When One Correction Sends Your Kid Over the Edge

In today's episode, I speak with a grandmother and invite you into our real-time coaching session as we unpack what to do when homework time quickly turns into frustration, shutdown, and intense emotions. Welcome to the Parent Coaching Chair Podcast. I'm your host, Julie Fragnito, and your partner in parenting. Here we'll talk with real parents about their real moments. Come along as we grow from each other's experiences and receive practical, high-structure, high-nurture tools that you can use to lead confidently at home. In today's episode, we unpack what to do when a seemingly simple homework moment turns into intense frustration, defiance, and withdrawal. But underneath it is a much bigger question many caregivers are carrying. How do I support a child who melts down when things feel hard or overwhelming? Let's get started.

My 11-year-old, uh, Actually, my grandson, uh, was working on some homework. He was sitting on the bar stool and I was just standing beside him. He was supposed to look at a picture and identify how it showed economic issues or geography issues, social issues, whatever. And it said, give 5 examples. And so I was watching him and trying to give him the lead. And he looked at it and he said, "Well, I don't need to do 5." And I said, "Well, it says 5." And he said, "Well, I don't need to do 5." So then we moved on and we just talked about stuff. And then he started writing an answer and it said clearly that he was to use complete sentences. And he started off with, "Because whatever." So I pointed out that the instruction said he needed to use complete sentences. And he said, you know, it doesn't matter. And he just kind of flew off and he just took his paper and his pencil and he just went off by himself angry. And he said, you know, I don't want your help. I don't, I don't need any help.

There is some strong emotional response and even physical, right? He's moving his body to your corrections, right? So when you're offering some sort of feedback, correction, even if it's coming from a good place and well-intended, he is kind of going into fight mode. And that's the big question mark here.

I know from, from my 11 years with him, he's very conscious of doing things right. He doesn't like to be wrong. And so it's, it's very hard to approach him about anything that he doesn't instantly feel he's done something wrong.

Children. Show tricky behaviors when one of four underlying motives exists. So one of the first motives is sensory. If your child is giving you a hard time and they're, you know, throwing a ball in the air, or they're pushing their feet into the couch and moving it across the floor, that's sensory. They're doing it because it has some sort of good feeling to them, and usually they're doing this with a smile on their face. The other cause of challenging behaviors is escape. They would like to escape what it is that they need to do in that moment. So you say it is time to go to bed and they run, or it is time to clean up after dinner and they put up a big fight. They don't wanna do that right now. Sometimes our kids act out for attention, right? And when they scream or throw a fit or run away and slam a door and we go chasing after them and we are saying, what's wrong? What's wrong? Why are you doing this? We're actually giving them exactly what they want, right? Attention. Cuz maybe they feel like it's lacking in other parts of their life. And then the last one is when our kids want something tangible that they cannot have. An example of that would be, can I watch TV right now? And we say, no, not right now, but you can watch it later. And they throw a fit because they have to stop watching TV or they have to stop playing their game. And in that moment, they might act out in poor ways because they really wish that they could have had access to that thing that they are not allowed to have. And so when we analyze this moment, with your grandson. We're looking at this picture and we're trying to find 5 things to identify. And you come in and you say, 5 things. And he has this reaction to you. I don't have to find 5 things. That speaks measures to me. This to me is pointing to escape. He is trying to get out of doing this. Kids try to escape things. Especially when it comes to schoolwork, homework, cleaning up after themselves. Grandma says, it says 5 things. He fights back and then he starts doing the next thing, not 100%. And you said, well, it needs to be complete sentences. And now what's going through this child's mind is, oh my gosh, this is so overwhelming to me. How am I ever gonna find 5 things? And now she's telling me to use complete sentences. Oh my gosh, my body feels like it's on fire. I am going to assert my control in this moment, and I'm going to say, I got this, I'm fine, I'm going to do this myself, and I'm going to walk out of the room. He escaped. He got out of that moment. How did the moment end?

Well, he went into another room. He propped on the bed and worked on the table. Actually, his mother was here, so she intervened at that time and went to talk to him. And then she came back out, and I looked at him. He looked up at me, and I didn't say anything. He didn't say anything. And so I went up to her and I whispered, I said, what, what do you do with him when he gets like that? And she said, we have to leave him alone. And so that's what we did. I didn't look at his work, so I don't know what he did, but I usually, she just decides to let him do it his way.

That was really helpful. And I appreciate you being so transparent. So here's the thing, behaviors that are being reinforced will continue to repeat themselves. The way I see it is that our kids are little scientists, right? They're learning about the world around them. They're constantly calculating and figuring out the limits and what they need to do to get them what they want. Not in a manipulative way, just this is how humans grow. And so what he is wiring because of this pattern that you're sharing with me is that when I want to escape something, I get this way and everybody leaves me alone. And is this desirable behavior or is this challenging behavior? I would identify it as challenging. You looked at your daughter and you said, what do you do when he gets this way? Because this is tricky. This doesn't feel super comfortable. And so what is the solution when things get tough? It's always giving him a better skill to get what he wants first. Let's break it down practically. This task feels like a lot for him, and so he wants to get out of it. There could be many reasons why he wants to get out of this. Maybe he wants to get to playing his games. Maybe he wants to get to watching something on TV. Maybe he wants to get to resting and he doesn't wanna think anymore. Maybe this feels like a really overwhelming assignment. I don't know. We need to get to the bottom of that as parents. Now what happens is once we can identify what the cause is, I think we've boiled it down to escape, is we offer him a better way to escape. In this family, we don't run off and storm off when we wanna get out of doing something. We talk about it. So what do we do, right? In that initial moment where he looks at you and says, I don't have to find 5, get on his level. Yeah, 5 seems like a lot of things. Wow. This does seem like a lot. Well, I have an idea. Can you find just like one thing? You get one in your mind. I'll get one in my mind. Let's see if we come up with the same thing. Do you see what I'm doing here? I'm getting on his level and I'm just casually talking about this to put the feelers out there to see what it is. Can he do one thing? When we get to the moment of, I don't need to do this, I don't need to write full sentences, I got this, I'm gonna go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We need to teach a better skill. If he wants to say, this feels overwhelming right now, then say, This feels overwhelming right now. I need a 5-minute break, and then we're gonna come back and find one more thing. But as the leader, we have to set that limit and that boundary. I think it sounds good to say homework needs to be completed at the counter where you were. It needs to be completed here, so you can go take 5 minutes and then come back. We'll find one more thing together. You could take another break if you need it. Come back, we'll find another thing together, and it'll be done before you know it, right? Building in breaks for him so that he feels like it is attainable. And it's not so overwhelming so that he can get it done in a healthy way. Now, the follow-through is making sure that we're positive about it, keeping the moment positive. Hey, wow, you found that one. I didn't even find that one.

I can certainly see how this would've defused his attitude. He certainly should've been more cooperative if that had been done that way.

You're recognizing that a body and a nervous system that reacts in this way does not feel safe, right? He's getting worked up to a point where he feels like this place where I am right now is not safe. My body feels like it's on fire. I need to escape. And we wanna say, hey, no, this place is perfectly safe. I got you. This is really hard. Let's take a break. You know what? You find 2 things. I'm gonna go get the cookies.

And see, that's so difficult because we hadn't started very long and it didn't feel like it made sense to give him a break. It was just really hard for me to appreciate his level of feeling unsafe.

This is a muscle that he needs to build because right now it's weak. He doesn't have a very big tolerance for feeling something uncomfortable because what is his answer? To storm away. What is mom and dad's answer? Leave him alone. So that's his pattern and we need to break that pattern. So what does that mean? That the first step is gonna be so darn small. We need to just keep him there. We're retraining him with baby steps. So even if it seems like you're giving a ton at the beginning, yeah, it might.

Right.

It might feel like that. And that's normal. And then over time we increase that tolerance. Hey, last week we did 1 question, then cookie break. This week we're doing 2 questions, then cookie break. I know you can do this. Do you see the language there?

It's, yeah, it's positive.

It's, I'm not scared of this assignment and you shouldn't be either. We're gonna get it done. I'm gonna help you.

Alright, so he would've been more cooperative, but I think he still would have wanted to escape and try not to, not to finish the assignment. So is a baby step mean just kind of let it go a little bit first and then each time be a little bit more insistent on him finishing or cooperating?

Baby steps mean letting some things go because we are breaking a pattern this time. We're just looking to get through the page. If he doesn't use complete sentences this time, that's okay. We'll take the C instead of the A on this assignment. Because as his leader, we have to do that behind the scenes work of, hey, you can judge whatever you want about this paper, but as his leader, I know what it took for him to sit at that counter and do that page, even if it's not perfect. This was imp—

improvement.

And that's what we have to celebrate as leaders in our kids' lives. Other people from the outside can say, hey, it's not done. It's not right. It's not perfect. This isn't good. And in your heart, in your mind, you're like, this is exceeding expectations. And you know what? Next week we're going to raise the bar a little more. And the next week we're going to raise the bar a little more. But in order to see behavior change, we take steps up a ladder. He is at the bottom of the ladder. And at the very top of the ladder is your grandson coming home, completing his homework at the counter, getting through it confidently, reading the rules and expectations, finishing it correctly, and putting it in his bag for the next day. That is not gonna happen overnight. We need to just get him to stay, to stay at the counter. That's progress. That's the first step of the ladder. Hey, thank you so much for sitting here. I know this is really difficult and this assignment is so not fun, but I really appreciate you sitting here. I'll add one more thing as a middle and high school teacher of all boys for over 8 years, I would add that boys love play and positivity and competition. So if you are looking at him and you're just like, hey, if you can find 2 things, I will find the other 3. I bet you he will be like, challenge accepted. Any sort of game that we could make this into. If you get 2 things by the time my 4-minute timer goes off, what's the movie he really wanted to watch? He can watch it for an extra 5 minutes tonight, whatever it might be. But we're just, anything it takes, right? At the beginning, just to get him to stay in that discomfort is the first step.

So he does this a lot as far as getting instantly frustrated. And I assume it's most of the time I attribute it to the fact that he does not want to be wrong. So we have found that it seems to be important to leave him alone for some period of time. I don't know, 15 minutes or maybe sometimes Sometimes more. So if you have the time, is it okay to just let him defuse and then go to him and do these steps with the, let's do one?

I think what you're asking is when he is totally dysregulated, how do we go about those moments?

He just gets worse if you approach him.

That's very typical of a child who feels things intensely. And what that means is we don't engage. When our children are in that state of dysregulation. That's correct. We don't engage with that. That is not a productive time to work things out. That is not a productive time to start teaching him a lesson. That is not a productive time to correct. But the idea here is that we don't let it end with him getting away from something by just running away from it.

Right.

We have to ease him back and bring him back and positively motivate him and say, you got this. This is not easy stuff. This takes time and I'm here to help you. Just because you're struggling does not mean that you are stupid. Just because this is hard doesn't mean that you are not capable. We all find things hard and frustration is growth. Feeling something hard is not a sign that you are weak. And right now it's almost like his escape. Ugh, I'm the worst. I'm bad. I don't like this feeling. I'm gonna run. It is our job as leaders to say that homework is going to stay on this counter and we will get through this together. That is not an option. That is the limit, right? All feelings are welcome, all behaviors are not. You don't ever get to get out of something hard by running away from it and stuffing it in your bag.

That is something that, uh, from my rearing and even mine with my daughter, was that comment you said about all feelings are welcome. That's not how we were raised, and I don't think I did that with my daughter either.

It takes a lot of work to break that mindset of you're allowed to feel You gotta feel, you're a human and everybody feels things at different levels of intensity, right? And I think it's important to realize that your grandson probably feels things a little more intensely than others. Outrageous feelings should never help them get more attention for things, right? We wanna show that when you do the right thing, you pretty much get what you want. And so if you need an extra 5 minutes, you let me know. If you don't know where to begin, let me know. If you need help finding a couple of the 5 things that you have to identify, let me know. Say, I don't think I can find 5. I think I can find 2. Teach him to say that and give him the other 3. What we're doing is we're retraining him to communicate the feeling behind his actions better so that we can all move through a situation with more resilience.

All your talking just reminds me of the fact that not too many years ago, I said to a development specialist that, you know, well, I was raised differently and I raised my daughter differently and we all turned out just fine. And I've realized in the last few years, we didn't really turn out just fine. We've got a whole lot of hangups from not being able to express our feelings.

Your transparency and ability to even talk about this shows me that you are far ahead and far more aware than so many people of the generation that you're speaking of. You definitely have a gift that you're able to step away and be so reflective. As we wrap up, I just want to remind you of this. When a child melts down over something that seems small, it's rarely about the assignment, the rules, or getting it right. It's about how safe their body feels in that moment and whether they believe they can stay with something hard and still be okay. Growth doesn't happen in perfection. It happens in tolerance, in staying just a little longer than the last time. In knowing that someone steady is beside you, saying, "I've got you. This is hard. You can do hard things." If you're walking this road with a child who feels deeply, who hates being wrong, or who escapes when things get uncomfortable, please know this: you are not behind, and your child isn't broken. You're building a muscle together, and muscles grow slowly, with patience, repetition, and care. Thank you for joining me in the parent coaching chair. Keep leading your home with high structure and high nurture, and I'll meet you back here next week. If you're looking for more support, you'll find classes and practical guides over at my website, www.transformingparenthood.com, and podcast listeners can use the code PODCAST 15 at checkout for 15% off my Mastering High Structure, High Nurture course, my signature systematic approach to raising cooperative and emotionally skilled kids.