431. Q&A: Is my 3-year-old being rude or just acting their age?

Dr. Sarah Bren (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. Welcome back to the Beyond the Sessions segment of the Securely Attached Podcast. I have Dr. Emily Upshur, Dr. Rebecca Hershberg. So lovely to see you guys. How are you?

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (00:55):

Well, it’s great to see you too.

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:57):

Hi.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:58):

Hi. So I have a question from a listener. She’s a three and a half year old and this is what she wrote in. Hi, my three and a half year old has recently started talking back in ways that sound rude, but I honestly don’t think he means to be rude. It feels more like he gets frustrated in the moment when someone doesn’t understand what he’s trying to say and he reacts impulsively. For example, he might say, Hello, no way, or you don’t get it. Or if I’m in the middle of something and he needs me, he’ll say, “Mom, stop making yourself lunch. I need a drink or I need a snack.” The thing is, I really don’t think he realizes that the way he’s speaking can come across as unkind. To him, it seems very matter of fact and practical, almost like he’s just urgently communicating what he needs without understanding the social side of it yet. Does that make sense? If so, how and where do you start with discussions about manners, asking nicely, et cetera, with this age?

Dr. Emily Upshur (01:58):

Was that mean?

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:00):

What?

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:00):

I’m like, wow, that kid’s pretty nice.

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (02:04):

I have that too. I’m like, she should come to my house where that maybe just a grunt and a pointing at the middle of whatever. Food. But that’s a good place to start. I mean, I think if you and I both had that reaction just to spell that out, I think we can start there with some reassurance to this parent who’s clearly so tuned in. And of course I want to answer her question, which is a really good one. But first I’ll just say two out of three people here, the first thing we though was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s nothing.” Which means that clearly I don’t even hear the unkindness. I only hear the he’s trying to communicate his needs because I think at three years old, that’s what that looks like. And so it’s completely developmentally typical and apropriate I think for him to be speaking in these ways. And then the second question becomes when do we start teaching the other stuff, which we can get to, but it looks like you may have something about it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (03:01):

And I think it’s also true. Two things. One, people have different thresholds for which they feel like, “Oof, that was felt rude or that felt unkind.” And there’s that sort of personal piece of it. But also you guys, I think all three of us have kids that say things that are far ruder, but they’re also much older. So it’s like you also get a bit desensitized to the rage that comes from your kiddos as they get older. Because I remember when my oldest was three and a half and I had no real exposure to the vitriol that can come with older kids, it’s like when they would say… I remember the first time my kids swore and I was like, “Whoa.” Not like, “Whoa, I’m appalled,” but just like, “Whoa, you just passed that threshold. Okay.” You know what I mean? I think there’s that beautiful innocence that lives with parenting very little kids and what they’re exposed to and therefore reflect back in their language so innocent.

(04:12):

And so it’s like even there, that informs your threshold for what you think of as like, “Whoa, I am shocked this came out of my kid’s mouth.” I think your threshold gets higher and higher and higher as your kid gets exposed to more and more and more things and they bring it home.

Dr. Emily Upshur (04:32):

I would also say, I don’t know if it’s an and/or. I think if this parent’s threshold is what they’re describing, they can model how they want it to sound now without being punitive. They can say, “Oh, how about we ask this way?” It’s sort of like please and thank yous. I think you’re going to have to iterate that a lot of times how you might want something said before it spontaneously comes out of your child’s mouth. You’re going to have to really reinforce and sort of model and again, as non-punitively as you can with as much sort of levity and sort of less investment and labeling it like a negative thing as you can just to iterate the lesson over and over.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:21):

Yeah. And I think she says something here that to me feels really on the nose. She’s like, “I don’t think he realizes that the way he’s speaking can come across as unkind. And to him, it seems very matter of fact and practical. Almost like he’s just urgently communicating what he needs without understanding the social side of it yet.” And then she asks, “Does that make sense?” I’m like, “That makes 100% sense.”

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (05:41):

That’s the rhing.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:44):

That’s the thing. And that’s the most, just to reflect back to this mom, what you did in that moment when you wrote that sentence is reflective functioning. Yo basically were able to say, “I can recognize I have a reaction based off of what meaning I ascribe to what he says. And I could separate that out, put it over here, and then just look at very objectively what’s his internal experience. What’s driving his verbalizing this in this way?” And her ability to imagine for him, it’s actually this very developmentally informed concreteness and lack of theory of mind, lack of holding the recipient in mind. I’m not really at three and a half holding mom in mind when I say, “I need a snack. Get it for me. I’m just expressing this urgent need because… ” And that’s the limits of my theory of mind or imagining the other person’s.

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (06:44):

Yeah. And that comes up all the time with clients in the other direction. When parents will ask their kids to do something and the kids will say no. And again, it’s sort of a parent saying like, that’s so rude. It’s like, no, they’re actually answering your question because you phrased it as a question.

Dr. Emily Upshur (07:00):

I was going to say, I think it really depends on, right? I’m always like, talk to me a little bit about how you made that request. Was it a request or was it a command?

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (07:13):

Right. And this idea of giving commands to kids strikes us as well socialized adults of like, give commands. What are you kidding? I don’t want to give commands. I talk to people. But if a kid is really concrete in their developmental stage, a command is going to be much more effective than a well oiled question that sort of implies… You would never say to a college, “Put what you owe me on my desk.” You’d say, “Hey, do me a favor and can you please put it on my desk?” But if that’s a kid, they might respond like, “No,” which is obviously completely the wrong answer for your colleagues. So again, taking into account developmental stages which this mom has done, as you said, Sarah, so beautifully. How that language would come across if it was another adult is a totally different question. This child is at a stage where, yeah, it’s just about his needs and about phrasing his needs in the most practical, quick, effective way possible. And that is just to declare his experience. I’m hungry. I need a snack. Get it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:19):

Yeah. And that doesn’t mean just because you have a developmentally informed understanding of what’s driving that communication. Well, one, having a developmentally informed read on it helps us to not take it personally because then we don’t project onto it something it doesn’t mean rudeness or disrespect. That’s an adult assigned meaning to that subjective. So one, that just helps us have a more neutral response because we’re not feeling personally attacked by it. But also it doesn’t mean that if we understand it, we don’t have to correct it or we’re not allowed to correct it. You don’t have to correct it. You could also just say like, “Okay, I dismissed this worry that I have that he’s going to be rude.” Or you could use it as a teachable moment if they have the bandwidth. Because remember, if the reason that the child is articulating something very, very directly and urgently could be because they’re also getting a little distressed or dysregulated, which is not the best time for a teachable moment.

(09:34):

You could circle back later and say like, “Hey, earlier today in the kitchen when I was on the phone and you were kind of yelling at me to get you a snack, I think you were just really hungry and maybe you didn’t think about, Hey, what’s mommy doing on the phone? Or maybe this is important or I know she’ll get to me eventually. So you’re just trying to help build that reflective functioning in them at a later time when they’re…

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (10:00):

That feels advanced to me for a three and a half year old. But that implies theory of… I sort of go back to what Emily said earlier when this mom says in the question, if so, where and how do you start with discussions about manners asking nicely with this age? I think you start it from age baby and you’re modeling how you ask for things and how you say things. And in the moment, if you’re on the phone, obviously you’re not going to do it, but in the moment if you’re there and your kid says, “I need a stack, get it. ” You can say, “I’d love to. How about we ask like this? ” That sort of thing. I don’t think with a three and a half year old going back and asking them to take perspective on what you were doing two hours ago. It just to me feels a little advanced, but perfect for a five or six year old.

Dr. Sarah Bren (10:59):

Yeah.

Dr. Emily Upshur (11:01):

I also think it’s like any child, or I mean my 15 year old child, closer to the time of the thing, the indiscretion, whatever it is, the more I can model. I like to do it with like optimism. I think what you meant is can I please have a sandwich mom? And then it gives it again a little bit of, yep, that’s what I meant, mom. Yep. That’s totally what I meant.

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (11:29):

That’s so funny. I do the exact same thing. I repeat it as if I’m them. My kid will be like, “Get me a snack.” I’ll be like, “Hey mom, would you do me a favor and get me a snack even though you’re busy and I’ve had such a hard day? Oh my gosh, sweetie. I would love to. Thank you for asking in such a nice way.” I’ll do the whole monologue. You’re doing the mental inflation. It brings humor to it. It brings playfulness to it. But also because we always talk on this podcast about how timing is so important and typically we say the opposite. Typically we say like, if your kid is dysregulated, don’t talk about it in the moment. And I think that’s absolutely true, but if it’s not a question of dysregulation, if it’s just a question of them without thinking about it or not being at a stage where they can think about it, just sort of being rude or short or obnoxious, that is an example of something that I think is best adressed very concretely in the moment versus later.

Dr. Sarah Bren (12:23):

I think that’s a very important distinction. You kind of have to read your kid. Are they getting mad at you or talking rudely because they’re starting to lose it? In which case, because I have a kid who when I do something playful, I’ll do exactly that and say like, “Oh, I think what you meant to say was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” One of them would maybe kind of laugh and say, “Oh yeah, that’s right. I forgot.” Another one would be 10X, whatever they were feeling. I like gasolined. I just poured gasoline on them. So you have to know your kid, you have to know how much they can take of the playfulness when they’re riding that edge of irritability.

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (13:11):

Well, you have to do iceberg, right? Is this a moment that I want to address the surface or is this a moment that I want to address the deeper? If it’s just surface and it doesn’t seem like there’s anything deeper there, that’s a great chance to correct the surface. If they’re saying something much worse than in this mom’s question, if they’re saying curse words or shut up or I hate you or things that I would actually take much more offense to, but there’s a deeper there. I don’t touch the surface stuff at all. I’m just like, wow, you are so mad. Let’s talk later, whatever it is. Yeah, it’s all about…

Dr. Emily Upshur (13:46):

I love that distinction. I think that’s so important, Rebecca. I’m reading this parent’s question as more like the top of the iceberg. A little bit like we can just handle this situation of whatever is peaking above. And I’m not reading that there’s a lot below. But if you think, Sarah, if you think that’ll pour gasoline on the below, then we have to approach it more gingerly. But I think a lot of this with, if we’re talking about manners and asking and commands, I think a lot of it done right in the moment is probably your best bet.

Dr. Sarah Bren (14:24):

Yeah. Yeah. I’m reading the part where she’s saying he sometimes gets frustrated when people don’t understand what he’s trying to say. And he’s saying like, “No, you don’t get it. ” That to me is like, “Ooh, okay. We’re riding an edge there.” Because that feeling of frustration, I think for me, I go more towards let’s co-regulate, not teach manners there. I’m not understanding. Okay, that’s frustrating. And just trying to go to a more down-regulated place and you could circle back to manners. I don’t even know if I would. I would maybe think about circling back, just sprinkling in manner modeling at a later time that has nothing to do with this moment. If it’s more like, “Hey, I’m hungry. Give me a snack now.” Then I would say to all… Yes. I would say, “Oh, I wonder if there’s another way you’d want to say that to me.

(15:24):

“Or model it in advance or model it right there like, “Oh, I think what you meant to say was, Mom, could I please get a snack?” And then I also think there’s something… There’s like the during. During the moment, you can either respond with teaching something or addressing the deeper issue of what’s really responding to the frustration. Then there’s the after where it’s like we could circle back and try to teach something that didn’t go well and replay it and try to get it a little bit better in a collaborative way. But then there’s before the next time. And that’s where I think there’s so much value in just what you were talking about earlier, both of you. When we model how to talk to our kids with respect, how to just teach manners, practice saying things, not as a correction to something that wasn’t done to our standards, but just as a, this is how we live our life, we’re practicing these things all the time. I think those are the best times to teach things like manners and how to ask nicely for things. How to slow down and notice someone’s doing something before you jump in with a question. Those are skills that you have to kind of practice all the time in little ways, not so much always as like, “Oh, I’m correcting this error, but we’re just going to practice this by modeling it in life.”

Dr. Emily Upshur (16:59):

Yeah. I think we’ve given this parent a lot to think about, but I think they’re already off to a great start. I’m really happy with their thinking about what’s going on for their kid. And I think if you stick there, you can do some of the tips we said and you’re going to be off to a good running there.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:19):

Yeah. Well, thank you guys. This was really fun.

Dr. Rebecca Hershberg (17:24):

As always.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:27):

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.