical solutions you need for the family life you want. Sounds great to me. She has a couple of books out as well peaceful parent, happy kids, how to stop yelling and start connecting, as well as peaceful parent, happy siblings, how to stop the fighting and raise friends for life. So please help me welcome Dr Laura Markham to the show. Hello,

Dr. Laura Markham 2:12
hello. Thank you, Casey. I'm excited to be here.

Casey O'Roarty 2:15
Yeah, I'm I'm such a I'm a longtime fan of yours, and really just so honored to have you on the show, and today we're going to talk about siblings. Yes, indeed. So how first, let's start. How old are your kids?

Dr. Laura Markham 2:29
My son has turned 24 he's so far, you know, he's out of college two years now, and my daughter is 20, so she just left the teen years. So they're four years apart. So when, when she left the teen years, I can no longer even say, you know, mother of teenagers. So, so now I have young adults. But the great thing is, you can see how they turn out. Yeah, and it is so beautiful. So inspiring and encouraging and validating that, you know, they were raised everything I write about, that's what I did with them, and they show it, which is really, really a joy to see. And you know, I'm not ready for grandchildren yet, but I can't wait to see the parents that they're going to end up

Casey O'Roarty 3:25
being. Yeah, I often find, you know, I noticed when people say, Oh, it goes by so fast or I don't, you know, I'm sad that my youngest is starting kindergarten. All I can think about is, you know what, Time is moving at The Perfect Pace, and I'm looking forward to relationships with my adult children. Yes, sounds really dreamy.

Dr. Laura Markham 3:47
It is so wonderful. And I'm happy to say they still want to talk to us, they still want to hang out with us. And nothing makes me happier than to spend time with my children at this point.

Casey O'Roarty 3:59
Yeah, well, and in your book, your peaceful parents, happy siblings. Book, you start off talking about the practices of peaceful parenting. And when I hear you talk about your grown kids and seeing the results of your work, right, and of your philosophy on raising them, can you talk a little bit about what you know specifically you talk about three practices. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about how that is connected to raising siblings?

Dr. Laura Markham 4:29
Oh, absolutely. So the three practices that I recommend to parents are these. First, regulate your own emotions because you're the role model and children develop their ability to self regulate directly from us, their limbic system, the emotional system, actually develops in response to the emotional experiences they have with us, and that includes our ability to self regulate. Regulate. So self regulation is the first thing you know. Most things you read about parenting, they say, calmly, tell your child what the limit is. Well, most of us don't calmly tell our child what the limit is. And so right there, we're already, you know, modeling something that isn't what we want. And then we wonder why our kid is yelling at his brother. Well, it's because we yelled at him, so you can see in your children the way they treat each other. A mom just posted on my Facebook page this beautiful little video vignette of her two year old and her four year old who were pretending they were at the beach, they were in the living room, but they were pretending they were playing at the beach. And the two year old said to the four year old, it's time to go home now. And the four year old said, No, I don't want to leave the beach. And the two year old said, I know it's hard to go. It's time to go now. And I thought exactly, siblings will treat each other the way you treat them. So that's the first thing. The second thing that I recommend to parents is connection. Because your relationship with your child, it's a relationship. That's that's what it is. It's not a set of strategies, it's not a manipulation. It's a relationship. And if your child feels warmly connected to you, trust that you've really got her back, that you're on her side, she's going to come to you when she is in trouble. She's going to want to follow your lead. She's not going to lie to you. And so not that all children don't try lying when they're five, when they first learn it's possible, but when you cultivate that relationship with your child of connection, then she's open to following your lead. So I think connection is 80 or 90% of parenting, because without it, they won't follow our guidance. The third thing that I recommend to all parents is think of yourself as a coach. You know, we're told as parents that we should control our child's behavior, but the truth is, you can't control anybody but you, and so if you can think of yourself as a coach, your job is not to get in there and play the game for your child. You're not doing their science fair project for them or whatever. You're instead coaching your child to do their very best, whether it's on the science fair project or in teaching them to get along with their sibling. Because, you know, we assume, when we say, be nice, play nicely. We assume that children know what that means. They don't know what play nicely is. What we need to do is to say, did you like that when he hit you? No, tell him. Say, stop. No shoving right? And we need to coach our child to stand up for herself, and we need to coach the other one to say, it looks like you wanted your sister to move, right? We need to start by giving them the benefit of the doubt they're not just being a nasty person. You know, it looks like you wanted your sister to move. Tell her, Can you move? Please? I need to get my truck right, so we're giving them the words, and that's what a coach would do, as opposed to somebody who's just thinking in terms of yelling and punishing, because obviously, he just shoved his sister, and, you know, then she shoved him back. And now we've got an altercation. We can instead look at all of those conflicts in our home as opportunities to coach our children to learn how to get along with each other.

Casey O'Roarty 8:24
I love that. I love that. It makes me think when my kids were really little, and my kids are two years eight months apart, and my little boy, Who's the youngest, just still to this day, at 10 and she's 13, idolizes his big sister. And he used to go barreling into her room, and she'd say, Get out, get out, get out. And he'd say, I want to play with you. And she'd say, I don't want to play with you. And I'd offer some coaching, and I would suggest, you know, Rowan, why don't you get what could you say that would give him a little bit of hope that at some point today you're going to be willing to play with him. And so she'd say, I'll play with you in 10 minutes. And he'd say, okay, and off he'd trot onto the next thing. And it would be fine, because he knew that, you know, in a certain amount of time, she would be willing to play with him. And that small little tweak was so powerful for them. I loved that. And I love, you know, all three of these things I think are so important and powerful, and something I want to tattoo on every single parent, connection I think is our biggest most and relationship is our most powerful tool for influencing behavior, right? Yes, I love that. I love that, and I love to remind parents of that, and then talking about self regulation. So I have a question for you, okay, was self regulation really easy for you? Did it come really natural when your kids were young, or is it something that you had to work at?

Dr. Laura Markham 9:53
You know, I think of myself as someone who has big feelings, and I. You know, I I know that because I watched my daughter, who was so much like me, who was a little hellion, and, you know, really had a lot of big feelings. But with my children, I didn't find it difficult that the the place I had a hard time regulating was with my husband when the kids were little, because I was wishing he would do more, and I didn't have the skills to communicate with him about it. And once I learned those skills, really what what happened even before I learned the skills, is that I decided to be different. I decided that I noticed that about once a month, I would just have this tantrum, and I would scream at him that he wasn't doing enough around the house, and he wasn't, you know, he was always gone, and he was working all the time and whatever. And maybe the third or fourth time that happened, I thought, Oh, my goodness, this is not who I want to be. I didn't sign up to be like this. What happened to me? And yes, I was sleep deprived, you know, I had two little kids, but still, I didn't want to be that person. And I just started by committing to notice when I was storing up kindling, when I would find myself sort of muttering as I did the work and he, you know, went off to do something or didn't get home from work, you know, three days in a row until midnight or whatever, I I began to say something, rather than just sort of muttering to myself, you know, I joke that if you gather enough kindling, you're gonna have a firestorm, right? So I just stopped gathering kindly, and I started saying, wow, you know. And I started also not attacking him, but saying what I needed. I'm so tired, and I just stayed up. I finally got the kids in bed, and then I did the dishes, and I've just folded the laundry, and now you're coming in the house, and you're in such a good mood, and you want to talk. And, you know what? I can't help but feel resentful, like, like you've just been out, you know? I know it was for work, but you were at a work dinner, having fun, having a drink, you know. And here I am holding our family together. And when I was able to start talking about it in terms of my feelings instead of his failings, actually, everything shifted. And I think that is the secret to what we want to teach our children, also that there's a way for us to teach our children how to express their needs to each other. Yes, I want you to move so I can get my truck. You know, there's a way to do that without attacking the other person. And so I learned that really in my marriage, but I used it in teaching my children how to get along.

Casey O'Roarty 12:45
I think it's so powerful when people can hear the experts talking about their own struggles and their own work and their own practices. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah, because it doesn't you know, and I know that there are some amazing books and amazing bloggers and amazing advice that's just, well, you just have to calm down. You know, just like a child, the last thing they want to hear when they're fired up is you need to calm down. You know, I think it's the same often with our kids, we have we play with the Dan Siegel brain in the palm of the hand signal, yes. And so my kids, it's common language in our house, and the kids call me out as well, and they'll say, Mom, you're flipped, and I have to be graceful enough to recognize it and do something about it, rather than, you know, responding with, yeah, I know. But it is work. It's a practice,

Dr. Laura Markham 13:43
you know, it's all a practice. And I really want to encourage parents listening to this to be gentle with themselves about it, you know, because it is we all start from wherever we were. I happen to have a father who was very patient and wonderful with me, and I think I learned a lot from his parenting. And you know, I think that if you didn't have a parent who could do that, if neither one of your parents could do it, then you're not going to find it easy. And so you just have to start from where you are, and you know every step in the right direction, every time you can resist acting when you're angry, every time you're rewiring your brain, you're actually slowing down your amygdala so it doesn't think there's an emergency. And you're giving the prefrontal cortex a little more leverage over the emotional part of the brain so that next time there's something that feels like an emergency, you've got stronger neural pathways to keep you from flipping your lid. And so I just, I just want parents to know that it's hard, hard work, but every step in the right direction takes you closer to where. You want to be and makes it a little easier. It does get easier over time. I mean, I it's been, you know, I don't know how many years since I lost my temper, 20. You know, 15. And seriously, it it was hard work to do that, but it got easier at every step. And that doesn't mean that I don't get triggered now, it's just so and of course, who do I get triggered at my own mother?

Casey O'Roarty 15:26
Oh, your mother. Sorry. That's my story, not your

Dr. Laura Markham 15:30
story, right? Well, no, I think I learned a lot with my husband, and our relationship got changed dramatically, and it's very good at this point. I

I'm not that I don't get triggered at him, but I notice it happening, and I wouldn't explode at him ever. Not that I exploded my mother, but I really I noticed that she can push my buttons like nobody else. And I think that's true for many of us, and I think it's because that's the oldest baggage we have. So I sort of worked on the present and sort of excavated backwards. And so I just want people to know, yep, I'm still working on my own childhood, you know, as are most of us. But it's it gets better, it gets easier, and it is so worth it, because every bit you do makes it more possible for you to show up in the moment as the person you want to

Casey O'Roarty 16:24
be. Yes. So talk a little bit now, let's shift over back to the coaching practice. Talk a little bit about coaching our kids in problem solving and conflict resolution. A lot of my listeners have kids under five, which you write, you know, that's a lot of of your offer through your books and your E course, kind of has to do with those families with young kids. And I can hear their frustration when I remind them that the early years are a time for laying foundation. And, you know, there's a little bit of, you know, repetition, not a little bit a lot of repetition that happens before they start to see, you know, the results that they're hoping for. And there's a feeling of urgency, right? Like I can feel it. It just in conversation with parents. Sometimes there's this urgency that I think is born out of fear, yes, that that their two year old biter is going to be the eight year old bully on the playground, you know, and there. And I think that fear can often drive them to extremes because they want to stop the behavior. So what are some talk a little bit about that? What are some in the moment tools I'm getting, I'm guessing we're going to talk about, you know, modeling and relationship as well with this. But what are the in the moment tools when, when that aggressive behavior shows up between the

Dr. Laura Markham 17:50
kids? So of course, the first thing is to stop drop and breathe. That's your in the moment tool, because it allows you to regulate yourself, right? Stop, drop and breathe when you breathe, you're not getting hijacked by your emotions. So you actually have a choice about how you're going to respond to the situation, right? And if you don't do that, you're going to find that you're responding in a way that isn't going to teach your children anything healthy about conflict resolution, right? Right? So, and I understand the sense of urgency. I think parents worry that their child is going to grow up to be, you know, an ax murderer because he keeps pushing his sister down. You know,

Casey O'Roarty 18:34
totally right. We all go there. We all go there.

Dr. Laura Markham 18:37
But of course, it's completely age appropriate for young children to have a hard time with conflict resolution. Their their frontal cortex is not yet developed, talking about the frontal cortex trying to control the amygdala. My goodness, you know, the these kids, the amygdala is sending off fire alarms that say, danger, danger. I'm never going to get my truck back. Or mommy loves her more. Or I want all of these cookies. This still wouldn't be enough for me. How come she gets any, you know, right, right? And so it feels like an emergency to them. And that's completely age appropriate. And it's completely age appropriate that at that moment, you know, the toddler grabs his sister's arm to bite it, you know, or you know that the preschooler grabs her cookie, or, you know that the four year old shoves her down, or whatever? So I would just encourage parents to talk themselves off the cliff. You know, before, don't go so close to the edge, because everybody will go over the edge if you're too close to it. You know, you can get pushed over the edge. Just don't go there. Just stop yourself before you get there by having a little mantra that you use, like, conflict is an opportunity for teaching, you know, conflict is an opportunity for me to show them how to get along better so they can have a better relationship. Every time they have conflict, it's an opportunity for them to have a better relationship. You know. Whatever, or he's acting like this because he really needs me, you know, whatever, or it's not an emergency. Whatever works for you. You can experiment with different mantras, write them down and put them around the house and see what works for you. It has to be pretty simple for these moments when things get tough, but you'll find that it helps to stop, drop, breathe, chalk yourself off the cliff, all while you're moving quickly towards your children, right? Okay, now you're able to actually get between them and stop any eruption of violence that might be going on physically, right? Maybe it's just verbal violence, but maybe it's physical. So you get between them and you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's Everybody calm down now, because, think about it, why are your children having an altercation? They're scared. They're scared. He's scared. She's getting all the cookies, or even one of them, you know, and or you know, she's scared. She's getting hit, whatever. And so at this moment, they think there's an emergency. So they can't listen to anything we have to say. While their brains are on high alert, thinking it's an emergency, they can't learn. The learning centers of the brain shut down when there's an emergency. They're just in fight, flight or freeze, and if they're in fight or flight right now, their sibling looks like the enemy. They can't hear anything you have to say. They can't learn how to handle this better, and they can't stop attacking their sibling, either verbally or or physically, until we calm them down a little bit. So our job is to stop the violence as calmly as we can, even verbal violence. So if it's physical, we get in between them, but if it's verbal violence, we might just say, whoa. Words like that can hurt. Notice. I'm not saying, I'm not attacking the kid who was verbally violent. I'm not saying, Don't you speak to your brother that way, right? I'm saying, Wow, words like that could really hurt. I'm describing what's going on and setting a limit, because they know hurting isn't what happens at our house, but I'm I'm coming in a calm enough way between the two of them that they're looking to me now to support them in restoring order so they don't have to be so scared, and at this point now, You want to respond to the kid who's being. If there's a kid who's being hurt, either physically or verbally, you want to first go to that kid. You want to reassure them in whatever way. I know we always want to go to the kid who's being, who's doing the hurting. We feel this urgent need to go to the kid who's hurt, just hurt his brother and set him on the right track, you know, right? Yes, like it's urgent to teach him a lesson, right? Except that we can't possibly do that in a constructive way. We're just going to heighten the drama. We're going to escalate the storm. So I advise parents to ignore that child for the time being. I know you feel an urgent need. But you know, you know where he lives. He's not going anywhere, you know. So, so instead, go to the other child and say, ouch. Looks like that hurt you. Okay, sweetie. Do you need a warm washcloth? Okay, come here and maybe, or maybe it was just verbal violence, in which case you know your your son is saying to his big sister, who just called him a baby, I am not a baby. And then you say, it looks like you didn't like that when your sister said that to you, you can, you can tell her now he may be saying already, you know, I'm not a baby, but tell her you don't like that when she calls you names, right? And so he says that, and she now has backup, right? If you left the children to try to work this out themselves, which is what we're usually advised to do. What we do is we encourage bullying. Yeah, and if you jump in on one side or the other. It's even worse than leaving it them to work it out themselves, right? If you jump in on one side or the other, if, like, if you jump in on behalf of your son, who just got called a baby by his big sister, and you say, stop calling him names, she's gonna think to herself, even if she stops, she's gonna think, yeah, right. You always take his side, just baby, you know, right, right. Wait till she gets him alone, right? So you're actually building resentment. You're building more sibling rivalry, more resentment, and you'll have more fighting. But if you can resist taking sides, and you know, by the way, you might be completely right, maybe she always wins. She always calls him names. Maybe she's nasty to him, and you want to put you want to stop that. You don't stop it by going between the kids and making her wrong. That will please add fuel to the fire, increase the drama, increase the sibling rivalry. That's not how you stop it. So we can come back to how you stop it, if you want. But in this moment, in this altercation, you're. Tool is to first, after you've calmed yourself down and you've stopped any on you know, anything that's happening, and you've tended to the one who felt victimized, and you've coached them to stand up for themselves, then you turn to the other child, and you say, you set a limit, but you start with what they were trying to do that created the problem. Like, like you say, it seems like you wanted your brother to do it your way, and when he wouldn't, you didn't know how else to get him to do it, and you called him names. Is that right? Sweetheart, calling names isn't okay. Her feelings. You heard him say it hurts his feelings. But you could say to your brother, I want to do it this way, because you want to tell him why you wanted to do it that way, why you wanted him to do it that way. Or maybe you could negotiate that. You could do it your way for a while and his way for a while. This was a problem that I think you two could solve. Right? What could you do? And now you're helping them shift into problem solving, but you've set a clear limit, right? Done it in a way that your your daughter didn't feel defensive. If you had just said to her, don't you call names? You know better than that, she would have been defensive. But you said, I guess you really wanted to have XYZ happen, and you didn't know how else to get it except to do this. So if you always start with that, I guess what you wanted was, was this. And so you did, I guess you wanted this. So you did that. You might even say, How'd that work out for you? You know, as they get older, you can do

Casey O'Roarty 26:32
that, but watching the tone, of course, when you deliver that, we're

Dr. Laura Markham 26:36
never using that tone, of course, but doing a version of it all the time as your children grow up right into the teen years, where you're saying you wanted this, so you did that, and then I guess that happened or or if you need to set a limit, but that's not okay, no matter what, sweetie, right?

Casey O'Roarty 26:55
I'm hearing we call that in pause. I teach positive discipline, and we call that connecting before correcting, right, and the child feels seen. You're beginning the repair of the relationship between you and child. I love that, and I love that unspoken messages too. I mean unspoken messages come in all sorts of flavors, and, you know, showing up to a conflict where people are really falling apart in a calm, connected body and mindset shows, hey, I can handle this. I'm here. I'm holding the space for the two of you, you know. And wow, as kids get older and you know, challenges show up and tough mischief shows up, you know, knowing that your parent can handle it and isn't going to fly off the handle and is supportive and available, even if you're the one that made the mistake, I think that's really powerful. Yes, yes, I

Dr. Laura Markham 27:53
agree completely. And I love your term holding the space, because really, that's what we're doing. We you know peaceful parenting, my book is peaceful parent, happy kids, or peaceful parent, happy siblings. Peaceful parenting doesn't mean that you are always calm, but it means that you hold that space and you notice when it's getting escalated and you return yourself to a state of calm so that your children can learn from that. And so you're you're always holding the space of calm in your household.

Casey O'Roarty 28:30
So you also mentioned in your book, you talk a little bit about, I don't know, do you call it pacing? Birth? Pacing? What do you call it birth? It's not birth order, but how close, oh,

Dr. Laura Markham 28:42
how close to space your children. This is such an individual decision, for sure. It's interesting to read the research on it.

Casey O'Roarty 28:49
Yeah, can we talk a little bit about that? Because I asked, you know, in my Facebook group, I put out that I was going to be talking to you and the two, well, a couple parents, actually, nope, all three of them that that showed up with questions. One has twin four year olds, the other has three under five, and then the third, yeah, has baby. Number three is is due, and the other two are under five as well. So when we're navigating those really close in age, under the age of five, sibling dynamics, and we're outnumbered, like even we don't even have enough hands, right, right, right, what kinds of what tips do you have for parents? What are just some basic foundational things for that they could come away with to remember as they're in the weeds here in the under five time with kids that are real close in age.

Dr. Laura Markham 29:50
Well, one thing I would let them know is that the research shows that the closer in age kids are, the more they fight the. But the closer they are when they're older. And the reason, experts think, the researchers think that the reason is that they play more together, and that, in the end, what we remember is the play and the love and the close connection. So that's should be encouraging to parents whose kids are close in age and are fighting, you know, they'll fight less if you space them further apart, but they also it's harder to raise them so that they're close in age. You know, you have to actually work on that in a concerted way, you know. So that's the first thing I'd say. The second thing I'd say is, it is just hard. There is no way when you have three children under the age of five that you can do anything, anything except parent those children. And you can't parent them up to the standards you might use if you only had two. It's just too hard, right? So you can expect that they're going to be, you know, like, just assume you're never going to fold your laundry. They're always going to be wearing things out of the basket that aren't folded, you know. And half the time they'll be dirty. I mean, just assume that. Just Just do it. Assume that they're you're going to be having scrambled eggs for dinner a lot, you know, and parents out of the bag, you know. You're just not going to be able to do everything that you might aspire to do as a parent when you have three kids that close in age, because you're going to spend an awful lot of time what I call floor time. You're down on the floor with your one year old, your three year old and your five year old, and you're being the bridge between them. You're running interference. You're translating what one of them is saying to the other. So you say you look frustrated, or you wanted to play with your brother. Is that right? Or it looks like you're trying to tell your sister, whatever, so you're having to supply that social skill to them. If you do it, and it's hard to do, right? Because you think you should be doing the dishes, but if you do this, everything turns around within three months, your kids now, even a three year old in three months, learn some of these skills, and a two year old now, will they always employ them? No, when they feel threatened by somebody else having more cookies, they will always go to the mat for more cookies, right? I mean, they don't. They just don't have the frontal cortex to really control themselves if they feel threatened. But you will find that when they're not threatened, the language they'll begin to use is, could I have that Samantha, or I'd like a turn, please? Robert, when will it be my turn, right? They three year olds can actually do that. I know it doesn't sound like it, but that's because we've never taught them to do it, right? So I would advise anyone with little children to get down on the floor and see themselves as their kids social skills teacher for the next three months, as much as possible. You can't do it 24/7, obviously, but you do it as much as you can. It's not You're not avoiding the dishes. You are doing the most important thing you could possibly be doing for your child's development, because and and because they will learn these skills, you'll find that as time goes by, you're involved less and less. So it's really worth the investment of time at the beginning as much as you can

Casey O'Roarty 33:23
Yeah, I love that. I love how they parrot us, right? Good or bad they're gonna parrot, yes, so why not give them something to parrot that is helpful and not hurtful, exactly?

Dr. Laura Markham 33:35
And I would also add something that parents assume they just don't have time to do

is spending one on one time, you know, if, for instance, let's say one of those moms who answered you is at home with three kids and her partner is working. You know, she just, how can she possibly spend one on one time? She's got three kids, but I would say, move heaven and earth to find some one on one time if the three year old and five year old end up going part time to some sort of daycare or school, so you get time with the baby, and then you hire a mother's helper to be with the baby a little bit so that you get time with the five year old or the three year old, or maybe, you know, the five year old no longer naps, but the three year old and the one year old do whatever it is, try to figure out time every day that you can connect with each one of your children, because it will Pay You Back in gold. It just spending that time one on one will eliminate so many of the conflicts your children will otherwise have with each other, because they will be, they won't be so worried about the scarce resource of your love. They'll be getting it. They'll be getting them. Well,

Casey O'Roarty 34:56
I love that, and that's often one of the first. Suggestions I make with parents dealing with any sign type of conflict with kids, regardless of what it is, is that special time is so powerful and again, sends a message and allows that child to feel like, Hey, I fit in this family. I don't need to get into mischief to figure out how to belong. I have a healthy sense of belonging exactly that's so great. And, you know, in your book, you have the whole, you know, like, end, the last quarter of your book is really about getting off to a good start, you know, when there is that new baby in the family, and how to build foundations. I'm just telling you, Laura, I wish I would have had this book like 10 years ago, but I am absolutely going to suggest it to all of my listeners, especially those of you with kids under five or babies. On the way, this is a powerful read. Super, super helpful. So when I work with parents, you know, towards week five or six of the seven week class that I teach, I have them brainstorm a list of all the skills that they learned from their siblings, The Good, The Bad man, right? Wonderful, yeah, and and so much. What shows up is that so much of our social and emotional skill development comes from our relationships with our siblings, and, like you mentioned earlier, the bet, like in that mantra, the best time to practice skills is during times of conflict. And conflict doesn't have to be, you know, a fist fight, like before the fist fight when the conflict first starts to erupt. So you know, what I try to tell parents too, is it's not about getting rid of all sibling conflict. It's really about keeping it at a dull roar and recognizing it as an opportunity, like you said, an opportunity to practice skills. Would you is that something that you would agree with absolutely,

Dr. Laura Markham 37:01
and I agree with you, that you can keep the conflict down. There's no reason that it needs to erupt and be really challenging if you're following some basic preventive maintenance practices. Yeah.

Casey O'Roarty 37:17
And so what are some small steps you think that parents of young kids can take to begin to build that foundation for more cooperative and easygoing sibling relationships. So there's the special time. There's the coaching, being with them in in being a part of their relationship, right? And helping them with the language, being a model for that. Are there any other I

Dr. Laura Markham 37:44
think that we should talk about emotion a little bit okay? Because emotion is where we get into trouble, right? It's when, you know, one kid has a big emotion and they take it out on the other kid. So if we can see ourselves as emotion coaches and we support our kids to express their emotions in healthy ways that won't happen. They're not going to be taking them out on each other,

Casey O'Roarty 38:07
and their future spouses will be so grateful, definitely,

Dr. Laura Markham 38:11
yes. I mean, really, those kids don't get divorced, right? When they're raised that way. And in fact, there's a lot of research about this. John Gottman, who runs the Love Lab in Seattle. He was one of the he's the most prominent researcher on marriage today in the United States, and he has followed children who were born to his the people he studied until they were adults and got married themselves. And he's watched their marriages, and he has looked he's been able to say the way we raise children, and whether we emotion coach has a direct influence on the quality of their marriage when they get married. So, you know, it's, it's not just conjecture we've there's there's research out there that shows this is absolutely true. So I would say to parents who are wondering, Well, okay, what does it mean to be an emotion coach? All emotions are allowed. In fact, welcome, not just allowed, welcome. We don't really welcome emotions. We're like, Oh, my God, you have to cry again, you know? Or why is he always so angry, right? Right? So we actually get irritated at our children's emotions, and then they get a message that the emotion is okay. And sometimes we even punish them for emotions, or we try to, you know, minimize their emotions or discount them. You're not really upset about that, or don't be upset about that, right? And sometimes we try to distract them, oh, no, no, don't. Don't worry about that. Oh, you're not really hurt. Look at the nice doggy, you know, right, right, right. All of those ways of squashing our child's emotions. Give the kid the message that emotion is not okay and they should repress it. But what happens when. You repress an emotion, you can't make it really go away. It's already there in the body, because that's how we feel emotions. There's sensations in our body, and once you feel it, you can cut off awareness of it, like like at the neck, right? Or we can no longer be aware of it, but it's still there in your body.

Casey O'Roarty 40:16
Okay? So let's move a little bit now towards what I'm I'm guessing may be happening with some listeners, as they are taking in all the wisdom and all the goodness that you're sharing with us. I'm wondering about when we find ourselves recognizing that perhaps there is some room for improvement in connection with our kids, the parent child connection maybe isn't as strong as it could be, or just hasn't been, perhaps intentionally focused on. And you know what I'm hearing you say throughout this call is that relationship is really important, even at even wearing the lens of looking at the sibling relationship. So for the listeners that are finding themselves thinking, Oh, wow, yeah, that definitely could be part of my problem. What are some steps that you might suggest for parents to to strengthen their relationships with the kids in their life that you know where they're seeing that disconnect?

Dr. Laura Markham 41:22
Well, I think that it's a great point that so much of what goes on between siblings is the reflection of the child's experience in general, like with the other most important people in their life, the parents, and if they feel like they're not as as important to their parents as they'd like to be, then they're naturally going to have a whole lot more sibling jealousy. So I think that's absolutely the place to start. So some things parents can do, first, spend one on one time with each child every day. Another thing I would advise for parents to build the strength and the relationship, to deepen it and to build trust is think about every single thing your child does as a bid for connection with you. Maybe they come downstairs and they say, it's raining again. I hate it. That's a bid for connection they want you to understand. You might feel like, oh my goodness, he's always so negative. Or you might feel like you might not even registered on that level and just say, Well, hey buddy, you know there's the trees need water too. Instead, just take a deep breath and empathize. You sound pretty disappointed. You didn't want it to rain, huh? Right? Whatever he says, If he says, You always you never, she always gets her way. Whatever he says, Your response needs to be, wow. That could really hurt your feelings. If you think I always say that to you, I'm so sorry if I hurt your feelings. I didn't mean to do that. Tell me more. Whatever your kid says, Your response is, wow. Thanks for sharing that with me. Tell me more about it. And what you do is you first of all, let your kid get out all the negativity and the chip on their shoulder so they start to feel understood. And then secondly, you're building trust they know you will always listen to them and you care about how they feel. Your you may not always give them what they want, but you're in their corner. And once they feel that, everything begins to shift in your relationship and deepen, and they're so much nicer to their sibling.

Casey O'Roarty 43:31
Yeah, man, and Aren't they our mirrors like that. Always the always talk and the never talk. I was just last night and get my son to bed, and I've been out of town working quite a bit in the last few weeks, and just, you know, he kept getting distracted, kept getting distracted, and I found myself saying, you know, I'm really feeling dismissed and ignored, and it's making it really hard for me to spend time with you at bedtime. And then I had a moment of kind of like an aha moment, and said, Do I ever make you feel dismissed and ignored? And he looked up from his book and looked me straight in the eye, and he said, yeah, sometimes you do. And I just thought to myself, Oh man, you know, and then we had a conversation about what we're going to do better. I got to reflect on on my part in the problem and give him time and space to also connect with me there. It was really powerful. Thank you for all of the wisdom that you have shared with us. Dr, Laura, I'm so grateful that you were able to come on the call. I have one last question for you, and that is, what does joyful courage mean to

Dr. Laura Markham 44:51
you? Wow, okay, joyful courage. I think that this kind. Of parenting puts the joy back into child raising. You know, it's, it's a trope in our culture that parenting is no fun. It's too much work, and it's because we're somehow too obsessive or too something not good enough as parents in some way. You know, we we helicopter, we don't do it right, whatever. There's a lot of pressure on parents. And I actually think that's misguided, that idea that somehow we're doing it wrong and therefore it's no fun. I actually think that the minute we start to become fully present and connect. There's a lot of joy in parenting, and it's not because your life suddenly becomes perfect, or your child becomes perfect, or you become perfect. It's because that's how parents and children are designed. They do give us joy, or the human race wouldn't be here. And I think the courage part change requires great courage. You know, we're all here on the planet growing. That's our job, is to grow. I believe we're growing and bringing more love into the world, creating love where there wasn't any before. And one wonderful way to do that, it's not the only way, but it's a great way, is parenting. And that kind of creation of love takes great courage. We have to stop ourselves when we when we start to go down those well worn paths of our own tantrums or our own frustrations. We have to stop ourselves and recognize that actually coming back into the present moment, I could choose love here. I could choose self regulation for myself. I could choose connection with my child. I could choose to coach my child instead of lashing out. And that willingness to do that, that choosing love takes great courage I find, but I think it's the combination of the willingness, the courage to choose love and the and the joy that we then find as we connect with our children that makes life worth living.

Casey O'Roarty 47:32
Hmm, thank you. I've been known to say that I didn't realize I had so much self growth available to me until I was a mother, yes, yes. Well, will you please share with the listeners? Where can they find you? Where can they follow you? I'll make sure all the links are in the show notes. But where do you hang out on social media?

Dr. Laura Markham 47:55
Well, first of all, my website is Aha, parenting.com. So Aha, like those aha moments, aha. And then parenting. What you do when you have kids.com? It's more than 1000 pages of free information for parents of all age children birth to, in fact, pregnancy through the teen years. So that's the first thing on any page of that website. You can sign up for my newsletter again. It's a free public service. You can choose to get it once a week. You can choose to get it three times a week, which you get some, some extra, two extra emails that are very in depth, sort of blueprints to support you in your parenting.

Casey O'Roarty 48:34
And I get that. I get your newsletters, and, man, they are so, so helpful, and they always seem to come at the perfect time. You

Dr. Laura Markham 48:41
know, it's funny. I hear that from people, and I don't schedule them in advance. I'm moved each time. I send one each day that I sit down to do them, I'm moved in a particular direction. So I don't know whether that's because I know Casey needs to hear this today or and, you know, 1000s of other people need to hear it. I don't know why, but I hear all the time, Oh, it came at the perfect time. It's because, truthfully, we're all working on the same stuff all the time, which is just the things we've talked about in this call. Anyway, they're there for your support the newsletters, and then you can also find me on my Facebook page, which is, aha parenting, aha parenting.com. And you can I have two books, peaceful parent, Happy Kids, yelling and stop, start connecting. And then peaceful parent, happy siblings, how to stop the fighting and raise friends for life. And both of them are available at your local bookstore or Amazon. I tell parents all the time, go to your library. Just call your library and ask if they'll order it for you, because they do, and they're always happy because it ends up being checked out a lot. So libraries like it when you turn them on to books that are then popular with readers. So those are the best ways. To reach me. I do have a Twitter account at Dr Laura Markham, and so you can follow me there. And mostly what I tweet are links to articles I like about parenting as well as studies. I keep my eye on the studies that come out. So for instance, today, I read two great studies about how when children play outside more, they're less likely to need glasses. Their eyes work and it's not. We used to think it was because they stare at a screen all day inside, but it turns out it's partly the vitamin D that we make when we're in sunlight, but it's partly simply the light. There's something about the light. It's the way human eyes are designed to function out in the light, and it keeps eyes healthier. So we actually have an epidemic of children needing glasses in the United States and in many other countries because they don't get enough light anyway. That's an example of two studies I'll be tweeting tomorrow. So that's, I guess that's how people can find me great,

Casey O'Roarty 51:01
great. Well, thank you so much listeners. I'll make sure that all of those links, including links to those two books that Dr Laura mentioned, are in the show notes. So check there. And thank you again for taking time to talk to me and to share such great information and wisdom and advice with my listeners. I

Dr. Laura Markham 51:19
really appreciate it. Casey was my great pleasure. All

Casey O'Roarty 51:23
right, have a great day. You too. Wow. I'm just gonna sit here and bask in the glory of being in conversation with one of my idols, a parent educator that I really look up to, both for the work that she puts out in the world and the way that she does it. So grateful that Dr Laura Markham was willing to spend some time with me, and actually three different times with me, because I don't know if you noticed, but we had some technical difficulties and had to continuously reschedule and record so anyway. Big, huge love. And thanks to Dr Laura. I hope that you took tons out of that conversation. Again. I can't say enough about her books, peaceful parents, Happy Kids. Peaceful parents, happy siblings. Go to her website, aha, parenting.com. It is full full of information. No matter what age kid you have, there is something there for you. And while you're at it, head on over to the live in love with joyful courage. Facebook group and join us. Join us. Be a part of the community. Let me know what you thought about the podcast. Let me know what else you'd like to hear on the podcast. If you're not subscribed, do you know that you can subscribe to the joyful courage parenting podcast on iTunes? That way you get new episodes automatically as soon as they go live, straight to your device, whether it's your phone or your tablet or your computer. So make that happen, people, and also like you heard me talking at the very beginning. Maslow is the current sponsor of the podcast, and if you are interested in checking out the common connected parenting program for free, send me an email. Send me an email with the subject line Maslow coupon, and I will give you information about that. All right. Big, huge love to each and every one of you out there on the parenting journey. We are all doing the best we can with the skills we have. I am grateful and honored to be someone that you tune into and listen to I'm living my passion, and I'm so so so happy I get to share it with you. So big love my friends. Have a beautiful, beautiful day and parent on you.

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