433. Q&A: What do I do when my child says “no” to everything?

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. Emily Upshur, it’s so good to have you here.

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:51):

Hi, always so good to be here.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:54):

Are you ready to answer a listener question?

Dr. Emily Upshur (00:57):

Let’s do it.

Dr. Sarah Bren (00:58):

Okay. So I think you’re going to like this question, Emily. This mom wrote in and she says, “Hi, I need help with how to handle when my almost five year old son tells me no. Timeouts don’t seem to work. I’ve taken away things such as his iPad. I understand he’s trying to be independent, but sometimes it’s a bit ridiculous. He especially gives me a hard time about brushing his teeth. It’s definitely not the flavor of the toothpaste or the type of brush. In fact, once he actually does it, he agrees that it wasn’t a big deal. I think it’s more a laziness factor when it comes to this. One time I finally had to pick him up, bring him to the sink and brush his teeth myself. I don’t think it should be this difficult. He’s an extremely loving and sweet boy, but he’s also extremely strong-willed. Any advice on how to handle the lovely no would be most appreciated, especially if you give steps and scripts. Thank you in advance. Pulling my hair out, mom.

Dr. Emily Upshur (01:58):

No, I feel her. Oh my gosh.

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:00):

I feel her. I feel the pulling her hair out. She’s stuck. There’s a dance going on between mom and this five year old that is leaving you pulling your hair out. I can feel it. It’s hard.

Dr. Emily Upshur (02:14):

Totally. And there’s a pull. I do like that she describes him as, I feel like I love these kids as my psychologist hat. But I think these kids often can be very loving and sweet and very challenging. And so I can see why this is really frustrating and hard for this parent because she probably sees both of those things and can’t reconcile. If you’re so loving and sweet, why don’t you just brush your teeth?

Dr. Sarah Bren (02:42):

Right. Right. And I think also because you have kids that they’re very strong willed, what ends up happening is they can get sort of stuck on things that are really arbitrary and really are not about the thing it appears. Which is why for the mom, when she’s focused on like, this is about toothbrushing, it’s like all you need to do is just brush. It’s really quite simple because it’s not actually about toothbrushing. No matter how simple the toothbrushing is, no matter how much he ends up being, oh, that wasn’t so bad. But every day we get back to the exact same thing and the learning never happened. It’s because it’s not about the toothbrush. It’s about some other dynamic. And I think what this mom is kind of picking up on and maybe isn’t quite being able to name it, which is why she’s feeling so frustrated and befuddled and like, ugh, because I think that this is about control and not about the particular things that we are needing them to cooperate about.

Dr. Emily Upshur (03:52):

Sure. Yeah. And I might say it a little different. I might say not like about control, but it’s almost like your five year old is trying to assert themselves. It’s their confidence. And we’re bumping up against parenting. They can be really assertive and really think they’re the right way. And of course we can’t give into everything as parents, but I would almost say like, yes, control from a parenting, so we understand this. But I almost want to reframe it for this kid as this kid’s not trying to control. It sounds like, I think it’s a he, yes, he. It sounds like he’s trying to assert himself. And I just don’t want the mom to lose a little bit of like, that’s still a good skill. It’s a little bit of a reframe, but it’s an important thing that we just need to harness and help this mom redirect potentially.

(04:44):

But I don’t want to stomp it out of him. You know what I mean? I want him to have that.

Dr. Sarah Bren (04:50):

Right. And I think the tricky part is when we do try to stomp it out of them, I think that’s what she’s kind of recognizing is when I start to get really authoritarian. When I really start to assert my power over you through timeouts or taking things away or doing it myself with brushing your teeth myself. Which again, I’ve done that. I’ve done all those things. But when we do it, we’re actually pressing on the exact exposed nerve that’s kind of leading to him getting stuck in these power struggles. So it’s like I’m inadvertently kind of shooting my own agenda in the foot here because my goal probably as the parent is to move you through the schedule of the day with some ease and some fluidity and to have you just kind of cooperate with my guidance.

Dr. Emily Upshur (05:45):

Totally.

Dr. Sarah Bren (05:46):

But when I have a kid who’s pretty sticky in cooperating and following my guidance because they’re feeling really stuck in the need to be the driver. And so you driving feels threatening to me. The more I drive harder, the more they resist the driving. So it’s like we are almost like pulling now in opposite directions and getting further and further and further away from one another. And I think this kid needs a little more kind of let’s come together. I’m not talking about getting him on board with toothbrushing. I don’t mean come together to cooperate. I mean come together to reset the rope pulling.

Dr. Emily Upshur (06:36):

Yes, 100%. But I also do this really rings of like Ross Green’s approach of collaborative problem solving to me, which is a little bit, and I’m sure you guys can link that in the show notes, but I think that slows it down a little to exactly your point, which is like, how can we give, again, back to my, give this kid a little bit of his great assertion. How can we give him a little buy-in without compromising on the thing that needs to happen? And that this collaborative problem solving really says like, okay, hey buddy, we have to brush teeth. It’s been really rocky. It has not been good. Okay. What would work for you? And you can throw some spaghetti on the wall as a parent because kids don’t know how to troubleshoot or sort of compromise, but you have to come up with a solution that’s mutually beneficial in collaborative problem solving.

(07:32):

Which means that you’re both compromising, but neither one of you are giving up the main sort of origin of your goal here. And I think, I know this parent’s asking for some scripts and that’s not exactly a script, but I do think that that’s an approach that could be helpful is coming together being like, “Hey, what if we brushed our teeth while we sang a song? What if we did this thing you don’t want to do? What would make doing this thing you don’t want to do a little less hard to do?”

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:02):

Yes. I agree 100% that that is a really useful approach to go head on with the toothbrushing. But before I start with that, I think that is, when you’re ready to do that, I think that’s the strategy. But before I think we’re ready to do that, I think we need to zoom out further and look at where can we fill up this kid’s independence and an assertion bucket so that when we get to the toothbrushing, he’s got some satisfaction that he’s already working with so that he doesn’t feel like another agenda that I have to just follow.

Dr. Emily Upshur (08:44):

I love that. I love the idea of what power can you give him? What decisions, what control, what assertion works in your family system that you can give this child?

Dr. Sarah Bren (08:57):

Yeah. And I think it is tricky because when you have a. Again, we have to go back to this like, I want to validate this parent. When you have a kid who’s really strong willed, one, what they get stuck on can be completely unpredictable. So you might not know when you’re going to get that resistance or that defiance that gets woken up in them. There are patterns. Obviously some mom’s picking up toothbrushing is a particularly sticky one. But my guess is it happens arbitrarily, unpredictably throughout the day too. So I just want to validate that this is. We’re asking you to do a lot of front loading work when you’re probably pretty burnt out because this is probably a kid who’s tough to get through the day. So you’re probably running on kind of your last straw, like pulling your hair out.

(09:48):

There’s low bandwidth here from the parenting side. And probably also from the kids side because there’s probably just a lot. You guys are probably really sick of this, both of you. Yeah. Here we are again. The rope. It’s being pulled. I’m exhausted. I think a reset can be really powerful. Okay. I’m going to actually be willing to do a low demand week. Now that doesn’t mean a no demand week. It means I’m going to pick my battles. I think both of your systems need a reset and a reboot and a refueling where there’s like we’re really. And again, I know this is front loading the work, but trust me when I say the goal of front loading the work isn’t to do more work forever. It’s to do more work in the readiness, like getting ready for this stuff and then slowly pulling back the amount of work because you’re doing less work because if we can get out of these power struggles, that’s where all of your energy is getting drained right now.

(10:50):

So a little bit of it is like first things first. I think we need to have a little bit more wants nothing time, just like letting him lead in low stake situations, doing some repair around like, “Hey, it’s been tricky.” Naming it. You and I, we’ve been kind of butting heads a lot lately. I think we’ve just been kind of pushing each other’s buttons or whatever language you guys use that feels authentic to the two of you, but just name it. It’s been real tricky lately. And we’ve been fighting a lot about stuff that I don’t even think either of us care that much about. When really, I think we just want to hang out and do stuff that feels good together. We both love each other. We both want to have a good time. So go find some opportunities to work on creating more space for that because one, I think you both just need to fill each other’s positivity buckets up a little bit.

(11:45):

Then I think we need to look for sort of some strategic places where we could give this kid some more space to make decisions, to drive the car, to have autonomy and independence that don’t interfere with the flow of tasks that have to get done. Moving them through the schedule of the day. And then once you’ve kind of filled that bucket up a little bit, now is when I would say, “All right, you know what? Let’s tackle toothbrushing. It’s been really tricky. Where can we make this better? What do you need?” And really let him answer. What do you need? And it might be, “I need to not brush my teeth.” And be like, “Huh, okay. Tell me a little more. Why?” Because it’s whatever. Who knows? But allow him to vent. Allow him to say all the things that are ridiculous. Allow him to say all the things that don’t make sense, that are not logical, that are practical. Let him have it out and validate that that’s the wish. Yeah. I could see why you would want to be able to go three days without ever having to brush your teeth. It’s a pain in the butt. But plus it probably doesn’t help that we usually fight about it.

(12:56):

So validate his position and then say like, “But since we do have to, what do you need from me to make it better? Or what do you need to make it a little easier?” And just see if you can come up with some ideas and you can then throw in your ideas, like Emily was saying. Offer some suggestions like, “What if we did a dance party while we brushed our teeth? Or what if we did do some?” And this is where I think you can use some very short term sort of reward chart kind of scaffolding. I don’t like sticker charts for things that are long term, but when we’re trying to practice habit building that’s inside of the zone of capacity for a child and we’re just trying to give them some type of external motivator to orient and organize this practicing of a behavior that they’re able to do, but it’s just kind of not particularly interesting to them, then I think using a sticker chart can be good.

(13:57):

But I think it needs to be, we have realistic expectation that it has a shelf life of about a week to two weeks. It loses its oomph soon. But it’s just something to kind of like jumpstart the engine. And those are some things I think I would maybe try with it specifically around the toothbrush and stuff. But I would do that after I’ve spent a little time with like resetting.

Dr. Emily Upshur (14:28):

Yeah. I think I’m just trying to creatively think too. I think that reset can also be a little bit in your day to day life. I always say this to parents. It doesn’t have to be this separate, okay, the world stops and we have this conversation. I do think that there’s a really nice way of, as a parent, checking yourself. Do I need to fight this fight right now? Taking the temperature down a little bit throughout your day can help with that reset as well.

Dr. Sarah Bren (15:00):

Yeah. And I think this mom is saying, I don’t think it should be this difficult. And I don’t blame you for thinking. It doesn’t feel logical that it’s this difficult. And so then we try to make sense of it by creating a story that may or may not be accurate. I don’t know that this is laziness. I think this might be more about this has become so much bigger because it’s like inflamed. It’s like inflammation. It starts to take on a life of its own. And so I just want to really validate that it is feeling difficult. It doesn’t feel like it should feel this difficult, but it is and that’s okay. You guys can get to a place where it doesn’t feel this difficult and it might take a lot of front loading the work. And that’s hard to hear if you’re exhausted as a parent and you have a kid who’s tough sometimes to move through.

Dr. Emily Upshur (16:09):

Yeah. And I would definitely say it’s also hard to see outside of it. So this is where I would talk to other people, listen to the podcast, maybe do a consultation with a mental health professional or a psychologist or a parenting person. Because I think when you’re mired in all of the day to day of these micro interactions, it’s really hard to zoom out and do that bigger reset that you’re talking about or calm the system down, reduce the inflammation. And I think sometimes having somebody come from the outside and have a fresh perspective can help a lot with that as well.

Dr. Sarah Bren (16:42):

Yeah. And it’s so funny, I always forget to talk about this, but I have a parenting course that like, it’s like a downloadable parenting course called Parenting by Design that actually really is for parents of these really strong-willed, big feelings, big behaviors, kids. And so I’ll link that in the show notes just in case that’s of any interest. You can just watch the videos. You can just watch the videos on your own time, but it kind of goes through a lot of what I would do in a parenting support work with a family. And a lot of my parenting support work is for parents of these strong-willed children that are tough. I know.

Dr. Emily Upshur (17:34):

They are.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:36):

So I’ll link that in the show notes in case that’s of interest. On my website, there’s a free class, a free workshop on power struggles. That also might be really helpful. So I’ll link both of those in the show notes in case that’s helpful to you or to anyone else who’s listening who can resonate with this mom who’s pulling on her hair.

Dr. Emily Upshur (17:58):

I feel you.

Dr. Sarah Bren (17:58):

I feel you.

Dr. Emily Upshur (18:00):

Good

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:00):

Luck with you. I hope this is helpful. You got this. All right. Keep sending us in your questions guys. It’s so wonderful to hear. Even when it’s tough stuff, it’s really wonderful to hear from you and to be able to give you some hopefully useful strategies and also some validation. All right, we’ll talk to you all soon.

Dr. Emily Upshur (18:24):

Bye.

Dr. Sarah Bren (18:26):

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.