December 13, 2024 • 14 mins
In this episode of the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast, I respond to Alison’s questions about handling two common parenting challenges: when kids reject reflecting feelings and when they power-struggle choice-giving. Alison shares her frustrations with her son covering his ears and yelling, “Stop talking!” during feeling reflections and refusing choices during mealtime. I explain why this resistance is normal, especially when children are uncomfortable with new strategies, and how to stay consistent in your approach.
I offer practical tips for navigating these power struggles, such as softening your tone, using patience, and staying neutral when your child eventually makes a choice. Remember, consistency is key—by sticking with these methods, your child will develop emotional vocabulary, self-regulation, and decision-making skills.
Ask Me Questions: Call (813) 812-5525, or email: brenna@thekidcounselor.com
Podcast HQ: https://www.playtherapyparenting.com/
My Newsletter Signup: https://www.playtherapyparenting.com/newsletter/
My Podcast Partner, Gabb Wireless: https://www.playtherapyparenting.com/gabb/
Common References:
Landreth, G.L. (2023). Play Therapy: The Art of the Relationship (4th ed.). Routledge.
Bratton, S. C., Landreth, G. L., Kellam, T., & Blackard, S. R. (2006). Child parent relationship therapy (CPRT) treatment manual: A 10-session filial therapy model for training parents. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
You're listening to the
Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
Hi, I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.
This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast where I give
you insight awareness and enlightenment about your parenting
and your relationship with your kids.
In today's episode, I am answering a question from Alison.
(00:23):
That's actually a pseudonym. She asked to remain anonymous.
So I'm gonna read parts of Alison's email and then we'll dive in
before we get into that. I wanted to update you on a couple of things.
Many of you have been referred to the podcast by a child-centered
play therapist with whom you and your family and your child are working.
(00:45):
So I wanted to say hello and welcome. If you have been referred by
a therapist, I also have a therapist podcast.
So many of the child-centered play Therapists, listen to my podcast
as the clinical therapeutic side of it
and then refer parents to the parenting podcast. So kind of dual track of CCPT
(01:05):
Child Centered Play Therapy,
but really glad you're here and happy to have you
also, if you would like to reach out to me to have me answer your question,
you can do so in two ways you can email me brenna@thekidcounselor.com
or you can if you are in the States,
call 813-812-5525 and leave a voicemail
(01:26):
and I'll be able to answer your question after hearing your voicemail. So,
welcome. Glad you're here and thank you for your commitment to your children.
All right.
So we'll read Alison's email parts of it
and then we'll dive into processing this together.
Hi, I love the podcast and I found the four pillars very helpful with my son.
(01:47):
We are starting with a play therapist and she recommended your podcast.
I've always tried to validate his feelings and give him desirable choices,
but we are still struggling. The first issue is sometimes
when I start to validate his feelings, he will cover his ears and yell. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Just stop talking.
He did this tonight while practicing guitar.
He missed a note, not a big deal, but to him it was
(02:09):
and he shouted, guess I'll just start all over.
I started to validate his feelings and he covered his ears and yelled at me.
The second issue is around choices
I'll use last night as an example.
He's a very picky eater and had already eaten most of his preferred foods that day.
I said you can choose between grilled cheese or you can choose peanut butter toast.
Which do you choose?
I should add both of those are typically agreeable meals
(02:32):
to which he said neither. I don't want either of those.
There's nothing new under the sun, y'all. This is common.
Even when we give him choices, he is demanding more control.
Hope you can answer both questions.
All right.
So Alison,
thank you so much for the email and we will dive into each of these questions.
So the first about validating his feelings,
(02:54):
we need to unpack this a little bit
because this is actually a very common frustration
when parents start to implement some of these things. So let me share my thoughts.
The first is
you have taken it upon yourself to learn a new way of interacting.
You're listening to the podcast, you're practicing
and you have started talking differently.
(03:16):
So that is your choice and it was a willful decision on your part.
Your children are at the mercy of that decision. And what I mean by that is
all they know is that you've started talking differently
and anything new is usually uncomfortable.
It's just a growing pain
of you changing and forcing the dynamic in
(03:38):
your relationship with your child to change.
So that's just kind of to normalize for you.
It's very common for kids to push back when you start
integrating new strategies because it's not comfortable for them.
They're confused, they're not sure what's going on
and normal has been erased and new normal is difficult.
Also, one of the major reasons that kids will push back is they
(04:03):
don't have an emotional vocabulary,
which ironically, that's one of the main outcomes of reflecting a child's feeling
is so that they develop an emotional vocabulary. But when they don't possess one
and you say
you're frustrated or you're irritated,
you're excited,
(04:23):
you're glad,
whatever the emotion is,
they don't feel a connection to that
and it makes them again uncomfortable. I, I hope that you're seeing the thread here.
This is a discomfort issue with your son.
This is uncomfortable. He does not know how he feels.
He does not know the emotions for it.
He does not know why you're telling him how you think he feels.
(04:46):
He is just struggling because it's all new.
Third consideration is that when a child hears
his or her emotion reflected,
sometimes it makes it more real.
And what I mean by that is when you ok, in that scenario, playing the guitar,
I'm not sure what you
(05:07):
tried to reflect. I'm not sure if you said frustrated,
disappointed, defeated,
angry. I'm not really sure what you might have said there,
but by saying it out loud and a child hearing it,
it forces the reality of what's going on and it makes it more real
(05:27):
and kids are emotional
until about the age of 13, they are completely in their emotions.
So they're feeling these things, they're experiencing these things so magically,
they're aware of how it makes them feel in their bodies,
but they don't necessarily have the word for it.
And that's why there's the phrase you speak it
(05:48):
into existence or you speak it into truth.
The reason why we say that is because once it's set out loud, it becomes more real.
So when you say, oh you're defeated,
you didn't play that the way you wanted to
it now forces him to think about what you're reflecting.
It's bridging the gap between the head and the heart.
(06:11):
So therefore, when he is in the emotions of that moment,
he's living in them.
But by saying something out loud, it forces cognitive processing
because verbal requires you to think about what's been said,
not just experience it as a feeling.
So this is also uncomfortable for him.
(06:31):
So the moral of the story, Alison,
what I'm trying to get at is these are
some considerations that I think are helpful for everyone.
But what the encouragement of this is, keep doing it
because even when he fights you and says,
yeah, yeah, yeah, stop talking.
Then you reflect that
and that would be more of a cognitive reflection.
You could reflect the feeling, but you could also say,
(06:54):
hm, you don't like it when I said that you were frustrated.
So now you're doing a little bit of reflection of content.
You can also reflect feeling,
uh
you're angry that I said you were frustrated.
And here's the strategy,
soften
your tone.
You might even whisper it
because if the child's just told you to stop talking
(07:16):
and you talk immediately.
That seems dismissive sometimes and that can
elevate the power struggle even more. This is a power struggle.
Let's let's call a spade, a spade here
with him saying, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stop talking, covering his ears, yelling at you.
It's a power struggle
because he's overwhelmed and he doesn't know how to handle it.
So he's grasping at power because he feels powerless. That makes sense.
(07:39):
But when we, when a child says,
stop telling me how I feel or stop talking to me or I don't want to listen to you.
And then we say, oh, you're frustrated that I'm talking to you
that seems dismissive and it can really ramp up the power. So
sometimes it's helpful to really, really quietly, sometimes even whisper,
oh, you don't like it when I say that
(08:01):
and it's in an attempt to honor the fact that the child has told you not to talk,
but you are not effectively using the skill without talking.
And a lot of parents will give up,
a lot of parents will say, ok,
my kid fights me every time I reflect feelings and I just,
it's not worth the fight and he hates it.
So I'm not going to do it anymore.
Don't be in that camp
(08:23):
lovingly encouragingly, do not be in that camp
because if you keep at it,
anything worth doing is difficult.
If you keep at it,
your child builds an emotional vocabulary,
your child builds emotional regulation
your child has a sense of how he's feeling
and he will better be able to
(08:43):
communicate and identify those feelings
as his emotional IQ increases.
So this is a battle of the wills.
And one of the things that I tell my therapist all the
time and one of the things I tell parents all the time
in a battle of the wills with a child, you're not gonna be the one that loses.
You just have to outwit at last, outplay
to
(09:04):
give a nod to Survivor.
So
you want to make sure that you go into it with
no matter how much he hates this, no matter how much he fights me,
no matter how many times he tells me to stop doing this,
I'm going to continue because he needs me to.
That should be the mentality.
So I hope that answers that question and is encouraging to you, Alison. OK.
(09:24):
Second question around choices
also very common, very consistent and no surprise. Again, a power struggle.
So when you give him a choice,
you are giving him some measure of control, but you have taken away some of his power
because now he's pared down to two options.
(09:45):
And so therefore in another attempt to have power and control,
he's going to say neither
very, very common. We get that in the playroom as well.
So here's the strategy for that.
It's always,
you can choose A or you can choose B which do you choose,
which is exactly what you said.
You can choose grilled cheese or you can choose peanut butter toast,
(10:06):
which do you choose?
All right. So that was very adherent, very on target with the choice giving process.
And then he says neither, I don't want either one of those.
We immediately realize that that is in fact a choice.
So let's be very
clear on that.
However, that's not part of the choice. That is essentially choice C
(10:31):
and the choices are A and B.
So that's exactly how you handle it.
Mm
And I'm just going to say your
son's name is Brandon. I don't know.
So you're going to say
Brandon, you are choosing neither but that's not part of the choice.
The choices are you can choose to have grilled cheese
or you can choose to have peanut butter toast,
(10:51):
which do you choose?
I said neither. I don't want either one of those.
Uh
You're really disappointed that there aren't other choices but the choices are
you can choose grilled cheese or you can choose peanut butter toast,
which do you choose?
This is again,
outwit outlast, outplay.
You will not be the one that loses the battle of the wills.
(11:12):
You might have to repeat the choice four times, eight times, 12 times.
You need to give about 60 seconds in between every choice
because kids take upwards of 60 seconds to process a choice
and
you need to be patient because the outcome that we desire
(11:32):
is that the child chooses A or B
and if you are a broken record that just continues to reflect feelings,
you're frustrated, you're disappointed. You wish there were other choices.
You don't like either one of those.
He needs to feel heard and understood.
Yet
you fall back on the choice
(11:53):
and the choice is grilled cheese or peanut butter toast.
And you just reiterate that over and over and over again.
And the child eventually goes fine
and they're mad as a hornet,
but they choose A or B
and then you with no reaction,
no emotion,
completely neutrally
(12:14):
say
you chose to have grilled cheese
and then you make a grilled cheese.
So you don't celebrate him for choosing, you don't give him credit for it.
I mean, you do say you chose whatever, but there's no,
oh I'm so glad that you finally chose because
that is going to incite another power struggle.
(12:36):
This is not
your agenda.
This is the child chooses and you just make
sure that the outcome aligns with the choice.
So even though internally we're very thrilled and excited that he chose A or B,
our response is neutral
because it doesn't
help and it does not adhere to the child-centered
(12:58):
model
to have a reaction ourselves based on the choice
and, and Alison, I'm going to go out on a limb here.
Not only are those what you say, typically agreeable meals, but you also said that
he will typically, you know, be ok with these, but you're also ok with these.
So
(13:18):
you really don't have skin in the game here.
As far as you care, he can have grilled cheese or peanut butter toast.
Therefore, there's no emotional tie other than
you won the battle,
but,
but he doesn't need to know that.
So you just neutrally the whole time
you can choose this or you can choose this fall back on the choice.
(13:40):
That's not part of the choice. You really wish there were other options.
And then when he finally chooses grilled cheese or peanut butter toast,
you just very calmly neutrally say,
oh, ok, you've chosen peanut butter toast
and then you put it in front of him on the plate and you move on.
And what that does is it reinforces that
there are parameters
and
(14:00):
the choices are provided within the context of those parameters,
but he does have a measure of control.
And so he has to learn how to make
decisions and therefore accept the outcome of those choices.
All right, Alison, thank you so much for the questions and the email.
I hope that that was helpful for all of you. Again.
(14:20):
If you want to reach out to me with questions or comments or just to say hello.
I'd love to hear from you brenna@thekidcounselor.com
I appreciate y'all. Have a great week. Bye.
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast.
With Dr. Brenna Hicks for more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter.
Please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.
You're listening to the
Play Therapy Parenting Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.
Hi, I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.
This is the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast where I give
you insight awareness and enlightenment about your parenting
and your relationship with your kids.
In today's episode, I am answering a question from Alison.
(00:23):
That's actually a pseudonym. She asked to remain anonymous.
So I'm gonna read parts of Alison's email and then we'll dive in
before we get into that. I wanted to update you on a couple of things.
Many of you have been referred to the podcast by a child-centered
play therapist with whom you and your family and your child are working.
(00:45):
So I wanted to say hello and welcome. If you have been referred by
a therapist, I also have a therapist podcast.
So many of the child-centered play Therapists, listen to my podcast
as the clinical therapeutic side of it
and then refer parents to the parenting podcast. So kind of dual track of CCPT
(01:05):
Child Centered Play Therapy,
but really glad you're here and happy to have you
also, if you would like to reach out to me to have me answer your question,
you can do so in two ways you can email me brenna@thekidcounselor.com
or you can if you are in the States,
call 813-812-5525 and leave a voicemail
(01:26):
and I'll be able to answer your question after hearing your voicemail. So,
welcome. Glad you're here and thank you for your commitment to your children.
All right.
So we'll read Alison's email parts of it
and then we'll dive into processing this together.
Hi, I love the podcast and I found the four pillars very helpful with my son.
(01:47):
We are starting with a play therapist and she recommended your podcast.
I've always tried to validate his feelings and give him desirable choices,
but we are still struggling. The first issue is sometimes
when I start to validate his feelings, he will cover his ears and yell. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Just stop talking.
He did this tonight while practicing guitar.
He missed a note, not a big deal, but to him it was
(02:09):
and he shouted, guess I'll just start all over.
I started to validate his feelings and he covered his ears and yelled at me.
The second issue is around choices
I'll use last night as an example.
He's a very picky eater and had already eaten most of his preferred foods that day.
I said you can choose between grilled cheese or you can choose peanut butter toast.
Which do you choose?
I should add both of those are typically agreeable meals
(02:32):
to which he said neither. I don't want either of those.
There's nothing new under the sun, y'all. This is common.
Even when we give him choices, he is demanding more control.
Hope you can answer both questions.
All right.
So Alison,
thank you so much for the email and we will dive into each of these questions.
So the first about validating his feelings,
(02:54):
we need to unpack this a little bit
because this is actually a very common frustration
when parents start to implement some of these things. So let me share my thoughts.
The first is
you have taken it upon yourself to learn a new way of interacting.
You're listening to the podcast, you're practicing
and you have started talking differently.
(03:16):
So that is your choice and it was a willful decision on your part.
Your children are at the mercy of that decision. And what I mean by that is
all they know is that you've started talking differently
and anything new is usually uncomfortable.
It's just a growing pain
of you changing and forcing the dynamic in
(03:38):
your relationship with your child to change.
So that's just kind of to normalize for you.
It's very common for kids to push back when you start
integrating new strategies because it's not comfortable for them.
They're confused, they're not sure what's going on
and normal has been erased and new normal is difficult.
Also, one of the major reasons that kids will push back is they
(04:03):
don't have an emotional vocabulary,
which ironically, that's one of the main outcomes of reflecting a child's feeling
is so that they develop an emotional vocabulary. But when they don't possess one
and you say
you're frustrated or you're irritated,
you're excited,
(04:23):
you're glad,
whatever the emotion is,
they don't feel a connection to that
and it makes them again uncomfortable. I, I hope that you're seeing the thread here.
This is a discomfort issue with your son.
This is uncomfortable. He does not know how he feels.
He does not know the emotions for it.
He does not know why you're telling him how you think he feels.
(04:46):
He is just struggling because it's all new.
Third consideration is that when a child hears
his or her emotion reflected,
sometimes it makes it more real.
And what I mean by that is when you ok, in that scenario, playing the guitar,
I'm not sure what you
(05:07):
tried to reflect. I'm not sure if you said frustrated,
disappointed, defeated,
angry. I'm not really sure what you might have said there,
but by saying it out loud and a child hearing it,
it forces the reality of what's going on and it makes it more real
(05:27):
and kids are emotional
until about the age of 13, they are completely in their emotions.
So they're feeling these things, they're experiencing these things so magically,
they're aware of how it makes them feel in their bodies,
but they don't necessarily have the word for it.
And that's why there's the phrase you speak it
(05:48):
into existence or you speak it into truth.
The reason why we say that is because once it's set out loud, it becomes more real.
So when you say, oh you're defeated,
you didn't play that the way you wanted to
it now forces him to think about what you're reflecting.
It's bridging the gap between the head and the heart.
(06:11):
So therefore, when he is in the emotions of that moment,
he's living in them.
But by saying something out loud, it forces cognitive processing
because verbal requires you to think about what's been said,
not just experience it as a feeling.
So this is also uncomfortable for him.
(06:31):
So the moral of the story, Alison,
what I'm trying to get at is these are
some considerations that I think are helpful for everyone.
But what the encouragement of this is, keep doing it
because even when he fights you and says,
yeah, yeah, yeah, stop talking.
Then you reflect that
and that would be more of a cognitive reflection.
You could reflect the feeling, but you could also say,
(06:54):
hm, you don't like it when I said that you were frustrated.
So now you're doing a little bit of reflection of content.
You can also reflect feeling,
uh
you're angry that I said you were frustrated.
And here's the strategy,
soften
your tone.
You might even whisper it
because if the child's just told you to stop talking
(07:16):
and you talk immediately.
That seems dismissive sometimes and that can
elevate the power struggle even more. This is a power struggle.
Let's let's call a spade, a spade here
with him saying, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stop talking, covering his ears, yelling at you.
It's a power struggle
because he's overwhelmed and he doesn't know how to handle it.
So he's grasping at power because he feels powerless. That makes sense.
(07:39):
But when we, when a child says,
stop telling me how I feel or stop talking to me or I don't want to listen to you.
And then we say, oh, you're frustrated that I'm talking to you
that seems dismissive and it can really ramp up the power. So
sometimes it's helpful to really, really quietly, sometimes even whisper,
oh, you don't like it when I say that
(08:01):
and it's in an attempt to honor the fact that the child has told you not to talk,
but you are not effectively using the skill without talking.
And a lot of parents will give up,
a lot of parents will say, ok,
my kid fights me every time I reflect feelings and I just,
it's not worth the fight and he hates it.
So I'm not going to do it anymore.
Don't be in that camp
(08:23):
lovingly encouragingly, do not be in that camp
because if you keep at it,
anything worth doing is difficult.
If you keep at it,
your child builds an emotional vocabulary,
your child builds emotional regulation
your child has a sense of how he's feeling
and he will better be able to
(08:43):
communicate and identify those feelings
as his emotional IQ increases.
So this is a battle of the wills.
And one of the things that I tell my therapist all the
time and one of the things I tell parents all the time
in a battle of the wills with a child, you're not gonna be the one that loses.
You just have to outwit at last, outplay
to
(09:04):
give a nod to Survivor.
So
you want to make sure that you go into it with
no matter how much he hates this, no matter how much he fights me,
no matter how many times he tells me to stop doing this,
I'm going to continue because he needs me to.
That should be the mentality.
So I hope that answers that question and is encouraging to you, Alison. OK.
(09:24):
Second question around choices
also very common, very consistent and no surprise. Again, a power struggle.
So when you give him a choice,
you are giving him some measure of control, but you have taken away some of his power
because now he's pared down to two options.
(09:45):
And so therefore in another attempt to have power and control,
he's going to say neither
very, very common. We get that in the playroom as well.
So here's the strategy for that.
It's always,
you can choose A or you can choose B which do you choose,
which is exactly what you said.
You can choose grilled cheese or you can choose peanut butter toast,
(10:06):
which do you choose?
All right. So that was very adherent, very on target with the choice giving process.
And then he says neither, I don't want either one of those.
We immediately realize that that is in fact a choice.
So let's be very
clear on that.
However, that's not part of the choice. That is essentially choice C
(10:31):
and the choices are A and B.
So that's exactly how you handle it.
Mm
And I'm just going to say your
son's name is Brandon. I don't know.
So you're going to say
Brandon, you are choosing neither but that's not part of the choice.
The choices are you can choose to have grilled cheese
or you can choose to have peanut butter toast,
(10:51):
which do you choose?
I said neither. I don't want either one of those.
Uh
You're really disappointed that there aren't other choices but the choices are
you can choose grilled cheese or you can choose peanut butter toast,
which do you choose?
This is again,
outwit outlast, outplay.
You will not be the one that loses the battle of the wills.
(11:12):
You might have to repeat the choice four times, eight times, 12 times.
You need to give about 60 seconds in between every choice
because kids take upwards of 60 seconds to process a choice
and
you need to be patient because the outcome that we desire
(11:32):
is that the child chooses A or B
and if you are a broken record that just continues to reflect feelings,
you're frustrated, you're disappointed. You wish there were other choices.
You don't like either one of those.
He needs to feel heard and understood.
Yet
you fall back on the choice
(11:53):
and the choice is grilled cheese or peanut butter toast.
And you just reiterate that over and over and over again.
And the child eventually goes fine
and they're mad as a hornet,
but they choose A or B
and then you with no reaction,
no emotion,
completely neutrally
(12:14):
say
you chose to have grilled cheese
and then you make a grilled cheese.
So you don't celebrate him for choosing, you don't give him credit for it.
I mean, you do say you chose whatever, but there's no,
oh I'm so glad that you finally chose because
that is going to incite another power struggle.
(12:36):
This is not
your agenda.
This is the child chooses and you just make
sure that the outcome aligns with the choice.
So even though internally we're very thrilled and excited that he chose A or B,
our response is neutral
because it doesn't
help and it does not adhere to the child-centered
(12:58):
model
to have a reaction ourselves based on the choice
and, and Alison, I'm going to go out on a limb here.
Not only are those what you say, typically agreeable meals, but you also said that
he will typically, you know, be ok with these, but you're also ok with these.
So
(13:18):
you really don't have skin in the game here.
As far as you care, he can have grilled cheese or peanut butter toast.
Therefore, there's no emotional tie other than
you won the battle,
but,
but he doesn't need to know that.
So you just neutrally the whole time
you can choose this or you can choose this fall back on the choice.
(13:40):
That's not part of the choice. You really wish there were other options.
And then when he finally chooses grilled cheese or peanut butter toast,
you just very calmly neutrally say,
oh, ok, you've chosen peanut butter toast
and then you put it in front of him on the plate and you move on.
And what that does is it reinforces that
there are parameters
and
(14:00):
the choices are provided within the context of those parameters,
but he does have a measure of control.
And so he has to learn how to make
decisions and therefore accept the outcome of those choices.
All right, Alison, thank you so much for the questions and the email.
I hope that that was helpful for all of you. Again.
(14:20):
If you want to reach out to me with questions or comments or just to say hello.
I'd love to hear from you brenna@thekidcounselor.com
I appreciate y'all. Have a great week. Bye.
Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Parenting Podcast.
With Dr. Brenna Hicks for more episodes and just subscribe to our newsletter.
Please go to www.playtherapyparenting.com.
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.