Ep #135: When Anger Comes Up: Real Time Parenting with Dina

Welcome to Real World Peaceful Parenting, a podcast for parents that are tired of yelling, threatening, and punishing their kids. Join mom and master certified parent coach Lisa Smith as she gives you actionable step-by-step strategies that’ll help you transform your household from chaos to cooperation. Let’s dive in. 

Lisa: Welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome to today’s episode. As you know, in each episode, I try to delve into the challenges and the triumphs of parenthood while embracing a peaceful and compassionate approach to our kids. In today’s episode, we sit down with Dina, a Hive member who is a loving parent, who is navigating the sometimes tumultuous waters of anger that arise when parenting her nine year old daughter.

Listen in today as Dina and I explore strategies, expert insights, and have a heartfelt conversation to help Dina, and you, find the path to a more serene and harmonious parenting journey. We’re going to embark on this voyage, if you will, together, discovering the power and the understanding of anger that can lead to, yes lead to, I said that. Anger can lead to connection and real world peaceful parenting. Welcome Dina. I’m so happy to have you here today.

Dina: Thank you, Lisa. I’m very happy to be here.

Lisa: A repeat guest on top of it, I might add. So no rookie here. Dina has been with us before. So tell us, Dina, tell us a little bit about your parenting journey. Where you started, where you’re at, and then we’ll dig into today’s topic.

Dina: So I realized that I’m coming up in about two years being in The Hive. Two years ago, I was in a very different place than I am now. It started off with just being very overwhelmed. I felt like I was out of control. I felt like I was completely alone. I didn’t have the tools I needed. There had to be a different way. I was constantly angry, or in tears and upset. I was just struggling all around.

Fast forward through the last two years. I feel so empowered. I love doing these podcasts with you because I like to give back. I remember how I started with just taking one simple tool about don’t take it personally and how I ran with that, and how now that just seems like it was way in the past. I’ve grown from there. I have that tucked away in my tool chest, and I pull a different one out so I can work on better connections with my daughter.

Lisa: It’s been a real joy to just be a part of your transformation and to assist you and guide you along the way. You really are proof of what’s possible. You really are proof of a parent who can have a transformation, can be the parent you’ve always wanted to be, can replace old patterns of how you were parented with the new way to show up, and connect with this little girl who is strong willed, has a mind of her own has big feelings. Right? You want to touch on that for a moment? Describe your daughter to us. 

Dina: Oh. She speaks up for herself. She speaks out. She has a mind of her own. That is her superpower. It is going to take her very far. It makes parenting her very challenging because there’s always the whys and the negotiations and the I don’t like.

Lisa: The no’s, right? You get a lot of no’s.

Dina: No’s come back. I mean, it doesn’t matter how I phrase it, the first answer back is usually a no. How I react to it and come to the table is what’s changed a lot of our connection and relationship. Her feelings are big. What I’ve found is a lot of space for her is what she’s needed. So she’s been able to start regulating more, and we’re coming alongside of each other now when things are coming up. This superpower of hers is going to take her far. I just have to make it through parenting for right now.

Lisa: Well, you’re doing a great job. I often get a chance to hear success stories where you’re really connecting with her even in her storming. So I think it would be safe to say, and you tell me where I’m wrong here. But you’ve worked really on how you show up in her big emotions. You haven’t worked to tamp down her big emotions. You’ve really worked on, and again, I’m putting words in your mouth. So I want to hear it in your own words. But the biggest transformation I’ve seen for your family Dina is you, yourself, figuring out how to show up for big emotions while she’s having them and stay regulated during it even when you’re uncomfortable.

Dina: Yeah I like to take inventory, as I like to say, on things that happen. So I do a lot of self-reflecting. What I noticed in my past is that I was very reactive to her big emotions. I thought it had to be my way. My manual said she had to do these things. What I realized was she is her own little person, and I have to let her be her own little person. So I said okay, it’s time for me to approach and learn different ways to do things.

What I found along the way is there’s lots of reasons I have childhood wounds and reasons that I was reacting how I was. So I’ve healed a lot of that, as well as learning to just take a moment before I engage. That I don’t have to parent in the moment. She can be wrong about me. Lots of different things I’ve learned to just take a moment. 

That is probably the greatest tool because I was always very reactive. I’ve got to be on top of everything in the immediate as it’s happening. I realized that nope, this may not be the best time. A lot of our now connections are hey honey, that was great. Mom can’t concentrate on that right now. Can we revisit that in 30 minutes?

We are able to continue to move forward and connect. It’s not a constant oh, but why? It’s like I need a little bit of time. That was great. But I’ve learned to ask for my boundary and my space, and still hear her and validate her and let her understand that I’m not disregarding anything she’s saying. I just need a moment to process.

Lisa: I wish our listeners could see my face right now because my cheeks hurt. I’m smiling so big. I mean, Dina, it’s so fantastic. I have to say it brings tears to my eyes. I sincerely say I want this for everybody. So if you’re listening to this, and you think wow I relate to Dina’s before story, and I wish I was able to do even half the tools she’s talked about and have a connection with a strong willed kid. 

Then as a side note, I really want to encourage you to go over to theHiveCoaching.com and check out The Hive, my membership community, where you get real coaching from me on an ongoing basis. You get to be in community with other like-minded parents. Because let me tell you all something. 100% of Dina’s transformation has happened inside The Hive. She’s done the work. She showed up. She’s done the work. This is possible for everybody. So thank you, Dina, for digging in and sharing with us what’s possible. 

So today, we’re going to talk about anger. We’re going to talk about a nine year old’s anger and a mother’s anger to the nine year old anger, and how to think about it and what to do about it. So let’s dig in. Talk to me about when this anger is popping up for you in interacting with your daughter.

Dina: I think the biggest time that anger pops up for me is when she has a very sudden, in my manual, unpredictable reaction to something I have said to her. It’s kind of like she, for example, like I’ll say okay, we’re gonna go to the store in a half hour or something like that. She will throw down a no, I don’t want to go to the store or what. It’s like whoa, what? It’s like wait a minute, hold on. We’ve been doing your stuff all day. We need to start to do other things. She just digs in. 

What I noticed is that is when like sometimes I get really dysregulated really fast. I’m like why? I want to do the why. Like, all right, this is going to happen. I start to dig in for almost like a control. It’s like I want control now because I’ve given you choices. I’ve used some tools, and then all of a sudden my brain doesn’t stay in my higher brain. I go to that other place. I start to like continue to escalate.

Lisa: Okay, that gives me a good picture of what’s going on. I want to say the way we arrived here right now today listener is that in a recent Hive call, Dina made a comment or made a statement that when we look at the feelings wheel, I’m doing a really good job around the feelings wheel. If you don’t know what that is, you can just Google it. It’s a wheel that shows pretty much all the feelings possible. 

Dina said to me, I’m doing a really great job working around the feelings wheel until I hit anger. Then I don’t do so well. I thought this would make an incredible topic for a podcast episode. I know you all love when you get a glimpse into real coaching. So that’s how we arrived at today. A little background on that. 

So let me just reflect back what you said Dina. You said the anger really appears when I’m announcing something that isn’t part of the plan. It’s sudden. It’s unpredictable. My daughter has this negative reaction to it. You went on to say I get dysregulated really fast, which is a clue right there. Right? When I’ve done my part, I’ve accommodated. I’ve tolerated. I’ve participated. Now I want control of the schedule because there are things that need to get done. 

Dina: Yes. 

Lisa: Okay. So this is we couldn’t have designed this any better. Because what you’re telling me is I get angry, and I throw my own temper tantrum essentially. You said I have trouble staying regulated. So in this scenario where you say to your daughter hey in half an hour, we’re gonna go to the grocery store.

Because your adult brain knows hey, we need groceries, and things need to get done. We’ve had a leisurely Saturday morning of being in our pajamas and watching movies. I enjoyed that. That was great. But now it’s time to get to work. You announce this to her expecting her to understand and participate and meet you halfway. When she doesn’t, your brain turns into the toddler in the room and wants to have the temper tantrum.

Dina: Absolutely. That’s exactly what it is. It’s like I fall into this child. I’m like what do you mean no? We have to go do this. We’ve got to go get things done. Like you said, we’ve been relaxing all day.

Lisa: I would imagine even a deeper thought might be something like okay, on top of it, daughter, you’ve had your turn. I watched Frozen for the 47th time, which I didn’t really even maybe want to watch but I did. I dug into it. I enjoyed my snuggle and connection time with you. Now I’m asking you to go to the grocery store, which also, by the way, isn’t like self-care. It’s not like I’m going to get a manicure or a massage. For the love of God, we’re going to the grocery store so that I can feed you and your father, and you won’t even cooperate with that.

Dina: Yep, that’s where we’re at.

Lisa: Yes. Okay. So when this anger pops up, it’s really a beacon for an unmet need. Anger really can be your guide, as a parent, as human in the relationships we’re in. I talk about this a lot. Anger is a cover emotion for other emotions, right? You’ve demonstrated or illustrated this for us perfectly. 

In that moment, when you announced that hey, in a little bit, we’ll stick with this example. We’re going to go to the grocery store, and you get this negative reaction from your daughter. This refusal to go or the storming or what. I don’t want to go. You’re having a reaction because there’s a lot going on. It’s complex. There’s a lot going on. There’s unmet needs and feelings that bubble up underneath the anger. 

Dina: Yes.

Lisa: Can you see that?

Dina: Oh, I definitely can see that for sure. Just recently, I reflected back on your recent podcasts about anger. I went oh yes, it’s a cover emotion. I said okay. I have to look at this a little different and start to frame it a little bit differently.

Lisa: Yes, yes. In this instance, you want to take a moment. I really believe to the core of who I am, Dina, that anger can be a guide. I mean, I believe it so much I wrote a book about it. But I really think that many of us, particularly when we’re parenting, we want to push down the anger. We want to tamp it down, or we want to ignore it. Or we want to push it away, or we want to get angry about the anger. None of that is helpful. 

So if you’re doing that, stop immediately. Instead, use the anger as an SOS to yourself and say okay, what is really going on for me in this moment? Is a fear coming up? Do I fear, a lot of times we get angry at our kids, because we fear they’re going to be living under a bridge with a shopping cart? 

Or let’s say your kid goes to the park and isn’t nice to someone. You get angry at them because you fear they’re never going to have any friends or they’re not going to have solid relationships or they’re not going to be kind. Or you get mad at your kid because they lost their water bottle at school. You get angry because you’re tired of keeping track of stuff or you fear your child is never going to be able to function as a productive member of society. 

Or we get angry because we’re ignoring our own needs to sacrifice for our child. The expectation is they’re going to meet us halfway. My guess is that this is what’s going on. Is in your brain, and this is all happening way back in the subconscious. It happens like a shooting star in a split second. But there’s a story back there that I’ve laid around all morning and watched Frozen weather. Now it’s my turn. I just want her to go along with it.

Dina: Yes, that’s exactly it. It’s like annoyance. I feel like the anger is just it’s anger then it becomes the annoyance. It’s just because I want to go get these things done. I don’t want to do me either, but I’ve got to go get.

Lisa: That’s right.

Dina: To me in my manual, these have gotta be done because I don’t want to do them later. I have other things I want to do later. So we need to go do this, in my manual, now.

Lisa: That’s right. There may even be things like disappointment that maybe I told you about this, or this is the rhythm we do every week, or I expect you to meet me halfway. I feel disappointed when you don’t do your part. I feel unheard when you won’t recognize everything I’ve done for you and continue to do for you. 

This is all I ask. We have these. We keep score in the back of our mind. This is all I ask in return, and you’re not even willing to do it. To make matters worse, you won’t even consider it. Right? I’m trying to be extra nice by giving you a warning that we’re going in 30 minutes, and let you finish Frozen and let you get dressed at your own pace after making homemade pancakes this morning. We’re not even ready to go. We’re 30 minutes out from going, and you’re telling me no.

Dina: For sure. That just lays it out so perfectly because it’s like I’ve done my part, and it’s like she’s not meeting me anywhere halfway. It’s just the immediate, I call it the blockage. No, and we’re going to like be firm and stand our ground.

Lisa: Yes. Which leads to, in this instance could lead to feelings like I feel powerless. I feel unheard. I feel disrespected. If service is your love language, I feel unloved because now it’s my turn for us to go do these errands together. I feel ignored. I feel manipulated. These are all feelings underneath the anger that is really triggering you and leading to the dysregulation. 

Now on top of it, if you’re like me, I’m going to be totally honest with you. I kind of love running errands. It’s my jam. I love it. Like I love a Saturday morning errand list. I love plotting out where we’re going. I love having a sidekick with me. So when Malcolm was little, on top of everything you’ve described, if he would have said no to me, I would have also felt a little bit of hurt. Because honestly my love language was errands or is errands. 

In fact, my girlfriend and I run errands together every Saturday morning. It’s kind of like our hangout time. I ran errands with my grandfather when I was a little kid. That’s how we bonded and connected. We get in the car. I’d sit in the front seat. We’d drive to pay the water bill. We’d drive to the bank to deposit the check. We’d stop and get a donut. I’d get a little sucker from the lady at the bank. 

I can admit this. When my son would tell me no when he was little, I would feel quite a rejection from him. Because in my mind, everybody should love to run errands. It should be the best part of his Saturday.

Dina: Yeah, as you were just saying it, I just had one of those aha like little Dina moments, and that’s where it’s stemming from. One of the things I always did with my mother is we always ran errands, and we went shopping together. I always looked forward to that. There would be time she’d go without me, and she’d leave me a little present or something on the stairs. I was always grateful for it, but I missed the time with her. 

Then on Sundays, me and my dad always had this routine of going to the deli and the bakery, and then Sunday mornings we’re reading the paper and stuff like that. Now taking a pause, it’s like I’m trying to recreate that but also force my little Dina on my daughter. She’s not little Dina. She’s who she is. So.

Lisa: Yes. She had a whole morning on the couch with you watching Frozen in our scenario, and she might be an introvert. Running errands might not be her jam. In and out of the car, it’s hot. She has to strap into a seatbelt. I sort of jumped in the front seat and stood up the whole time. This was pre-seatbelts, and it was a different time. 

You’re right. Your daughter is not you. You are trying to recreate this connection through errands that you had with your mother. But for her, she gets plenty of connection with you. So she doesn’t see. Her love language is not running errands together.

Dina: Yeah. Yeah. That’s one thing I keep learning with The Hive is that I am trying to recreate those things that I did as little Dina or do more for my daughter the things I didn’t get as a little Dina. I find it very, for me, empowering when I have that aha moment because then I’m like okay, well, that was a little Dina. Now we can move on here. I’ve now been able to put that somewhere. Now this makes total sense. It’s like it starts to align. I believe that’s through just all the work and the thought work and these coaching calls for sure.

Lisa: Yes, wonderful. Okay, so what to do about this, right? You’ve had this aha moment. But it doesn’t mean the next time you say hey we need to go to the grocery store, and she says no that magically the anger is going to be gone. 

So let me talk you through what to do about this. I’m sure every listener can relate to this. Take out the errands and put in whatever makes you angry when parenting your kids and meeting that resistance. At the end of the day, the number one tool is to recognize the anger is a beacon. To ask myself okay, I’m angry, but what else is going on here? I’m frustrated maybe. 

Another example might be we have a lot to do. We’re already behind, and we need to get going. So maybe you feel exasperated. Another example might be it is time to go to the grocery store because we did have a lazy morning, and we have people coming over for dinner. I do need to go get the food so I can start prepping the food so that I can get ready for the company to come over. This does actually need to get going. So I am feeling the pressure of the deadline, let’s say. 

So what I really use as a tool and teach all the time is not stopping at just the anger. But then saying okay I recognize the anger as the signal, but let me dive underneath it and see what’s going on. Really get your arms around the emotion. Whether it’s the panic from the deadline, the disappointment, the frustration on feeling unheard, and just really ground yourself in what am I needing in this moment? What can I do about it? Right? That’s the real situation. 

So in the first example of considering running errands the love language, which makes me smile to even say it, you would say to yourself, you know what? She’s not rejecting me. She’s having a different experience. Just because she’s not super-duper-uper excited about going to the grocery store, that’s okay. A, we still need to go and we are going to go, but B, I don’t need to approach it from rejection, which is going to dysregulate me.  

I am the peaceful leader of the household. I can go to her and say sweetheart, I know you don’t want to go. I hear you. We’re going to leave in a half an hour. It doesn’t require bribery. It doesn’t require threatening. It doesn’t require anything other than stating the facts. I hear you do that you don’t want to go. I get it. It’s not super fun. You would rather stay here and watch another movie. I get it. I love the movies too. We do have work to do. We’re going to leave for the grocery store in half an hour. Can you please get dressed? Right? 

So in that instance, it would be recognizing she’s not rejecting me. This is not nine year old Dina looking forward to going. She enjoys being a homebody. She doesn’t connect your errands. She connects through other ways. Really coaching yourself through not taking that rejection personally and not even thinking about the scenario as rejection. Right? 

Dina: Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Lisa: Just getting neutral about it.

Dina: Yeah. Just being getting comfortable with it too. Just being neutral and just accepting it for what it is instead of reacting to that this is rejection and that. Because then I find it to be a tumbling effect, right? If I start with one kind of negative emotion it then tumbles into everything else, and it’s almost like that’s the stopping before tumbling in because then it’s easier to say okay and state the facts and move forward.

Lisa: That’s right. That’s right. That reminds me of an example I can share with you too along those lines. So on Sunday, I said to my son, who’s 19 now, which is hard to believe. I have a 19 year old. On Sunday, I said to him let’s go out to lunch. We’re a month out from going to college. We’re now in the phase where we’re making lists and we’re buying things, and we’re getting ready to go. We’re plotting out how we’re going to get all this stuff from Arizona to Illinois. I said let’s go out to lunch. 

Again, I love going out to lunch. It’s like my favorite thing in the whole world. I don’t love to go out to breakfast. I don’t love dinner. Lunch is my jam. So it’s Sunday afternoon. First he says okay let’s go. So I’m getting ready. I’m pretty excited about this. We’re going to go out to lunch. I’ve got like three Sundays left of him being home. So I’m in my bathroom getting ready, and I’m really getting excited about this. 

He comes in and says to me hey, what do you say we just order some sandwiches, go pick them up, and bring them home. I immediately get angry. I say to him yeah, we’re not going to do that. He’s like okay. I said we’re either going out to lunch, or you can take care of your own lunch. So he leaves the bedroom. I finish getting ready. I’m kind of standing in front of the sink for a minute. I feel like smoke starting to come out of my ears. So I use the tool.

I say okay, anger’s the beacon. What’s underneath it? I immediately said to myself I’m disappointed. I want to be hurt over this. My mind wants to make up a big story about this, right. I said to myself you know what? He doesn’t love going out to eat. My kid is not to go out to eater. Some kids are. Some humans are, some aren’t. My husband and son could eat every meal at home. I am a I can eat every meal out. 

So I literally just said to myself we just have a difference. I said to myself you’re at a fork in the road, Lisa. You can drop this because you’ve already stated we’re going out, and he’s getting ready. So you can drop this and move on, or you can go out and be snippy and hold this against them and be negative and be dysregulated and ruin the lunch. So I decided to drop it. Pretend that he never even came in and said this to me. 

So we get in the car. We go to our favorite burger place. We had the best time. We joked and we laughed and we made our list. We ate lunch. We drove home. I thought well there you go, Lisa. Another example of using anger as the beacon. 

Because I was able to figure out what the unmet need was, coach myself around it, and drop it. Because so often if we don’t recognize it, and you tell me if you’ve had this experience Dina. If we don’t recognize the unmet feeling and need underneath the anger then we hold on to it and we carry it around. Then we let it bleed into the entire rest of the interaction we have with the child or the other person, which then pushes them further away from us rather than connecting with us. We connected over that lunch in a way that if I hadn’t done that quick little exercise would not have happened.

Dina: Oh, yeah. That is something I have to work on it. I almost call it the tit for tat. You know what I mean? Like, I’ve gotten to this point, and I’m like okay I’m going to be snippy, like you said, snippy about it, or I’m going to hold something on to it. I’ve seen myself doing it. I’m like well, this is no fun, or it’s gotten in the way of other things. It’s like I do have to work on letting it go and having that moment before I’ve gone too far. 

Because if I let all those other emotions get the best of me, that’s when I feel like I sit there all day, and I’m letting it like ruin the day. Then I reflect later, and I was like well okay we need to do something different next time because that didn’t work for sure.

Lisa: Yes. I really believe that only happens if we understand that anger is a cover emotion. We take a moment when the anger comes to go underneath the anger. Because it’s easy to sit in the anger, the reactive anger and feel, like you said, justified. We can get ourselves really spun around the anger. Then by the way, then we model that for our children, which we don’t want to do.

Dina: Which is not good.

Lisa: Right? If we just take a minute to say okay the anger is the wake up call. It’s the beacon. What else is going on here? We sort that out. My brain wanted to be hurt that he wasn’t skipping to his bedroom to go out to lunch. But when I took a moment to say to myself but my kid never wants to go to lunch with anybody. Really, if I’m honest, it’s not about me, but we’re also going to go because I want to go and he can do something for me, and we’re gonna have a good time if I show up in a regulated way. Right?

So you say to your daughter, sweetheart, I know you don’t want to go. I get it. I don’t really want to go either, but we’re gonna go together and get groceries. Because in your mind you’re saying because she’s nine, I’m not going to leave her home alone. There has to be groceries. I’m the peaceful leader, and I’m gonna stay calm and regulated as I guide us into the car. I don’t have to bribe, threaten, or reward her for going, but I can also let her not want to go and us still go together.

Dina: Yes, yes. That is something I’m working on right now. Like I said, the podcast about anger, it being a cover emotion, I’ve been really rethinking about that. Letting her just have her feelings. She doesn’t want to go. She wants to give me the hm or whatever, roll the eyes. I’m just like okay I’m not reacting to this. Like, I’m the peaceful leader. We’re doing this. I do validate. 

Yes, I understand you don’t want to do this. I understand you’d rather stay home. We just need to go get it done, the quicker we get through it. Then we’re back home, and you can go back to whatever you were doing before we left.

Lisa: That’s right. But I also think –

Dina: It is a battle. 

Lisa: Oh, sorry. Go ahead. 

Dina: I was gonna say it’s a battle with myself though because it’s so quick. My brain was so quick to go to some sort of a bit of anger. I’m really having to watch myself. Like really stop myself. I’m just starting to see it as that beacon just recently and being like I don’t want to do that.

Lisa: Well done. The other part of this that I want to talk about in coaching you and giving you some tools is this. I don’t know about you, but I do a lot of things on a weekly, daily, and hourly basis that I don’t really want to do. I got a load of laundry in there. I’ve got some chicken thawing. I’ve got taxes to pay. I’ve got some phone calls to return.

I end up doing a lot of things in my day that I don’t want to do. It’s part of the human experience. Our children are no different. We ask them to do a lot of things they don’t want to do. Put your shoes on, get your water bottle, go to school, go to the grocery store, stop playing, get ready for bed. 

I also think it’s important as parents that we leave room for two things. One, for them to not want to do what we’re asking. They’re not robots. We did not write code that every single thing is okay. Yes, ma’am. Yes, sir. I’ll do that. Right? They have their own resistance to things. Giving them space to have that resistance is a really valuable tool. Because they have underdeveloped brains, and they’re emotionally immature, they’re gonna blame, project, and deflect and externalize their big emotions when they meet that resistance. 

I don’t have to have a temper tantrum about folding laundry because I’m emotionally intelligent. I can think things like girl, just get in there and get it done. Right? I have an emotionally intelligent brain, for the most part. No one’s gonna call me 24/7. Don’t cancel my flight. I become incredibly emotionally immature. 

But your daughter, at nine, is not going to want to do everything you ask, tell, or command her to do. She’s just not. No human does. What she’s doing is she is externalizing the resistance. She hasn’t learned how to just put her head down and get it done.

Dina: Yeah, that is definitely what I’m – You put the words into what I’ve been saying. I’ll give you an example. Last night, for instance, it was getting near bedtime. We’re sitting on the couch. We had this agreement. Next commercial or 8:30, the TV goes off. It hit 8:30 and commercial. I’m like hey, look at that. We shut it all off. She’s like I’m not going up to bed. 

It was like my husband just had this reaction to it. I just sat there, and I just let her just put that out there. He left the room. Then she’s like I want to cuddle, or I want to lay on your bed, or whatever. I said well, we can’t do that. I said you’re going to need to go up to your room. It’s bedtime. 

She goes well, can I just sit with you for five minutes? I said okay we can sit for five minutes, but then we’re going upstairs. It was like she needed to transition and get it out of her. She sat with me for five minutes. I just let it be instead of reacting to her no, I’m not going upstairs. My brain did go oh my god, it’s gonna be a bad bedtime. Right? I said no, I’m just gonna sit here for that. She cuddled with me. Five minutes up, she got up and she walked very calmly upstairs, and we had no problem. 

Lisa: Beautiful.

Dina: Where before I would have been like no, we’re going upstairs right now. It’s time for bed. I’m done for the day. I just said this isn’t going to happen if I approach it that way, right?

Lisa: Well, and your brain was able to see that she needed a little transition time. We literally just turned the TV off. She’s not a robot. I can give her the five minutes, or I can battle for a half an hour potentially. To feel like a good parent, I don’t need her to do every single thing upon my command. Right? 

Because your brain could have gone to she’s so disrespectful. She’s trying to manipulate the situation. She needs to be in control. This is ridiculous. I already let her have it. I told her 8:30. Why doesn’t she do what I tell her? Instead, your brain went oh, maybe she needs a few minutes of transition time. I can give that to her and then hold limit of now it’s time to go upstairs.

Dina: Yeah, and I’m working on that. Because everything you just said is the way I used to start to react. I’m really trying to just give her a little bit, give more time instead of reacting to this. She’s not listening to me. We go through this all the time. It’s the same old thing. Because it’s not working. Gotta try something different. 

What I’m noticing is the immediate no’s or the push back. If I just hold that space, give her a couple of minutes. It’s amazing. It’s just kind of like the no comes out automatically out of her mouth, even though she doesn’t really mean it because within a few minutes we transition to what we need to do. 

So it’s more of I don’t need to react to that. You know what I mean? Let her have her statement, her eye rolling, whatever she needs to. I just hold the limit, and it happens. Now I’m like, huh okay. This is what I need to get to, you know?

Lisa: Yes, yes. So in summary, I would language it this way to the listener. When our kids externalize the resistance, which they’re naturally going to from time to time because they’re emotionally immature. When they externalize the resistance, our job is to not take it personally, and not make it mean anything about us or them or our parenting. 

It’s like oh, she’s externalizing the resistance. Let me take a pause and try again, or connect with her, or state what I need. Sweetheart, I know you don’t want to go to the store. I hear you. I honestly don’t want to go either. But we’re going to go to the store in 30 minutes, get our groceries, and then we’re going to come back home. We can have some more fun. 

Or I don’t want to go up to bed. Yeah, I can look at her and see most people don’t want to go to bed at night, or need a little bit of time to transition. You turn off the TV, walk around the house, you close the blinds, you turn off the lights, you close the cabinet, you go in the kitchen, and make sure everything. That’s transition time for us adults. Kids might need some transition time too. 

So I can sit with her for five minutes and cuddle. Then we’re going to move our way into bed. I don’t have to take the externalizing the resistance personally. When I do, I can ask myself okay that’s anger. What am I telling myself about this?

Dina: Yeah. I would say to the listener too I mean every kid is obviously very different and stuff like that. I know that for my daughter, if I give her an immediate reminder again, it just escalates her reaction. The no gets more bound in. Where if I just stop, let her say, do what she needs to, and let a little bit of time pass and really hold that space then we can move through it better. That I’ve learned for sure.

Because if it’s an immediate let me remind you, or I hear you and stuff like that. She wants none of that at the moment. Her signal to me is give me a few minutes to just kind of sit with what you just said to me. I’ve said my piece, but let me sit with it. So.

Dina: Well. We’ll wrap up on this, Dina, because that’s beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Because that leads me to want to remind all of us, myself included, that’s because connection leads to cooperation. Command and compliance, we want to move out of command and compliance. Because when you’re commanding your child, I said now. Right now. Get up and go to bed. 

The best you’re gonna get in command is compliance. When you take a moment to connect, and you have to find your own connection style with your child. It’s different in every relationship. But when you find that moment to connect, she says can we snuggle for five minutes? First, she says can we lay down. You realize oh, there’s something else going on here. She might need a little transition time. She says can we sit together for five minutes quietly? 

She’s not asking for more TV. Your brain says yeah, let me give this to her. Let me connect with her. Then the cooperation naturally follows. What most of us think is that connection is the reward for good behavior. Do what I say and then I’ll connect with you. That is not, as I teach always, that is not how the human brain. It’s not just the kid brain. It’s not how the human brain works. It’s just not how it works. Connection is not a reward for good behavior. It is the fabric of a good relationship is connection. I feel seen, heard, and valued.

Dina: Right, right. Absolutely. For sure. Yeah. For sure.

Lisa: Well done. Well done. All right. So do you feel like you’ve got some tools to work through the anger?

Dina: Yes, yes, I absolutely do. I do encourage anybody that’s listening to the, I don’t remember the two numbers, of recent podcasts for your anger, part one and part two. I highly recommend going back and relistening to them and stuff. Because like I said, for two years I’ve been in the group and I’ve heard things about anger. You work on many different tools, but this one was like oh yeah, it’s a cover emotion. Okay, let’s start like getting into this tool a little bit more and really diving into this. 

So I’ve been working hard at this, and these tools will be helpful too. I’m glad I kind of had that aha moment about little Dina too because it’s like oh yeah. Yeah. She’s who she is. Put little Dina to aside. So.

Lisa: Beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Dina is actually referencing podcast Episode 130 and 131. Episode 130 is Anger Can Be Your Gift Part One, and Episode 131 is How to Model Anger for Your Kids Part Two. That was just a couple episodes back. So you can go to thepeacefulparent.com, click at the top on the podcast, and those will pop up on the very first page. 

So I think we covered some really important tools and really dug in today into how anger in our parenting can really be our guide. It can be our beacon. So thank you, Dina, for sharing. As always, I just love and adore you. I think you’re an amazing human. So lucky that I get the opportunity to work with you. So thank you for paying it forward. Thank you for coming and sharing with the listeners. I know they’re grateful for your openness and willingness to share as well. So thank you.

Dina: Thank you very much for helping me out. Thank you to the whole Hive and the community. I really do encourage everybody to come. It’s been transformational for me, and I love hanging out with you, Lisa, and doing The Hive calls. Thank you so much for all your tools and coaching. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.

Lisa: Oh, I love that. Well, thank you. Okay, listener. So if you’re intrigued, if you’re like okay what is this Hive thing? I don’t know anything about it, or I’ve heard about it before but I wasn’t ready. Now feels like the moment. I really want to encourage you, for your own good, to go over to TheHiveCoaching.com and check out the membership community. 

I really want you to come and check out The Hive because it will give you all the tools you need to move down the path to peaceful parenting. The Hive is a one of its kind community that serves parents all around the world who want ongoing support with parenting at a reasonable price. The Hive enables you to have a parent coach, me, in your back pocket at all times and get your questions answered without any obligation on your end. 

Now listen to me, The Hive is not an online group of parents showcasing their social media perfect parenting. It’s not a feed of inspirational quotes and empty cliches. The Hive is the place where you’re going to make small steps in your parenting journey that will bring you exponentially closer to the connection you’ve always wanted with your kids. Oh and get maximum cooperation at the same time. So let that soak in for a moment. 

I really want you to know what’s possible for your family no matter what state you’re starting at. Imagine never being more than a few days away from having a tried and true parenting expert give you tailored guidance on your most recent situation. Just like Dina, she pops on off and on the calls and gets coaching on exactly what’s going on real time for her and her family.

Imagine feeling any anxiety and guilt you feel right now about your parenting melting away. Yes, it’s possible. Imagine feeling the love and connection with your child growing stronger each day, just like Dina reports. Imagine knowing that no parenting challenge is too big for you because of the vast experience and support you can immediately draw upon within The Hive. 

You can make that a reality right now with what I coach and teach inside The Hive. So if this feels like the moment to join, please accept my invitation. Go to TheHiveCoaching.com to join. I can’t wait to work with you. Until we meet again, I’m wishing you peaceful parenting.

Thanks for listening to Real World Peaceful Parenting. If you want more info on how you can transform your parenting, visit thepeacefulparent.com. See you soon.