June 20, 2025 • 33 mins
“I just want what’s best for them.”
That’s what every loving parent says. But sometimes, in our desperation to protect our kids from failure—or secure their success—we push too hard, and it backfires.
In this conversation with psychologist and parenting expert Professor Wendy Grolnick, we explore the hidden costs of being a pushy parent and how to guide our children in healthier, more empowering ways. Drawing on decades of research and her landmark book The Psychology of Parental Control, Wendy shares practical, compassionate strategies that help parents avoid power struggles and build confident, capable kids.
🎯 KEY POINTS:
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Three essential elements of healthy parenting:
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Autonomy support – Helping kids feel in control of their choices by taking their perspective, offering meaningful input, and collaborating on problem-solving.
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Structure – Setting clear expectations, routines, and feedback to support competence and confidence.
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Involvement – Being emotionally available, engaged, and actively present in your child’s world.
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Why we get pushy: Even well-meaning parents can fall into control patterns driven by fear and overinvestment in their child’s success.
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What happens when we control too much: Studies show controlling parenting undermines children’s motivation, persistence, self-regulation, and even long-term resilience.
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Trust matters: Building your child’s autonomy means trusting their developmental process—even when it’s messy.
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You don’t have to fix everything: Setbacks are growth opportunities. Let your child struggle sometimes—with your support beside them, not ahead of them.
💬 QUOTE OF THE EPISODE:
"Every setback your child faces is an opportunity to learn something. Growth happens in the strangest places." – Professor Wendy Grolnick
📚 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
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The Psychology of Parental Control by Wendy Grolnick
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
This is the Happy Families Podcast. My name is doctor
Justin Colson. Thank you so much for joining in. We've
just commenced a series of in depth interviews.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Where I speak to guests, we learn, we have some fun.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And we get into the nitty gritty of what can
make parenting absolutely incredible and make families flourish well. Today's
guest is Professor Wendy Rolnick, a mother, an author, and
we're kind of kindred spirits and that we both work
to help build happy families and our area of research
is very very closely aligned. Professor Rolnick's book The Psychology
(00:40):
of Parental Control is one of my favorites, and Wendy
is based out of the psychology department of Clark University
in Massachusetts. She's taught definitely three decades. So I began
by asking her about what family life looks like for her.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Family wise, I have two grown children, two daughters. Yeah,
I've been married for thirty five years and parenting for thirty.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Wendy we met at a conference, I think it was
about three or four years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It was in British Columbia.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
We were saying at this gorgeous hotel on the water
in Victoria, and I think it was about twenty seventeen.
You and I had a great conversation about our mutual
interest in raising happy families, and we both have a
very strong interest in a theory in psychology known as
self determination theory, and it's something that I've really built.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Much of what I share with parents around.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
You've done a recent study built on self determination theory,
and you found that parents who were really doing well
with their families. In fact, you looked at families across
the board, so you weren't sort of saying, well, these
ones are doing well and these ones aren't. You just
got random families to come into the lab and fill
in some surveys and then go away and do some things.
You got them to do a handful of things, and
in particularly, you found that when they did three things successfully,
(01:56):
their families were happier and their children are more likely
to thrive. So I wonder if you can step me
through what those three things were and what they actually
look like in practice from an applied you know, this
is what parents need to do to do these three things.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, we've actually entered into the world of intervention, so
I can tell you about how we've tried to help
people move toward these three things. But yes, the three
things are. One is support for autonomy. That is helping
children to feel that they are kind of like behind
their actions, they're the owner of their actions. They're not
(02:31):
being pushed and coerced. Because we know that when people
feel like they're being pushed and coerced, that they are
less happy and they're less likely to persevere in what
they're doing and be motivated and follow their passions. So
when you support autonomy and help children feel this way,
you can do a number of things. And we've looked
at different strategies that parents can use. So one is
(02:55):
that you It all kind of starts with taking children's perspectives,
thinking of where are they coming from, how are they
thinking about what they're doing, and trying to get into
their heads and understand their perspectives.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And that's really hard.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You get into the morning rush and the morning routine
and you've got to get the children out the door,
and everything's going.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
A little bit crazy in Haywire, and the children are non.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Compliant, they don't want to get up and go to school,
and they're feeling miserable or a bit lousy, and we
don't tend to take their perspective in that moment because
we're also running late, and if we don't get out
the door on time, we're going to miss the lights
at the bottom of the street. And if we don't
get through those lights at exactly seven fourteen, that means
that we're going to be stuck until seven twenty and
then we're going to get the peak hour traffic that's
(03:36):
six minutes is you know, it makes all the difference,
and so have we feel a lot of pressure ourselves,
and we tend to transfer that into the family environment, right,
and then we take away their autonomy and start to
control them absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And we've done some studies exactly on this. Stress makes
it really hard to be autonomy supportive. But when you
think about it, if you can take the perspective of
the child and just give them the sense that you
understand where they're coming from, they're going to be much
more open to all the other things that you want
them to do. So if you can just say, I
understand that you'd much rather be listening to your iPad
(04:12):
and playing on it and not getting ready, and it
feels really pushy to for have me start do this,
you know telling you to do it. Now, they'll be
much more open to hearing well, but here's what we
need to do, And they hear you better when they
know that you TA can take their perspective, understand them,
and you're providing them a little bit of empathy for
where they're coming from.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I say this to parents all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
When you listen to a podcast or when you're sitting
in a room with somebody like you or I and
we're talking to you about that kind of thing, it
all makes sense, right. We think, oh, yeah, I'm supposed
to take a breath and just connect with their emotion
and say, well, you're really struggling and you just wish
that this didn't have to be this way, don't you
Like that makes sense when we're having this conversation. But
tomorrow morning, when somebody's going through it, that's the last
(04:56):
thing you want to do. Like, it's exactly the opposite
of what you want to do, because you're feeling the
stress and pressure when you want to get that full momentum,
you don't want to sort of put the brakes on
and sit down and hold the hand and look into
their eyes and say you're having a tough time this
morning on't you right?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Right? And so there are things you can do when
you're not in those very stressful moments that what might
make a difference for those stressful moments. So, for example,
if you're having this problem every morning, when there isn't
a problem going on and when it's a quiet time,
you can sit down together and talk this out. So
(05:31):
part of autonomy support is taking kids' perspectives. Part of
it is giving them choicest part of it is problem
solving together. And so you want to sit down and
problem solve together and say, you know, mornings have been
really rough. I know they're hard on you. I know
it stinks when you have to hear me nag you
in the morning. You just got up. Let's put our
(05:52):
heads together to figure out what we can do. What
are your thoughts. So a ton of support means getting
kids input into problems that you're having and problem solving together. So, yes,
it's true at that moment that might not work, but
if the child comes up with some great idea as well,
you could wake me up five minutes earlier, or you
(06:13):
could just knock at my door really quietly and let
me know it's time. So you come up with this together.
There Again, when you don't feel like somebody's yelling at
you and nagging at you and coming and imposing themselves
upon you, you're much more likely to understand, you know,
why you're doing it, and being this together and problem
(06:35):
solve together.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
We've got this. First thing is autonomy support. But there
are three of these. And by the way, I think
that at least for me, as I've watched how my
parenting has changed over the last couple of decades raising
my six kids, this for me is the lynchpin, like
stepping away from control and stepping towards supporting autonomy or
empowering our children to find the solutions that are inside
(06:59):
themsel to do well.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That seems to be it.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But there's two other things that you highlight that families
that do best also emphasize. And those two things are
structure and involvement. And in your research you found that
this leads to the best outcomes comparatively compared to families
that aren't doing this. So autonomy support, we've sort of
talked about that briefly. But what a structure and involvement
and how do they work?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, So structure is really connected to having kids have
a sense of competence. So we put it into place
to help kids feel like they know how to succeed
in what you're asking them to do, or they know
how to succeed in the world. And so structure is
really the information you need to be successful. And what
you do is you set up the environment to increase
(07:46):
the probability that kids are going to feel competent. And
you can do that by having just really clear expectations,
this is what we need to be doing, this is
what I expect, and guidelines for how to do that
feedback about how you're doing. So if the you know
the job is to to clean your room, you know
(08:06):
what's expected, how often, what it means to clean your room,
You know what to do, so that then you can
children can plan their behavior and say, oh, I know,
I know how to be successful here, So that that's
really important. The trick is you want to connect that
with autonomy support. You don't want just to impose structure
(08:26):
on kids and say this is how we're doing it,
these are the rules, this is the schedule. Yeah, so
you've heard a lot during the pandemic about you have
to have a schedule but kids can have input into
that schedule and feel like you together you own some
of these guidelines and rules, and that's when it's they're
going to be both feeling competent, like this is what
I need to do, but also feeling I mean you
(08:48):
use the word empowered, which is a good word, that
you have some ownership of this and it's not just
something that's coming from above.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And so the odd da here from what I've written
in your research and other researchers who have played in
this area is ideally, as we create a sense of structure,
it's not just about the routine and the schedule.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
It's actually it's about.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The way we have small wins in our lives doing
all of the things that matter. But the way that
we create the structure ideally will be in an autonomy
supportive way. So we'll sit down with our children and
say we have a little bit of a problem. You've
probably noticed this is happening in our evenings, this is
happening on our Saturday mornings or our sundays are just
not working. They're not getting the quality family time that
we want. What can we do together to make this work?
(09:34):
And then in a supportive non controlling way you develop
a sort of a sense of structure. Or you know,
we're paying all this money for piano lessons, but it
seems like you just don't really get excited about practicing
until twenty minutes before we have to run out the
door to see the teacher.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And this is not working.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So it's really about having these conversations and bringing the
children in so that they can solve their own problems
and create those structures and supports.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Is that how you're disc Yes.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes, it's really well said. Sometimes when we describe this
to parents, they say, oh, well, what if they want
to get up at twelve, you know, twelve in the afternoon,
that's not acceptable. It's okay for you as a parent
to sort of have your guidelines within which you are working,
and you're able to say, well, this idea that you
(10:23):
came up with isn't quite going to work because blah
blah blah, but here's some guidelines within which we can
we can choose. You know, any time between eight and
ten is okay to walk the dog. But so what
what do you choose? And you give a reason for
why twelve o'clock's not going to work? So it doesn't
(10:43):
mean that you're relinquishing your role as an authority. There
are some things that need to be decided within certain limits,
but you can still have a sense of input and
problem solving together within those guidelines.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So we've got autonomy support where we're really saying to
the children, I want to work with you as you
become volitional and control your own life, with me just
providing some gentle guidance to keep you in appropriate boundaries.
We've got structure, which means we're going to set things
up so that our children can feel competent, I feel
like they're having small wins and have a sense that
(11:19):
they're in control of their environment. They're able to develop
a sense of mastery. And the third one was involvement.
You found that families that are doing really well have
high levels of involvement compared to families that aren't doing
so well.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yes, absolutely, whether it's involvement in school, or it's involvement
in more generally, in asking about what's going on and
doing things together as a family, doing family routines, all
of that really makes the difference in terms of kids
feelings secure and connective.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I want to go back to autonomy support for a minute.
This is I think, as I said before, this is
to me the lynchpin of what parents who are really
getting it right really focus on. They step away from control.
So when I talk to parents about autonomy support, because
I have stepped out of the research thing and I
don't have to use all the academic words, I tend
to use words that are maybe a little bit more
(12:18):
practical for parents to say, Oh, I've just got to
do A, B and C. So I talk about it
in terms of the three ease of effective discipline. I
talk about exploring, explaining, and empowering.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So when we.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Explore, we do that first step that you said where
we try to see the world through their eyes. We say,
why you're really struggling with this, this is a really
hard thing. You don't like what I've asked you to do,
or whatever it might be. And then we spend a
little bit of time explaining so well, it's important to
you understand why this matters. You know, we have screen
time limits because if you spend too much time on screens,
(12:49):
then A, B and C it will occur.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You know, we don't have enough time to be together.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
There's an opportunity cost where you're not doing the other
things that matter are so much in your life, like
getting your school worked, or being physically fit, or doing
your music practice, or being a part of our family.
And then we empower them, We say, so, if I'm
getting it right, this is really important to you because
of AB and C, but the and F for the
reasons that I'm struggling.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So what are we going to do together? That's kind
of the autonomy support process the way I describe it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
What do you think is the hardest part of actually
doing this with our children? So when I was looking
at your research, you talked about parents becoming stuck in
unhelpful patterns that kind of lead to pressure and control
and power struggles. So what are those patterns that lead
those power struggles and how do parents get better at
(13:40):
autonomy support?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. And I
would just to add to our time is probably sometimes
forget that our tinnis we are just isn't just about
the discipline and about the way we deal with problems,
but it's also supporting kids' initiations, you know, for things
that they're interested in and passionate about, sort of being
kind of right behind them. Rather than in front of
(14:04):
them and sort of supporting what is fun and exciting
for kids. My answer to your question about what gets
in the way was very much based on my own
experience with my kids. So I'm someone who's been studying
this since well before I had children, and I would
watch parents in our studies, you know, we had. My
(14:24):
first studies were with babies. We were with twelve month
olds and moms interacting with their babies, and the moms
taking the hands, the kid's hands and putting them, you know,
moving them, and you know, saying do it like this,
And they were so invested in their kids doing well
that they were very Some of them were very controlling,
and I looked at them. I would never I would
(14:46):
never do that. But when you had your own kids,
you realize this investment in them doing well is so strong.
You don't want them to fail. You you love them,
want them to succeed. You want them to be the
best that they can be. They want to want it
to have every opportunity. And that feeling it for me
(15:07):
was so visceral. It would be like I would feel
it in my in my in my heart, and in
my stomach, and it would make you want to impose
your your what you you know is going to be
the best thing. You know, don't wear that dress, nobody's
going to like it, you know, or do your homework
this way or whatever it was. You just really want
(15:30):
them to succeed. And so I realized, you know, I
uh started to do a bunch of research on just
this issue that we get. We're really invested it. Not
because we're bad people or we're parents get such a
bad rap sometimes that they're egotistical and narcissistic. No, all
parents have this feeling that they want their kids to
(15:51):
succeed because they love them. Nature gave that to us
so that we could do all this sacrificing for our kids.
It's and we feel it as love. And so when
we get into this place where we get hooked into
I know, the best thing, and I can't afford to
have my child fail because of our own biology, but
also because of the competition that's all around us. I mean,
(16:13):
the kids are just competing all the time, and that
hooks us in. And I think that's when we get
really controlling and pushy and pressuring our kids to do
things when in our hearts maybe we know that that's
not the best thing to do. So people who who
really like this theory and would love your three'es find
(16:33):
themselves being really pushy and controlling. So and then you're
in this power struggle because our natural tendency when we're
controlled is to push back. We're trying to get our
autonomy back, and sometimes we do the opposite, doesn't get
our autonomy back, But when we feel controlled, we push back.
So then you get into these power struggles where I
don't want to wear that dress, but that dress kids
(16:56):
are going to like you if you wear that dress,
and that's going to be the best dress. And you're
back and forth, and you're thinking, how did I get
how did I get in this place in their first way?
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I'm really interested.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I'd love to go through the developmental progression just briefly
on this. So you talked about parents who were controlling
with their infants, you know, their twelve month or eighteen
month old children, and with their toddlers. And it's not
because the child is necessarily doing the wrong thing quote
unquote wrong thing, you know, being challenging, because at twelve
months old, they're not going to be particularly challenging or
(17:28):
eighteen months like you said, this well intentioned desire for
them to do well.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
But what did you.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Find in terms of outcomes when you compare the children
who are being controlled even as infants and toddlers by
well intentioned parents who just want their children to be
really good because you know, you're in the psychology department
and you're being observed by this researcher, and you want
your children to be in front of the curve, be
better than all the other kids. You want them to excel,
and so you dive in and start showing them how
(17:53):
to do it. I mean, it makes sense that parents
would be controlling, especially in that situation, but obviously there
were some parents who weren't who would What were the
outcomes for the children in terms of their their motivation
to participate in the activity or the curiosity about the activity?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Uh, you know, how how far did you study them?
What what did you find?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Just as a general summary of all of those various
studies that you've done in that area.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, in those first studies where we actually just gave
the parents a task with their children and we said
just sit next to him while he plays with it,
we didn't. We weren't even pushing them to do something. Uh.
And some parents, like you, said solve the problem for
the child and move their arms and were very directive,
(18:37):
and other parents were sort of waiting, you know, stepping
back and waiting to be needed and allowing their children
to explore a little bit and things like that. And
then what we did was we had the children, introduced
the children to a kind of problem solving toy working
with an experimenter, and mom was sitting on the side
(18:59):
and just ask sort of said, make this work. So
and we looked at how persistent the kids were at
trying to solve the problems, and we found that the
ones who of the children, of the parents who are
more controlling and more solving problems for them, were less
motivated when they were kind of on their own to
try to solve this problem. So that was a really
(19:23):
important finding. And even at twelve months, then we followed
those kids up at twenty months, and the kids, again,
the kids are the more controlling parents were not only
less motivated to work on independent tasks, but they were
less competent at them in solving those tasks. So it
did look like there are some outcomes of solving problems
(19:45):
for kids and being really controlling.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
How can parents get out of those palace struggles? It
seems like we need to try to be autonomy supportive
by having conversations out of the moment and problem solving together.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Sure. Yeah, I think when a little of it is
self reflective, for me, it feels visceral. When you feel
that sense that i'm i'm I'm feeling really pressured to
push I'm feeling you know. I then to sort of
to be a little self perfected to say, where is
that coming from? Why am I feeling that way? What?
(20:18):
You know, what are really the risks of allowing my
child to uh not play the piano today or this week?
Or what are the risks of that?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
What?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Where is that coming from? And sort of be interested
in it and realize it's just a feeling. It's a feeling.
It's an uncomfortable feeling sometimes, but you don't have to
necessarily act on it, and you can sort of take
a step back and say, you know, what would be
what are the consequences if I allow this? Or I
ask the opinion? And of course that's easier said than
(20:52):
done when you're in a stressed moment. But but but
sometimes if you're you know, you can you can think
about what the what, what really are the consequences here,
and how can I make a better decision or the
best decision in terms of the situation. And I think
part of it also lies for me in having faith
(21:13):
in this and a theory of why people do what
they do. And in this case, what we do when
our intervention is is sort of give people a theory
so that they can have some faith in it. If
you really believe that people will follow their passions, if
they are supported in autonomously, then you'll be able to say, Okay,
you know the guitar wasn't for you, and you'll find
(21:37):
something else. But you have to have that faith that
people will find their interests if you allow that to happen,
and people really will do better if they're supported in
their autonomy, because I think what happens sometimes is you say,
oh God, if I if I don't make her take
that ap horse, and if I don't make her study
(21:58):
right now, you know it's going to be bad for her.
But you still have to have faith that if I solve
this problem for her, if I control exactly what she's doing,
that it won't be such a good thing in the
long term, because in the short term it might feel
like it is. And so having faith in a theory
of human nature and is for me really important because
(22:18):
you get tested as a parent all the time.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I love what you said there, Wendy, particularly this idea
that controlling parenting actually comes from fear. It's almost like
we're fearful that things are not going to be okay.
We're fearful that everything's going to go wrong, and therefore
we step in with control because we feel like it's
our duty to fix it and we have the power
(22:43):
to do so. And what I'm hearing you say really
clearly is if we step back and provide the right
environment for our children where they feel safe, we're not
raising the white flag and saying, oh, well fine, if
you don't want to swim, if you don't want to
play tennis, if you don't want to learn how to
play the musical instrument, We're just not going to do
anything for you anymore. And you know you're going to
(23:03):
end up in your room and you're going to be
staring at a screen for the rest of your life.
That's not going to work out very well. You know,
that's kind of that fear paradigm, but instead to look
at our children and say, well, I guess that didn't
work out. You let us know what you think might
work out, and we'll support you in that instead, and
then step back with the trust that in the right
environment they actually will exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Trust is a really good word, trust in your kids
and also trust in the developmental process.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
If you created a simple list of outcomes that we
see in children who have parents who are autonomy supportive
and providing structure and building involvement, what would the evidence
point to just that, You know, what does the science
say happens when we do this stuff consistently?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
How do our kids turn out great?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
So kids a time whose parents are more autonomy sort
of will be more self regulating in their behavior, whether
it's in school, They'll be more likely to be more spontaneous, engaging,
and less likely to have to be pushed. They're going
to be They're going to be more self regulating. People
find that autonomy support is associated with better self esteem
(24:12):
because when people are solving problems for you all the time,
you're thinking, well, I must may not very good at this,
So so building self esteem being more active in their coping.
So when they have setbacks, my parents are more tiomy supportive,
the kids will be more actively trying to solve the
problems and engaging and engaging them rather than throwing the
(24:34):
the bad exam into the garbage can and never looking
at it again.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
So it's kind of like they're becoming more resilient.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
It's it's like it's a resilience booster, it's a it's
a growth strategy.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Exactly, and also feeling more in control of their successes
and failures that they can have an impact. And finally
also feeling more secure in their attachment. So when parents
are trying to sort of kids feel more like they
can count on their parents to be there when they
(25:05):
need them and feel more secure, and that enables you
to then explore your world a little bit more with
this backdrop of support.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So when you think about the research that you've done
over the last thirty plus years into families, what's the
most powerful thing that you've learned and how has it
challenged convention and helped you to be a better Wendy Gronik.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, that's a good that's a good question. I think
in terms of parent the work with parents, I'm very
sensitive to the negative stereotypes and raps about parents, and
my experience working with parents is that they all want
(25:50):
the best for their kids there, you know, and they're
doing the things they do with that in mind. And
so so it's it's really important to not be judging
of how parents are acting and understanding that behind that
is wanting the best for their kids. And in all
(26:13):
the situations that we have, we can find that and
be and really be very supportive and positive ourselves.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I love that. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Well, to conclude our conversation, Wendy, and it's been so
wonderful talking to you, I ask five rapid fire questions
and I'm excited to hear your answers. So, if we
asked your two children their favorite thing to do with you, or,
given that they're in the late twenties now, their favorite
memories of you because they're older, what would they say,
favorite thing to do with mom and dad?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
You know, it's funny. The other day, my daughter, my
older daughter who's thirty now, said to me, when we
were little, you let us do whatever we wanted. And
I don't think I let them do whatever they want,
but she gave this example of something anything that my
my younger daughter wanted to do. She wanted to every
(27:04):
week she had she wanted to give an award to
one of my older daughters the friend's parents as the
nicest parent of the week or something else. And I
actually and she'd got some flowers and I and she
she wanted We went to the house, we gave the
flowers and she said, why did you let her do that?
That was very strange. And I said, she was so
(27:25):
passionate about it was out of compassion. Why wouldn't I.
Why wouldn't I let her do that? So they do
have this sense that that that I I followed them
and sometimes and and that's a really nice thing, and
allowed them to follow there sometimes silly or funny interests
and cookie interests. So they probably say that, so.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
What's being you a trickiest parenting moment?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
It's tricky to be a motivation researcher on parenting with
with children because they actually at a certain point they
read my book and they would say things like they
would use my language and they would say, Mom, you're
being controlling. You can't you're not practicing what your page.
(28:13):
And so sometimes when we were dealing with you know,
tricky things in teenagerhood about curfew and things like that.
They would use use the language against me. I'd say, well,
I'm just trying to provide structure, and I think just
also just trying to stay true to what I what
I believe, but tested all the time with those moments
(28:35):
where I got hooked into wanting wanting to make sure
everything turned out okay, and couldn't.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I couldn't do that all the time, so much pressure.
Question number three.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
If you could spend an hour with your kids at
any age at all, let's say tomorrow afternoon at three
o'clock they're going to walk in your living room and
they're going to be that magical age. What age would
you pick?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And why I would pick? How they are exactly now
for me, every stage, every time, every time they grow.
I'm just wowed by who they are as you know
and so, and the way in which we can interact
now as friends and colleagues and equals and a parent child.
(29:19):
But so right now I think would be would be
my pick. I just love interacting with them as adults.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Great, So question number four of the five, No matter
how good life has been and how glad you are
to be in the moment right now. What are you
most looking forward to as a mom?
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Oh gosh, just seeing them settled in whatever interests them
and happy and so just seeing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
That move along beautiful.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
And the last question, which is my favorite, if you
could go back to Wendy Grohlnik as a young mom
with no experience at this parenting thing at all, what
one piece of advice would you give yourself and how
did you learn how valuable that were.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's actually a piece of advice that I give parents,
and I try not to give too much of advice,
but when we work with them, is that to see
every setback that your child has as an opportunity for
them to learn something. And I wish I had known
that at the time. This is just an example. There
was one year that at the school that my older
daughter was at, the principal would say, you can't ask
(30:23):
for a particular teacher. That was a rule, but apparently
everybody did and I just didn't realize it, So so
we always got the new teacher. So one year I'm
a rule follower that way. So one year she got
this teacher that was just really not knowledgeable. It was
a friend of a friend or something like that. She
only lasted a year, but she really set the kids
(30:46):
back in the sense that she really didn't know what
they had learned last year. They were learning old things.
And at the time I was thinking, you know, I
should really do something and change her class, and you know,
this is terrible and she's going to be behind well
that year because that all the other teachers were giving
were producing plays in their classrooms, and this teacher didn't.
(31:10):
My older daughter actually asked the teacher, can I write
a play and that the school can put off? And
she put on this play. She wrote the play, she
put on the play in her class, She developed a
philanthropic project that year. And so growth happens in the
(31:31):
strangest places, and so if I engineered that to get
her out of it, that never would have happened. So
the opportunities that of helping your kids deal with whatever
is in front of them in an autonomy supportive way
and learn those skills. And you just never know what's
going to be the growth opportunity. So when parents come
(31:52):
in and say this is happening and I don't think
it's good, this is a great opportunity for you to
teach your that you can get through this. I don't
think I knew that, but if I had known that,
I probably wouldn't have believed it. So but I wish
I wish I had and I do try to convey
that to parents that it's all just a learning opportunity.
(32:15):
Thank goodness, this bad thing happened or this challenge happened
because your child's still home and they're not in college
yet where they're not going to have you there to
help them through it.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Wendy, so very grateful for you being so generous with
your time and with your expertise today. It's beautiful. It's
great to have the conversation. So I'm tremendously thankful it's been.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Oh I hope it was useful.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I hope that you've gotten some wonderful insight into Wendy
Gronick as a result of this podcast. Wendy's a wonderful
communicator and has some brilliant thoughts around how we can
support and encourage our kids without pressure and coercion. Her
books are well worth looking up, and I think they'd
be a great resource for any parent's library. If you'd
like more information on how to access more premium content
(32:57):
visit happy families dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Do you look on memberships
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Hmm,
This is the Happy Families Podcast. My name is doctor
Justin Colson. Thank you so much for joining in. We've
just commenced a series of in depth interviews.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Where I speak to guests, we learn, we have some fun.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And we get into the nitty gritty of what can
make parenting absolutely incredible and make families flourish well. Today's
guest is Professor Wendy Rolnick, a mother, an author, and
we're kind of kindred spirits and that we both work
to help build happy families and our area of research
is very very closely aligned. Professor Rolnick's book The Psychology
(00:40):
of Parental Control is one of my favorites, and Wendy
is based out of the psychology department of Clark University
in Massachusetts. She's taught definitely three decades. So I began
by asking her about what family life looks like for her.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Family wise, I have two grown children, two daughters. Yeah,
I've been married for thirty five years and parenting for thirty.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Wendy we met at a conference, I think it was
about three or four years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
It was in British Columbia.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
We were saying at this gorgeous hotel on the water
in Victoria, and I think it was about twenty seventeen.
You and I had a great conversation about our mutual
interest in raising happy families, and we both have a
very strong interest in a theory in psychology known as
self determination theory, and it's something that I've really built.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Much of what I share with parents around.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
You've done a recent study built on self determination theory,
and you found that parents who were really doing well
with their families. In fact, you looked at families across
the board, so you weren't sort of saying, well, these
ones are doing well and these ones aren't. You just
got random families to come into the lab and fill
in some surveys and then go away and do some things.
You got them to do a handful of things, and
in particularly, you found that when they did three things successfully,
(01:56):
their families were happier and their children are more likely
to thrive. So I wonder if you can step me
through what those three things were and what they actually
look like in practice from an applied you know, this
is what parents need to do to do these three things.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yeah, we've actually entered into the world of intervention, so
I can tell you about how we've tried to help
people move toward these three things. But yes, the three
things are. One is support for autonomy. That is helping
children to feel that they are kind of like behind
their actions, they're the owner of their actions. They're not
(02:31):
being pushed and coerced. Because we know that when people
feel like they're being pushed and coerced, that they are
less happy and they're less likely to persevere in what
they're doing and be motivated and follow their passions. So
when you support autonomy and help children feel this way,
you can do a number of things. And we've looked
at different strategies that parents can use. So one is
(02:55):
that you It all kind of starts with taking children's perspectives,
thinking of where are they coming from, how are they
thinking about what they're doing, and trying to get into
their heads and understand their perspectives.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
And that's really hard.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
You get into the morning rush and the morning routine
and you've got to get the children out the door,
and everything's going.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
A little bit crazy in Haywire, and the children are non.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Compliant, they don't want to get up and go to school,
and they're feeling miserable or a bit lousy, and we
don't tend to take their perspective in that moment because
we're also running late, and if we don't get out
the door on time, we're going to miss the lights
at the bottom of the street. And if we don't
get through those lights at exactly seven fourteen, that means
that we're going to be stuck until seven twenty and
then we're going to get the peak hour traffic that's
(03:36):
six minutes is you know, it makes all the difference,
and so have we feel a lot of pressure ourselves,
and we tend to transfer that into the family environment, right,
and then we take away their autonomy and start to
control them absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
And we've done some studies exactly on this. Stress makes
it really hard to be autonomy supportive. But when you
think about it, if you can take the perspective of
the child and just give them the sense that you
understand where they're coming from, they're going to be much
more open to all the other things that you want
them to do. So if you can just say, I
understand that you'd much rather be listening to your iPad
(04:12):
and playing on it and not getting ready, and it
feels really pushy to for have me start do this,
you know telling you to do it. Now, they'll be
much more open to hearing well, but here's what we
need to do, And they hear you better when they
know that you TA can take their perspective, understand them,
and you're providing them a little bit of empathy for
where they're coming from.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
I say this to parents all the time.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
When you listen to a podcast or when you're sitting
in a room with somebody like you or I and
we're talking to you about that kind of thing, it
all makes sense, right. We think, oh, yeah, I'm supposed
to take a breath and just connect with their emotion
and say, well, you're really struggling and you just wish
that this didn't have to be this way, don't you
Like that makes sense when we're having this conversation. But
tomorrow morning, when somebody's going through it, that's the last
(04:56):
thing you want to do. Like, it's exactly the opposite
of what you want to do, because you're feeling the
stress and pressure when you want to get that full momentum,
you don't want to sort of put the brakes on
and sit down and hold the hand and look into
their eyes and say you're having a tough time this
morning on't you right?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Right? And so there are things you can do when
you're not in those very stressful moments that what might
make a difference for those stressful moments. So, for example,
if you're having this problem every morning, when there isn't
a problem going on and when it's a quiet time,
you can sit down together and talk this out. So
(05:31):
part of autonomy support is taking kids' perspectives. Part of
it is giving them choicest part of it is problem
solving together. And so you want to sit down and
problem solve together and say, you know, mornings have been
really rough. I know they're hard on you. I know
it stinks when you have to hear me nag you
in the morning. You just got up. Let's put our
(05:52):
heads together to figure out what we can do. What
are your thoughts. So a ton of support means getting
kids input into problems that you're having and problem solving together. So, yes,
it's true at that moment that might not work, but
if the child comes up with some great idea as well,
you could wake me up five minutes earlier, or you
(06:13):
could just knock at my door really quietly and let
me know it's time. So you come up with this together.
There Again, when you don't feel like somebody's yelling at
you and nagging at you and coming and imposing themselves
upon you, you're much more likely to understand, you know,
why you're doing it, and being this together and problem
(06:35):
solve together.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
We've got this. First thing is autonomy support. But there
are three of these. And by the way, I think
that at least for me, as I've watched how my
parenting has changed over the last couple of decades raising
my six kids, this for me is the lynchpin, like
stepping away from control and stepping towards supporting autonomy or
empowering our children to find the solutions that are inside
(06:59):
themsel to do well.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That seems to be it.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But there's two other things that you highlight that families
that do best also emphasize. And those two things are
structure and involvement. And in your research you found that
this leads to the best outcomes comparatively compared to families
that aren't doing this. So autonomy support, we've sort of
talked about that briefly. But what a structure and involvement
and how do they work?
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Yeah, So structure is really connected to having kids have
a sense of competence. So we put it into place
to help kids feel like they know how to succeed
in what you're asking them to do, or they know
how to succeed in the world. And so structure is
really the information you need to be successful. And what
you do is you set up the environment to increase
(07:46):
the probability that kids are going to feel competent. And
you can do that by having just really clear expectations,
this is what we need to be doing, this is
what I expect, and guidelines for how to do that
feedback about how you're doing. So if the you know
the job is to to clean your room, you know
(08:06):
what's expected, how often, what it means to clean your room,
You know what to do, so that then you can
children can plan their behavior and say, oh, I know,
I know how to be successful here, So that that's
really important. The trick is you want to connect that
with autonomy support. You don't want just to impose structure
(08:26):
on kids and say this is how we're doing it,
these are the rules, this is the schedule. Yeah, so
you've heard a lot during the pandemic about you have
to have a schedule but kids can have input into
that schedule and feel like you together you own some
of these guidelines and rules, and that's when it's they're
going to be both feeling competent, like this is what
I need to do, but also feeling I mean you
(08:48):
use the word empowered, which is a good word, that
you have some ownership of this and it's not just
something that's coming from above.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
And so the odd da here from what I've written
in your research and other researchers who have played in
this area is ideally, as we create a sense of structure,
it's not just about the routine and the schedule.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
It's actually it's about.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
The way we have small wins in our lives doing
all of the things that matter. But the way that
we create the structure ideally will be in an autonomy
supportive way. So we'll sit down with our children and
say we have a little bit of a problem. You've
probably noticed this is happening in our evenings, this is
happening on our Saturday mornings or our sundays are just
not working. They're not getting the quality family time that
we want. What can we do together to make this work?
(09:34):
And then in a supportive non controlling way you develop
a sort of a sense of structure. Or you know,
we're paying all this money for piano lessons, but it
seems like you just don't really get excited about practicing
until twenty minutes before we have to run out the
door to see the teacher.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
And this is not working.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
So it's really about having these conversations and bringing the
children in so that they can solve their own problems
and create those structures and supports.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
Is that how you're disc Yes.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Yes, it's really well said. Sometimes when we describe this
to parents, they say, oh, well, what if they want
to get up at twelve, you know, twelve in the afternoon,
that's not acceptable. It's okay for you as a parent
to sort of have your guidelines within which you are working,
and you're able to say, well, this idea that you
(10:23):
came up with isn't quite going to work because blah
blah blah, but here's some guidelines within which we can
we can choose. You know, any time between eight and
ten is okay to walk the dog. But so what
what do you choose? And you give a reason for
why twelve o'clock's not going to work? So it doesn't
(10:43):
mean that you're relinquishing your role as an authority. There
are some things that need to be decided within certain limits,
but you can still have a sense of input and
problem solving together within those guidelines.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
So we've got autonomy support where we're really saying to
the children, I want to work with you as you
become volitional and control your own life, with me just
providing some gentle guidance to keep you in appropriate boundaries.
We've got structure, which means we're going to set things
up so that our children can feel competent, I feel
like they're having small wins and have a sense that
(11:19):
they're in control of their environment. They're able to develop
a sense of mastery. And the third one was involvement.
You found that families that are doing really well have
high levels of involvement compared to families that aren't doing
so well.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yes, absolutely, whether it's involvement in school, or it's involvement
in more generally, in asking about what's going on and
doing things together as a family, doing family routines, all
of that really makes the difference in terms of kids
feelings secure and connective.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
I want to go back to autonomy support for a minute.
This is I think, as I said before, this is
to me the lynchpin of what parents who are really
getting it right really focus on. They step away from control.
So when I talk to parents about autonomy support, because
I have stepped out of the research thing and I
don't have to use all the academic words, I tend
to use words that are maybe a little bit more
(12:18):
practical for parents to say, Oh, I've just got to
do A, B and C. So I talk about it
in terms of the three ease of effective discipline. I
talk about exploring, explaining, and empowering.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
So when we.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Explore, we do that first step that you said where
we try to see the world through their eyes. We say,
why you're really struggling with this, this is a really
hard thing. You don't like what I've asked you to do,
or whatever it might be. And then we spend a
little bit of time explaining so well, it's important to
you understand why this matters. You know, we have screen
time limits because if you spend too much time on screens,
(12:49):
then A, B and C it will occur.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
You know, we don't have enough time to be together.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
There's an opportunity cost where you're not doing the other
things that matter are so much in your life, like
getting your school worked, or being physically fit, or doing
your music practice, or being a part of our family.
And then we empower them, We say, so, if I'm
getting it right, this is really important to you because
of AB and C, but the and F for the
reasons that I'm struggling.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
So what are we going to do together? That's kind
of the autonomy support process the way I describe it.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
What do you think is the hardest part of actually
doing this with our children? So when I was looking
at your research, you talked about parents becoming stuck in
unhelpful patterns that kind of lead to pressure and control
and power struggles. So what are those patterns that lead
those power struggles and how do parents get better at
(13:40):
autonomy support?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. And I
would just to add to our time is probably sometimes
forget that our tinnis we are just isn't just about
the discipline and about the way we deal with problems,
but it's also supporting kids' initiations, you know, for things
that they're interested in and passionate about, sort of being
kind of right behind them. Rather than in front of
(14:04):
them and sort of supporting what is fun and exciting
for kids. My answer to your question about what gets
in the way was very much based on my own
experience with my kids. So I'm someone who's been studying
this since well before I had children, and I would
watch parents in our studies, you know, we had. My
(14:24):
first studies were with babies. We were with twelve month
olds and moms interacting with their babies, and the moms
taking the hands, the kid's hands and putting them, you know,
moving them, and you know, saying do it like this,
And they were so invested in their kids doing well
that they were very Some of them were very controlling,
and I looked at them. I would never I would
(14:46):
never do that. But when you had your own kids,
you realize this investment in them doing well is so strong.
You don't want them to fail. You you love them,
want them to succeed. You want them to be the
best that they can be. They want to want it
to have every opportunity. And that feeling it for me
(15:07):
was so visceral. It would be like I would feel
it in my in my in my heart, and in
my stomach, and it would make you want to impose
your your what you you know is going to be
the best thing. You know, don't wear that dress, nobody's
going to like it, you know, or do your homework
this way or whatever it was. You just really want
(15:30):
them to succeed. And so I realized, you know, I
uh started to do a bunch of research on just
this issue that we get. We're really invested it. Not
because we're bad people or we're parents get such a
bad rap sometimes that they're egotistical and narcissistic. No, all
parents have this feeling that they want their kids to
(15:51):
succeed because they love them. Nature gave that to us
so that we could do all this sacrificing for our kids.
It's and we feel it as love. And so when
we get into this place where we get hooked into
I know, the best thing, and I can't afford to
have my child fail because of our own biology, but
also because of the competition that's all around us. I mean,
(16:13):
the kids are just competing all the time, and that
hooks us in. And I think that's when we get
really controlling and pushy and pressuring our kids to do
things when in our hearts maybe we know that that's
not the best thing to do. So people who who
really like this theory and would love your three'es find
(16:33):
themselves being really pushy and controlling. So and then you're
in this power struggle because our natural tendency when we're
controlled is to push back. We're trying to get our
autonomy back, and sometimes we do the opposite, doesn't get
our autonomy back, But when we feel controlled, we push back.
So then you get into these power struggles where I
don't want to wear that dress, but that dress kids
(16:56):
are going to like you if you wear that dress,
and that's going to be the best dress. And you're
back and forth, and you're thinking, how did I get
how did I get in this place in their first way?
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I'm really interested.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
I'd love to go through the developmental progression just briefly
on this. So you talked about parents who were controlling
with their infants, you know, their twelve month or eighteen
month old children, and with their toddlers. And it's not
because the child is necessarily doing the wrong thing quote
unquote wrong thing, you know, being challenging, because at twelve
months old, they're not going to be particularly challenging or
(17:28):
eighteen months like you said, this well intentioned desire for
them to do well.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
But what did you.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Find in terms of outcomes when you compare the children
who are being controlled even as infants and toddlers by
well intentioned parents who just want their children to be
really good because you know, you're in the psychology department
and you're being observed by this researcher, and you want
your children to be in front of the curve, be
better than all the other kids. You want them to excel,
and so you dive in and start showing them how
(17:53):
to do it. I mean, it makes sense that parents
would be controlling, especially in that situation, but obviously there
were some parents who weren't who would What were the
outcomes for the children in terms of their their motivation
to participate in the activity or the curiosity about the activity?
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Uh, you know, how how far did you study them?
What what did you find?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Just as a general summary of all of those various
studies that you've done in that area.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Yeah, in those first studies where we actually just gave
the parents a task with their children and we said
just sit next to him while he plays with it,
we didn't. We weren't even pushing them to do something. Uh.
And some parents, like you, said solve the problem for
the child and move their arms and were very directive,
(18:37):
and other parents were sort of waiting, you know, stepping
back and waiting to be needed and allowing their children
to explore a little bit and things like that. And
then what we did was we had the children, introduced
the children to a kind of problem solving toy working
with an experimenter, and mom was sitting on the side
(18:59):
and just ask sort of said, make this work. So
and we looked at how persistent the kids were at
trying to solve the problems, and we found that the
ones who of the children, of the parents who are
more controlling and more solving problems for them, were less
motivated when they were kind of on their own to
try to solve this problem. So that was a really
(19:23):
important finding. And even at twelve months, then we followed
those kids up at twenty months, and the kids, again,
the kids are the more controlling parents were not only
less motivated to work on independent tasks, but they were
less competent at them in solving those tasks. So it
did look like there are some outcomes of solving problems
(19:45):
for kids and being really controlling.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
How can parents get out of those palace struggles? It
seems like we need to try to be autonomy supportive
by having conversations out of the moment and problem solving together.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Sure. Yeah, I think when a little of it is
self reflective, for me, it feels visceral. When you feel
that sense that i'm i'm I'm feeling really pressured to
push I'm feeling you know. I then to sort of
to be a little self perfected to say, where is
that coming from? Why am I feeling that way? What?
(20:18):
You know, what are really the risks of allowing my
child to uh not play the piano today or this week?
Or what are the risks of that?
Speaker 2 (20:29):
What?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Where is that coming from? And sort of be interested
in it and realize it's just a feeling. It's a feeling.
It's an uncomfortable feeling sometimes, but you don't have to
necessarily act on it, and you can sort of take
a step back and say, you know, what would be
what are the consequences if I allow this? Or I
ask the opinion? And of course that's easier said than
(20:52):
done when you're in a stressed moment. But but but
sometimes if you're you know, you can you can think
about what the what, what really are the consequences here,
and how can I make a better decision or the
best decision in terms of the situation. And I think
part of it also lies for me in having faith
(21:13):
in this and a theory of why people do what
they do. And in this case, what we do when
our intervention is is sort of give people a theory
so that they can have some faith in it. If
you really believe that people will follow their passions, if
they are supported in autonomously, then you'll be able to say, Okay,
you know the guitar wasn't for you, and you'll find
(21:37):
something else. But you have to have that faith that
people will find their interests if you allow that to happen,
and people really will do better if they're supported in
their autonomy, because I think what happens sometimes is you say,
oh God, if I if I don't make her take
that ap horse, and if I don't make her study
(21:58):
right now, you know it's going to be bad for her.
But you still have to have faith that if I solve
this problem for her, if I control exactly what she's doing,
that it won't be such a good thing in the
long term, because in the short term it might feel
like it is. And so having faith in a theory
of human nature and is for me really important because
(22:18):
you get tested as a parent all the time.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
I love what you said there, Wendy, particularly this idea
that controlling parenting actually comes from fear. It's almost like
we're fearful that things are not going to be okay.
We're fearful that everything's going to go wrong, and therefore
we step in with control because we feel like it's
our duty to fix it and we have the power
(22:43):
to do so. And what I'm hearing you say really
clearly is if we step back and provide the right
environment for our children where they feel safe, we're not
raising the white flag and saying, oh, well fine, if
you don't want to swim, if you don't want to
play tennis, if you don't want to learn how to
play the musical instrument, We're just not going to do
anything for you anymore. And you know you're going to
(23:03):
end up in your room and you're going to be
staring at a screen for the rest of your life.
That's not going to work out very well. You know,
that's kind of that fear paradigm, but instead to look
at our children and say, well, I guess that didn't
work out. You let us know what you think might
work out, and we'll support you in that instead, and
then step back with the trust that in the right
environment they actually will exactly.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
Trust is a really good word, trust in your kids
and also trust in the developmental process.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
If you created a simple list of outcomes that we
see in children who have parents who are autonomy supportive
and providing structure and building involvement, what would the evidence
point to just that, You know, what does the science
say happens when we do this stuff consistently?
Speaker 2 (23:45):
How do our kids turn out great?
Speaker 3 (23:48):
So kids a time whose parents are more autonomy sort
of will be more self regulating in their behavior, whether
it's in school, They'll be more likely to be more spontaneous, engaging,
and less likely to have to be pushed. They're going
to be They're going to be more self regulating. People
find that autonomy support is associated with better self esteem
(24:12):
because when people are solving problems for you all the time,
you're thinking, well, I must may not very good at this,
So so building self esteem being more active in their coping.
So when they have setbacks, my parents are more tiomy supportive,
the kids will be more actively trying to solve the
problems and engaging and engaging them rather than throwing the
(24:34):
the bad exam into the garbage can and never looking
at it again.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
So it's kind of like they're becoming more resilient.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
It's it's like it's a resilience booster, it's a it's
a growth strategy.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Exactly, and also feeling more in control of their successes
and failures that they can have an impact. And finally
also feeling more secure in their attachment. So when parents
are trying to sort of kids feel more like they
can count on their parents to be there when they
(25:05):
need them and feel more secure, and that enables you
to then explore your world a little bit more with
this backdrop of support.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
So when you think about the research that you've done
over the last thirty plus years into families, what's the
most powerful thing that you've learned and how has it
challenged convention and helped you to be a better Wendy Gronik.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, that's a good that's a good question. I think
in terms of parent the work with parents, I'm very
sensitive to the negative stereotypes and raps about parents, and
my experience working with parents is that they all want
(25:50):
the best for their kids there, you know, and they're
doing the things they do with that in mind. And
so so it's it's really important to not be judging
of how parents are acting and understanding that behind that
is wanting the best for their kids. And in all
(26:13):
the situations that we have, we can find that and
be and really be very supportive and positive ourselves.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
I love that. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Well, to conclude our conversation, Wendy, and it's been so
wonderful talking to you, I ask five rapid fire questions
and I'm excited to hear your answers. So, if we
asked your two children their favorite thing to do with you, or,
given that they're in the late twenties now, their favorite
memories of you because they're older, what would they say,
favorite thing to do with mom and dad?
Speaker 3 (26:43):
You know, it's funny. The other day, my daughter, my
older daughter who's thirty now, said to me, when we
were little, you let us do whatever we wanted. And
I don't think I let them do whatever they want,
but she gave this example of something anything that my
my younger daughter wanted to do. She wanted to every
(27:04):
week she had she wanted to give an award to
one of my older daughters the friend's parents as the
nicest parent of the week or something else. And I
actually and she'd got some flowers and I and she
she wanted We went to the house, we gave the
flowers and she said, why did you let her do that?
That was very strange. And I said, she was so
(27:25):
passionate about it was out of compassion. Why wouldn't I.
Why wouldn't I let her do that? So they do
have this sense that that that I I followed them
and sometimes and and that's a really nice thing, and
allowed them to follow there sometimes silly or funny interests
and cookie interests. So they probably say that, so.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
What's being you a trickiest parenting moment?
Speaker 3 (27:51):
It's tricky to be a motivation researcher on parenting with
with children because they actually at a certain point they
read my book and they would say things like they
would use my language and they would say, Mom, you're
being controlling. You can't you're not practicing what your page.
(28:13):
And so sometimes when we were dealing with you know,
tricky things in teenagerhood about curfew and things like that.
They would use use the language against me. I'd say, well,
I'm just trying to provide structure, and I think just
also just trying to stay true to what I what
I believe, but tested all the time with those moments
(28:35):
where I got hooked into wanting wanting to make sure
everything turned out okay, and couldn't.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
I couldn't do that all the time, so much pressure.
Question number three.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
If you could spend an hour with your kids at
any age at all, let's say tomorrow afternoon at three
o'clock they're going to walk in your living room and
they're going to be that magical age. What age would
you pick?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And why I would pick? How they are exactly now
for me, every stage, every time, every time they grow.
I'm just wowed by who they are as you know
and so, and the way in which we can interact
now as friends and colleagues and equals and a parent child.
(29:19):
But so right now I think would be would be
my pick. I just love interacting with them as adults.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Great, So question number four of the five, No matter
how good life has been and how glad you are
to be in the moment right now. What are you
most looking forward to as a mom?
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Oh gosh, just seeing them settled in whatever interests them
and happy and so just seeing.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
That move along beautiful.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
And the last question, which is my favorite, if you
could go back to Wendy Grohlnik as a young mom
with no experience at this parenting thing at all, what
one piece of advice would you give yourself and how
did you learn how valuable that were.
Speaker 3 (30:00):
It's actually a piece of advice that I give parents,
and I try not to give too much of advice,
but when we work with them, is that to see
every setback that your child has as an opportunity for
them to learn something. And I wish I had known
that at the time. This is just an example. There
was one year that at the school that my older
daughter was at, the principal would say, you can't ask
(30:23):
for a particular teacher. That was a rule, but apparently
everybody did and I just didn't realize it, So so
we always got the new teacher. So one year I'm
a rule follower that way. So one year she got
this teacher that was just really not knowledgeable. It was
a friend of a friend or something like that. She
only lasted a year, but she really set the kids
(30:46):
back in the sense that she really didn't know what
they had learned last year. They were learning old things.
And at the time I was thinking, you know, I
should really do something and change her class, and you know,
this is terrible and she's going to be behind well
that year because that all the other teachers were giving
were producing plays in their classrooms, and this teacher didn't.
(31:10):
My older daughter actually asked the teacher, can I write
a play and that the school can put off? And
she put on this play. She wrote the play, she
put on the play in her class, She developed a
philanthropic project that year. And so growth happens in the
(31:31):
strangest places, and so if I engineered that to get
her out of it, that never would have happened. So
the opportunities that of helping your kids deal with whatever
is in front of them in an autonomy supportive way
and learn those skills. And you just never know what's
going to be the growth opportunity. So when parents come
(31:52):
in and say this is happening and I don't think
it's good, this is a great opportunity for you to
teach your that you can get through this. I don't
think I knew that, but if I had known that,
I probably wouldn't have believed it. So but I wish
I wish I had and I do try to convey
that to parents that it's all just a learning opportunity.
(32:15):
Thank goodness, this bad thing happened or this challenge happened
because your child's still home and they're not in college
yet where they're not going to have you there to
help them through it.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
Wendy, so very grateful for you being so generous with
your time and with your expertise today. It's beautiful. It's
great to have the conversation. So I'm tremendously thankful it's been.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Oh I hope it was useful.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I hope that you've gotten some wonderful insight into Wendy
Gronick as a result of this podcast. Wendy's a wonderful
communicator and has some brilliant thoughts around how we can
support and encourage our kids without pressure and coercion. Her
books are well worth looking up, and I think they'd
be a great resource for any parent's library. If you'd
like more information on how to access more premium content
(32:57):
visit happy families dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Do you look on memberships
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Hmm,
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