When kids push our buttons and what we can do about it

If you are someone who's ever felt like your child knows exactly how to wind you up, let's face it, who hasn't? You are in for a real treat today. I have such a special guest on my podcast, Bonnie Harris, author of the incredible book, "When Kids Push Your Buttons and What to Do About It." I first came across Bonnie back in 2004 when I was really struggling with my then 4-year-old son Felix. I had plenty of my buttons being pushed. He could be rude, aggressive, and defiant. and many of the standard strategies that I was using just didn't work, and I really needed help. So reading Bonnie's book was, was like a kind of light bulb moment, and it made a huge difference to be also able to attend some of her in-person workshops in London. And then I went on to get certification with Bonnie on her Parent Facilitator course. Over the years, she's not only been a huge inspiration in my work as a parenting coach, but also as a mentor. So having her on the podcast today feels like such a full circle moment and honestly a bit of an honor. Bonnie's work is so powerful because it digs deep, not just into our kids' behavior, but into our own reactions and those emotional triggers that take over when we least want them to. She gives us the tools to understand where the feelings come from and how to respond in ways that build connection instead of conflict. But first, As a parent, you know it's important to have clear boundaries, but you also want to be caring and compassionate, right? Well, I'm Camilla McGill, and as a seasoned parenting coach and mom of 4, I'm excited to give you the principles, tools, and inspiration you need to raise amazing kids. Welcome to Raising Kids with Love and Boundaries. So let's jump in. Bonnie, would you like to say a few words about you? And, uh, and then I've got some questions for you.

Well, first of all, thank you so much for that very lovely introduction. I remember so fondly my times in London for many, many years, and I always looked forward to it and always had wonderful groups and such enthusiastic and eager parents.

Great. Okay, so the first question I have is about triggers because, you know, you focus focus a lot on how our kids' behavior triggers our emotional responses. And in those moments when our buttons are being pushed, it just feels so intense. And I just love you to speak about that and why that is.

Well, yes, this is the key really to understand what our triggers are. Um, and when I wrote the book, it it really wasn't being talked about much, what happens emotionally to the parent. And of course, what I find in my counseling practice the most is that parents get into that heat of the moment with their kids. And if those buttons get pushed and they take their child's behavior personally, they're just lost. They cannot. Do what they would choose to do because they get completely usurped by old, old beliefs and habits and patterns. So the triggers usually have roots into past traumatic situations in our own childhoods. And I can talk about trauma now because It's not, it's not only considered, you know, sexual abuse or horrible physical abuse. Trauma is anything that our system couldn't deal with at the time that it was happening. It can be anything from a loss of a, of a family member to a divorce, to being yelled at. Depending on how particularly sensitive you are temperamentally, so many moments in the day can actually be little traumas. And they store up in our subconscious mind, especially if they're not processed by a knowing parent who understands and can walk you through what happened, apologize, talk about what was going on, and, and allow the child to say what they felt. So when we are not allowed to do that, when we're told as children that we better buck up, that we better stop crying— yeah, or go to your room, go to your room, I don't want to hear that anymore. You know, the standard of the day, we would shut down as children and learn that we're not going to be listened to. What's going on with us emotionally is not important. I mean, I grew up not really even understanding my own emotional life. I didn't know what I was upset about and what I wasn't, you know. I just I just shut down. Other kids will fight, fight, fight, and that drives parents crazy because they don't learn to keep a lid on it, to just be quiet, to do what they're told. So anyway, all of these experiences go into these triggers that happen when our child says or does something that taps into that hurt, that wound, that raw place that we're not even consciously aware of. Yeah, that's what's so hard about this work, um, because Parents readily say all the time, I don't know what to do. I've tried everything. I cannot get my child to listen. He will never do this. She won't do that. You know, just on and on and on with all of these complaints. And they'll also say, I lose it. I just, I scream, or I I just implode. I just can't. I just shut down. You know, again, because of our temperaments, we choose certain actions, but we don't bother to look into where that's coming from. We want our children to change. We want our children to stop pushing those buttons, and we blame them for doing the pushing rather than taking ownership and responsibility of our own buttons.

I mean, I— the amount of parents, and I know you have this, um, who I work with who have that light bulb moment, and they say, oh God, it was me that changed, right?

Right. Wait, this is about me, right? It isn't about my child.

It's not about my child. It's all about me. And, you know, and I always say, listen, you know, There's no shame. I'm not like, that's not your fault. But it is actually quite liberating to realize, yes, I have a shift. There's a really different dynamic with my child.

And the wonderful news about that is if you don't consciously know it, you certainly unconsciously know you cannot control your child. As much as you try, you cannot make your child do what you want them to do, but you can control yourself. So when you learn that this is something about you, and then with the work that I did in the book, When Your Kids Push Your Buttons, which we can go through, you have The, the opportunity to do the work on your own. And when you pull out some of this stuff, then you can kind of, I think of it always as you're pulling it out from deep inside and holding it out in front of you. And when you can look at it and see it, then you can control it and it no longer controls you. Yeah, but up until then, all of that old stuff controls all of our reactions to everything, not just our children. Yes.

And so parents will often say to me, but I just can't help it, you know, in that moment I just, just can't help myself losing it. And we know that we can, but we feel that we can't.

We feel that we can't because we don't understand what it is that's actually happening. Yes. And in that moment, what we are very aware of is our emotions, you know, whether it's rage or helplessness or fear or sadness or despair or, you know, we usually say, I get so angry. Fine, anger, but get down to what kind of anger. There's always fear under anger. What are you afraid of and how are you feeling? So what we've got to understand is what I call the emotional chain reaction, which is understanding that our feelings, and this comes from cognitive behavioral therapy, What we need to understand is that our feelings always are generated by our thoughts. And our thoughts, we have complete control over. Our feelings just erupt, right? And whenever we try to change our feelings, then we just get into deep water because you can't really change how you feel about something. And then you just feel guilty for feeling that way. But what you can do is change your thoughts. And those are the assumptions that we make about our children or about ourselves based on the beliefs that we grew up with about ourselves, about parents, about how children should be, about the world in general. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I always say to parents is just take out the word should.

Yes.

This is what's— I mean, it's everywhere, isn't it? I should be calmer. They should be a better parent.

That's right. And our shoulds have so much to do with what we think society expects of us, what we think our parents expect of us. What we think our friends and relatives expect of us and what we should be doing. And what we also think, because I hear this and I'm sure you do too, again and again and again, some form of, I'm the only one who has this problem. My child is the only one that's this sick.

Yeah.

I just, I wanna get them all together so they realize.

I know. I know. And I used to have to remind myself and I used to to, you know, and I'm frequently telling this to clients, we don't know what goes on behind their closed doors.

Never.

We are trying to get our child to get their shoes on to get out the door, and we imagine that all in all the other homes, the children are waiting like little automatons. Yes, ready.

Yes, absolutely. Okay, Mommy, I'm ready now.

Anything I can do to help?

Yeah, right.

In that moment, I mean, obviously we're not looking at quick fix solutions here. We're looking at deep-rooted kind of figuring out some things from our past that these triggers that we don't even know are there. But, but what would be sort of something that you could say or advise that we could do or to help press that? Pause button.

Yes. So what I say to parents is, because it's impossible, don't do anything in the moment. You are going to, you are going to react the way you react. And in that moment, you are emotionally flooded, as is your child. No one has a thinking brain working. Mm-hmm. So don't try to change what you're doing in the moment. Mm-hmm. Hopefully with this work that I'm gonna go through now, with each time, uh, your reaction in the moment might get a little better. Mm-hmm. But the work is in between. The work is when you've calmed down. And your emotions are back down and your thinking brain is back online, right? So, and that's, that's the time when we just want to forget the whole thing. We want to just, oh, that was a horrible moment with my child. I just have to get on with my day. I don't have time to do this work. I don't have time for this, you know, right? Sometimes It's really hard to be able to see straight, but sometime, hopefully not too far past the event, I suggest writing down on a piece of paper first your reactions. You know what you did. Did you yell? Did you scream? Did you threaten? Did you guilt-trip? Did you react with sarcasm? Yeah, with shaming. What was your reaction to your child? And you've got to really have compassion for yourself. Know that you are not the only one who has ever done this and really be honest with yourself. And this work is for you. Nobody else needs to see it. So you write down your reactions and then you write down your emotion. So did you feel hopeless? Did you feel guilty? Were you enraged? Emotions are one word. So if you find yourself saying, I felt like I was never going to be heard by my child in his— that's a thought, right? When you find yourself thinking in a— thinking your emotion is a sentence. That's your assumption. That's your thought that you're having. So get your emotions down. Then the next thing is to ask yourself, if I felt that way, what must I have been thinking? Mm-hmm. So you wanna get into the emotion first and then just think, if I felt like that, What could I possibly have been thinking? And it's, it's about you. It's about your child, whatever it is. And we'll get into that specifically. Write that down, write everything you can come up with. And then you want to reframe that. So the first is writing down your assumptions. The second is reframing your assumptions. So let's say you were thinking, He is so inconsiderate. She is so mean. He's so violent or lazy, or they never listen, or she thinks only of herself. She will never think of anybody else. No one will ever like him. He's, she's never going to have any friends, you know, or I'm a failure. I can't do this. Uh, why do I have to be the one to do the work here? My child is the one who's got the problem, or it's all my fault.

Yes.

And it's too late. All of these things that we all go through, you know, I'm not good enough. No one ever listens to me. So when you think this way, Can't you see that of course you're gonna have these feelings that are going to naturally and logically lead to the reactions you have? That once those thoughts are going, the rest just follows suit. So when you find yourself reacting in a way that you don't like, you want to go back to the beginning of that chain reaction, to your thinking, and look at what you thought and reframe it. And you cannot do this in the heat of the moment. Yeah, because you can't think. Yeah. So reframing something does not mean I'm a wonderful mother, or my child is very special and he's just fine. It's not being Pollyanna here. It's something that is taking you from the judgments that your assumptions are, because they are always judgments, to something more factual. So understanding normal child development, understanding that it's a child's job to get what he wants when he wants it. Is a good reminder at that point. He just wanted to do what he wanted to do, and he didn't like being told, right? That's a reframe. Her behavior is telling me that she's in pain, that she's upset about something. Whenever she feels upset and gets really angry, That tells me she's tired, she's hungry, or something happened that I may not know about. And, you know, so however you can look at the facts, you know, I, my agenda was to get us out the door on time to school. I'm the one who cares about that. My child doesn't care about that.

It doesn't mean that she's selfish. Disrespectful. She just doesn't like transitions. She's cozy at home.

Exactly. She just wishes she could stay in her pajamas all day. And once you are able to reframe this and understand what's really going on with your child, then you can go back and do a redo of, of a situation if it feels appropriate. and you can certainly apologize. I really don't like the way I reacted. I am very sorry for what I said and how I, how I was feeling and how I, with my tone and everything. But the most important thing is to take that apology and go one step further, which is Here's what I wish I had said or done instead. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I wish I had understood that you were having a really hard time. I got my button pushed and I thought you were giving me a hard time. Mm-hmm. And that was, I know now that was not your intention. Mm-hmm. So I wish I had said, 'Is there something I can do to help?' Or, 'Could we have a hug?' Or, you know, something like that, which you can come to when you're completely past your emotional upheaval.

And what we're not saying is, 'What did you do wrong?' I mean, sometimes a child will say, if they're a little bit older as well, they will say, 'Yeah, I should have just put my book down and Especially if you apologize and then say what you wish you had done.

You could say, is there anything you wish you had done differently? Yeah. Yeah. If it doesn't readily come, but often it just comes. And I've had so many parents say to me, my child, just when I said that, he just threw his arms around me and said, I love you, mommy. And it's just so— it's those moments that keep us going, you know. So it's wonderful when we can go back and change our thinking, change our minds. You know, you can say, I was saying that you had to do this, and when I thought about it, I realized that wasn't fair to ask you to do that.

If you've been enjoying this so far, and would like to book a free discovery call with me, please go to my website, myparentingsolutions.com, where you can find the link to book that. And Bonnie Harris is found at bonnieharris.com, and her book, When Kids Push Your Buttons and What to Do About It, is available in all major booksellers. Often parents will say to me, well, I've got to, you know, I've got to stick to what— of course we do need to have boundaries and we don't want to kind of quake when they demand something that we don't want to give them, but, but give in, right?

We don't wanna give in. Yeah. Which means you're giving your power over to your child.

Yes.

But changing your mind is something you wanna model for your child. Yeah. You really wanna model saying, I'm really sorry that I said and did that, and I've thought about it. And I'm gonna change my mind and I'm gonna say this or that. That is wonderful modeling.

Realize how important it was for you to finish that puzzle.

Exactly.

And I'd like to let you do it now, or I don't know something.

Yes. And that can lead you into problem solving. Yes. So I realize that when I said it was time to go, You wanted to finish your puzzle, and I was not even considering your puzzle. I wasn't paying any attention. All I was paying attention to was getting out of the house on time. So let's think about it. If this is, if this will happen again, which I'm sure it will, you had a project you were working on that was your agenda. And I wanted us to get out of the house so we could be on time for school. How do you think we can make that work so we both get what we want? And that's true problem solving. And then you let your child take the lead on that. And if they trust you, this is the time to be listening to their point of view. And expecting them to listen to your point of view. And you've got two people with different points of view who need to come together and find a solution. And if you start doing this when your children are really young, they get very used to it. You know, if you wait until your kids are 8 or 10 or 12 and you say, what do you think we do about it, they're going to say, I don't know, because they're not used to thinking this way. This is the best life skill for getting those neural pathways in the brain working so that by the time they're teenagers, they're going to be making much better decisions than if they had never gone through problem solving and known that they had a say and an opinion. So you can start this problem solving when your kids are, are very young. And, you know, if your kids are older and you're listening to this and want to do this, you know, start as soon as you can. Just don't expect that your child is going to want to sit there and figure things out with you if they haven't done it for the past 8 or 10 years, they're not going to understand this. They will run and not want to cooperate because they assume that you're just going to be telling them what you want them to do.

As you say, this problem solving can start from a very early age. You just have to adapt the language. Huh, we've got a problem.

Yes. What do you think we can do about it? And it's It's amazing what little children will come up with. That's when they have the imaginations. I know, Mommy, we could, we could do the puzzle when I come home from school. Yeah. Or we can make a puzzle out of a picture that we take.

You know, the other thing I'll often say to parents is we feel that if we're having this standoff, you know, the shoes, such a big one, isn't it? Getting the shoes on.

Yeah.

They might say, you carry me to the car and I'll put them on when we're there.

Yeah.

Or the coat, I might put it on when I'm cold.

Right. So you really wanna let your child, instead of thinking that it's your job to tell them what to do all the time, your job to teach them all the time, That is a huge burden that exhausts parents, especially when you don't know what's the right thing. So you can let go of that thinking. And unfortunately, a lot of parents think, oh, I'm just being a negligent parent if I don't have the answer, you know, but that's not true. You really want to give your children the opportunity to come up with something. And maybe they say, I know, Mommy, I get to have ice cream before dinner.

Yes.

And then you want to, you want to say, well, of course you do. I bet I would too if I were you. I'm not going to go along with that, unfortunately, because I'm your mom and it's my job to make sure that you eat healthy food, but I know where you're coming from. There's no harm in that, you know?

So different, isn't it? Our tone of voice is just so key. And if, so key, instead of saying, well, don't be ridiculous. Of course you're not gonna have ice cream before dinner. Exactly.

Exactly.

Which is more like, of course you'd love ice cream. Wouldn't you just love it if there was like a truck with ice cream outside the front door right now and you could have 10 flavors all at once?

Yes. Yes. I often say, wouldn't it be amazing if everything in this kitchen were made of a different kind of ice cream? What flavor do you think the refrigerator would be? You are not giving your child permission to have ice cream before dinner. You are giving your child permission to have her desires.

Yeah.

And you're understanding that a child's desires don't ever have to be put down.

Yes.

But if your desires when you were a child were never acknowledged, if you were told, what do you think, money grows on trees or something? If you are told, don't be ridiculous, then that's what's gonna come out. So there are exercises in the book, When Your Kids Push Your Buttons, but I also have a workbook that you, Camilla McGill, have done many times, I'm sure, that helps you put your own experience into the exercises to see what it is you're bringing to the table. And parents always say to me, I really don't remember my childhood. I don't either, but the workbook gives you prompts, gives you what would your mother have said if when, when this happened. It, it guides you through the thinking process, so it helps you come up with things. And I, and I also always say This is when you can make assumptions. This is when you can imagine what it was like because that is probably the truth. Understand that every time you see unacceptable behavior, it means your child is having a problem, not being a problem, right? And I say unacceptable behavior. I never say inappropriate behavior. Because behavior is always, always, always appropriate to how your child is feeling internally. And that's, that's a very important key for parents to understand. They're not doing it to get you. That was my, that was my thing. She's out to get me. That was my big assumption about my daughter. She's out to get me. She's doing this on purpose. She's bound and determined to ruin my day. Wasn't what she was about at all. She was miserable. And when I made that flip, our relationship changed in that moment and it never went back. It was amazing. It just was this enlightening moment when the parent thinks I get it.

This, my child is having a problem. They're not being a problem. They're hurting. Something's up. Um, and we can't figure it out.

That's okay. That's okay. Your job is to be curious about what's going on with your child. You may never know what it is. It might have been something that happened at school that you're never going to find out about. Right? Yeah. That's okay. All you need to know is that something provoked the behavior.

Yes.

Yes. Something that is hurting the child, something that is causing your child to feel low or down or left out or unaccepted or something in that moment.

So true. I, I remember a moment we were on a really lovely summer holiday in, um, Turkey, and Felix was about 6. And, you know, it was a holiday, there were ice creams, there was all the kind of kid food that he liked. He'd gone to this kids club, he'd made a friend at the kids club, and one night I had said no ice cream. It was late, we were trying to get him to bed, they'd already had one, and he had this most monumental, I mean like monumental tantrum. He was flailing backwards and I had to just hold him to try and contain him to stop him hurting himself and hurting me. And it went on for a good 20 minutes. And there was I sitting there thinking, he's on holiday. Like, you know, he's having so much fun. He's got friends.

We're with him.

We're both, you know, what is his problem? I never found out. In fact, years later I said, do you have any idea? He said, I wanted the ice cream. Well, it clearly wasn't about the ice cream, right?

Right.

I never knew. But you're right, there could have been someone at the kids club, maybe one of the teachers didn't put him in the group with the friends or made some slight put-down comment, or he was terribly sensitive.

Yes, yes.

It could have been anything.

But yes, well, he's what I now call the integrity child. And this is what I'm writing about now, The Integrity Child and the Harmony. And an integrity child is triggered by the word no. An integrity child is a child who won't take no for an answer and will not be told what to do. And they are right about whatever it is that they have that they're focused on, right? And so we've gotta learn how to get around that. So saying no without saying no sometimes helps. You know, I wonder if it would've been better if you had said, of course you want ice cream now. I'm not gonna give you ice cream now, but let's talk about it tomorrow. And I bet we can find a time tomorrow. Something like that might have, but you never know. It might have, it might have just been whatever, or something that happened that day that he just needed a release. You see, so often, like a situation like that, I'll hear from a parent, I just said perfectly neutrally and calmly, It's time to get your coat on. And my child blew it out like I had told him he was going to be given away. You know, it's like, where does this come from? And I think what we need to realize is that children store up their frustrations, their need to cope, need to cope, need to cope. And of course, what we need to realize is that they store up. I mean, we know when we lose it, when our patience goes, we know how long that takes. And so when you're a little child, imagine how quickly their cup is running over and they can't hold it together anymore. And so they're looking for, and not consciously, but an opportunity to release it all. And when you say it's time to get your coat on, when you say no, it's too late for ice cream, that is a moment when they can release all of that pent-up anger. And it's so important for us to let them run the whole gamut of the tantrum, you know, to take the full 20 minutes, to take the full hour if that's what it takes.

And actually to not say, okay, fine, have the ice cream.

Absolutely. You don't want to do that, right? Because it's not about the ice cream, it's not about the coat, it's not about that particular situation, that's the opportunity they have to release. And when they can release that, it's like having— we all know what it feels like to have a good cry.

Yes.

You feel better. And so when a child is allowed to go through the whole tantrum and come out of it and you're there And you stay there and they know that they can cuddle up in your lap, then they become little philosophizers, you know, and they're saying all these amazing things, you know, because they're clear. So we don't want to say calm down, stop. And schools talk about the red zone and the green zone, and you shouldn't, you know, you wanna work toward being in the green zone and not be in the red zone. All of this is telling our kids to stop it up, and then you're really in for an explosion, you know. So let the tantrums happen. My advice.

I would definitely love you to get you back on the podcast if, if, and, and talk about the integrity child.

And, um, yes, I would love to do that.

Obviously connection is so much a part of your work. If you've been enjoying this so far, you, you can get in touch with Bonnie by her website, Connected Parenting, and Bonnie Harris. And also, if you would like to have a free discovery call with me to explore how I could support you and help you with your parenting, just go to my website, myparentingsolutions.com. Just a couple of thoughts on ways to connect. I mean, we, everything that we've been talking about is about building the connection. Any couple of things that you just think are really great ways.

Connection is that ability to, first of all, be in the moment with your child, not fearing what's coming, not expecting what's happened in the past, truly being in the moment with your child and being able to get out of your own head and see the situation from their perspective and to be able to acknowledge and validate that. I get it, you thought that I preferred your sister because I took her with me when I went shopping yesterday. Of course, that's why you were so mad about that. I get that. That's not my way of thinking about it. I certainly don't feel that way, but I also understand why you felt that way. So it's being able to understand and have compassion for often a very different way of looking at a situation than you think it should be. You know, you never I can't ever do what I want. When you've just come back from a wonderful vacation, you know, that's because now we're— they're back to boring life. So, but you can say, I bet it really feels unfair to you. If you think that you never get to do what you want to do, that must feel unfair. Feel so unfair, and that just diffuses the moment, doesn't it?

Oh, totally. Instinct is to say, what?

Yes, yes. The other big one is when kids say, you don't love me. And of course we want to say, of course I love you, I love you more than anything. That is not what they want to hear, and what you're doing is actually missing them by saying that. What they want to hear is, "Oh my goodness, that must feel awful to think that I don't love you." First, that's the connection piece. Then you can get to whatever else comes after. "I love you so much," and, you know, however you want to say it. But we just forget that connection piece, and often it's just, it takes a moment. But the reason we want to jump to it is because we think we should be teaching our children all the time. We think we should be making sure that they're happy and understand why we want them to get to bed on time. I can understand that. You know, and so to, to really be able to get in your kid's head, and especially if you have an integrity child, it is so, so, so important to be able to understand the way they see and think, which can be night and day to the way you see and think.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah.

And accept that that is how they see it.

Yes.

Um, you don't, you know, so you don't have to agree with it, but that is standing in— exactly, standing in their shoes. That's how I would describe it.

And that does not in any way, shape, or form mean that you agree or you're giving permission or anything like that. You're just saying, I get it. That's what we human beings want more than anything, is to feel gotten. And if you don't feel gotten by your parents. That's a very sad state for a child to be in. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, Bonnie, it's been absolutely wonderful. I know that my listeners are going to be just so fascinated about what you've had to say and found it so helpful. So tell us how to get more of you.

Well, my website is either Bonnie Harris .com or connectiveparenting.com. It's all on my website, and I have a newsletter that comes out twice a month, and you can sign up for that, um, my website.

Well, Bonnie, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you so much for being on the podcast, and it was lovely to see you and be with you, Camilla McGill. I really enjoyed it.

Great. Thank you. And also, if you would like to have a free discovery call with me to explore how I could support you and help you with your parenting, just go to my website, myparentingsolutions.com, and there are many opportunities in the website for you to click the link to book a discovery call.