Navigate Power Struggles While Balancing Validation & Boundaries with Children

Tired of having arguments over every little task that needs to be done? Do you ever find yourself struggling to validate your child's emotions without encouraging unwanted behaviours? 

This is Part 2 of my series on power struggles. In this episode I explore the balance between acknowledging feelings and taking action. I tackle the importance of empowering children to be independent thinkers while teaching them to respect others.

You'll learn  how to support your child's emotional regulation and social emotional well-being while reinforcing your role as their adult guide. 

Listen in to learn and get some tools to help your child navigate their emotions and become a resilient, respectful individual.

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You can also submit questions directly to me at info@taragratto.ca or by heading to our website HERE

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The music for this podcast is written and produced by Jazlyn B with the guidance of Sabine Ndalamba

Note: This podcast is created for educational purposes only. Any references links, resources or content are not intended as a substitute for medical or professional mental health advice.

Transcript

Tara Gratto: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Tara's Take a podcast for parents and caring adults to listen to a fresh take on parenting, education and life with kids, rooted in experience, expertise and a deep commitment to lifelong learning. I'm your host, tara Grato, and I've spent the last two decades working with children and families in a variety of different roles and responsibilities, as well as being the parent of two amazing and distinctly unique middle schoolers. Along the way, i've discovered there are things parents never learn that are helpful to understand, topics in education that need more discussion and elements of life with kids that need to be talked about more openly. My goal is to help parents and caring adults build skills and tools for emotional regulation and social emotional well-being that are fun, effective and will support you and your child's unique needs. As a part of this journey, I wrote a comic picture book called The Adventures of Team Brain.

Tara Gratto: 0:46

Today's episode is a continuation of an idea I introduced in the episode What Might Be Fueling Your Power Struggles with Children? In that episode, i talked about the idea that sometimes we launch into problem-solving mode in difficult moments and try to talk our kids into doing what we want them to with logic and rationalization. We just want them to do the thing and we try really hard to convince them in an effort to avoid pushback or as a way to calm them down. The reality is, talking isn't as effective a tool as we need it to be in those moments. Today I want to talk a bit more about the other piece, the one where not every moment can be a big feelings moment. Now, that doesn't mean you don't still validate the feelings. I just mean you can't always have those feelings taking over everything. This is a skill that takes time to develop. Building those internal tools to recognize the feeling and moving through it is a trajectory that requires some intentional skill building and development. It also requires some reflection in action planning. You can't stop the cycle if you don't really know the cycle is happening. So, even though I talk a ton about feelings and emotional regulation, i don't subscribe to the idea that one can have extensive feelings about absolutely everything, or at least in a way that they take up so much space that you can't function. To me, that isn't actually making space for feelings. That's actually avoidance or something I like to call unintentional reinforcement. The ultimate goal is to validate the feelings without reinforcing the unwanted behaviors. In my successful parenting program Building Resilience Through Kindness. I dig deeply into the topic of unintentional reinforcement because it has some layers that often bring about a lot of aha moments for parents. It brought about a lot of aha moments for me when I first learned about it.

Tara Gratto: 2:24

Now, in the last episode, what might be fueling your power struggles with children? I asked you to reflect on your reaction to power struggles When your child is pushing back. Are you taking their behavior personally, or perhaps using a lot of talking to get them to understand your point of view, in hopes that talking more will lead to their agreement? If you've done this reflection, you likely have taken the next step in realization that talking more does not lead to greater compliance. It only leads to greater conflict or bigger behaviors, for both you and your child. It's easy to do. I do it all the time and have to catch myself. I literally had this conversation with my husband last weekend.

Tara Gratto: 3:01

As my kids are shifting into a new stage of development. I've been caught in the convince you rabbit hole more than once And once again, i just need to focus on validating the feelings, stepping back for a moment or five and then moving forward with the actions. In this stage of parenting which I'm in, which is preteen teen. I'm really transparent with them about the fact that I'm doing this. When they were younger, this was not part of how I approached this particular challenge. This is a great example of how your approach to similar challenges needs to look quite different as your children grow and develop. As I mentioned in the last episode, there is nothing I can actually say that will convince anyone to do something that they don't want to do, no matter how old they are, or just because they are a child and I'm an adult. This model for parenting and adult child relationships is no longer effective because relationship dynamics are different. When you make an effort to remove threats, bribes and punishment, you have to shift your approach. So, in an effort to avoid losing your cool to being supportive, to acknowledging feelings, it's easy to do things like talk too much, but the thing is that's not actually solving the problem And, in fact, it's probably making it a bigger one. The problem to tackle is threefold The feelings need to be validated, the thing, whatever it is, still needs to happen, and children need to learn why.

Tara Gratto: 4:22

Listening to adults is important. When I speak to educators, parents and other caring adults people like coaches. One of their biggest complaints right now is lack of respect, increasing aggressiveness and an unmanageable level of pushback on doing everyday things. As we move to empowering children to be advocates and independent thinkers, sometimes they are learning that their opinion matters more than others and that they only need to do things that are fun. We're on that last one in a future episode. In standing up for oneself or engaging in a disagreement, children need to be taught this does not mean devaluing another person and that many adults have a lot of lived experience to shape their perspectives. This is not to say adults exist as know-it-alls, but it certainly does not mean children are either. Mutual respect is important. Lived experience is also important, and I think some of the efforts being made to support children right now are being done in a way that devalues adults, which is making for situations where children aren't listening. There are a lot of layers of nuance to this and entirely different episodes worth, but for now let's focus on the three layers.

Tara Gratto: 5:32

First, validating the feelings. This is knowing the difference between saying things like suck it up and only babies cry, otherwise known as emotional suppression and understanding that you don't have to like your feelings to still do the thing and that some feelings can't take up space in the moment in time that they're happening. Here's the potential mic drop moment. It doesn't matter if you agree with your children's feelings or if they make sense to you, or if they feel silly or downright annoying. If you are aiming to reduce your power struggles while validating feelings with some actionable tools, all feelings matter, but that doesn't mean feelings should be an obstacle. They are a warning, a guide, a cue. They are not a wall, and you also can't convince someone to feel the way you want them to. That isn't your choice. That's a really hard pill to swallow as a parent.

Tara Gratto: 6:26

Now, if you've been in my world for a while, you know I used to call this podcast Raising Resilient Children with Tara. This would be a really good example of fostering resiliency, the importance of validating feelings without letting them hold you back from doing the thing, whatever that thing is Going to school, brushing your teeth, turning off the video game, getting back up after falling down and keeping at it instead of going home. I'm sure you can all think of some examples. So, on a practical level, how do you do that? How do you validate the feelings without having them take up so much space, or every little thing becoming a really big thing. First, stop over talking and focus on building tools for emotional regulation, where things like feelings, validation can look like a lot of different things Things like identifying the feelings happening to needing some tools to deescalate that dyno brain. If you want to take this concept to the next level, i invite you to check out my one-on-one support or look at the RRC Resource Center, because this is part of what I teach in those spaces. You can also grab a copy of the Adventures of Teen Brain, because that will get you started in the journey.

Tara Gratto: 7:30

The second piece is about connection, relationships and fostering independence as a trajectory. I recognize that sometimes we just need to make decisions and our children just need to do the thing. How are you actively fostering and developing a relationship based on support and connection, with an understanding of what parents and adults know and do versus children? The extension of this is taking the time to build an understanding with your child about doing uncomfortable, boring and necessary things, and why sometimes adults make seemingly unfair rules, decisions and so on. This is the part that is most likely missing in your current dynamic, and the important thing to note is that there's more to this conversation than because I'm an adult. If you want this to be something that your children get on board with, it's something that takes time to teach and will require you taking a step back to figure out situations where your child does have control and where they do not, and maybe some reflecting on why. It will also take some time reflecting on how you are currently communicating your role as they're carrying adults outside of tricky and difficult moments.

Tara Gratto: 8:36

Here's the thing He likes rules and responsibilities that are made up in the moment. Adults make up a lot of rules in the moment because that's when we realize our children are pushing too far or doing something they shouldn't be doing or need to be doing something we want them to do. This is also where threats, bribery and punishments typically come into play. Ultimately this is why I'm having this conversation Those elements are ineffective at getting the outcome you need while fostering a respectful and connected relationship with your child. This is the difference between power struggles and adult child relationships. Ideally, we want children to listen to us because they want to and understand the value of our experience and our expertise, not just because they have to or they're afraid not to.

Tara Gratto: 9:25

As a longtime educator, there is something significant I'm noticing about most parenting advice that I'm seeing out there the missing ingredient in many of the recipes Most of the models require an understanding that the things you are changing are all related to skill or the skill building process. In other words, these things will take time. In this case, the one we're talking about building a solid foundation for independence is a trajectory, a really long one. In the culture where I currently live, the magic deadline is 18 years or so, but in terms of brain development, we're talking more like 20 to 25 years. So as we build our child's independence and work towards supporting the development of their executive functioning skills things like impulse control, decision making, organization, time management, emotional regulation the truth of the matter is sometimes we need to make top heavy decisions they don't have to like but need to do.

Tara Gratto: 10:20

How we communicate. This is an essential component of reducing our power struggle dynamics On a practical level. To do this, you need to actively strike a balance between the spaces where your child has a strong sense of control and autonomy over their decision making and choices and other spaces where you are clearly communicating they don't. Actually, in both situations, you need to be clearly communicating the difference, not in those tricky moments. I know I keep saying this, but it's an essential part of this process. This means they don't get choices over everything, and it also means they're going to be decisions you make that they don't like. Don't fall down the rabbit hole of using logic to dig yourself out of those situations. Validate the feelings while still holding the boundary, limit or decision.

Tara Gratto: 11:04

If you want to deep dive into the concept of choice over realm and age appropriate choices, i've discussed these ideas in a few episodes now. But to get you started, you could check out is saying be careful, really not specific enough. That episode looks at how we manage risk and age appropriate independence and where we are removing children's skill building opportunities. And then the other one is called giving children more choices might be making your power struggles worse. That one really digs into choice over realm, increasing anxiety and freeze frame. Now something I've noticed as a bit of a snapshot on this topic as a whole we tend to give younger children too many choices and older children too few. We really need to flip our approach.

Tara Gratto: 11:43

I also recognize the messaging and research out there is a bit misleading because it's often shared in a way that there's an assumption that parents understand the nuance, or a belief that children are intuitive and understanding well beyond their abilities. This is not to say children aren't smart and intuitive they totally are But I think we put a lot of pressure on them to be wise beyond their years. I also don't see how we can just put all children into one bucket. There's such a range of differences as children grow and develop. There is so much complexity in the decision-making process and being able to waste one's options to resist impulse to make the better decision for our body and mind. Decision-making is a skill that needs to be developed over time and we need to build skills incrementally. Ultimately, as a part of the process, you need to reflect on the types of choices you give, when you give them and how you are working on intentionally fostering independence and autonomy in a way that reinforces where they have control and where you do, and why those two spaces are different.

Tara Gratto: 12:43

If you currently give children choices to avoid power struggles or talk them through situations in hopes of getting them on board with this narrative, i suspect the missing pieces are building some essential life skills for social-emotional regulation and fostering some conversations about why caring adults do things that children have to do, but don't always like. I think on any given day I might do an even amount of tasks that I don't really want to do with things I want to do And I love what I do, but the reality of living and working is that not all of life is fun, exciting or entertaining. I think we've lost track of the idea that completing tasks and mundane actions can be rewarding and valuable. It's just not fireworks and shiny objects. Okay, so let's loop back to how we can strive to strike a balance. If we want children to accept our decisions without engaging in logical and rationalization rabbit holes and without them losing their minds, you have to do some work and common connection to build this understanding.

Tara Gratto: 13:40

This can look like two different things. With younger children in particular, we want to reflect on where they are in control. When is it a kid choice and what do those spaces look like? It might also look like ensuring there are spaces like that. Again, the goal here is not to be using those tricky moments as the teaching space for the kid choice, adult choice, because that's not going to work. It's having those conversations and little comments outside of the tricky moments on an ongoing basis. The other piece is one you will build over time and it's the idea that different people have different roles or responsibilities. I have a mini lesson called parent job, kid job, friend job inside their raising resilient children resource center, and it's a framework for guiding conversations with children about why sometimes we make the decisions we make and how we understand they won't always like those decisions. It gives you a solid answer to their whys without getting caught in the cycle of conflict over convincing and, ultimately, power struggles.

Tara Gratto: 14:36

I know some of you are thinking why do I need to have this type of conversation? Isn't it obvious? Well, here's the thing It's not obvious until you make it that way. Children are awesome and intuitive, but they are also learning and growing and you are implementing strategies with them that have never existed before. So the best way to remove any confusion is to create a clear baseline that removes any possibilities of misunderstanding, misinterpretation or assumption, yours or theirs. Reflecting back to something I said earlier, if your aim is to use less threats, bribery, lose your cool less in other words, yell less and to never cause physical harm, you have to change your mindset around why children should listen to adults and what they understand about your role and relationship with them. The reality is, most people grew up in homes where they feared adults at least a little, because they held the keys to power or punishment. Now, when you remove that element, there's a really important part here. You have to build adult-child relationships differently.

Tara Gratto: 15:38

I think part of the message being lost in this approach is that this does not make children and adults equal in terms of the experience or expertise. It makes them both equally human and valuable. As I say to my children you can have your feelings. It does not mean you can be unkind to me. You can show me that I'm wrong. It does not mean you should do this disrespectfully. You don't have to like all of your teachers, but you do need to listen to them and when you disagree with them, use kindness. Being right about something doesn't mean it's okay to be mean. This is a two-way street.

Tara Gratto: 16:12

So your goal this time is to reflect on where your child has control, what that looks like and how are you positively talking about it, in other words, reinforcing it In a tricky moment. The idea of do as I say works a lot better when children know of some spaces that they don't have that dynamic. We need to make sure those spaces exist? The other piece how are you actively building tools for emotional regulation and social emotional well-being to support the feelings yours and theirs without having them take over? Finally, how are you putting in place some language to explain what the role of a caring adult is, what the role of a child is and how sometimes your job in protecting their physical and mental well-being is asking them to do things they may not like but need to listen to. Again, these conversations will vary by age and stage, but there are ways of having age-appropriate chats along the way as you intentionally build skills and tools for independence and autonomy while supporting feelings and still getting out the door on time.