December 8, 2025 • 45 mins
In this episode, Jon answers three real parent questions about kids who shut down, melt down, or avoid trying altogether — the moments when, as one child put it, “I’d rather not try than be bad at it.” Through stories, neuroscience, and relatable examples, Jon offers a grounded way to understand the gap between a child’s stress limit and their skill limit, and why “new things are hard” becomes a life-changing mantra for both parent and child. Listeners walk away with clarity, compassion, and a more connected path forward for supporting kids in those tender I-can’t moments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jon @WholeParent (00:00):
In this episode of the Whole Parent
Podcast, we're going to breakdown why some kids hit their
frustration threshold longbefore they hit what's called
their skill threshold.
What's happening in the brain ofa child who shuts down early,
and how we as parents can slowlystretch that capacity without
pushing them into overwhelm.
(00:21):
You'll start to see thesemoments differently.
And by the end of this episode,you're going to have a clearer
sense of exactly how to supportyour child in those I can't
moments.
How to respond in a way thatcalms the panic and builds their
tolerance for frustration.
Let's get into it.
(00:50):
Excited to be here.
I'm recording it in the eveninglive again over on Instagram,
Facebook, and YouTube.
I wish I could do TikTok too,but they don't let me do that
these days.
I've not like banned oranything, but I haven't gotten
the approval yet.
I want to start start thismorning or this evening.
Automatically say this morning,even though it's clearly
(01:12):
nighttime while I'm recordingfor those watching on my
freezing cold porch.
I want to start by just kind oftelling you something that
happened in my life before Ijump into the questions about
frustration tolerance.
It's not actually aboutfrustration tolerance, uh, but I
just give you guys like a windowinto what's going on with us.
So this morning was reallychallenging for me and my
family, not actually because ofwhat took place, but because of
(01:35):
the anxiety around what wasgoing to take place.
My my daughter, who is 13 monthsold, had to get a blood test.
And so we had to get her in thecar, and my kids didn't have
school, like they were off ofschool because the the weather
is too cold, and they go to anoutdoor school.
So because of like the crazybelow sub zero temperatures, we
had to get her in the car,bundle her up.
(01:57):
And uh this is my job.
So so my wife does all thedoctor's appointments with my my
kids.
Not all, like sometimes I I I'llcome along, especially if if you
know, multiple kids are going tothe doctor.
I do all the dentists, she doesall the doctors, but when it
happens to be a blood draw, wehad to do one for my other son.
He's now almost four.
(02:18):
We had to do one when he was uhabout this age, maybe two, what
one and a half, two.
And that was my job back then,and that's my job now.
And so we had to take her forthis blood test.
And we were kind of freaking outabout it, my wife especially,
uh, just kind of not feelinggood about it for all of the
days leading up.
(02:38):
And and I like didn't reallybring it up because I didn't
want to keep thinking about it.
But then last night I said,okay, you know, tomorrow we got
this blood test.
And she's like, No, I can'tbelieve this is happening.
I hate this.
And I was like, Yeah, yeah, Iknow it's gonna be fine.
It's gonna be fine.
And I kept saying it's gonna befine because when my son went
in, it was so crazy.
Like, we went to this, it's justlike a local um drug testing
(03:01):
type place.
They aren't getting drug tested,guys.
My kids do not need to get drugtested, but uh they do they
perform lots of tests, blooddraw tests, and they're they're
just when I brought my sonthere, it was crazy.
Like he's gotten all these shotsand all these vaccinations and
things like that, and he wouldcry.
Like all of my kids cry whenthey get shots, like every kid,
I think.
(03:22):
But when he got the blood draw,there was like no crying
whatsoever.
He didn't even like seem tonotice it.
And so I said, I really don'tthink it's gonna be this big of
a big of a deal, Jess.
Like, if you had been there withhim, you would know like it was
really not painful.
And she was just like, our kidsare not the same.
And I was like, you know what?
You're right, our kids are notthe same.
And I shouldn't, I shouldn'tassume that it's going to be as
(03:43):
easy or as painless for for heras it was for him.
And so I was kind of freakingout about it too.
Like I was starting to get in myown head about it.
And then we got there, and thethe doctor hadn't put the orders
in right, so then we had to waitfor the doctor's office to open
so that they could get send theorders over.
I got my air and my tires filledup with my daughter.
We like drove over and got theair and the tires filled up, and
(04:03):
it was just like this terriblemorning of anxiety and panic.
And finally, when we get back towaiting room two or to to blood
draw room two, I saw that it wasthe exact same, like, I don't
know how old she is, maybe inher 50s or 40, late 40s, early
50s, uh Filipino nurse who, or Idon't even know if she's a
(04:26):
nurse, maybe she's aphlebotomist, maybe she's just a
PCT or not just a PC BCT, maybeshe's a PCT or patient care
technician.
I don't know what her job is,but it was the same person who
did the blood draw on my son.
And I said, You know, you didthis for my son, and it was
totally painless.
Can you do that again?
And she kind of laughed and shesaid, Well, yeah, for some kids
they don't cry, some kids theycry, like it just kind of
(04:46):
depends.
And then, guys, she did it, andmy daughter didn't even react.
And the whole time I was justbuilding up all this anxiety
about, like, oh my gosh, is mykid gonna be screaming?
Are they gonna be like, Am Igonna be having to hold this
child down while she has thislike medical procedure?
Like without my wife there, isthis gonna be like so, so
(05:08):
horrible?
And then it just wasn't like itwas just really not nearly as
bad as I thought it was gonnabe.
And just kind of goes to showyou with a lot of the questions
that I'm gonna be answeringtonight, and I said it's not
related, it's kind of related.
With a lot of the questions I'mgonna be answering tonight, one
of the main things that we'redealing with, and this is just a
(05:29):
parenting thing in general, isour expectations of something
versus and the anxiety thatcomes from us worrying about
something versus actually thatthing occurring.
And so as I jump into thequestions, I want to just talk
about the fact that number one,our kids experience that anxiety
too.
They experience that anxietywhen it comes to trying new
(05:50):
things and doing things thatthey haven't done before, which
is what this episode's about.
But also we experience thatanxiety because we are parents
for the first time.
And we don't know that, youknow, if our oldest kid doesn't
try this thing or if they quiteasily, or if they uh are really
failure averse and they won'ttry hard things, if that's just
(06:10):
gonna be forever.
And I want to tell you, assomebody who's now been doing
this and working with parentsfor a long time, but who also
has been a parent for nineyears, going on 10 years, things
change.
And the kid in my family who isthe most averse to trying new
(06:30):
things, who is the most failureaverse, who who struggled the
most early on with frustrationtolerance of all of my kids so
far, has been my oldest.
And the amount of change thatI've seen him go through and the
amount of frustration tolerancethat he's been able to build in
the last few years, especially,has been outstanding.
It's been overwhelming toexperience this and witness
(06:52):
this.
And so as I jump into thequestions, I just kind of want
to start with that and just setthe tone there.
Okay, so that's what's beengoing on in my life.
Um, maybe I'll do this sectionagain, maybe I won't, but I'm
also gonna try and answer thequestions a little bit more
quickly than I have beenanswering them in the past
because sometimes I just talkforever.
(07:12):
Okay, first question is uh anInstagram direct message, DM,
and it comes from Ashley.
And I think we might have had anAshley last night as well.
Maybe it's a different Ashley.
Maybe just everybody who wasborn in the 90s was named
Ashley.
Ashley says, John, can you talkabout kids who just like won't
(07:34):
even try at things that are evena tiny bit hard?
My daughter, parentheses seven,took look one look at her math
homework and literally laid onthe floor and said, I'm done
before she even tried.
I got frustrated and I told herthat she has to push through
sometimes, that life is gonna behard.
(07:55):
I don't know.
Did I mess that up?
She keeps saying, I'm not goodat it.
I don't know how to fix it.
(11:10):
Ashley, I don't think that youmessed that interaction up.
I think that we can tweak somethings in that interaction
because I think what yourdaughter is experiencing is a
lot of overwhelm that comes fromnot just something being new or
something being challenging, butsomething that specifically,
(11:32):
like with math homeworkespecially, is hitting on a
thing that for kids can bereally challenging and and
unique.
And so one of the things that Iall always talk about with young
kids, and seven still young, isthat kids, all kids, not just
neurodivergent kids, but we seethis a lot with neurodivergent
adults, of which I am one.
(11:53):
And I was just talking toanother parenting influencer,
and I'm gonna be on her podcastin a couple of weeks.
Uh, she is also neurodivergent.
And one of the things thatneurodivergent people struggle
with, and so I have a lot ofempathy for this, is executive
functioning.
And one of the executivefunctioning tasks that we have
to learn over time is breakingthings down into smaller steps.
And kids almost universally havea hard time with breaking big
(12:18):
challenges down into theircomposite steps.
So the first thing that I wouldsay to your daughter when she
says, I don't know, I'm just notgood at this, or I'm done,
instead of saying you have to dohard things, I would flip that.
I would say, new things arehard.
And I would, this is going to befor all of our questions, all
(12:38):
three of our questions today.
This is my mantra to my kids.
This is also the mantra that Iused when I was a soccer coach.
This is the mantra for for likelittle kids, six, seven, six,
seven, eight-year-olds,nine-year-olds.
This was the mantra that I usedwhen I was a high school and
college volleyball coach.
This is the mantra that I usewhen I uh work with people who
(12:59):
are now adults in therapeuticenvironments, who parents.
This is the mantra that I usewith literally everybody in my
life.
And that mantra is new thingsare hard.
And I'm gonna keep having forall of the questions today.
The first thing out of our mouthshould be that mantra.
When our kids are strugglingwith something that's new or
(13:22):
something that's challenging, oran even if it's something that
we think one of the things thatgets so frustrating for me and
my wife is when my nine-year-oldis struggling playing video
games, because we don't reallylike love him playing video
games in the first place, andhe's like having a hard time
playing video games, even whenit's that new things are hard,
(13:42):
gives permission to struggle.
I think this is a reallychallenging thing in the modern
world where lots of things comeeasy.
And I think this is a reallychallenging thing when we think
we put to project forward intothe use of Chat GPT or AI tools
(14:03):
or whatever to make life easier.
The use of an air fryer to makelife easier, the use of a
microwave, the use of DoorDash,the use of, you know, Amazon,
whatever to make life easier.
Life is getting increasingly, wewe are increasingly getting
permission in our world to justnot try challenging new hard
(14:28):
things.
And so I think giving kidspermission to try hard things
and say new things are hard.
If it's new, it's going to behard, guaranteed.
It's just a good way to framethat whole thing, right?
It's a good way to begin.
Just assume that it's going tobe hard if it's new.
Math homework, kind of bydefinition, is going to be hard
(14:50):
because it's new.
You wouldn't, I guess some mathhomework is probably a review,
but you know, they wouldn't begiving it to you if it wasn't
supposed to challenge you.
But oftentimes we don'texpressly state that to kids and
they don't understand.
They don't understand that likeit's supposed to be hard.
The reason that we're doing itis because it's hard.
(15:11):
And so just to say, to beginfrom the place instead of you're
going to have to do hard things,that is true.
Ashley, to everybody elselistening, from Melbourne to
Thailand to wherever, SouthAmerica, North America, Oceania,
Europe, everywhere in between,Africa, maybe there's somebody
from Africa listening.
Wherever you are in the world,new things are still hard.
(15:35):
And that reality has to besomething that we instill in our
kids because they don'tautomatically understand that.
That's something that they havenot automatically experienced.
And to us, it might just belike, well, why do you even have
to say that?
It's just so obvious.
It's new, it's hard.
No, say it explicitly.
(15:56):
And then we're going to do thesecond part of this, which is
that executive functioning piecefor you, Ashley.
And that's to break down thehard thing into its composite
steps.
So shrink the problem.
Instead of saying, Yeah, youlook at the math homework, and
this can be an experience forkids.
They look at the challenge.
And if the math homework isthree pages of problems, they
(16:18):
go, Oh my gosh, I'm never goingto be able to do all these.
So why am I even going to start?
When I wrote my book, PunishmentFree Parenting, and I knew I
had, you know, hundreds of pagesto write, and then going to cut
those pages down to fewerhundred pages so that you can
actually read it.
I knew that that mountain toclimb began with a single step.
(16:42):
But that was not automatic.
And that is not automatic forour kids.
They do not automatically knowthat you can break things down
into their composite steps.
And even if they did, they wouldstruggle with it.
And so I would say, okay, let'sstart by just doing one problem
together.
Let's just handle the firstproblem.
Okay, no, the first problem isso hard.
The first I can't even do it.
Okay, let's let's go through thewhole thing.
(17:03):
Let's find one problem that youcan do.
Let's solve one problem.
And then that's one less problemto solve.
And then we can take a break.
And when we break things downinto manageable bite-sized
things, our kids can do it somuch better.
I was talking to a friend ofmine, his name is uh Dr.
Josh.
This is many months ago.
We were talking about workingwith kids who really struggle
(17:24):
with homework.
They get really, really behind.
And one of his things is neverlet make your kid do homework
for more than like 30 minutes ata time.
So, Ashley, what we're gonna do,we're gonna say new things are
hard.
These problems are hard becausethey're new.
We're gonna work on this for 30minutes and then we're gonna
take a break.
We're breaking the problem downinto the its composites.
(17:45):
All we got to do is just make itthrough 30 more seconds or 30
more minutes of this.
And now it's 29 and now it's 28.
And we're just gonna shrink theproblem.
And when the problem getsshrunk, our kids who are smaller
feel like it's achievable.
And then over time, theyactually build the resilience
and confidence from tackling thethey tackle all the small
(18:07):
problems, they tackle all the30-minute increments and they
tackle the problems one by one,and then they look at everything
that they've accomplished andthey say, wow, I did all of this
and I'm proud of myself.
Instead of looking at all ofthat and saying, that was so
overwhelming, I can't ever dothat.
And that's the power that comesfrom shrinking the problems.
So I'm gonna move on to the nextquestion.
(18:27):
But Ashley, if you're out therelistening, thank you for sending
me this DM asking me about this,and keep listening because
everything else we're gonna sayis also gonna contribute to
that.
Okay.
Question number two comes fromJordan.
This is a TikTok DM.
I very rarely respond to myTikTok DMs, but occasionally I
(18:50):
see one come across that's aquestion.
And I'm I'm not gonna lie, uhoccasionally when I see a dude
DM me, a guy DM me, over 25% ofmy followers, or only 25% of my
followers are men.
And so whenever I see a guyasking questions about
parenting, I admit I'm a littlebit more likely to it's scroll
(19:12):
stopping for me, let's say.
I just get I'm getting all ofthese things from mostly on
TikTok.
The reason I don't respond tothe DMs is because they're all
spam.
So I'm getting all these spams,and then I see one from Jordan,
and he was like, Hey, myfive-year-old loses it the
second something's not easy.
Like we're talking full meltdownover a zipper.
I try and hype him up, and thenI'm like, bro, you didn't even
(19:35):
try.
Am I supposed to help him or amI supposed to let him figure
out?
Because I swear it feels like ifI step back, he just freaks out.
But if I step in, he freaks out.
So honestly, I'm just confused.
What do I do?
Jordan, I understand why you'reconfused.
New things are hard.
And I'm gonna guess this is yourfirst five-year-old.
(19:57):
And being a parent to afive-year-old is a new thing,
and new things are hard.
The key term that I want to talkabout here, and it's a term that
is gonna permeate through therest of the episode, is
frustration tolerance.
I talked about it in the intro.
The idea of frustrationtolerance, the well, let's just
break it down to its two pieces,right?
Frustration, we know what thatis.
Frustration is when we're tryingto do something and it's not
(20:19):
going the way that we want it togo.
It's being challenging, right?
Like pulling up a zipper.
Tolerance is what is is what webuild with as we learn to uh
adapt to that thing that we'rebecoming tolerant of, right?
So tolerance is not somethinglike you learn to love it, it's
(20:43):
you learn to tolerate it.
And when we think abouttolerance in terms of medical
tolerances, medical tolerances,like in the ED, or the ER,
rather, for those who don't havea partner who works in the
emergency department who callsit the ED, the ER, the emergency
room.
When a person comes in who is analcoholic or who has a long
(21:06):
history of drugs, or just hasred hair, that's kind of a
random genetic feature ofred-haired people, is that they
have a high tolerance to certainnarcotics, um, or sedation
methods, I think it is.
Um when somebody has a hightolerance to something, it means
that they've usually, not in allcases, but often, they've
(21:26):
consumed a lot of that substanceand their body has essentially
grown somewhat immune to it.
And so a high tolerance foralcohol is a person who can
drink alcohol without feelingthe effects of that alcohol
because they have had repeatedand you know continuous exposure
(21:47):
to it.
Give you an example from mylife.
I spent more than 10 years offof all ADHD medication.
And then I started taking itagain about a year and a half
ago.
And I didn't take it for thatlong.
I took it for a pretty shortperiod of time, but I took it
every day as you're kind ofsupposed to.
(22:09):
Or I took it five days a week.
And very quickly, because of thetype of medication, I built up a
tolerance to it.
And I either needed to up mydosage or uh stop using it or
find another alternative.
What I opted to do is only useit in very sparing circumstances
rather than using it every day.
I just use it when I have to dosomething that's really
painfully difficult for me as anADHD person, like doing my
(22:31):
taxes, for example, or cleaningthe whole house is another way
that I might use thatmedication.
But it's not, I'm not using itinappropriately.
I'm doing so under the guise ofa or under the supervision of a
doctor, but it's understandingthat I don't want to build up
that tolerance because I wantthe medication to be effective
for me at low dosages.
But if I take a lot of it, it'sgoing to build up tolerance.
Well, those are kind of negativeuh understandings of tolerance.
(22:54):
Frustration tolerance is how webuild up a tolerance to
frustration.
And what we do lack what wedon't understand with kids is
that they are not born with anyfrustration tolerance
whatsoever.
And frustration tolerance islike a muscle.
It has to be built.
You can't just, you're not bornwith it.
You're not just gonna have it.
(23:15):
And the modern world that welive in, oftentimes kids don't
have any frustration tolerancebecause as soon as they start to
display the symptoms offrustration, they start to melt
down or they start to getaggressive or they start to, you
know, feel big feelings.
Their parents intervene and handthem a device or just fix the
problem for them.
And Jordan, that's what you'refeeling.
You're like, I don't, I justgotta bail my kid out here.
(23:36):
My what I would give you theadvice.
So that the advice that I wouldgive you is look at that
frustration tolerance that thatyou're trying to build with your
child, because that's whatyou're trying to do, right?
You're trying to buildfrustration tolerance.
And I would try my absolute bestto just wait as long as possible
(24:00):
as they struggle and thenintervene before it becomes
overwhelming.
Does that make sense?
So wait as long as possible andthen intervene before it becomes
too overwhelming.
And just so you guys know, forthose listening and watching
live, I just turned off myheater because my heater heats
(24:24):
up my camera, and then my cameraoverheats, and then I lose the
video feed, which is no fun atall.
So that's the first piece ofthis, Jordan.
I would let the frustrationbuild a little bit because only
by going through thatfrustration do they build the
tolerance for it.
It's different than sync orswim, right?
(24:46):
Which is sync or swim parenting,often called 80s, 90s parenting,
is this parenting approach whereyou just say, figure it out on
your own.
You'll figure it out.
If I don't help you, they'llfigure it out.
It's literally like you, it's Icall it sink or swim because
it's those parents who wouldpush their kid in the pool and
they go, they'll learn how toswim when they get nobody to
save them.
(25:07):
What we know is that actuallythat sends kids into their auto,
their uh sympathetic nervouscycle.
It's part of their autonomicnervous cycle.
And when they get toooverwhelmed, they no longer are
experienced frustringfrustration tolerance.
They're just experiencingoverwhelm and stress.
And their stress limit is hitbefore their skill limit.
(25:30):
And so that barrier, that gapbetween the skill limit and the
stress limit, that becomes abarrier to building frustration
tolerance for kids.
Now, of course, confidence comesfrom a kid pushing through and
achieving something small winand not having their parent do
that for them.
But the only way that they getthere is by building a little
(25:50):
bit of frustration tolerance andhaving the reps to then attempt
to do that thing.
Now, I did lose my camera nomatter what, unfortunately.
So what I'm gonna do here is tryand turn it off and turn it back
on and see if it comes back.
Oh no.
(26:14):
I know that you guys canprobably still hear me.
I apologize in advance.
Give it a second, it'll comeback on.
Okay, I got it.
Give me thirty seconds, Ipromise.
(26:51):
Alright.
Let me know when you guys cansee me again.
I bet you you guys can see meright about now.
Hang on, hang on, I promise.
I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
Okay.
(27:12):
We can hear you, we can see you.
I love it.
I love it, I love it, I love it.
Okay.
So back to where we were.
Talking about buildingfrustration tolerance.
I'm gonna have to cut all thatout of the uh thing.
Whenever I have to edit more, italways makes my job a little bit
trickier on the post.
But you know what?
(27:32):
That's okay.
So yeah, Jordan, that's that'swhat I'm focusing on.
Trying to build that gap betweenthe frust between the the place
where their skill limit is,doing a zipper as a
five-year-old is challenging,where their stress limit is,
which is where they go to thatoverwhelm place, and you know
(27:54):
where this is, you canexperience this in real time
when they are no longerexperiencing a frustration
tolerance growth.
They're not just frustrated,they're actually overwhelmed,
they're melting down.
And even if that break inbetween those times, so finding
that sweet spot before they meltdown, while they're still
struggling to let them buildsome of that resilience and that
(28:14):
frustration tolerance.
And I just heard somebody saythis the other day, and it's
really profound.
It was another parenting voice.
I'm forgetting who it was in themoment.
But they said, even if you letyour kid just sit in that
frustration tolerance or in thatfrustration for 10 seconds, it's
still 10 seconds of frustrationtolerance that they built.
So oftentimes we think of thisin terms of long-term, right?
(28:35):
Like, oh, well, they gotta befrustrated for five minutes
straight to build anyfrustration tolerance, right?
Not true.
If a kid has zero frustrationtolerance, any amount of
frustration that they experiencebefore we save them or do it for
them, or they hit totaloverwhelm if but just by you
(28:55):
know being there and saying,yeah, that is tricky.
I am here, you know, new thingsare hard.
Any amount of that does buildthat resilience.
So that's where I would frameall of that.
I think you're doing a good jobof trying to hype him up, but
you have to find that thatmiddle ground.
And it is hard.
(29:16):
And it's hard because new thingsare hard, and parenting a
five-year-old is hard becauseit's new.
So don't feel like there'sanything wrong with you, Jordan.
I my guess is if you're asking,hopping in the DMs on TikTok of
a parenting educator, you'reprobably doing a really good
job.
And everybody who's watchingthis now or listening to this
after the fact now, listening tothe podcast right now, they're
(29:37):
doing a really good job too.
And so you don't have to feellike you're just screwing up
just because your kids arehaving a hard time.
And that's the key here.
We we we we have to not want tosave our kids from every single
bad emotion.
And that's that's actually whereI'm going next with Megan.
So the last question came fromMegan.
It was sent in via email.
Although, Megan, I will say youreplied to one of my uh weekly
(30:01):
newsletters with this.
You did not send this to podcastat wholeparentacademy.com.
But I'm gonna forgive you forthat.
For those who don't know, I havea weekly newsletter that goes
out where I talk about kind ofin in these terms.
I'll often reference episodes ofthe podcast or or other things
that I'm doing at things like uhI have a workshop coming up,
free workshop that I'm doing.
Um, I have a children's bookcoming out in not too long.
(30:24):
I have obviously my book that II sell, but it's actually
majority, not sales.
The overwhelming majority of thethings my newsletter is just my
parenting takes stories about mylife as a parent.
And so if you're interested inparenting, from Megan's
perspective, you know, be likeMegan, join the newsletter.
And uh it's a great place tojust kind of hang out with
(30:45):
like-minded parents.
There's 40,000 people on the onthe newsletter who love all of
this.
And I have like a 70% email openrate because um I just I just
give I just give value in that.
I don't I don't like sellconstantly or anything like
that.
I do sell occasionally, but notconstantly.
(31:05):
So Megan said, okay, randomquestion, but does it mean
anything if my kid always quitsbefore they even start?
This is a little different thanthe other two questions, at
least as I'm interpreting it.
My husband says she's beingdramatic and that she needs to
toughen up, but my gut says thatit's not that simple.
She's nine, she's super smart,but the second that she thinks
that something is going to gowrong, she literally shuts down.
(31:28):
She literally said to me, I'drather not try to be, I'd rather
not try than be bad at it.
I don't even know what to saybecause same.
Megan, great self-awareness.
And I love that you said samebecause uh I'm gonna do
something that I almost neverdo, and I I'm gonna ask kind of
(31:50):
a clarifying question.
And if you can feel free torespond to this email or respond
to this me via email.
If you have not yet taken myquiz on whether or not you
you're you have a highlysensitive child, I would I would
start there.
I would ask the question ofwhether you have a highly
sensitive child.
(32:11):
And the reason why I would startthere and ask that question is
because what you're describingto me is actually kind of a
perfect analogy for what it islike to have or perfect example
of what it's like to have ahighly sensitive kid.
And highly sensitive kidsreally, really, really do not
like failure and they do notlike to be wrong.
(32:32):
And I do not have time in thisepisode, I'll have to go into
another whole episode on justthat um to talk about why that
is.
But because of that, oftentimeshighly sensitive kids shut down
before they even try somethingnew.
And I'm gonna give you threereally quick tips.
(32:58):
So if you have a highlysensitive kid, I would give you
three tips that would, I think,game change for you.
The first one is that you haveto let your kid watch before
they engage.
And so I don't know what exactlyyou're talking about here.
Uh, you didn't give me anexample of a time when your kid
kind of quits before they areeven trying or before they're
(33:19):
afraid of being bad at it.
But kids often who are highlysensitive, they have to watch
somebody else do somethingbefore they themselves engage in
it or want to do it or have anykind of ability to try.
They're watchers.
And that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That's a normal thingdevelopmentally for kids.
(33:40):
It's a normal thing for adults.
Not all adults want to just likedive right in and do things
right off the bat.
And so, yeah, I think thatthat's a beautiful feature, not
a failure.
And if you can findopportunities for her to watch,
it's it can be a little abnormalfor us as parents because maybe
we don't feel that way, althoughyou've said you kind of do.
(34:03):
I would just look for thoseopportunities for her to go and
be a witness first.
The second thing I would say isI would reframe failure as look,
being bad at something is not asbad as you think it is.
And I would do that by showingall of the things and being
(34:25):
willing to be a little bitvulnerable in front of your
daughter by showing her that youwill do things that you're bad
at too, and just name themoutright.
So, one of the main principlesin the book is that in my book,
Punishment Free Parenting, isthat whatever is modeled,
whatever is modeled is mirroredby our kids.
And so if we want our kids totake failure lightly, and I
(34:48):
don't mean like big failure, butbeing bad at something, new
things are hard, as we've beensaying all episode.
If we want our kids to be ableto see that and and engage in
that and be able to push throughthat, we have to show them how
to do that by doing itourselves.
We have to actually kind of bethere in it with them to show
(35:08):
them.
And then the last thing I woulddo is I would always, always,
always greet the second that shedoes try something, I would
greet that with connection.
We have to greet every strugglethat our kids have, we have to
greet it immediately withconnection.
And so if the failure comes,it's very natural for those of
(35:32):
us who grew up as like 90s kidsto pull away.
Because that's what our parentssaid when we didn't do things
well all the time.
And I don't know your story, butthat's often the story.
But actually, we want to lean inin those moments when when we
fail and when we see them failand be the soft landing place
for them.
That's ultimately our goal is tobe that soft landing place, to
(35:55):
be this home base.
And so to reframe failure aslike this time when connection
occurs.
Not that it's not this likehorrible thing that is gonna
lead to everybody abandoningyou, which is often what kids
feel, but instead that no, it'sit is a thing where I'm gonna
draw near to you, I'm gonna goclose to you when you feel like
you're failing.
And I think that this is goodadvice for all of the questions
(36:17):
that we've gone through thusfar.
I don't think that these arethat's just for only highly
sensitive kids.
I think that that can be truefor all kids.
But I think that reallyreframing things in these terms
can help.
So just to review kind of all ofthis, what we've where we've
gone.
Number one, to start with amantra that new things are hard,
that in all cases, when we trysomething new, it's going to be
(36:39):
challenging, even for grownups.
Two, we can start to shrink theproblem, try to make them
bite-sized for kids so that theycan actually do the things that
they need to do.
Three, we can allow them toengage in a degree of
frustration tolerance to buildup those muscles, knowing that
we can't save them from thisfeeling of frustration.
(37:01):
It's going to happen throughouttheir life because, and
especially because with kids,their stress limit is going to
come before their skill limit.
For adults, we get stressed whenwe have to do things
repetitively, repetitively, andrepetitively, and we keep
failing over and over.
And then we get stressed.
For kids, they might feelstressed the first time they do
something because their skillsare so underdeveloped in those
(37:22):
ways.
And then last, we need to letour kids watch before they jump
in.
That's a helpful tool.
We have to model what it lookslike to try new things and not
be great at them all the timeand show them that and tell the
story of times when we've donethings that we were not great at
and we kept trying and it wasnever great.
And I do that with my kids allthe time.
And last and not least, we needto find a way to connect with
(37:44):
our kids when they do struggleand try and fail.
And I think if we do all of thatstuff, and I know that's a lot
of different things, just pickone or two of these for anybody
listening who is a kid whostruggles with failure or
struggles to even try orstruggles with frustration
tolerance, just pick one or twoof these.
And I promise you, if you startto focus on those and break your
problem into bite-sized pieces,parenting a kid who struggles
(38:07):
with failure is new to you.
This is your first time doingthis.
And so all of the same thingsapply.
Everything that I just said, andlead with connection.
When you screw up, lead withconnection.
I didn't do well with my kidstoday.
Find a friend who can say, yeah,it's okay.
Somebody who listens to thewhole parent podcast.
So, anyway, that's what I havefor you in this episode about
failure.
(38:28):
I hope that it helps you, allthe adults who struggle with
failure, like me, as much as ithelps the parents.
And just remember, in all ofthese things, it's like the
shark music from the beginningof the episode.
The anxiety that you have aroundparenting and like the hard
things that your kids are gonnago through, those are not
necessarily going to definetheir reality.
(38:49):
And so just try and hold it alittle bit more lightly and a
little bit more loosely and knowthat you're gonna be there no
matter what.
That's what I have for you.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
This has been the Whole ParentPodcast.
Thank you again for listening tothis episode of the Whole Parent
(39:10):
Podcast.
If you are listening to thisright now, yes, you in your car
driving somewhere on a walk withyour kids, perhaps your kids are
melting down and you'relistening to this on your
headphones with the noisecancellation turned on.
Whatever you're doing whileyou're listening, doing the
dishes at night after your kidsgo to bed, I don't know.
That would just be me if I waslistening.
(39:31):
Stop right now.
I have three quick favors to askyou.
I promise they're not going totake you very long.
The first one, very, very easy.
Go in to wherever you'relistening to this podcast and
rate it five stars.
That's one, two, three, four,five stars.
The more five star reviews thatour podcast gets as we
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(39:54):
their problems.
Whatever you got out of thisepisode, whether it was
something that to try with yourkids, whether it was a new way
to think about parenting, maybethis episode was not
specifically about a problemthat you're having, but you're
somebody in your life who'shaving this problem.
Go in and rate it five stars.
And if you have an additional 30seconds, that first one only
takes you 10 seconds.
If you have an additional 30seconds, just type a few words
(40:16):
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(40:38):
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(41:01):
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You don't know if they listen toit or not, they might never
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that they become your newparenting partner out there in
(41:23):
the world, doing things the sameway that you are, and you might
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(41:43):
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(42:04):
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And as always, I think thatyou're a great parent already.
But I do hope this episode gaveyou something to make you a
little bit better.
Take care.
In this episode of the Whole Parent
Podcast, we're going to breakdown why some kids hit their
frustration threshold longbefore they hit what's called
their skill threshold.
What's happening in the brain ofa child who shuts down early,
and how we as parents can slowlystretch that capacity without
pushing them into overwhelm.
(00:21):
You'll start to see thesemoments differently.
And by the end of this episode,you're going to have a clearer
sense of exactly how to supportyour child in those I can't
moments.
How to respond in a way thatcalms the panic and builds their
tolerance for frustration.
Let's get into it.
(00:50):
Excited to be here.
I'm recording it in the eveninglive again over on Instagram,
Facebook, and YouTube.
I wish I could do TikTok too,but they don't let me do that
these days.
I've not like banned oranything, but I haven't gotten
the approval yet.
I want to start start thismorning or this evening.
Automatically say this morning,even though it's clearly
(01:12):
nighttime while I'm recordingfor those watching on my
freezing cold porch.
I want to start by just kind oftelling you something that
happened in my life before Ijump into the questions about
frustration tolerance.
It's not actually aboutfrustration tolerance, uh, but I
just give you guys like a windowinto what's going on with us.
So this morning was reallychallenging for me and my
family, not actually because ofwhat took place, but because of
(01:35):
the anxiety around what wasgoing to take place.
My my daughter, who is 13 monthsold, had to get a blood test.
And so we had to get her in thecar, and my kids didn't have
school, like they were off ofschool because the the weather
is too cold, and they go to anoutdoor school.
So because of like the crazybelow sub zero temperatures, we
had to get her in the car,bundle her up.
(01:57):
And uh this is my job.
So so my wife does all thedoctor's appointments with my my
kids.
Not all, like sometimes I I I'llcome along, especially if if you
know, multiple kids are going tothe doctor.
I do all the dentists, she doesall the doctors, but when it
happens to be a blood draw, wehad to do one for my other son.
He's now almost four.
(02:18):
We had to do one when he was uhabout this age, maybe two, what
one and a half, two.
And that was my job back then,and that's my job now.
And so we had to take her forthis blood test.
And we were kind of freaking outabout it, my wife especially,
uh, just kind of not feelinggood about it for all of the
days leading up.
(02:38):
And and I like didn't reallybring it up because I didn't
want to keep thinking about it.
But then last night I said,okay, you know, tomorrow we got
this blood test.
And she's like, No, I can'tbelieve this is happening.
I hate this.
And I was like, Yeah, yeah, Iknow it's gonna be fine.
It's gonna be fine.
And I kept saying it's gonna befine because when my son went
in, it was so crazy.
Like, we went to this, it's justlike a local um drug testing
(03:01):
type place.
They aren't getting drug tested,guys.
My kids do not need to get drugtested, but uh they do they
perform lots of tests, blooddraw tests, and they're they're
just when I brought my sonthere, it was crazy.
Like he's gotten all these shotsand all these vaccinations and
things like that, and he wouldcry.
Like all of my kids cry whenthey get shots, like every kid,
I think.
(03:22):
But when he got the blood draw,there was like no crying
whatsoever.
He didn't even like seem tonotice it.
And so I said, I really don'tthink it's gonna be this big of
a big of a deal, Jess.
Like, if you had been there withhim, you would know like it was
really not painful.
And she was just like, our kidsare not the same.
And I was like, you know what?
You're right, our kids are notthe same.
And I shouldn't, I shouldn'tassume that it's going to be as
(03:43):
easy or as painless for for heras it was for him.
And so I was kind of freakingout about it too.
Like I was starting to get in myown head about it.
And then we got there, and thethe doctor hadn't put the orders
in right, so then we had to waitfor the doctor's office to open
so that they could get send theorders over.
I got my air and my tires filledup with my daughter.
We like drove over and got theair and the tires filled up, and
(04:03):
it was just like this terriblemorning of anxiety and panic.
And finally, when we get back towaiting room two or to to blood
draw room two, I saw that it wasthe exact same, like, I don't
know how old she is, maybe inher 50s or 40, late 40s, early
50s, uh Filipino nurse who, or Idon't even know if she's a
(04:26):
nurse, maybe she's aphlebotomist, maybe she's just a
PCT or not just a PC BCT, maybeshe's a PCT or patient care
technician.
I don't know what her job is,but it was the same person who
did the blood draw on my son.
And I said, You know, you didthis for my son, and it was
totally painless.
Can you do that again?
And she kind of laughed and shesaid, Well, yeah, for some kids
they don't cry, some kids theycry, like it just kind of
(04:46):
depends.
And then, guys, she did it, andmy daughter didn't even react.
And the whole time I was justbuilding up all this anxiety
about, like, oh my gosh, is mykid gonna be screaming?
Are they gonna be like, Am Igonna be having to hold this
child down while she has thislike medical procedure?
Like without my wife there, isthis gonna be like so, so
(05:08):
horrible?
And then it just wasn't like itwas just really not nearly as
bad as I thought it was gonnabe.
And just kind of goes to showyou with a lot of the questions
that I'm gonna be answeringtonight, and I said it's not
related, it's kind of related.
With a lot of the questions I'mgonna be answering tonight, one
of the main things that we'redealing with, and this is just a
(05:29):
parenting thing in general, isour expectations of something
versus and the anxiety thatcomes from us worrying about
something versus actually thatthing occurring.
And so as I jump into thequestions, I want to just talk
about the fact that number one,our kids experience that anxiety
too.
They experience that anxietywhen it comes to trying new
(05:50):
things and doing things thatthey haven't done before, which
is what this episode's about.
But also we experience thatanxiety because we are parents
for the first time.
And we don't know that, youknow, if our oldest kid doesn't
try this thing or if they quiteasily, or if they uh are really
failure averse and they won'ttry hard things, if that's just
(06:10):
gonna be forever.
And I want to tell you, assomebody who's now been doing
this and working with parentsfor a long time, but who also
has been a parent for nineyears, going on 10 years, things
change.
And the kid in my family who isthe most averse to trying new
(06:30):
things, who is the most failureaverse, who who struggled the
most early on with frustrationtolerance of all of my kids so
far, has been my oldest.
And the amount of change thatI've seen him go through and the
amount of frustration tolerancethat he's been able to build in
the last few years, especially,has been outstanding.
It's been overwhelming toexperience this and witness
(06:52):
this.
And so as I jump into thequestions, I just kind of want
to start with that and just setthe tone there.
Okay, so that's what's beengoing on in my life.
Um, maybe I'll do this sectionagain, maybe I won't, but I'm
also gonna try and answer thequestions a little bit more
quickly than I have beenanswering them in the past
because sometimes I just talkforever.
(07:12):
Okay, first question is uh anInstagram direct message, DM,
and it comes from Ashley.
And I think we might have had anAshley last night as well.
Maybe it's a different Ashley.
Maybe just everybody who wasborn in the 90s was named
Ashley.
Ashley says, John, can you talkabout kids who just like won't
(07:34):
even try at things that are evena tiny bit hard?
My daughter, parentheses seven,took look one look at her math
homework and literally laid onthe floor and said, I'm done
before she even tried.
I got frustrated and I told herthat she has to push through
sometimes, that life is gonna behard.
(07:55):
I don't know.
Did I mess that up?
She keeps saying, I'm not goodat it.
I don't know how to fix it.
(11:10):
Ashley, I don't think that youmessed that interaction up.
I think that we can tweak somethings in that interaction
because I think what yourdaughter is experiencing is a
lot of overwhelm that comes fromnot just something being new or
something being challenging, butsomething that specifically,
(11:32):
like with math homeworkespecially, is hitting on a
thing that for kids can bereally challenging and and
unique.
And so one of the things that Iall always talk about with young
kids, and seven still young, isthat kids, all kids, not just
neurodivergent kids, but we seethis a lot with neurodivergent
adults, of which I am one.
(11:53):
And I was just talking toanother parenting influencer,
and I'm gonna be on her podcastin a couple of weeks.
Uh, she is also neurodivergent.
And one of the things thatneurodivergent people struggle
with, and so I have a lot ofempathy for this, is executive
functioning.
And one of the executivefunctioning tasks that we have
to learn over time is breakingthings down into smaller steps.
And kids almost universally havea hard time with breaking big
(12:18):
challenges down into theircomposite steps.
So the first thing that I wouldsay to your daughter when she
says, I don't know, I'm just notgood at this, or I'm done,
instead of saying you have to dohard things, I would flip that.
I would say, new things arehard.
And I would, this is going to befor all of our questions, all
(12:38):
three of our questions today.
This is my mantra to my kids.
This is also the mantra that Iused when I was a soccer coach.
This is the mantra for for likelittle kids, six, seven, six,
seven, eight-year-olds,nine-year-olds.
This was the mantra that I usedwhen I was a high school and
college volleyball coach.
This is the mantra that I usewhen I uh work with people who
(12:59):
are now adults in therapeuticenvironments, who parents.
This is the mantra that I usewith literally everybody in my
life.
And that mantra is new thingsare hard.
And I'm gonna keep having forall of the questions today.
The first thing out of our mouthshould be that mantra.
When our kids are strugglingwith something that's new or
(13:22):
something that's challenging, oran even if it's something that
we think one of the things thatgets so frustrating for me and
my wife is when my nine-year-oldis struggling playing video
games, because we don't reallylike love him playing video
games in the first place, andhe's like having a hard time
playing video games, even whenit's that new things are hard,
(13:42):
gives permission to struggle.
I think this is a reallychallenging thing in the modern
world where lots of things comeeasy.
And I think this is a reallychallenging thing when we think
we put to project forward intothe use of Chat GPT or AI tools
(14:03):
or whatever to make life easier.
The use of an air fryer to makelife easier, the use of a
microwave, the use of DoorDash,the use of, you know, Amazon,
whatever to make life easier.
Life is getting increasingly, wewe are increasingly getting
permission in our world to justnot try challenging new hard
(14:28):
things.
And so I think giving kidspermission to try hard things
and say new things are hard.
If it's new, it's going to behard, guaranteed.
It's just a good way to framethat whole thing, right?
It's a good way to begin.
Just assume that it's going tobe hard if it's new.
Math homework, kind of bydefinition, is going to be hard
(14:50):
because it's new.
You wouldn't, I guess some mathhomework is probably a review,
but you know, they wouldn't begiving it to you if it wasn't
supposed to challenge you.
But oftentimes we don'texpressly state that to kids and
they don't understand.
They don't understand that likeit's supposed to be hard.
The reason that we're doing itis because it's hard.
(15:11):
And so just to say, to beginfrom the place instead of you're
going to have to do hard things,that is true.
Ashley, to everybody elselistening, from Melbourne to
Thailand to wherever, SouthAmerica, North America, Oceania,
Europe, everywhere in between,Africa, maybe there's somebody
from Africa listening.
Wherever you are in the world,new things are still hard.
(15:35):
And that reality has to besomething that we instill in our
kids because they don'tautomatically understand that.
That's something that they havenot automatically experienced.
And to us, it might just belike, well, why do you even have
to say that?
It's just so obvious.
It's new, it's hard.
No, say it explicitly.
(15:56):
And then we're going to do thesecond part of this, which is
that executive functioning piecefor you, Ashley.
And that's to break down thehard thing into its composite
steps.
So shrink the problem.
Instead of saying, Yeah, youlook at the math homework, and
this can be an experience forkids.
They look at the challenge.
And if the math homework isthree pages of problems, they
(16:18):
go, Oh my gosh, I'm never goingto be able to do all these.
So why am I even going to start?
When I wrote my book, PunishmentFree Parenting, and I knew I
had, you know, hundreds of pagesto write, and then going to cut
those pages down to fewerhundred pages so that you can
actually read it.
I knew that that mountain toclimb began with a single step.
(16:42):
But that was not automatic.
And that is not automatic forour kids.
They do not automatically knowthat you can break things down
into their composite steps.
And even if they did, they wouldstruggle with it.
And so I would say, okay, let'sstart by just doing one problem
together.
Let's just handle the firstproblem.
Okay, no, the first problem isso hard.
The first I can't even do it.
Okay, let's let's go through thewhole thing.
(17:03):
Let's find one problem that youcan do.
Let's solve one problem.
And then that's one less problemto solve.
And then we can take a break.
And when we break things downinto manageable bite-sized
things, our kids can do it somuch better.
I was talking to a friend ofmine, his name is uh Dr.
Josh.
This is many months ago.
We were talking about workingwith kids who really struggle
(17:24):
with homework.
They get really, really behind.
And one of his things is neverlet make your kid do homework
for more than like 30 minutes ata time.
So, Ashley, what we're gonna do,we're gonna say new things are
hard.
These problems are hard becausethey're new.
We're gonna work on this for 30minutes and then we're gonna
take a break.
We're breaking the problem downinto the its composites.
(17:45):
All we got to do is just make itthrough 30 more seconds or 30
more minutes of this.
And now it's 29 and now it's 28.
And we're just gonna shrink theproblem.
And when the problem getsshrunk, our kids who are smaller
feel like it's achievable.
And then over time, theyactually build the resilience
and confidence from tackling thethey tackle all the small
(18:07):
problems, they tackle all the30-minute increments and they
tackle the problems one by one,and then they look at everything
that they've accomplished andthey say, wow, I did all of this
and I'm proud of myself.
Instead of looking at all ofthat and saying, that was so
overwhelming, I can't ever dothat.
And that's the power that comesfrom shrinking the problems.
So I'm gonna move on to the nextquestion.
(18:27):
But Ashley, if you're out therelistening, thank you for sending
me this DM asking me about this,and keep listening because
everything else we're gonna sayis also gonna contribute to
that.
Okay.
Question number two comes fromJordan.
This is a TikTok DM.
I very rarely respond to myTikTok DMs, but occasionally I
(18:50):
see one come across that's aquestion.
And I'm I'm not gonna lie, uhoccasionally when I see a dude
DM me, a guy DM me, over 25% ofmy followers, or only 25% of my
followers are men.
And so whenever I see a guyasking questions about
parenting, I admit I'm a littlebit more likely to it's scroll
(19:12):
stopping for me, let's say.
I just get I'm getting all ofthese things from mostly on
TikTok.
The reason I don't respond tothe DMs is because they're all
spam.
So I'm getting all these spams,and then I see one from Jordan,
and he was like, Hey, myfive-year-old loses it the
second something's not easy.
Like we're talking full meltdownover a zipper.
I try and hype him up, and thenI'm like, bro, you didn't even
(19:35):
try.
Am I supposed to help him or amI supposed to let him figure
out?
Because I swear it feels like ifI step back, he just freaks out.
But if I step in, he freaks out.
So honestly, I'm just confused.
What do I do?
Jordan, I understand why you'reconfused.
New things are hard.
And I'm gonna guess this is yourfirst five-year-old.
(19:57):
And being a parent to afive-year-old is a new thing,
and new things are hard.
The key term that I want to talkabout here, and it's a term that
is gonna permeate through therest of the episode, is
frustration tolerance.
I talked about it in the intro.
The idea of frustrationtolerance, the well, let's just
break it down to its two pieces,right?
Frustration, we know what thatis.
Frustration is when we're tryingto do something and it's not
(20:19):
going the way that we want it togo.
It's being challenging, right?
Like pulling up a zipper.
Tolerance is what is is what webuild with as we learn to uh
adapt to that thing that we'rebecoming tolerant of, right?
So tolerance is not somethinglike you learn to love it, it's
(20:43):
you learn to tolerate it.
And when we think abouttolerance in terms of medical
tolerances, medical tolerances,like in the ED, or the ER,
rather, for those who don't havea partner who works in the
emergency department who callsit the ED, the ER, the emergency
room.
When a person comes in who is analcoholic or who has a long
(21:06):
history of drugs, or just hasred hair, that's kind of a
random genetic feature ofred-haired people, is that they
have a high tolerance to certainnarcotics, um, or sedation
methods, I think it is.
Um when somebody has a hightolerance to something, it means
that they've usually, not in allcases, but often, they've
(21:26):
consumed a lot of that substanceand their body has essentially
grown somewhat immune to it.
And so a high tolerance foralcohol is a person who can
drink alcohol without feelingthe effects of that alcohol
because they have had repeatedand you know continuous exposure
(21:47):
to it.
Give you an example from mylife.
I spent more than 10 years offof all ADHD medication.
And then I started taking itagain about a year and a half
ago.
And I didn't take it for thatlong.
I took it for a pretty shortperiod of time, but I took it
every day as you're kind ofsupposed to.
(22:09):
Or I took it five days a week.
And very quickly, because of thetype of medication, I built up a
tolerance to it.
And I either needed to up mydosage or uh stop using it or
find another alternative.
What I opted to do is only useit in very sparing circumstances
rather than using it every day.
I just use it when I have to dosomething that's really
painfully difficult for me as anADHD person, like doing my
(22:31):
taxes, for example, or cleaningthe whole house is another way
that I might use thatmedication.
But it's not, I'm not using itinappropriately.
I'm doing so under the guise ofa or under the supervision of a
doctor, but it's understandingthat I don't want to build up
that tolerance because I wantthe medication to be effective
for me at low dosages.
But if I take a lot of it, it'sgoing to build up tolerance.
Well, those are kind of negativeuh understandings of tolerance.
(22:54):
Frustration tolerance is how webuild up a tolerance to
frustration.
And what we do lack what wedon't understand with kids is
that they are not born with anyfrustration tolerance
whatsoever.
And frustration tolerance islike a muscle.
It has to be built.
You can't just, you're not bornwith it.
You're not just gonna have it.
(23:15):
And the modern world that welive in, oftentimes kids don't
have any frustration tolerancebecause as soon as they start to
display the symptoms offrustration, they start to melt
down or they start to getaggressive or they start to, you
know, feel big feelings.
Their parents intervene and handthem a device or just fix the
problem for them.
And Jordan, that's what you'refeeling.
You're like, I don't, I justgotta bail my kid out here.
(23:36):
My what I would give you theadvice.
So that the advice that I wouldgive you is look at that
frustration tolerance that thatyou're trying to build with your
child, because that's whatyou're trying to do, right?
You're trying to buildfrustration tolerance.
And I would try my absolute bestto just wait as long as possible
(24:00):
as they struggle and thenintervene before it becomes
overwhelming.
Does that make sense?
So wait as long as possible andthen intervene before it becomes
too overwhelming.
And just so you guys know, forthose listening and watching
live, I just turned off myheater because my heater heats
(24:24):
up my camera, and then my cameraoverheats, and then I lose the
video feed, which is no fun atall.
So that's the first piece ofthis, Jordan.
I would let the frustrationbuild a little bit because only
by going through thatfrustration do they build the
tolerance for it.
It's different than sync orswim, right?
(24:46):
Which is sync or swim parenting,often called 80s, 90s parenting,
is this parenting approach whereyou just say, figure it out on
your own.
You'll figure it out.
If I don't help you, they'llfigure it out.
It's literally like you, it's Icall it sink or swim because
it's those parents who wouldpush their kid in the pool and
they go, they'll learn how toswim when they get nobody to
save them.
(25:07):
What we know is that actuallythat sends kids into their auto,
their uh sympathetic nervouscycle.
It's part of their autonomicnervous cycle.
And when they get toooverwhelmed, they no longer are
experienced frustringfrustration tolerance.
They're just experiencingoverwhelm and stress.
And their stress limit is hitbefore their skill limit.
(25:30):
And so that barrier, that gapbetween the skill limit and the
stress limit, that becomes abarrier to building frustration
tolerance for kids.
Now, of course, confidence comesfrom a kid pushing through and
achieving something small winand not having their parent do
that for them.
But the only way that they getthere is by building a little
(25:50):
bit of frustration tolerance andhaving the reps to then attempt
to do that thing.
Now, I did lose my camera nomatter what, unfortunately.
So what I'm gonna do here is tryand turn it off and turn it back
on and see if it comes back.
Oh no.
(26:14):
I know that you guys canprobably still hear me.
I apologize in advance.
Give it a second, it'll comeback on.
Okay, I got it.
Give me thirty seconds, Ipromise.
(26:51):
Alright.
Let me know when you guys cansee me again.
I bet you you guys can see meright about now.
Hang on, hang on, I promise.
I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.
Okay.
(27:12):
We can hear you, we can see you.
I love it.
I love it, I love it, I love it.
Okay.
So back to where we were.
Talking about buildingfrustration tolerance.
I'm gonna have to cut all thatout of the uh thing.
Whenever I have to edit more, italways makes my job a little bit
trickier on the post.
But you know what?
(27:32):
That's okay.
So yeah, Jordan, that's that'swhat I'm focusing on.
Trying to build that gap betweenthe frust between the the place
where their skill limit is,doing a zipper as a
five-year-old is challenging,where their stress limit is,
which is where they go to thatoverwhelm place, and you know
(27:54):
where this is, you canexperience this in real time
when they are no longerexperiencing a frustration
tolerance growth.
They're not just frustrated,they're actually overwhelmed,
they're melting down.
And even if that break inbetween those times, so finding
that sweet spot before they meltdown, while they're still
struggling to let them buildsome of that resilience and that
(28:14):
frustration tolerance.
And I just heard somebody saythis the other day, and it's
really profound.
It was another parenting voice.
I'm forgetting who it was in themoment.
But they said, even if you letyour kid just sit in that
frustration tolerance or in thatfrustration for 10 seconds, it's
still 10 seconds of frustrationtolerance that they built.
So oftentimes we think of thisin terms of long-term, right?
(28:35):
Like, oh, well, they gotta befrustrated for five minutes
straight to build anyfrustration tolerance, right?
Not true.
If a kid has zero frustrationtolerance, any amount of
frustration that they experiencebefore we save them or do it for
them, or they hit totaloverwhelm if but just by you
(28:55):
know being there and saying,yeah, that is tricky.
I am here, you know, new thingsare hard.
Any amount of that does buildthat resilience.
So that's where I would frameall of that.
I think you're doing a good jobof trying to hype him up, but
you have to find that thatmiddle ground.
And it is hard.
(29:16):
And it's hard because new thingsare hard, and parenting a
five-year-old is hard becauseit's new.
So don't feel like there'sanything wrong with you, Jordan.
I my guess is if you're asking,hopping in the DMs on TikTok of
a parenting educator, you'reprobably doing a really good
job.
And everybody who's watchingthis now or listening to this
after the fact now, listening tothe podcast right now, they're
(29:37):
doing a really good job too.
And so you don't have to feellike you're just screwing up
just because your kids arehaving a hard time.
And that's the key here.
We we we we have to not want tosave our kids from every single
bad emotion.
And that's that's actually whereI'm going next with Megan.
So the last question came fromMegan.
It was sent in via email.
Although, Megan, I will say youreplied to one of my uh weekly
(30:01):
newsletters with this.
You did not send this to podcastat wholeparentacademy.com.
But I'm gonna forgive you forthat.
For those who don't know, I havea weekly newsletter that goes
out where I talk about kind ofin in these terms.
I'll often reference episodes ofthe podcast or or other things
that I'm doing at things like uhI have a workshop coming up,
free workshop that I'm doing.
Um, I have a children's bookcoming out in not too long.
(30:24):
I have obviously my book that II sell, but it's actually
majority, not sales.
The overwhelming majority of thethings my newsletter is just my
parenting takes stories about mylife as a parent.
And so if you're interested inparenting, from Megan's
perspective, you know, be likeMegan, join the newsletter.
And uh it's a great place tojust kind of hang out with
(30:45):
like-minded parents.
There's 40,000 people on the onthe newsletter who love all of
this.
And I have like a 70% email openrate because um I just I just
give I just give value in that.
I don't I don't like sellconstantly or anything like
that.
I do sell occasionally, but notconstantly.
(31:05):
So Megan said, okay, randomquestion, but does it mean
anything if my kid always quitsbefore they even start?
This is a little different thanthe other two questions, at
least as I'm interpreting it.
My husband says she's beingdramatic and that she needs to
toughen up, but my gut says thatit's not that simple.
She's nine, she's super smart,but the second that she thinks
that something is going to gowrong, she literally shuts down.
(31:28):
She literally said to me, I'drather not try to be, I'd rather
not try than be bad at it.
I don't even know what to saybecause same.
Megan, great self-awareness.
And I love that you said samebecause uh I'm gonna do
something that I almost neverdo, and I I'm gonna ask kind of
(31:50):
a clarifying question.
And if you can feel free torespond to this email or respond
to this me via email.
If you have not yet taken myquiz on whether or not you
you're you have a highlysensitive child, I would I would
start there.
I would ask the question ofwhether you have a highly
sensitive child.
(32:11):
And the reason why I would startthere and ask that question is
because what you're describingto me is actually kind of a
perfect analogy for what it islike to have or perfect example
of what it's like to have ahighly sensitive kid.
And highly sensitive kidsreally, really, really do not
like failure and they do notlike to be wrong.
(32:32):
And I do not have time in thisepisode, I'll have to go into
another whole episode on justthat um to talk about why that
is.
But because of that, oftentimeshighly sensitive kids shut down
before they even try somethingnew.
And I'm gonna give you threereally quick tips.
(32:58):
So if you have a highlysensitive kid, I would give you
three tips that would, I think,game change for you.
The first one is that you haveto let your kid watch before
they engage.
And so I don't know what exactlyyou're talking about here.
Uh, you didn't give me anexample of a time when your kid
kind of quits before they areeven trying or before they're
(33:19):
afraid of being bad at it.
But kids often who are highlysensitive, they have to watch
somebody else do somethingbefore they themselves engage in
it or want to do it or have anykind of ability to try.
They're watchers.
And that's okay.
There's nothing wrong with that.
That's a normal thingdevelopmentally for kids.
(33:40):
It's a normal thing for adults.
Not all adults want to just likedive right in and do things
right off the bat.
And so, yeah, I think thatthat's a beautiful feature, not
a failure.
And if you can findopportunities for her to watch,
it's it can be a little abnormalfor us as parents because maybe
we don't feel that way, althoughyou've said you kind of do.
(34:03):
I would just look for thoseopportunities for her to go and
be a witness first.
The second thing I would say isI would reframe failure as look,
being bad at something is not asbad as you think it is.
And I would do that by showingall of the things and being
(34:25):
willing to be a little bitvulnerable in front of your
daughter by showing her that youwill do things that you're bad
at too, and just name themoutright.
So, one of the main principlesin the book is that in my book,
Punishment Free Parenting, isthat whatever is modeled,
whatever is modeled is mirroredby our kids.
And so if we want our kids totake failure lightly, and I
(34:48):
don't mean like big failure, butbeing bad at something, new
things are hard, as we've beensaying all episode.
If we want our kids to be ableto see that and and engage in
that and be able to push throughthat, we have to show them how
to do that by doing itourselves.
We have to actually kind of bethere in it with them to show
(35:08):
them.
And then the last thing I woulddo is I would always, always,
always greet the second that shedoes try something, I would
greet that with connection.
We have to greet every strugglethat our kids have, we have to
greet it immediately withconnection.
And so if the failure comes,it's very natural for those of
(35:32):
us who grew up as like 90s kidsto pull away.
Because that's what our parentssaid when we didn't do things
well all the time.
And I don't know your story, butthat's often the story.
But actually, we want to lean inin those moments when when we
fail and when we see them failand be the soft landing place
for them.
That's ultimately our goal is tobe that soft landing place, to
(35:55):
be this home base.
And so to reframe failure aslike this time when connection
occurs.
Not that it's not this likehorrible thing that is gonna
lead to everybody abandoningyou, which is often what kids
feel, but instead that no, it'sit is a thing where I'm gonna
draw near to you, I'm gonna goclose to you when you feel like
you're failing.
And I think that this is goodadvice for all of the questions
(36:17):
that we've gone through thusfar.
I don't think that these arethat's just for only highly
sensitive kids.
I think that that can be truefor all kids.
But I think that reallyreframing things in these terms
can help.
So just to review kind of all ofthis, what we've where we've
gone.
Number one, to start with amantra that new things are hard,
that in all cases, when we trysomething new, it's going to be
(36:39):
challenging, even for grownups.
Two, we can start to shrink theproblem, try to make them
bite-sized for kids so that theycan actually do the things that
they need to do.
Three, we can allow them toengage in a degree of
frustration tolerance to buildup those muscles, knowing that
we can't save them from thisfeeling of frustration.
(37:01):
It's going to happen throughouttheir life because, and
especially because with kids,their stress limit is going to
come before their skill limit.
For adults, we get stressed whenwe have to do things
repetitively, repetitively, andrepetitively, and we keep
failing over and over.
And then we get stressed.
For kids, they might feelstressed the first time they do
something because their skillsare so underdeveloped in those
(37:22):
ways.
And then last, we need to letour kids watch before they jump
in.
That's a helpful tool.
We have to model what it lookslike to try new things and not
be great at them all the timeand show them that and tell the
story of times when we've donethings that we were not great at
and we kept trying and it wasnever great.
And I do that with my kids allthe time.
And last and not least, we needto find a way to connect with
(37:44):
our kids when they do struggleand try and fail.
And I think if we do all of thatstuff, and I know that's a lot
of different things, just pickone or two of these for anybody
listening who is a kid whostruggles with failure or
struggles to even try orstruggles with frustration
tolerance, just pick one or twoof these.
And I promise you, if you startto focus on those and break your
problem into bite-sized pieces,parenting a kid who struggles
(38:07):
with failure is new to you.
This is your first time doingthis.
And so all of the same thingsapply.
Everything that I just said, andlead with connection.
When you screw up, lead withconnection.
I didn't do well with my kidstoday.
Find a friend who can say, yeah,it's okay.
Somebody who listens to thewhole parent podcast.
So, anyway, that's what I havefor you in this episode about
failure.
(38:28):
I hope that it helps you, allthe adults who struggle with
failure, like me, as much as ithelps the parents.
And just remember, in all ofthese things, it's like the
shark music from the beginningof the episode.
The anxiety that you have aroundparenting and like the hard
things that your kids are gonnago through, those are not
necessarily going to definetheir reality.
(38:49):
And so just try and hold it alittle bit more lightly and a
little bit more loosely and knowthat you're gonna be there no
matter what.
That's what I have for you.
I hope you enjoyed this episode.
This has been the Whole ParentPodcast.
Thank you again for listening tothis episode of the Whole Parent
(39:10):
Podcast.
If you are listening to thisright now, yes, you in your car
driving somewhere on a walk withyour kids, perhaps your kids are
melting down and you'relistening to this on your
headphones with the noisecancellation turned on.
Whatever you're doing whileyou're listening, doing the
dishes at night after your kidsgo to bed, I don't know.
That would just be me if I waslistening.
(39:31):
Stop right now.
I have three quick favors to askyou.
I promise they're not going totake you very long.
The first one, very, very easy.
Go in to wherever you'relistening to this podcast and
rate it five stars.
That's one, two, three, four,five stars.
The more five star reviews thatour podcast gets as we
accumulate episodes, the morelikely it is to be pushed out to
more parents who are searchingfor parenting podcasts to solve
(39:54):
their problems.
Whatever you got out of thisepisode, whether it was
something that to try with yourkids, whether it was a new way
to think about parenting, maybethis episode was not
specifically about a problemthat you're having, but you're
somebody in your life who'shaving this problem.
Go in and rate it five stars.
And if you have an additional 30seconds, that first one only
takes you 10 seconds.
If you have an additional 30seconds, just type a few words
(40:16):
for me to read.
I'd love to read, I'd love toread the reviews.
If there's something specificthat's helped you, write it out.
It helps me to know what weshould keep doing here on the
podcast, week in and week out.
The second question that I havefor you, or request that I have
for you, favor, let's call it,is to share this episode with
somebody in your life who youthink could use it.
Uh, it might be a parent,another parent in your kid's
(40:38):
class.
It might be a sibling who hasyoung kids, maybe it's your
kid's teacher or a faith leaderin your life, whomever it is
that you think should have thisepisode of the podcast or any
episode of the podcast, send itdirectly to them.
I know it's vulnerable to sharepodcasts with people who you
might not have that close of arelationship with, or even more
vulnerable if you do have aclose relationship with them.
(41:01):
But I promise you, so many ofthe people who listen to this
podcast listened not becausethey followed me on social
media, but because they got apersonal recommendation from
somebody in their life who said,Hey, this guy has a way of
talking about parenting thatjust works for me.
You don't know if they listen toit or not, they might never
reply, but maybe, just maybe,they'll love the episode so much
that they become your newparenting partner out there in
(41:23):
the world, doing things the sameway that you are, and you might
have just made your newparenting bestie.
The last thing that you can dois definitely the biggest ask
for me, but it is to go over toSubstack.
That link is down below in thebio, and to subscribe so that
these episodes can keep comingto you.
Paid subscriptions on Substackis the only way currently that I
(41:43):
am being funded here on theWhole Parent Podcast.
That is the only money that Ireceive.
It is$5 a month.
I think that this podcast isworth the price of a coffee for
you.
If it's not worth the price of acoffee for you, obviously don't
do it.
But if you're extra cheap likeme, you can just subscribe
annually.
I know that you're gonna listenfor the rest of the year.
If you know that you're gonnalisten for the rest of the year,
(42:04):
just give me$50 up front, andthen you don't have to think
about it coming out of yourcredit card every single month.
Those are the ways that you cansupport me.
And as always, I think thatyou're a great parent already.
But I do hope this episode gaveyou something to make you a
little bit better.
Take care.
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