How to End Power Struggles

You're listening to good inside with Dr. Becky. I have so many ideas, strategies and scripts to share with you right after a word from our sponsor. Hi, I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical, actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away. One of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available to us in that moment. So even as we struggle and even as we are having a hard time on the outside, we remain Good inside. Today we're going to be talking about some really common and tricky moments in parenting. The moments where you ask your child to do something seemingly simple and you're greeted with a no, no, I'm not doing that, or a flat no, or the no where a child isn't saying no, but they're just ignoring what you're asking for. We're going to be going over what you can do in these moments and what you can do outside these moments so you have fewer of them in the first place. With all that in mind, let's jump in. Let's hear from our first call, Trevor.

Hi, Dr. Becky. My name is Trevor and I live in Southern California, Orange county. And I have two children, Patrick, age two and a half, and Maisie, about 10 months. My question is about my two and a half year old son, Patrick. He loves to say no to everything. You know, Patrick, let's put on your socks. No, put on socks. Patrick, it's time to eat lunch. No, eat lunch. It's no to everything, even things that he wants to do. And my wife and I have made a concerted effort to always give him choices. Like, Patrick, do you want to read on the couch or do you want to read on the floor? You know, do you want to eat at the big table or do you want to eat at the little table? You know, a choice for everything, but it's just constantly no. And even though we get to the day okay, hearing no for so many things is just a huge drain and is very exhausting sometimes. So I'm just wondering how to approach this and especially how to get better at it for the next child as she gets older as well. I'd really appreciate some advice.

Hi, Trevor. First of all, thank you so much for calling in. I have so many memories, so many that are exactly like yours. I am asking my child to do a very, very basic thing and the intensity and the frequency of the no, that comes back to me. Ugh, it can be so frustrating. And I know every single listener has experiences that resonate as well. So let's do what we kind of love to do here. Let's understand what's going on, and then let's trans that understanding into a couple very actionable, practical strategies. So what's going on here? I really believe that no allows us kind of self definition. Right. If we go back to our adolescence, I think we can all remember that we never know kind of that we are really our own person as much as when we're saying no to somebody else. Right. When you're a teenager and your parents tell you what time to be home and you're even thinking in your head, nope, not going to do that. Well, what you're really saying to yourself is, I am my own person. I have my own identity. And saying no. It's a simple word, two letters. It accomplishes in a lot of ways that identity formation for adolescents and identity formation in toddlerhood is also really core to that developmental stage. Son is trying to figure out who he is in relation to you and as separate from you. And playing around with the word no is totally appropriate because we want our kids to figure out who they are as a separate person. But I promise, Trevor, that's not all I have for you because I know as a parent also, we need strategies to actually get through those moments. So what do we do? Let's go over some things you can do in the moment and some things you can do outside the moment to really help Patrick both feel like his own person and be a little bit more cooperative. First strategy in the moment, allow the no. Replace reacting with counting to 10 and taking a deep breath. Right. So you say, patrick, time to go. Let's put on your socks. No, I'm not putting on my socks. 1, 2, 2, 3. You hear how long it takes me to get to three? Imagine actually doing that until you count to 10. Why? Because our natural reaction is to react and actually add resistance. So if you're like me, if you don't pause, you're gonna say this. Just put on your socks. Come on, put on your socks. You're the one who wants to go to soccer class. You know, we have to get to school. Whatever you're doing, and you can see going back to that understanding. And if the no represents my child kind of feeling like their own person, then my reacting with control. You have to do this. You need to do this. It's only going to make my child more likely to continue giving me those nos. So instead of reacting, pause, count to 10. Now, this isn't magic. It doesn't mean after 10, your child's going to be putting their socks on. But actually, I've watched in my own home how many times that pause gives my child the space they need to realize maybe I also have the desire to put on my socks and get out the door. Okay, second, you've said this kind of 10 to yourself. You've taken a deep breath. Your child's still resisting. Then what? Here's something I like to say to my kids, especially when they were younger, around this kind of identity formation need. Wow, Patrick, you really are your own person. Wow. I asked you to put on your socks, you said no. I think you're telling me you really like to be in control of your own decisions. What am I doing here? I'm actually naming the need, the kind of goal under the no, you really are your own person. Wow, you really are a big kid. Wow, you really know what you want. Those words actually help your child feel seen. And we all know when we feel seen, we're more likely to cooperate. What else can you do in that moment? Add fun. But add fun in a way that still allows your child to feel like their own person, because that's what they're going for in the first place. So your child's now said no to doing their bath. After I've counted, after I've named, they really want to be their own person. I might say something like this. I wonder if there's anyone in this house who can think of the most ridiculous way to get water poured on their body during a bath. Let me think. I wonder if it's going to be me or you, me or you, who's going to come up with the funniest idea. Now I'm allowing my child to have an opportunity to think of something funny, to cooperate, but to actually think of it themselves, which fulfills that need to be their own person. So let's kind of bring those together. Pause, count to 10, name what your child is looking to hear, and then allow your child to come up with a solution. Now, Trevor, I have to say, these moments, these no moments are so frustrating that me too, sometimes it's hard to do these things in the moment. I'm kind of reactive. So there's actually so many things we can do outside the moment. And I think you'll hear things that I'm gonna share with other callers that will apply but for now, I would love to know what happens when you try some version of a get your nose out of your body in the morning game. So if my child's in a no stage, I might start the morning like this. I don't know about you, Patrick. I have so many no's in my body. Can you just ask me some questions? Right? And maybe my child doesn't even respond. I still would say this. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Wait, I think I have a few more. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, I got a bunch them out anyway. What. What am I doing here? I'm adding playfulness. I'm adding levity. I'm actually introducing the idea that noes can exist between us. I'm not resisting it. I'm actually inviting it. And then I'd allow your child to do the same. Do you have any no's? Do you want me to ask you questions? Hey, Patrick, do you want to go to the moon? Hey, Patrick, do you want to have ice cream for breakfast? Right. Something that it might even be funny to have a no response to. And in doing this, you're really changing your child's relationship with the no and adding so many of those elements that improve cooperation. And now our next caller, Andrea.

Hi, my name is Andrea. I'm from Denver, Colorado, and I have one son who is almost five years old. So my question is, what can I do better in situations where he just feels like saying no? And he just tells me he just feels like saying no. Like this morning, we need to get ready for school and I need to leave for work, and everything is no. Even the. I say, okay, pick a shirt. I give him three choices. You can pick one of these shirts. Nothing. Okay, I'll pick one for you. And then he rips it off. So that's a struggle. And then we move to the shoes. Same thing. Pick which shoes you want to wear. And he says nothing. And then it's. He just, you know, puts the pause button on and sits on the couch and doesn't move. I tried talking it out with him, and nothing. He is a big feeling kid, so pushing him too hard or being rushed makes him react. I know. So I try really hard to be calm and not put that pressure on him, but sometimes he just puts the brakes on and everything is nothing and no. So I never know what the best choice is in that scenario. And I. It's probably one of my biggest triggers, and I don't usually handle it well, and I end up putting his shirt and shoes on for him, which is enabling and all those things. So I'm looking for a better way to handle that.

Hi, Andrea. You know, my first reaction is that I really hear your frustration here, and I hear that you want to show up in a different way. And before we jump into any strategies, I'd ask you to just kind of join me and just tell yourself, this is really frustrating. It's really frustrating to try to move the day along, and I'm tired and it's hard, and I'm a good parent who's going to learn some different things, and I'm trying my best. Okay, what's next? A couple ideas for you. I think so often when we get really frustrated as parents, as just humans, there's probably some expectation that wasn't met. And I think as a parent, we often tell ourselves in the morning, oh, I hope this morning goes better. And it's not like I think we should tell ourselves, oh, I hope this morning's a disaster. But it's important to have reasonable expectations because then we can deal with the matter at hand instead of having to deal with the matter at hand and our own disappointment. So right now, Andrea, I would imagine your morning, like, actually visualize it, right? Get all the details, and then imagine your child saying, no. Imagine them saying, no, I'm not getting ready. No, I'm not putting my shirt on. And then see yourself. And actually in that image, watch yourself, take a deep breath. Maybe imagine it's me or it's Trevor right next to you saying, ugh, parenting's really hard, right? So we have that validation, doing that mental prep work and that real kind of imagery work of imagining ourselves in a more grounded way. It actually gives our body kind of a rep and helps us be that parent in the moment. A couple other ideas. See the wish under the no? There's always a wish under a no. Sometimes it's very specific, sometimes it's kind of grand. I'll give you some examples. Something specific. You wish I would put your clothes on for you. Huh? A different wish might be. I bet you wish you were in charge of all your own decisions. I bet you wish you could decide whether you had to change out of pajamas at all. Or when it comes to these nos that are around transitions, I think there's often this wish underneath. I bet you wish you had more time with mommy, huh? I bet you wish sometimes you could stay with mommy all day. Or do you ever wish you could go to school and learn and Be with your friends and be with me all day. Do you ever wish you could do all of that? Naming a wish under a no really helps a child feel seen and it helps a child understand their own behavior. And this always leads to increased cooperation. What else? Well, Andrea, when all else fails, I'll be honest. This is my go to line and I'll model it and then explain why I love it so much. There's something about blank that doesn't feel good to you. I believe you. There's something about putting on a shirt right now that doesn't feel good to you.

Huh?

I believe you. There's something about eating breakfast right now that doesn't feel good to you. I believe you. There's something about getting into the car that doesn't feel good to you. I believe you. Why is this my favorite line? Okay, well, I love that in this line, I don't have to understand anything about why my child's upset. I don't have to understand why they don't want to put on a shirt. I don't have to understand why they don't want to eat breakfast. I don't have to understand why they don't want to be in the car. I don't have to understand any of that. I just have to believe my child's experience. I think a lot of us have a easier time validating a child's experience when we understand it. But I think what's really critical is to consider that validation can come before understanding. And when we validate someone's experience as real, often that's what they're looking for anyway, just to be believed. So that's something I would really have in your back pocket. And if that's something that doesn't come naturally to you, those words, practice it in front of a mirror a few times, even pause this podcast right after and just say, huh, there's something about this that doesn't feel good to you. I believe you. Let's hear from our final caller, Katie.

Hi, Dr. Becky, this is Katie. I live in Atlanta, Georgia. I have a two year old, a little over two year old son and a six month old daughter. I'm calling just with a question about kind of how you would handle this or what words you might use around something my son's doing. So he we've learned a lot about consent and it's important to us for him to learn about, you know, his own bodily consent as well as others and treating each other with respect. And so when he hurts us, we often say like, stop I don't like that. And make him. And then, you know, make him stop. He has taken this and we love to see him now he's starting to say, stop idle. I know like it. I know like it. Which is awesome in certain scenarios. But then he started to do that and things like brushing teeth and taking baths and any of the things that he might not feel like doing in the moment. And so I want to encourage him to continue to set healthy boundaries around what he wants done to his body, like when he and dad are wrestling or reno rush housing. I guess I need some guidance or some instruction on kind of how to reframe when we're doing things that are healthy for him and necessary for personal hygiene or, you know, doctor's visits or things like, are there certain words or things that might be helpful in those situations to say, oh, yep, you don't like it, but we have to do it anyway, and kind of helping him understand that at his little stage. So thanks so much for your help. I love your podcast. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you, Katie. Your calling in reminds me of a question I get often, and honestly, it's often about toothbrushing. It's something like this, how do I get my child to brush their teeth without giving me a hard time? And if they are giving me a hard time, do I pin them down on the ground and brush their teeth? Do I let them go a few nights without brushing? What do I do? Okay, I want to take this question and zoom out and then Katie will zoom back into all of the questions you raised, because it's all related. Here's the big idea. I think when we don't have a good answer to our question, we're asking the wrong question. We can't ask the question, how do I get my child to brush their teeth? Even the question, do I pin them down or let them go without brushing? I know for me, my first reaction is, I don't like either of those answers. That means I must have to ask a different question. So let me try to formulate this differently in terms of toothbrushing. And it can be the same with so many of these other areas where we don't want to force our kids to do things. I think the question we have to ask instead of dead, of how do I get my child to brush their teeth or take a bath? Is what is my child's resistance a sign of? And how can I lower my child's resistance outside of those moments so that when the moment comes, there's not as much of a Power struggle. Kids who get into huge battles about brushing their teeth, that moment's too hot. We need to think about what we can do outside of the moment to change what's happening so, so our child can show up differently in that moment. Now we have good options. So let's go over some of these outside of the moment strategies. What do we know? Kids like to feel in charge and kids so often feel so done to, so controlled. We need to give kids more opportunity to really feel in charge. Because then when we ask them to do things, they're gonna be more likely to cooperate. Not because they wanna brush their teeth, but because now toothbrushing isn't a way to define their own separate identity. So it's just not as heated. My favorite game, the urine charge game. I hope every single person listening to this podcast does this today. I think we will all have a more peaceful few days in our home. Say something like this to your child. You know what I've been thinking about? It can be kind of annoying to be a kid sometimes, right? Am I always asking you to do things? Oh, go get dressed, come for breakfast, clear your plate, put on your shoes. Oh, so many things that I'm in charge of. How about we play the you're in charge game? And your child will say, what's the you're in charge game? Well, for five minutes, you get to tell me to do anything. Because sometimes kids should know what it feels like to be in charge. And sometimes adults should know what it feels like to be asked to do things you don't want to do. A couple rules. You can't involve food, and you can't ask me to buy anything. And you can't ask me to do anything. That's going to be dangerous. But anything else is fair game. Now, your child might need you to kind of lead them there, right? And remember, they're just looking for that feeling of being in charge. So you can lead them to somewhere silly like, oh, I hope you don't ask me to walk backwards everywhere. I really hope you don't ask me to do a really ridiculous dance. If your kids are like my kids, you're gonna say to them, please don't ask me to do blank. They're gonna ask you to do blank. And then you can act it out. No, I don't want to do that. I really don't. Okay, I guess you're in charge. I guess I'll walk backward. And then if it's me, I might kind of bump into the door and say, oh, oh, no. I might fall down. Oh, my goodness. Right? And we're really doing this role reversal. You know that hours later when you talk about bath time or toothbrushing time, things have changed between you. You've built up this connection capital that you can then draw down on in the moment of your request. What's another outside the moment kind of strategy? Stories about being a kid. Right. So randomly over lunch, I might say to my child on a weekend, you know what I'm thinking about? When I was your age, I hated when my parents told me it was bath time. I didn't always want to do bath. I didn't want to do bath at all. And I remember. I remember my parents sometimes skipped a shower or they did it when they wanted, and kids didn't get to do that. Oh, that was so annoying. Just joining your child in the frustration of being a child child helps reduce resistance because a child feels understood. Okay, what about in the moment? Well, there are things sometimes our kids have to do even when they're screaming, I don't want to do this. The things that come to mind for me are less about hygiene because those I think about really lowering the resistance for outside the moment. But I'm thinking of buckling a child in a car seat. I'm thinking about going to the doctor for a checkup, things like that, all of those things. I really believe you can lower resistance through play, through preparation, through these games. Having said that, I'm a realist. Sometimes you get into the car, you've done all the prep, and still your child's saying, I don't like it. It's my body. You can't buckle me into the car. What's a parent to do who's trying to build circuitry for consent? Well, we can still know our role and validate our child's experience. And I think words like this help in all those situations. As your parent, it's my number one job to keep you safe. And right now, safety means blank. And right now, safety means buckling you into the car. And right now, safety means bringing you to the doctor for your checkup. And then add a line like this. And I believe you. I believe you that you're not liking this. You know your body best, and only you know what feels good and what doesn't. And then I might add something like this, I really want to work with you. So next time we have to buckle into the car, next time we have to go to the doctors, it won't feel so bad. Right now, I'm doing this because It's a way of keeping you safe. I want to emphasize we want to reduce those moments. I also want all parents to know that even when you do say, have to buckle your child into the car, you can reinforce the fact that your child knows their body best by just saying, saying, I believe you. You don't like this. I know this doesn't feel good. Or maybe if you can get a little bit ahead of it. I know you, me, we don't want you to get into the car and have to buckle while you're screaming. Is there anything you can think of? Hmm. To make it a little more enjoyable? Is there anything we can think of to make it a little bit more fun? So, Katie, let me kind of bring a little bit of that together. So many of the things that are gonna end up helping your son are gonna be the things you do every outside the moment. So then when these moments come, they won't be as heated. If there's something you feel like you have to do where safety is a concern, you have to buckle them into the car seat or you have to pick them up because they're running near an active street with driving cars. Act and name your leadership role and also name that you see your child's distress and that you believe it. Thank you, Trevor, Andrea, and Katie, for calling in and sharing such real moments from your home. Moments that have happened in my home and I'm pretty sure homes across the whole world. Let's tie this together with three main takeaways. 1. When kids say no, no, no, no over and over, they're looking for separation and a sense of control. Two, I believe you. These words honor your child's sense of themselves. They give them separate identity. Use these words to validate what's happening for your child. 3. There's so much we can do outside the moment to improve cooperation in the moment. Remember to replace that question. How can I get my child to do blank? Why is my child so resistant about blank? With what's going on for my child that leads to them appearing resistant? How can I work on this outside the moment so when the heated moment comes, my child has built the connection and skills they need. If this episode resonated with you, let's take it one step further together. Check out my listening workshop. It's available@goodinside.com and will give you all the strategies and scripts you need to turn power struggles into moments of cooperation. Thanks for listening to Good Inside. I love co creating episodes with you based on the real life tricky situations in your family. To share what's happening in your home, you can call 646-598-2543 or email a voice note to goodinsidepodcastmail.com There are so many more strategies and tips I want to share with you. Head to goodinside.com and sign up for Good Insider, my free weekly email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox. And follow me on Instagram and Facebook at drbeckyoodinside for a daily dose of parenting and self care ideas. Good inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Beth Rowe and Marie Cecile Anderson, an Executive producer produced by Erica Belsky and me, Dr. Becky, if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review it or share this episode with a friend or family member as a way to start an important conversation. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves. Even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside.