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Ready to change the dynamics at home with effective discipline strategies? We promise this episode will be a game-changer. We're breaking down the essence of discipline, revealing how it's not about punishment, but rather, a tool to shape behavior and foster connection. Don't miss our hands-on strategies, such as how to redirect a teething one-year-old who can't stop biting.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello and welcome to All Our Little Messes, a podcast
focused on healing throughintentional conversations about
parenting, relationships,religion and more.
I am your host, veronica Wynrod, and I'm so happy to have you
here listening in on my thoughtstoday.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hi and welcome back to All OurLittle Messes.
(00:35):
This is season one, episodefour, and last week I was
planning on talking to you guys.
This episode about to train up achild the book that was written
by Mike and Debbie Pearl and Istarted putting the episode
together and it honestly justbecame so heavy of an emotional
(01:00):
topic for me I started trying torecord it several times and
just started falling into likethis depression, this funk, and
I just like couldn't, I couldn'tfocus and I was just getting
depressed even thinking about itand like reading all of these
stories and I was going actuallyI've been going through the
(01:23):
book, I've been going throughactually three different
editions of the book and justlike kind of comparing them and
seeing how they were differentand stuff and just reading
testimonials of people who haveused the book both positive and
negative it was.
It was honestly just alsodepressing to read it.
(01:43):
So I decided that I was goingto take a break from not not
parenting podcast episodes, butjust take a break from just like
corporal punishment andepisodes centered around that
and stuff.
So I'm still planning on doingan episode on to train up a
(02:05):
child here in the next coupleweeks or month, but as of right
now, I've just kind of put itaside and I but I will
definitely be addressing that.
So I did make an announcementon my Facebook and my Instagram
about this a couple days ago.
So if any of you are notfollowing me on Facebook or
(02:27):
Instagram, I usually post justany updates that I have about
episodes.
I'll post them on there acouple days in advance so that
you guys would know if there'sany changes to like the schedule
or anything like that.
I also post just like differentlittle inspirational tidbits
and like just thoughts I haveabout life and parenting in
general and marriage andwhatever kind of hits my brain
(02:50):
at the moment.
So go ahead and you can followme on Facebook and Instagram.
My handle is all our littlemesses on both platforms.
So yeah, with that being said,let's dive right into what this
episode is going to be about.
So today I wanted to talk abouthow to apply discipline in our
(03:13):
children's daily lives.
I've had a lot of messages andemails, a lot honestly, and it's
been weird Most of them havebeen from like young mothers,
like peers, and basically they,I mean they've all been asking
like we all grew up verysimilarly and so we have a hard
time like understanding thedifferences between discipline
(03:37):
and punishment and then just howto apply those disciplines in
our children's daily lives andlike be proactive about it and
to kind of get ahead of thecurve.
So I thought that would be areally good thing to talk about
today, because growing up, likethe way a lot of us did, we
didn't have a very good idea ofwhat discipline was and how to
(04:02):
apply it in like our own lives,and so like I feel like before
you even get into this, like aperson has to have an
understanding of what disciplineis, and not just punishment but
discipline, and like even likeWebster's dictionary has several
different definitions of whatdiscipline is understood as, and
(04:28):
several of those definitionsactually are defined as training
and training Correction, notpunishment, and so, and that's
how I kind of like to think ofit, so discipline is, like I
said, getting ahead of the curve.
You're, you're disciplining andyou're I hate to use the word
(04:48):
training because it's just so.
It reminds me of phrases thatbooks like to train up a child
or like dog training books use.
But you really are training andmolding a person to have
certain behaviors and to likeget ahead of the curve before it
, you know, a behavior becomes aproblem.
(05:09):
So, and that's what I thinkdiscipline really is, it's
training and correction.
It's not, it's not punishmentafter a behavior has already
occurred, and it's also likeconsistent redirection and and
like also it's connection withyour child as you're applying
(05:32):
this.
So I mean, for instance, youhave a one year old who is
teething and bites your leg.
Now someone who is models theirparenting around punishment,
like the first reaction they'regoing to have and the first
inclination they have is tospank the child or to bite the
(05:54):
baby back.
You know, to show them that.
You know biting hurts.
We don't bite people, so I'mgonna bite you.
So you know what it feels like,kind of thing.
And redirection and trainingand discipline, what?
How we would apply that in asituation where the baby bites
you is, instead of baby, likeabiding the baby back.
(06:16):
We would try to understand whythe baby is biting, and I mean,
if the baby isn't angry and justlike walks up and bites you,
more than likely either thebaby's trying to get your
attention or she's teething.
The baby is teething and so andI've actually, I've actually
(06:36):
done this myself and it it workslike I haven't had a biting
problem.
Um, since I started doing thisI I'm not trying to put myself
out there as a perfect parent,trust me, we have we have way
too many other problems, youknow, in parenting to talk about
over here.
So, but biting is one that Iwas successfully able to get
(07:01):
ahead of the curve on.
So what I, what I did was, um,I like, when the baby bit me, so
the first time it happened atthe, he bit me on the arm and I
I just like went really loudlyout no, that hurts, mommy.
(07:21):
And then, like I kind of stoppedand he, he, he got this like
really shocked look on his face,because I I said no and I was
loud and I was like, oh, thathurts, and I was like trying to
to kind of shock him a littlebit, you know, and he started to
whimper a little bit and then Iwas like okay, so do you, do
you want to bite something and,um, he wanted, he needed to bite
(07:47):
.
He wanted to bite and so I hadlike a bunch of like teether
toys and like things like thatthat I had had from my last baby
, and so I went and got theteether toy and I handed to him
and I told him that we bite this, we don't bite people, we don't
bite mama, we bite this.
And it took a couple times.
(08:07):
I think it took like threetimes that I can remember where
he would like go to bite.
And then he would stop and hewould look at me and then, like
he would try to test it againand I'd like he would try to
bite again and I'd be like, no,do we need to bite?
And then I'd, you know, get himthe teether.
And so he only tried it likethree times before he would
(08:28):
actually come out.
He would actually come up to meand ask me and he would just
say bite.
And it was actually was funnybecause it was like one of his
first words that he ever saidwas he would ask me bite.
And so, um, that was kind ofhis thing, where that was how he
told me that he needed, hewanted to bite, and so I would
go get him a teether toy out ofthe toy box and so like that to
(08:51):
me was like a very good exampleof of discipline and, you know,
training and showing a child thecorrect way to do things,
because you know it is.
It is a baby's naturalinclination when they're when
they're teething and whenthey're young to bite.
It's just a stage ofdevelopment they go through and
so If you punish them for bitingyou, they're just gonna bite
(09:14):
other things or they're going todo it when they're fighting
with their siblings.
I mean, they're still gonnabite, they're just gonna hide it
.
So like, if they're gonna do it, you need to show them the
proper way to do that.
So that's just kind of anexample to kind of like help
understand what discipline andredirection and connection is.
(09:37):
Because, like, we were alsoable to connect because I helped
him.
I wasn't the big scary personthat punished him, I didn't
cause him any pain or anythinglike that.
I was his mother who helped himunderstand, and that's also
really important in moments ofdiscipline.
(09:58):
It's like you have to be thereto help your child understand
and to help your childco-regulate through the
situations as well, like anotherpart of applying discipline in
our children's daily lives ishaving discipline ourselves.
Like modeling good habits forour children to follow, and like
it's a joke when we say this,but like a big thing I've
(10:24):
noticed is the whole attitude ofdo as I say, not as I do.
And so we would punish, like wepunish our kids for the same
behaviors that we allowourselves to have every single
day.
So you know, we've throw, wepunish our kids for a fit of
(10:45):
anger and we spank them for it.
And then you know, ten minuteslater or even during the
parenting scenario itself, whereyou're spanking the kids for
having a fit of anger, you'reshowing anger as you're
punishing them for anger.
And so, like a huge part ofactually applying discipline is
modeling those habits that youwant your kids to follow, like
(11:06):
the habits you want your kids tohave.
And so learning emotionalregulation like if you don't
want your kids to be angry allthe time, then don't be angry
yourself Like learn in a lot ofcases we have to.
We do need to learn thoseskills ourselves because we were
never taught them.
So, like work, do the work tolearn emotional regulation and
(11:31):
how to control your emotions butthat is like a huge part of
learning and understandingdiscipline is modeling, not for
your kids.
And so, and also like modelingempathy and like understanding
for other kids, like we'realways wanting, we're always
wanting our children to, youknow, understand that they've
(11:54):
hurt someone and we want them toapologize when they do
something wrong.
And so, like a lot of parentswill try to force that apology
out of their children.
Like, oh, you did somethingwrong and you have to say you're
sorry.
No-transcript.
When our kids are young, theydon't really understand why.
(12:17):
Like they don't even reallyhave the cognitive ability to
understand that they didsomething wrong, and so they
don't understand why they needto say they're sorry.
They don't even understand whatthe words mean.
And so, like we have to modelthat for them.
If we do commit a wrong againstour spouse or against our own
(12:40):
children, like we have to modelthat empathy and that contrition
to them.
So when we harm them or harmothers, like they need to see us
apologizing.
And like a lot of parents willview apologizing to your
children as like weakness andsomehow your children are going
to lose respect.
But in reality, like if theysee you modeling humility and
(13:04):
empathy and emotional regulationand all those things, they're
actually going to gain respectfor you and they're going to
start to model those things thatthey see you do, because
children are sponges, childrenare mirrors.
They take in and they mirroreverything around them.
So, like so many of thoselittle annoying mannerisms that
(13:24):
we see in our children arehonestly just annoying
mannerisms that we ourselveshave and we just don't like to
see them because it reminds usof ourselves.
And so if we want, if we wantour kids to stop yelling, if we
want our kids to just stop, youknow, breaking out in fits of
(13:44):
anger and things like that, likewe have to start modeling that
ourselves.
We have to stop yelling, wehave to stop being angry, we
need to learn how to have moreempathy and we need to learn
emotional regulation and in turn, they're going to see that and
it's going to become a dailypart of their lives and they're
going to start following thoseexamples.
(14:05):
And then there's alsodiscipline in their lived daily
lives, like their structural,their day-to-day structure, and
so something I found reallyhelps a lot with maintaining
discipline and maintaining ahappy attitude is actually
(14:29):
setting a schedule and likeinvolving them in like age
appropriate, of course, ageappropriate chores.
So I have a four-year-old whohas started learning like most
of the time it's absolutelydisastrous, but he has been
slowly getting better.
I started trying to teach himhow to fold towels 100% of the
(14:55):
time after he has gone to bed,because I haven't fold them at
night.
100% of the time after he hasgone to bed I will refold them
because it looks terrible, itlooks like Obama's gone off and
I am nitpicky about my towelslike nobody else on this planet.
So I do refold them, of course,but he is still learning life
(15:17):
skills.
He is learning how tocontribute to the family.
He's learning that he isimportant.
He's an important member andhis help is needed.
Another thing he started doing Ihad him start doing he's
actually really good at this ismaking his bed and putting away
his own laundry.
He actually started puttingaway his own laundry and what
really helped there is weactually established a no-fold
(15:41):
system in our house.
So we just have buckets likelittle cube dresser buckets that
they sell on Amazon, and wehave a no-fold system so we
could just grab the laundrybasket and just start tossing
clothes into baskets.
So like jeans, shirts,sweatpants, things like that.
Like shirts shirts, obviouslyand like church slacks and
(16:04):
things nicer clothes obviouslyget hung up or folded, but we've
kind of changed how we dothings so that we can include
the kids in our day-to-daydisciplines, because it really
does help cut down.
Like I said, we get ahead ofthe curve.
(16:25):
It really stops problems beforethey even happen.
And that's like a huge part ofmaintaining discipline is also
getting ahead of any potentialpower struggles, and those will
happen because toddlers arestubborn, toddlers are willful,
(16:47):
they're discovering theirindependence, they're
discovering that oh, I haveopinions, oh I want things, oh I
think I know better, and so,like a huge part of discipline
is actually getting ahead of anyof those power struggles before
they even happen.
And so, like this is going tothrow some people out there a
(17:12):
little off, but like giving yourchild choices and like
day-to-day things is huge whenit comes to getting ahead of and
avoiding power struggles.
Just simple things like youtell your child to go get
dressed, and like telling afour-year-old to go get dressed
(17:32):
is for most four-year-olds I'veever seen is like this huge
thing.
It's like this huge chore.
They are overwhelmed and theywalk into their bedroom and
they're just, you know, they getdistracted, they're overwhelmed
and it just never happens or itturns into this long, long
drawn out thing where you'reyelling and they're crying
because you just want them toput clothes on.
(17:53):
But there's, like, so manychoices in their closet and they
don't know how to choose.
And so I have started grabbingtwo shirts, two pairs of pants,
asking him you know, which onedo you want to wear?
And so he gets to choose.
But he's still maintaining thatdiscipline of listening to mom
(18:20):
when mom tells him to getdressed.
So I'm getting ahead of thepower struggle and we're both
happy because he's dressed.
But he still got to choose whathe wore that day, of sorts.
I mean, in his mind he chose sowell.
I mean, yeah, in his mind hechose and that's what matters, I
(18:41):
guess, to him.
So, just like little things likethat, giving the kid little
choices, like you know, whenyou're making dinner, ask your
child what they want for dinner.
But don't just ask them.
You know, hey, what do you wantfor dinner?
Because a four-year-old, afive-year-old, is automatically
going to come back with theresponse I don't know.
(19:02):
Like they're not going to tellyou.
And so, if you like, if you havea picky eater and they do exist
, and you're not a parent thatforces their child to eat what's
on the table, like every bitekind of thing, and you want to
avoid the power struggle of apicky eater, ask them, give them
two choices of what we couldhave for a meal, and that way
(19:29):
you get ahead of a powerstruggle potentially.
I mean it's not always going towork, but you could potentially
get ahead of any power strugglewhen it actually comes time to
eat the meal, because it'll behave, it'll have spent something
that they chose.
And also, having your child getinvolved in the cooking of that
meal, which also goes back toimplementing age-appropriate
(19:52):
chores, like having your childinvolved in the day-to-day
disciplines of family life, isalso going to help cut down on
those tantrums and those powerstruggles, because they're going
to feel like they're anintegral part of the family and
it's something they accomplishedand something they're proud of
(20:14):
and they want to be involved in.
So, yeah, like, involve yourkids and it cuts down on like so
many problems if we do that.
And also like I mean like ifstaying ahead of the power
struggle doesn't work and it'snot always going to work 100% of
(20:38):
the time, I mean I, at least inmy home, I would say it
probably only works 65 to 75% ofthe time.
So there's still a big chunkthere where you know they put
their foot down or they try toput their foot down, and when
that happens, you as a parenthave to have a boundary set in
place of, like a certainstandard of behavior in your
(21:01):
home.
So you know, if they throw atantrum about eating a meal that
they chose and helped cook thenand they don't want to eat it
and they've decided they'regoing to be picky that night,
you have to have a boundary setin place.
You have to maintain thatstandard of behavior in your
home.
(21:21):
So and in my home, we don'tforce our kids to eat for many
reasons that we can get into ina later podcast episode.
But one thing we do is like youdon't have to eat everything
that's on your plate.
That's fine, but If you don't,that does mean that we're not
(21:46):
gonna have any snacks later on,and so, because we are after
dinner, they usually have asnack before they go to bed,
because dinner is like around 5,5, 30 and they go to bed at 7,
between 7 and 8.
So there's that time gap therewhere you know they could get
hungry, and so we always usuallyhave a snack of like a piece of
(22:06):
fruit or something like that.
And so when we make dinner,like I don't want them to get
into the habit of wasting food,but at the same time I'm not
gonna force feed you, I'm notgonna force you to eat your food
.
If you say you're full, that'sfine, you know your body.
But you're not allowed to likeleave your plate of food and
(22:29):
then 10 minutes later want asnack, like that's not how it
works.
So, like that our boundary isthey have to finish their dinner
before we get, we break out thesnacks and break out more food.
And so we have, we just havelike certain boundaries such as
that that we, we maintain inorder to like maintain
(22:51):
discipline in the house.
Otherwise, you know, you aregonna set yourself up for major,
major, proud struggles in thefuture, and that's not something
that's easy for any parent togo through.
So, yeah, that's, that's a big,that's a big one for us.
And then also I mean, like whenyou do have, when you do have
(23:16):
those those, you know, thosepower struggles and those bad
days, like don't, don't beafraid of those bad days and
don't be afraid of failure.
And like something I neverreally thought of when my kids
were really really young likeyou know one, I say really
really young.
They're still really reallyyoung, but when they were
younger, one thing like thatnever occurred to me was that,
(23:40):
like I, I allow myself to havebad days, I allow my husband to
have bad days, like I allowmyself grace to fail.
But when my kids have a bad day,when they're just when they're,
you know, they're just grouchyand they just are full of the I
can'ts and I don't want tos andthey're just, they're just
(24:03):
grouchy and sad all day long.
Like it still just irritates meand infuriates me and it's like
and it was like, I think, ayear ago I kind of stopped to
think I was like why is it thatI will allow myself to be
grouchy and cranky and just havea really off day and treat the
(24:24):
entire world around me likegarbage?
But I won't allow my toddlerwho has way less emotional
regulation than I do and is, youknow, still in diapers in a lot
of cases and has barely lived afraction of his life how come I
(24:45):
can't allow him the grace tohave a bad day?
Why?
What is it about me that I needto fix so that I can have
enough respect and grace toallow my toddler to have a bad
day.
And that's not saying that youknow the toddler is going to be
allowed to be mean and yell ateverybody or anything like that.
But you can't allow him to besad.
(25:08):
You can't allow him to just becranky.
It doesn't actually hurtanything If he's not hurting
anybody and he's not yelling andscreaming at people.
Then just allow him to be sad.
Being sad is not a bad thing.
It's just an emotion, and it'san emotion we all have to.
He'll have to work through andin order for him to learn how to
(25:30):
work through that emotion, he'sgoing to have to experience
that emotion.
So, like, don't be afraid of baddays on either one of your
parts.
Like, don't be afraid offailing at maintaining the
discipline in your home, becauseit's going to happen.
Like we're all imperfect, wehave no idea what we're doing.
(25:50):
We're all starting out andstruggling, and so it's going to
happen.
We're going to fail.
We're not going to always goget ahead of the power struggles
.
We're not going to alwaysconsistently redirect perfectly
the first time.
It's not always going to be100%, and so, like we have to
allow ourselves grace to fail.
(26:11):
We're going to have to allowourselves and our children to
have bad days and to likerecognize that this was a screw
up day.
We didn't do so good today.
That's fine.
Let's take notes on how we canbe better tomorrow.
And that's actually somethinglike like I've kind of
implemented into like how mychildren apologize or how we
(26:34):
acknowledge that we made amistake is something like when
I'm talking to my kids aboutsomething that they did like a
mess up is when I'm likeredirecting or correcting
something, I try to end it withlet's try better next time or
let's do this the first timenext time.
(26:55):
So I try to acknowledge thatyou know we made a mistake, but
that's okay, we learned from itand we're going to do better
next time.
We're going to remember thisand we're going to do better
next time and so and that's likethat's so important for us to
remember do was like it's okayto fail, like that's part of
that's part of life.
That's part of life and that'sthat's how we learned.
(27:16):
So it's okay to learn and thendo better next time, because
that's that's that's how we'regoing to improve, like
discipline in our house.
That's how we just that's howwe get better is just repetition
, just repeating the same thingover and over and over until it
just becomes second nature to us.
(27:39):
I hope you enjoyed this episodeon applying discipline in our
children's daily lives.
I keep an eye I just wanted tosay to keep an eye on my
Facebook and Instagram.
I will have a couple ofannouncements over the next
couple of weeks regarding someguests that I'm very excited
(28:00):
about coming on with some prettyexciting topics regarding
marriage and motherhood, andwe're even going to be throwing
in some religious or spiritualtopics as well.
So I'm very excited about that.
So, yeah, just keep an eye onmy Facebook and Instagram
(28:21):
stories for any announcements onthat, and I will see you guys
next week.
Thank you for tuning in to thisepisode of All Our Little Messes
.
Please let us know how much youenjoyed it below and add any
questions you have about thisepisode.
Also, don't forget to follow uson Patreon for amazing
(28:45):
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You can check us out onFacebook and Instagram for daily
updates and insights thatmirror podcast topics.
Thank you for listening andwe'll see you next week.
Hello and welcome to All Our Little Messes, a podcast
focused on healing throughintentional conversations about
parenting, relationships,religion and more.
I am your host, veronica Wynrod, and I'm so happy to have you
here listening in on my thoughtstoday.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Hi and welcome back to All OurLittle Messes.
(00:35):
This is season one, episodefour, and last week I was
planning on talking to you guys.
This episode about to train up achild the book that was written
by Mike and Debbie Pearl and Istarted putting the episode
together and it honestly justbecame so heavy of an emotional
(01:00):
topic for me I started trying torecord it several times and
just started falling into likethis depression, this funk, and
I just like couldn't, I couldn'tfocus and I was just getting
depressed even thinking about itand like reading all of these
stories and I was going actuallyI've been going through the
(01:23):
book, I've been going throughactually three different
editions of the book and justlike kind of comparing them and
seeing how they were differentand stuff and just reading
testimonials of people who haveused the book both positive and
negative it was.
It was honestly just alsodepressing to read it.
(01:43):
So I decided that I was goingto take a break from not not
parenting podcast episodes, butjust take a break from just like
corporal punishment andepisodes centered around that
and stuff.
So I'm still planning on doingan episode on to train up a
(02:05):
child here in the next coupleweeks or month, but as of right
now, I've just kind of put itaside and I but I will
definitely be addressing that.
So I did make an announcementon my Facebook and my Instagram
about this a couple days ago.
So if any of you are notfollowing me on Facebook or
(02:27):
Instagram, I usually post justany updates that I have about
episodes.
I'll post them on there acouple days in advance so that
you guys would know if there'sany changes to like the schedule
or anything like that.
I also post just like differentlittle inspirational tidbits
and like just thoughts I haveabout life and parenting in
general and marriage andwhatever kind of hits my brain
(02:50):
at the moment.
So go ahead and you can followme on Facebook and Instagram.
My handle is all our littlemesses on both platforms.
So yeah, with that being said,let's dive right into what this
episode is going to be about.
So today I wanted to talk abouthow to apply discipline in our
(03:13):
children's daily lives.
I've had a lot of messages andemails, a lot honestly, and it's
been weird Most of them havebeen from like young mothers,
like peers, and basically they,I mean they've all been asking
like we all grew up verysimilarly and so we have a hard
time like understanding thedifferences between discipline
(03:37):
and punishment and then just howto apply those disciplines in
our children's daily lives andlike be proactive about it and
to kind of get ahead of thecurve.
So I thought that would be areally good thing to talk about
today, because growing up, likethe way a lot of us did, we
didn't have a very good idea ofwhat discipline was and how to
(04:02):
apply it in like our own lives,and so like I feel like before
you even get into this, like aperson has to have an
understanding of what disciplineis, and not just punishment but
discipline, and like even likeWebster's dictionary has several
different definitions of whatdiscipline is understood as, and
(04:28):
several of those definitionsactually are defined as training
and training Correction, notpunishment, and so, and that's
how I kind of like to think ofit, so discipline is, like I
said, getting ahead of the curve.
You're, you're disciplining andyou're I hate to use the word
(04:48):
training because it's just so.
It reminds me of phrases thatbooks like to train up a child
or like dog training books use.
But you really are training andmolding a person to have
certain behaviors and to likeget ahead of the curve before it
, you know, a behavior becomes aproblem.
(05:09):
So, and that's what I thinkdiscipline really is, it's
training and correction.
It's not, it's not punishmentafter a behavior has already
occurred, and it's also likeconsistent redirection and and
like also it's connection withyour child as you're applying
(05:32):
this.
So I mean, for instance, youhave a one year old who is
teething and bites your leg.
Now someone who is models theirparenting around punishment,
like the first reaction they'regoing to have and the first
inclination they have is tospank the child or to bite the
(05:54):
baby back.
You know, to show them that.
You know biting hurts.
We don't bite people, so I'mgonna bite you.
So you know what it feels like,kind of thing.
And redirection and trainingand discipline, what?
How we would apply that in asituation where the baby bites
you is, instead of baby, likeabiding the baby back.
(06:16):
We would try to understand whythe baby is biting, and I mean,
if the baby isn't angry and justlike walks up and bites you,
more than likely either thebaby's trying to get your
attention or she's teething.
The baby is teething and so andI've actually, I've actually
(06:36):
done this myself and it it workslike I haven't had a biting
problem.
Um, since I started doing thisI I'm not trying to put myself
out there as a perfect parent,trust me, we have we have way
too many other problems, youknow, in parenting to talk about
over here.
So, but biting is one that Iwas successfully able to get
(07:01):
ahead of the curve on.
So what I, what I did was, um,I like, when the baby bit me, so
the first time it happened atthe, he bit me on the arm and I
I just like went really loudlyout no, that hurts, mommy.
(07:21):
And then, like I kind of stoppedand he, he, he got this like
really shocked look on his face,because I I said no and I was
loud and I was like, oh, thathurts, and I was like trying to
to kind of shock him a littlebit, you know, and he started to
whimper a little bit and then Iwas like okay, so do you, do
you want to bite something and,um, he wanted, he needed to bite
(07:47):
.
He wanted to bite and so I hadlike a bunch of like teether
toys and like things like thatthat I had had from my last baby
, and so I went and got theteether toy and I handed to him
and I told him that we bite this, we don't bite people, we don't
bite mama, we bite this.
And it took a couple times.
(08:07):
I think it took like threetimes that I can remember where
he would like go to bite.
And then he would stop and hewould look at me and then, like
he would try to test it againand I'd like he would try to
bite again and I'd be like, no,do we need to bite?
And then I'd, you know, get himthe teether.
And so he only tried it likethree times before he would
(08:28):
actually come out.
He would actually come up to meand ask me and he would just
say bite.
And it was actually was funnybecause it was like one of his
first words that he ever saidwas he would ask me bite.
And so, um, that was kind ofhis thing, where that was how he
told me that he needed, hewanted to bite, and so I would
go get him a teether toy out ofthe toy box and so like that to
(08:51):
me was like a very good exampleof of discipline and, you know,
training and showing a child thecorrect way to do things,
because you know it is.
It is a baby's naturalinclination when they're when
they're teething and whenthey're young to bite.
It's just a stage ofdevelopment they go through and
so If you punish them for bitingyou, they're just gonna bite
(09:14):
other things or they're going todo it when they're fighting
with their siblings.
I mean, they're still gonnabite, they're just gonna hide it
.
So like, if they're gonna do it, you need to show them the
proper way to do that.
So that's just kind of anexample to kind of like help
understand what discipline andredirection and connection is.
(09:37):
Because, like, we were alsoable to connect because I helped
him.
I wasn't the big scary personthat punished him, I didn't
cause him any pain or anythinglike that.
I was his mother who helped himunderstand, and that's also
really important in moments ofdiscipline.
(09:58):
It's like you have to be thereto help your child understand
and to help your childco-regulate through the
situations as well, like anotherpart of applying discipline in
our children's daily lives ishaving discipline ourselves.
Like modeling good habits forour children to follow, and like
it's a joke when we say this,but like a big thing I've
(10:24):
noticed is the whole attitude ofdo as I say, not as I do.
And so we would punish, like wepunish our kids for the same
behaviors that we allowourselves to have every single
day.
So you know, we've throw, wepunish our kids for a fit of
(10:45):
anger and we spank them for it.
And then you know, ten minuteslater or even during the
parenting scenario itself, whereyou're spanking the kids for
having a fit of anger, you'reshowing anger as you're
punishing them for anger.
And so, like a huge part ofactually applying discipline is
modeling those habits that youwant your kids to follow, like
(11:06):
the habits you want your kids tohave.
And so learning emotionalregulation like if you don't
want your kids to be angry allthe time, then don't be angry
yourself Like learn in a lot ofcases we have to.
We do need to learn thoseskills ourselves because we were
never taught them.
So, like work, do the work tolearn emotional regulation and
(11:31):
how to control your emotions butthat is like a huge part of
learning and understandingdiscipline is modeling, not for
your kids.
And so, and also like modelingempathy and like understanding
for other kids, like we'realways wanting, we're always
wanting our children to, youknow, understand that they've
(11:54):
hurt someone and we want them toapologize when they do
something wrong.
And so, like a lot of parentswill try to force that apology
out of their children.
Like, oh, you did somethingwrong and you have to say you're
sorry.
No-transcript.
When our kids are young, theydon't really understand why.
(12:17):
Like they don't even reallyhave the cognitive ability to
understand that they didsomething wrong, and so they
don't understand why they needto say they're sorry.
They don't even understand whatthe words mean.
And so, like we have to modelthat for them.
If we do commit a wrong againstour spouse or against our own
(12:40):
children, like we have to modelthat empathy and that contrition
to them.
So when we harm them or harmothers, like they need to see us
apologizing.
And like a lot of parents willview apologizing to your
children as like weakness andsomehow your children are going
to lose respect.
But in reality, like if theysee you modeling humility and
(13:04):
empathy and emotional regulationand all those things, they're
actually going to gain respectfor you and they're going to
start to model those things thatthey see you do, because
children are sponges, childrenare mirrors.
They take in and they mirroreverything around them.
So, like so many of thoselittle annoying mannerisms that
(13:24):
we see in our children arehonestly just annoying
mannerisms that we ourselveshave and we just don't like to
see them because it reminds usof ourselves.
And so if we want, if we wantour kids to stop yelling, if we
want our kids to just stop, youknow, breaking out in fits of
(13:44):
anger and things like that, likewe have to start modeling that
ourselves.
We have to stop yelling, wehave to stop being angry, we
need to learn how to have moreempathy and we need to learn
emotional regulation and in turn, they're going to see that and
it's going to become a dailypart of their lives and they're
going to start following thoseexamples.
(14:05):
And then there's alsodiscipline in their lived daily
lives, like their structural,their day-to-day structure, and
so something I found reallyhelps a lot with maintaining
discipline and maintaining ahappy attitude is actually
(14:29):
setting a schedule and likeinvolving them in like age
appropriate, of course, ageappropriate chores.
So I have a four-year-old whohas started learning like most
of the time it's absolutelydisastrous, but he has been
slowly getting better.
I started trying to teach himhow to fold towels 100% of the
(14:55):
time after he has gone to bed,because I haven't fold them at
night.
100% of the time after he hasgone to bed I will refold them
because it looks terrible, itlooks like Obama's gone off and
I am nitpicky about my towelslike nobody else on this planet.
So I do refold them, of course,but he is still learning life
(15:17):
skills.
He is learning how tocontribute to the family.
He's learning that he isimportant.
He's an important member andhis help is needed.
Another thing he started doing Ihad him start doing he's
actually really good at this ismaking his bed and putting away
his own laundry.
He actually started puttingaway his own laundry and what
really helped there is weactually established a no-fold
(15:41):
system in our house.
So we just have buckets likelittle cube dresser buckets that
they sell on Amazon, and wehave a no-fold system so we
could just grab the laundrybasket and just start tossing
clothes into baskets.
So like jeans, shirts,sweatpants, things like that.
Like shirts shirts, obviouslyand like church slacks and
(16:04):
things nicer clothes obviouslyget hung up or folded, but we've
kind of changed how we dothings so that we can include
the kids in our day-to-daydisciplines, because it really
does help cut down.
Like I said, we get ahead ofthe curve.
(16:25):
It really stops problems beforethey even happen.
And that's like a huge part ofmaintaining discipline is also
getting ahead of any potentialpower struggles, and those will
happen because toddlers arestubborn, toddlers are willful,
(16:47):
they're discovering theirindependence, they're
discovering that oh, I haveopinions, oh I want things, oh I
think I know better, and so,like a huge part of discipline
is actually getting ahead of anyof those power struggles before
they even happen.
And so, like this is going tothrow some people out there a
(17:12):
little off, but like giving yourchild choices and like
day-to-day things is huge whenit comes to getting ahead of and
avoiding power struggles.
Just simple things like youtell your child to go get
dressed, and like telling afour-year-old to go get dressed
(17:32):
is for most four-year-olds I'veever seen is like this huge
thing.
It's like this huge chore.
They are overwhelmed and theywalk into their bedroom and
they're just, you know, they getdistracted, they're overwhelmed
and it just never happens or itturns into this long, long
drawn out thing where you'reyelling and they're crying
because you just want them toput clothes on.
(17:53):
But there's, like, so manychoices in their closet and they
don't know how to choose.
And so I have started grabbingtwo shirts, two pairs of pants,
asking him you know, which onedo you want to wear?
And so he gets to choose.
But he's still maintaining thatdiscipline of listening to mom
(18:20):
when mom tells him to getdressed.
So I'm getting ahead of thepower struggle and we're both
happy because he's dressed.
But he still got to choose whathe wore that day, of sorts.
I mean, in his mind he chose sowell.
I mean, yeah, in his mind hechose and that's what matters, I
(18:41):
guess, to him.
So, just like little things likethat, giving the kid little
choices, like you know, whenyou're making dinner, ask your
child what they want for dinner.
But don't just ask them.
You know, hey, what do you wantfor dinner?
Because a four-year-old, afive-year-old, is automatically
going to come back with theresponse I don't know.
(19:02):
Like they're not going to tellyou.
And so, if you like, if you havea picky eater and they do exist
, and you're not a parent thatforces their child to eat what's
on the table, like every bitekind of thing, and you want to
avoid the power struggle of apicky eater, ask them, give them
two choices of what we couldhave for a meal, and that way
(19:29):
you get ahead of a powerstruggle potentially.
I mean it's not always going towork, but you could potentially
get ahead of any power strugglewhen it actually comes time to
eat the meal, because it'll behave, it'll have spent something
that they chose.
And also, having your child getinvolved in the cooking of that
meal, which also goes back toimplementing age-appropriate
(19:52):
chores, like having your childinvolved in the day-to-day
disciplines of family life, isalso going to help cut down on
those tantrums and those powerstruggles, because they're going
to feel like they're anintegral part of the family and
it's something they accomplishedand something they're proud of
(20:14):
and they want to be involved in.
So, yeah, like, involve yourkids and it cuts down on like so
many problems if we do that.
And also like I mean like ifstaying ahead of the power
struggle doesn't work and it'snot always going to work 100% of
(20:38):
the time, I mean I, at least inmy home, I would say it
probably only works 65 to 75% ofthe time.
So there's still a big chunkthere where you know they put
their foot down or they try toput their foot down, and when
that happens, you as a parenthave to have a boundary set in
place of, like a certainstandard of behavior in your
(21:01):
home.
So you know, if they throw atantrum about eating a meal that
they chose and helped cook thenand they don't want to eat it
and they've decided they'regoing to be picky that night,
you have to have a boundary setin place.
You have to maintain thatstandard of behavior in your
home.
(21:21):
So and in my home, we don'tforce our kids to eat for many
reasons that we can get into ina later podcast episode.
But one thing we do is like youdon't have to eat everything
that's on your plate.
That's fine, but If you don't,that does mean that we're not
(21:46):
gonna have any snacks later on,and so, because we are after
dinner, they usually have asnack before they go to bed,
because dinner is like around 5,5, 30 and they go to bed at 7,
between 7 and 8.
So there's that time gap therewhere you know they could get
hungry, and so we always usuallyhave a snack of like a piece of
(22:06):
fruit or something like that.
And so when we make dinner,like I don't want them to get
into the habit of wasting food,but at the same time I'm not
gonna force feed you, I'm notgonna force you to eat your food
.
If you say you're full, that'sfine, you know your body.
But you're not allowed to likeleave your plate of food and
(22:29):
then 10 minutes later want asnack, like that's not how it
works.
So, like that our boundary isthey have to finish their dinner
before we get, we break out thesnacks and break out more food.
And so we have, we just havelike certain boundaries such as
that that we, we maintain inorder to like maintain
(22:51):
discipline in the house.
Otherwise, you know, you aregonna set yourself up for major,
major, proud struggles in thefuture, and that's not something
that's easy for any parent togo through.
So, yeah, that's, that's a big,that's a big one for us.
And then also I mean, like whenyou do have, when you do have
(23:16):
those those, you know, thosepower struggles and those bad
days, like don't, don't beafraid of those bad days and
don't be afraid of failure.
And like something I neverreally thought of when my kids
were really really young likeyou know one, I say really
really young.
They're still really reallyyoung, but when they were
younger, one thing like thatnever occurred to me was that,
(23:40):
like I, I allow myself to havebad days, I allow my husband to
have bad days, like I allowmyself grace to fail.
But when my kids have a bad day,when they're just when they're,
you know, they're just grouchyand they just are full of the I
can'ts and I don't want tos andthey're just, they're just
(24:03):
grouchy and sad all day long.
Like it still just irritates meand infuriates me and it's like
and it was like, I think, ayear ago I kind of stopped to
think I was like why is it thatI will allow myself to be
grouchy and cranky and just havea really off day and treat the
(24:24):
entire world around me likegarbage?
But I won't allow my toddlerwho has way less emotional
regulation than I do and is, youknow, still in diapers in a lot
of cases and has barely lived afraction of his life how come I
(24:45):
can't allow him the grace tohave a bad day?
Why?
What is it about me that I needto fix so that I can have
enough respect and grace toallow my toddler to have a bad
day.
And that's not saying that youknow the toddler is going to be
allowed to be mean and yell ateverybody or anything like that.
But you can't allow him to besad.
(25:08):
You can't allow him to just becranky.
It doesn't actually hurtanything If he's not hurting
anybody and he's not yelling andscreaming at people.
Then just allow him to be sad.
Being sad is not a bad thing.
It's just an emotion, and it'san emotion we all have to.
He'll have to work through andin order for him to learn how to
(25:30):
work through that emotion, he'sgoing to have to experience
that emotion.
So, like, don't be afraid of baddays on either one of your
parts.
Like, don't be afraid offailing at maintaining the
discipline in your home, becauseit's going to happen.
Like we're all imperfect, wehave no idea what we're doing.
(25:50):
We're all starting out andstruggling, and so it's going to
happen.
We're going to fail.
We're not going to always goget ahead of the power struggles
.
We're not going to alwaysconsistently redirect perfectly
the first time.
It's not always going to be100%, and so, like we have to
allow ourselves grace to fail.
(26:11):
We're going to have to allowourselves and our children to
have bad days and to likerecognize that this was a screw
up day.
We didn't do so good today.
That's fine.
Let's take notes on how we canbe better tomorrow.
And that's actually somethinglike like I've kind of
implemented into like how mychildren apologize or how we
(26:34):
acknowledge that we made amistake is something like when
I'm talking to my kids aboutsomething that they did like a
mess up is when I'm likeredirecting or correcting
something, I try to end it withlet's try better next time or
let's do this the first timenext time.
(26:55):
So I try to acknowledge thatyou know we made a mistake, but
that's okay, we learned from itand we're going to do better
next time.
We're going to remember thisand we're going to do better
next time and so and that's likethat's so important for us to
remember do was like it's okayto fail, like that's part of
that's part of life.
That's part of life and that'sthat's how we learned.
(27:16):
So it's okay to learn and thendo better next time, because
that's that's that's how we'regoing to improve, like
discipline in our house.
That's how we just that's howwe get better is just repetition
, just repeating the same thingover and over and over until it
just becomes second nature to us.
(27:39):
I hope you enjoyed this episodeon applying discipline in our
children's daily lives.
I keep an eye I just wanted tosay to keep an eye on my
Facebook and Instagram.
I will have a couple ofannouncements over the next
couple of weeks regarding someguests that I'm very excited
(28:00):
about coming on with some prettyexciting topics regarding
marriage and motherhood, andwe're even going to be throwing
in some religious or spiritualtopics as well.
So I'm very excited about that.
So, yeah, just keep an eye onmy Facebook and Instagram
(28:21):
stories for any announcements onthat, and I will see you guys
next week.
Thank you for tuning in to thisepisode of All Our Little Messes
.
Please let us know how much youenjoyed it below and add any
questions you have about thisepisode.
Also, don't forget to follow uson Patreon for amazing
(28:45):
exclusive perks, including earlyaccess to podcast episodes and
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updates and insights thatmirror podcast topics.
Thank you for listening andwe'll see you next week.
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