275. Q&A: How can I help my child learn to be patient when she wants my attention immediately?

Beyond the Sessions is answering YOUR parenting questions! In this episode, Dr. Rebecca Hershberg and I talk about…

  • What is developmentally typical for 2-year-olds when it comes to manners and patience?
  • Understanding impulse control, joint attention, and attunement – and how to use these 3 things to help you know how to respond to your child when they are demanding your attention.
  • When to pause to validate your child’s desire, and when it’s okay to ignore their request.
  • How to help your child tolerate waiting (no matter how big their reaction is to being told they need to wait.)
  • How to collaboratively problem solve with your child to come up with strategies around what they CAN do to interrupt you when they need your attention. 

LEARN MORE ABOUT US:

ADDITIONAL PODCAST EPISODES YOU MAY LIKE:

🎧 Listen to my podcast episode about parenting a toddler with the co-authors of the Terrific Toddlers series, Carol Zeavin and Rhona Silverbush

🎧 Listen to my podcast episode about responding to your child who loses their cool when they get frustrated

🎧 Listen to my podcast episode about appropriate consequences when your child doesn’t listen to you

🎧 Listen to my podcast about how to keep your child from becoming a spoiled brat

Click here to read the full transcript

Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello everyone. Welcome back to Beyond the Sessions segment of the Securely Attached podcast where we answer your listener questions. Today we have Dr. Rebecca Hershberg here to share her wisdom.

Dr. Rebecca (00:56):

Hello, always so great to be here.

Dr. Sarah (00:59):

I know. I’m glad to see you. All right, so I have a question about manners. You ready?

Dr. Rebecca (01:07):

I am ready. Manners. Oh my goodness.

Dr. Sarah (01:10):

Yay. All right, so this mom writes in. Hello, I am loving the podcast and never miss an episode. I’d love to get your take on what are the developmentally appropriate expectations to have around manners for two year olds. For example, the other night, I’m talking to my husband about dinner plans, but my daughter wants to show me her toy, whatever right now, how do I both affirm her and also start to teach her that the world doesn’t revolve around her, even though my world basically does? And Abby, from an attunement perspective, but also not wanting to raise a spoiled brat perspective, who I feel I love this mom. Honesty. I love her. I know I love her. I Abby love her.

Dr. Rebecca (01:54):

Will you come be our friend manners for two year olds? I mean, can we answer by just being my to be fair, really.

Dr. Sarah (02:02):

I said it and I’ll say it again. It was in quotes. She wrote the manner quotes, so I think she understands and she’s saying, what are developmental and we love her and we’re going to give, because yes, I think if this question were presented in a slightly more desperate manner, I would’ve said, well, let’s just reset the expectations. I think this mom understands that a two year old’s not going to really have manners at this point, but I think she’s trying to…

Dr. Rebecca (02:30):

Understand how to handle that situation. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (02:33):

Put her on a path.

Dr. Rebecca (02:34):

Yeah, then that’s a good way to put it, Sarah. Put her on a path. So there’s a gazillion podcast episodes I feel like where we talk about brain development. So I don’t know if we have to do it here, but it is 100% developmentally appropriate that this little girl wants what she wants and wants it. Now, that is absolutely where two year olds are. They can’t take other people’s perspectives. They can’t understand that there would be such a thing as someone’s world not revolving around her because that egocentrism is where two year olds are. It’s the same reason why they get so upset if they go to a supermarket and they can’t get a piece of candy. It’s like, but why would the candy even be here if it wasn’t for me? I mean, you understand the candy is here because I have arrived and the candy disappears when I leave. And so I think just as many times as we’ve talked about it, a reminder of that is always useful.

Dr. Sarah (03:34):

Adding to the developmental piece though is huge. The other thing is impulse control and inhibiting it. If I have something to tell you, there is no way it isn’t going to just pour right out of my mouth even though I see you talking to somebody else because I just have no breaks When I have an idea in my head that I need to execute on, there’s no break. There are no breaks in this situation.

Dr. Rebecca (04:02):

And when I feel so connected to you that I need you to know the thing that I’m so excited about, I mean, she’s talking about a scenario of joint attention, right? Joint attention is when your child is paying attention to something and wants you to join them in paying attention to the same thing, and it’s one of the biggest signs of attachment or connectivity or attunement. And so it’s like you want me to know how incredibly exciting this toy is, and for me to go one more second without you also knowing I can’t tolerate that for just one. I can’t be by myself in this incredibly big feeling. So all of it is I think not only appropriate, but healthy and on target.

Dr. Sarah (04:44):

And frustrating.

Dr. Rebecca (04:46):

And really annoying. Yes, so I think the best, I think absolutely having all these expectations in mind, and I think you said it perfectly before, is how do we put her on a path, which in my opinion, and I’m curious to hear what you say would be in this moment, pausing your conversation for a moment and looking into her and saying, I am talking to Daddy. It’s so hard to wait. I will be with you very soon. And then maybe squeezing, holding her hand and squeezing her hand while she’s waiting, finishing your conversation with dad. Frankly on principle, you’re not going to get that far. Finish it with a sentence or two just to kind of make your point and to start coaching her experientially on what it feels like to have to wait maybe just a couple more seconds. The other thing that happens with situations like this is that sometimes you end up not being able to do it so perfectly because actually the thing can’t wait.

(05:50):

A conversation with daddy might be able to wait an emergency phone call about an older sibling. You end up saying, I’m on the phone, I’m on the phone, I’m on the phone, I’m on the phone. I’m on the phone, or whatever it is, and giving her this and some candy and whatever else. She needs to wait because you actually have to, you’re triaging. Exactly, and that’s totally fine. But I think in an ideal scenario, what I would do is again, pause my conversation in that exact moment because otherwise she’s just going to escalate and escalate and say, I hear you. I am talking to daddy. I will be there very soon. Turn back. I think this mom said daddy, right? I didn’t make this up.

Dr. Sarah (06:31):

Yeah. I’m talking to my husband about dinner plans with my daughter or dinner plans.

Dr. Rebecca (06:35):

And then turn back to daddy while I’m holding my kid’s hand or while I’m still sort of making eye contact or something to let her know that I’m connected and I see her and I’m aware that this is a thing, and then turn back to her and say something like, okay, I’m done. That was hard to wait. Tell me what’s going on and resume there. That’s how I see it. I’m curious.

Dr. Sarah (06:55):

I love that I’m all in. I also think there’s a little bit of, I think that’s a lovely, that would be the perfect scenario, and I see it not working for any number of reasons in the moment. I think if your kid does escalate and can’t even tolerate the one more sentence after I’ve acknowledged you, given you the prompt to wait, and then I turn back to my husband to finish the sentence and they just lose it, which I think could happen depending on how much bandwidth that kid has end of day, whatever they’re holding in that moment. But I still don’t think that that’s still the strategy I’d go with. I just want to name. They might not follow that plan gracefully.

Dr. Rebecca (07:45):

Well, and that’s why I’m talking about turning back to it might be that turning back to dad means, so Alyssa really wants to tell me something. I really want to keep talking about dinner. Let me just hear what Alyssa has to say first. Right? So it may mean that that’s, or it may mean, okay, so we decided on pasta for dinner for the other thing. I’ll come back to you and then your kid has lost it, but they’ve lost it for 10 seconds. The other thing you can do with a 2-year-old, I was just thinking because two year olds are still little is you can pick them up you so you can pick them up and say, Ooh, I’m going to pick you up and hold you while I keep talking to daddy. So your two year old’s getting something from you.

Dr. Sarah (08:26):

That’s so funny because in my mind I was actually picturing the opposite, the same but opposite, which was crouch down, like get down on their level while you’re having a conversation with your husband, just so that there is, because his mom was saying…

Dr. Rebecca (08:42):

I love it. I love tha we had the exact same instinct. We just chose two different physical positions.

Dr. Sarah (08:46):

Different heights. Because this mom is saying, she’s like, how do I affirm her? And I’m thinking about that from an attunement perspective, but also not wanting to raise a spoiled bra perspective. So from the attunement perspective, what we’re really talking about here is stretching a small but consistent stretch of distress tolerance muscles, and it just needs to be a stretch. It doesn’t need to be a massive exercise in distress tolerance, but can I stretch you and how much I can stretch? You might be based on, again, what I know about the moment or where my kid’s at long in general, but my kid might normally be able to tolerate a one second, five second, ten second stretch, but in this moment there’s just no stretching. My kid might consistently really max out at a three second stretch and whatever it is, but know your kid. But we’re thinking about distress tolerance stretches right now, and that is how you are putting a kid on a path to build longer term distress tolerance. And along with that distress tolerance perspective, taking theory of mind, that’s not going to happen for a while.

Dr. Rebecca (10:03):

And that comes way before. I mean, I know that this mom, our new best friend put manners in quotes, but just to highlight this child is way too young not only to have manners, but also to try to explain the quote rudeness of it. So this is not an age that you’re going to say when I’m talking to dad, it’s really not polite to butt in and say, or can’t you tell that I’m talking to someone and it’s rude to interrupt. Those may be appropriate for as kids get older, but that whole notion is not what you’re going for here. You’re going for a much more basic skill, which is can I stretch your impulse control for just a moment? Can I stress your ability to tolerate the distress of having to wait for just a moment?

Dr. Sarah (10:52):

Yeah, because being able to wait is a precursor to things that are more complex like manners and thinking about the other person’s needs. So yes, and to the point we were making earlier, Rebecca, which was getting down on their level or picking them up, there’s that, I can stretch you. I’m making you weight while I can physiologically or interpersonally or relationally attune to you, I can acknowledge your need and I can physically soothe you as you wait because it’s hard to wait. And then I return to the conversation, do that stretch basically. This isn’t really about getting your need met and finishing your conversation unfortunately, and again, that’s because you’ve determined in this moment that I can pause this and use it as a teaching moment to tolerate support my kid in just having that distress tolerance stretch to build that muscle because we know there’s going to be, like you said, Rebecca, a lot of other times where we are not going to gently stretch them. They’re going to have to wait because something else is just bigger. I can’t get off the phone with my kids’ school right now, my bigger kids’ school, or I can’t. You walked into my office when I’m finishing up a Zoom call with work, I can’t stop right now.

Dr. Rebecca (12:24):

I’m taking spaghetti off the stove and I’m a bot of boiling water and you want to show me your toy. That might be a time that I’m like, not right now, and it’s out of safety. Don’t you dare come near this hot boiling pot. Life is going to throw all kinds of scenarios at you where your child’s going to have to learn to stretch and put context clues together and so on and so forth. Again, this would be the ideal. Everything is going smoothly and I’m having a blase conversation and I really can focus in on teaching a skill moment.

Dr. Sarah (12:58):

The one other piece I would add to this parent’s question of I don’t want to raise a spoiled brat. I want to teach her age appropriate manners is in addition to these moments where I’ve decided I have the bandwidth and the situation allows for me to work on stretching her distress tolerance a little bit with a lot of emotional support and attunement that outside of these moments is also a great time to build these skills. And so that’s what I like to sometimes tell my kid or a younger kid or definitely an older kid like, Hey, when I’m talking to somebody and you want to get my attention, here’s something you can do. You can put your hand on my arm. You can tug on my sleeve. You can say, excuse me, you can squeeze my finger. There’s a couple things that I can just give you in a totally calm, connected, not heat of the moment, moment, not when their urgency is activated and they want your attention. That’s not the time to teach them these skills.

(14:04):

You can remind them of these skills if you’ve already preloaded it, but I think sometimes giving them some strategies for more effectively asking for your attention or more appropriately interrupting when you’re having a conversation like those are also things you can are, there’s more space to teach that stuff in the cold moments, and you can even use that play as a way to do that. You can play this out with stuffies or if this stuffy is talking to this stuffy and this stuffy wants to come in and it’s so important, please listen to me. What can we have them do? You can play it out. So there’s a lot of space outside of the frustrated moment to some of these skills as well.

Dr. Rebecca (14:54):

Absolutely. I agree with all of that.

Dr. Sarah (14:57):

But yeah, I’m so glad that you wrote in and that you love the podcast and don’t miss an episode like, yay.

Dr. Rebecca (15:05):

Yay.

Dr. Sarah (15:06):

I’m excited to answer your question, so good luck. You’re doing great.

Dr. Rebecca (15:11):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (15:11):

And we’ll talk soon.

(15:14):Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.

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And I’m so glad you’re here!

I’m a licensed clinical psychologist and mom of two.

I love helping parents understand the building blocks of child development and how secure relationships form and thrive. Because when parents find their inner confidence, they can respond to any parenting problem that comes along and raise kids who are healthy, resilient, and kind.

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