Never miss an episode! 

Welcome, or welcome back to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm very glad you're here. This podcast is an opportunity for me to share what I've learned over the 40-something years I've worked with families as a teacher and educator, and a parent coach, and a psychotherapist, all of it rolled into a collection of ideas and strategies and guidance and inspiration delivered to you here on this podcast.

You'll see so many great episodes with people like Dr. Dan Siegel, and Julie Lythcott-Haims, Lenore Skenazy, Eliza Pressman, Ramani Durvasula, Tracy Gillette, Judith Orloff. We cover everything related to parenting, so you've landed. I'm glad you're here. Look around, and of course, visit susanstiffelman.com if you want to know more about my work or get our free newsletter and be apprised of the events and opportunities for going deeper in Parenting Without Power Struggles. In this season, I've been exploring some of the ideas from Internal Family Systems, a wonderful model developed by Dr. Richard Schwartz that I was trained in this year, 91-hour training for therapists, and have embraced and incorporated into everything I'm teaching, and my personal life as well. This work has a beautiful, simple way of understanding the parts of us that sometimes get in the way of us being who we want to be.

I call it being the captain of the ship when it comes to parenting — calm and confident and clear and compassionate. Sometimes other parts of us take over. That lawyer that negotiates, the dictator that threatens and bribes — and through the IFS model, Internal Family Systems model, we can start to see those with some objectivity and inhabit more of that sturdy, clear, wise self that is in all of us.

So, last episode, I talked a lot about repair, what happens when we move into lawyer or dictator mode, and today I want to go a little bit deeper, which is what happens when those modes are activated — usually because our child's upset. Something isn't going the way they want. They can't have something. They're disappointed. They're frustrated. And we sometimes aren't responding in a way that serves them in the big picture. In that moment, we might explain why they can't have what they want or do what they want to do. We might give advice they haven't asked for. We might get really furious with them for even asking or pushing back against our limits.

And I'd like to suggest a different way, a way that is more in service of not just the momentary experience we're having with our kids in the moment we're struggling with, but that serves who they are growing into — the grown-up that they're going to someday be. Because if you think about the times that you've suffered a setback, something has been hard for you, or you've lost something — an opportunity, a loved one, a job, a situation that you had high hopes for. Think about times when you got through it, the times when you came out the other side. Maybe it took a while. Maybe it was really hard. But if you can think of times when you have survived something hard, it's because you had resources that you drew upon that are inside of you. When we can't get the world on the outside arranged the way we would like it to be, we can't get a relationship to work the way we want, we can't get a job to pay what we feel we're worth, we can't move to the apartment we had our heart set on, and we find that we can accommodate it, we can flex, we can adapt, and we aren't just under the bed in pain for months and months — because we have resources that we acquired and developed over the course of our lives.

And how did that start? It started when we were children. When we suffered a setback, we couldn't have something we wanted. We couldn't have the Doritos, or we couldn't stay up and watch another show. Our friend had to cancel because they got sick. All of those little micro-experiences that our kids go through are the stuff and substance that informs who they're going to be and how they're going to be navigating the world once they leave our nest, and whether they're going to be able to adjust and adapt with grace, or they're going to really struggle, have to numb themselves, get into a series of bad relationships. All of these things, of course, we can't control what happens, but we can fill our kid's backpack with as many resources as possible.

And what happens is this: our child says, like in one of the episodes previous to this, "I want pasta. I wanted pasta with butter, not this stupid stew." And if you go back and listen to that episode, or this one, there are a couple of episodes referencing that story. If we show up as the lawyer, where we're explaining why they can't have pasta every night, or the dictator that's shaming them for wanting pasta and not this beautiful stew, we've actually deprived them of a chance to just feel disappointed. And when we rush in to try and either minimize or dismiss their upset instead of just sitting with it, witnessing it, allowing it, we're conveying this message that I don't have faith in your capacity to cope with this. I don't have faith in you. I don't have confidence that you're going to be able to endure the temporary discomfort of not having pasta or staying up late to watch that show. I don't believe that you're capable of tolerating it.

It's a weird way of thinking about it, I know, but I want you to just consider that a lot of our communication with our kids, and with anyone, is not just the words we say, it's the energy we bring. And if you're rushing in to justify or defend or explain or punish or shame or shut down a child who has feelings that aren't feelings you want them to be having, you're also conveying you don't think they can tolerate it, or you can't tolerate it. And there's a cost to that. It comes from love, because we don't want our kids to suffer even a little bit. But we want to make sure that our kids get the idea that feelings can be tolerated. They're not something they have to avoid or repress or hide from.

So what they really need when they're having a feeling that's not a positive one — they're disappointed, angry, hurt, worried — is for us to be that captain of the ship, that wise self, to sit through it with them, not steer them out of it or rush them past it. The child who wants to wear her favorite shirt to school, she's decided this is what she's got to wear, and finds out it's in the wash. It's still wet, and she just can't handle it. "I'm not going to school. I hate everything. I can't believe you washed it." And you might want to say, "I only washed it as a favor to you," or, "I'm just trying to fit things in between all the other things I do for everybody that nobody appreciates," or, "You've got ten other shirts, pick another shirt." All of those things can come from our protective parts reacting to this tumultuous moment, this moment when our child's upset, because we don't like them being upset.

That instinct to justify or to rescue — let's say the rescue one would be, "Okay, look, I'll throw it in the dryer, maybe we have time," or, "I'll iron it dry." Maybe there's an exception, but in general you don't need to do that. Your child can survive wearing a different shirt and might be really upset about it. Or shaming her: "Wow, lucky you that you have other shirts. So many children don't have enough clothing to..." That's the dictator. And again, it comes from a place in us that is just so uncomfortable with their discomfort. But the captain might be putting a hand on her shoulder and saying, "Looks like you're really disappointed, and you had your heart set on wearing that shirt." And then nothing. Period. Or, as I've often said, big fat period. Silence. Can you be silent after you say, "Honey, it looks like you had your heart set on wearing that shirt, and it's not going to be possible today"?

And they're going to say things or do things or stomp their feet or cry or whatever they're going to do, and you can just allow that. You don't have to fix it. You don't have to run from it. You don't have to sit through it if they're being mean to you — you could say, "I see you're really upset. I'll be in the other room. Let me know if you need anything." And maybe you drop her off at school and she's still really mad at you for washing her shirt, not somehow mind-reading that was the shirt she wanted to wear. It's okay, because this experience is what's important.

And this is hard. It's hard because our child's strong emotions can activate our own, and our protective parts can really awaken. If you grew up in a household where intense, strong emotions were not allowed, maybe you were told to stop crying, or you were sent to your room if you had any big feelings, then you probably learned that feelings are inconvenient and something we manage very quickly. And here's your child really expressing a feeling you were never allowed to express out loud, and something in you might feel this almost frantic urge to shut it down. Just notice that. Just be present with that. You don't have to do anything about it. "Oh, there's a really strong impulse in me to make this go away." And you might notice the urge to fix or explain, and if you can just sit with it, and she can watch you sitting with the discomfort of all of it, that's a very powerful experience for you both.

So we start to look at what's going on inside of us. In the IFS world, we would say we are unblending a little bit, to notice there's a reactive part inside that's gotten stirred up. You might find yourself saying, "You're getting upset over nothing," trying to minimize it, or you distract your child — "Oh gosh, honey, did I tell you what happened yesterday with Fluffy?" — to push it off the stage. Again, you're conveying, "I don't think you can handle this disappointment." Or bribing: "You know what, I see how disappointed you are. I'm sorry I washed your shirt. I'm going to put a little extra something sweet in your lunchbox." All of those things are not ultimately in service.

Now, I'm not saying you would never do it. If your child's just suffered a loss, or they're going through a hard time, by all means you can do what feels right to you, but make sure it's coming from your wise captain self and not some old pattern getting played out, or some old behavior getting played out based on protectors in you that just can't handle the discomfort of watching your child struggle a little bit. Trust me, kids are built to survive disappointment. We all are. We have so much capacity to ride the waves, the rough waves. It's preloaded in us. Now again, if you have a child with some significant health issues or who has gone through a lot of trauma or stress recently, it's a different picture — we try and soften things for them. But in general, just sitting through our child's disappointment can be enough.

I hope that this is landing for you. I know that some of this flies in the face of some of our instincts. Love fixes, right? Sometimes when you love someone, you try and fix things for them. I certainly know that's inside of me. It's not easy to just be with someone who's struggling or hurting or has suffered a loss and not try and do something to make it better. And there's the beauty of that pure instinct, which is just kindness and compassion. That's always welcome. But we do need to trust that our children benefit from reasonable amounts of disappointment, that we sit with them and witness. We don't run away. We don't shame or scold them. We don't try and talk them out of it. "Sweetheart, I can see this is really hard for you. I'm here. I love you and I'm here, and this is hard. This isn't how you saw things going. This isn't what you wanted. You were really hoping you would make the team. You were really hoping that you'd pass the test," whatever it is. And this is such an integral part of raising a confident, resilient child, and it's hard.

So I hope that was helpful to you. As always, if you're enjoying the series, I'd love it if you'd leave a little rating or write a short review — really helps us get the word out. If you'd like to do some coaching with me on one of our episodes, drop a line to support@susanstiffelman.com. And please visit susanstiffelman.com if you'd like to explore some of the many offerings there — lots of free support and over 50 ninety-minute deep-dive topic-specific master classes on everything from sensitive kids, anxious kids, siblings, chores, everything under the sun related to raising great kids.

Thanks for showing up. It's my honor and pleasure to share what I've learned over my many years working with families. And I hope that you'll take to heart some of these ideas and start noticing when your child is upset, what it feels like to just breathe, be present, maybe put a hand on them, and just say, "I'm here. This is hard, and I'm here."

That's it for today, everyone. Remember, no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy. Stay well, take care, and we'll see you next time.