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Welcome back to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. I'm glad you're here. We talk about everything under the sun related to raising kids, and in this most recent series, we've been talking a lot about some of the core elements of internal family systems, or IFS, which include the Self, the capital S Self, the Managers, Protective Parts, Firefighters.

There are also exiled parts. And I've done this because I've over the years really seen how this model fits so beautifully with the work I've been doing for so many decades around this idea of being the captain of the ship for our kids. So I want to illustrate how these ideas can show up in real life. Today, we're gonna transition and talk about some very practical things like homework and chores and bedtime. So if you're familiar with my work, then over many years I've been teaching and writing many years based on this concept or this model of being the captain of the ship, and I illustrate that, if you're seeing this on YouTube, by using my right hand as the captain, representing the captain, and the left hand as the child, and when the right hand is above the left hand, we are in charge.

It's not about being in control. It's about holding that space. Just as you want a captain on your ship, you don't want the ship to just be without anyone taking charge. You want to know that there's a competent, conscientious, confident, experienced captain at the helm. I actually did a Today Show episode. If you're listening to this and you want to check it out, you'll find the link in the show notes. But imagine your right hand is above the left. That's the relationship between the child who's depending on the parent as that captain. Now, let's say that your child wants something, does something.

When you're the captain, when you're able to stay in that captain mode, or sometimes I say when you're able to stay captain-y, even if you sail into a storm, the passengers feel safe. They feel, "Okay this is a drag. There's a lot of rain," or, "The winds are tossing the ship around." But there's not a panic because they've come to see that they're in good hands, right?

This isn't the captain who freaks out, "Oh my gosh, there's a leak. Everybody jump overboard," or she just jumps overboard and abandons the ship. The passengers want experience that tells them if there's a storm, if things get rough, "I'm in good hands." So that's the captain role. You're calm, you're confident, you're loving. Even when your kids misbehave, your kids feel that, and they relax because they sense that you can navigate these stormy seas confidently. Really important. Not so easy to manifest, but that's the goal. So I've been talking about this for such a long time, this model. That's the captain of the ship, right hand above the left.

Now, when your hands are side by side, your child says something upsetting or they push back, they're arguing, they're trying to convince us to give them something or let them do something, and we slip, we move into lawyer mode. The hands here are side by side. We might feel like we have to convince them, so we argue, we explain, we justify. We're pushing against our child, and they're pushing back. If you were seeing my hands, you'd see the two hands are pushing back and forth. And this is where power struggles happen. Nobody's winning. Everybody's trying to win. Nobody's winning, and nobody's really in charge. And then let's say it gets even worse, and your child doesn't like some boundary you've set or some limit or you aren't doing something they want, and they get really angry.

Now their hand is on top, you're below, and you're feeling outraged. You're feeling incredibly disrespected or unappreciated, and that's where you let loose with all the threats and the screaming and the yelling and we know what that's like 'cause we've all lived all of these roles, all of these modes: captain, lawyer, and dictator.

I'm gonna now illustrate this with an example. So let's say that you've made a pretty nice dinner. You've made a really nice stew, lots of good things in it, and your son asks for pasta and butter. Now, if we're talking about the captain, if you respond as the captain, or using the IFS terminology, as the Self, wise Self, capital S Self, meaning you're grounded, you're calm, you're rooted, you're able to stay compassionate but you're solid, you're sturdy. You might say, "Honey, I know you like pasta, and you're probably disappointed that we're having stew, and stew is what I've made for dinner tonight. If it doesn't sound good, you're welcome to make yourself a sandwich." So you're not shouting, yelling, blaming, shaming, any of those things.

You're not outraged. It's not personal. Your child prefers something else, and this is what you've made for dinner. Now, if he doesn't like your answer, he may say something like, "It's not fair. You never make what I like." And this is a really pivotal moment. If you're able to stay in the captain mode, great. You're able to stay in yourself, great. You can respond in a way that I'll illustrate in a minute. But let's say you can't stay there, and you get blended, using IFS terminology, with the protective part inside that says, "You're never appreciated. Nothing you do is ever enough." You may find yourself thinking, "Ugh, gosh, why do I go to all this trouble?"

And you may say to your child, "That's ridiculous. I made you your favorite casserole just the other night." So that's lawyer mode. You're building a case for why he shouldn't be upset, or why he should be appreciative, or why he should be treating you better. If things keep escalating, he may say, "I hate your cooking. I wish I could eat at Joey's house. Joey's mom always makes good stuff. I'm not gonna eat this stupid stew." You may notice that you have a whole thing going on inside, just like a little rumbling that's turning into a volcano, and you start to feel really mad. Anger, rage, disrespect. So you snap back, "Don't eat it then. Fine. In fact, just go to your room. You don't know how lucky you are."

You have moved into dictator mode. Dictator mode with your right hand, illustrated by the right hand below the child, is when you're feeling helpless, you're feeling out of control. You depend on bribes or threats or punishments because you feel really wounded underneath. And we all know what dictator mode feels like. If you think about a dictator, how do they rule people? They rule by fear and intimidation. They throw you in jail. They threaten to throw you in jail. They take away your money. They threaten to kill you or the people you love. So dictators have no genuine power, and neither do you when you're in that mode. You're just scrambling to try and not feel so hurt and angry and upset and unappreciated and all those things that are, using the IFS terminology, those protective parts are fully engaged. We now are talking firefighters. So both the lawyer and the dictator show up when that part gets activated, and when we start looking at this through the lens of internal family systems, we can go deeper to explore with compassion and curiosity what inside of us has gotten activated.

That protective part that argues, that lawyer may push us toward the threats. That feels very instant, and if you grew up in a household where you were always told why you couldn't have what you wanted, why your wishes were wrong, with a lot of lawyer energy or a lot of dictator energy, punished for expressing yourself, then it's also more common that you're gonna just continue the pattern. This cascades down the generations. These are protective parts doing what they know to do to keep us from feeling old, painful feelings. Now, here's what happens when you're able to stay rooted in yourself or in the captain. We don't take our kid's behavior personally. We meet the child's complaint, "It's not fair," without needing to defend ourselves or to win anything, and, "So I know, sweetheart, that this is not what you wanted. It sounds like you're really disappointed," full stop. In your body you're clean. You're not activated. There's not a lot of fluttering or heart pounding or sweating, and your child feels that because remember, a lot of communication is what happens between the words, so they're sensing, absorbing this solidity that you transmit those words with.

Let's say it's homework. The lawyer's gonna defend and explain why grades matter. The dictator's gonna cancel the weekend if Johnny doesn't finish an assignment, and the captain just says, "Homework happens before screen time, honey," without taking the resistance personally.

With screen time, the lawyer's gonna argue and negotiate about extra minutes and what's fair, and the dictator's gonna grab the device out of fury. And the captain may say, "Time's up, hon." And it's delivered calmly, and there's no need to defend the rules because the limit has been established, hopefully ahead of time. If Johnny can't give up the screen, then the captain might remind him with care, kindness, and compassion, remind him of the rules. "Sweetheart, just wanna remind you that when screen time rules are ignored, then screen time use the next day is removed." So it's not just the words. It's not about memorizing the word part of what I'm saying. It's about who you are as you deliver those words.

With bedtime, lawyer mode would be explaining why sleep matters, why mommy has to have some me time, why staying up really late will make her crabby in the morning. The dictator is just threatening, "If you get up again for a drink of water, no stories for you tomorrow night." And the captain just walks the child back to bed as many times as it takes without feeling disrespected by the resistance or engaging or stirring things up into long conversations.

And with chores, kinda same thing. Hopefully you're getting the picture. The lawyer will lecture about the virtues of responsibility or how everybody has to pitch in, or the dictator will remind your kids how hard you work and how you just want a little help around here, or threaten to cancel the sleepover if you guys can't help out. The captain says, "Trash goes out before you go to your friend's house," and holds that boundary without needing to justify or convince.

The captain allows the child to have feelings, so please make sure that you're not hearing me say that we squash a child's emotions. No. We meet their upset or their frustration or disappointment with compassion, with kindness. Without shame, we don't minimize it. "I know you're disappointed. I can see how frustrating it is that you're not getting to have more time. Sounds like you were really hoping for pasta tonight." The child isn't made wrong for having feelings. When we're in the captain mode or Self mode, we expect our kids to get frustrated or upset. We actually don't mind. We welcome that because surviving those feelings is how we raise a resilient, adaptable grown-up.

So this way of overlapping and weaving together the model I've worked with for so many years, this idea of being the calm, compassionate, caring, confident, present captain of the ship, it doesn't happen through a Band-Aid. We don't just learn certain scripts so that we sound steady and calm. It's a place we inhabit, and then once we're rooted there, how we speak is so much of the message and so much of the reassuring part of the message that our children receive. It isn't easy. I'm not saying that we can instantly do this but I've seen it. I've worked with thousands of parents and children over the course of my 40 years and now incorporating in the training I've received in internal family systems, I'm watching this kind of magnificent process unfold as we start to internalize these ideas, and certainly when we do our own work and we look at what's at the root of our reactivity, the places inside that push us to argue and negotiate or threaten and bribe. I think the IFS model beautifully dovetails with the work I've done.

If you would like to go more deeply into this, of course I do private coaching, but there's also a Parenting Without Power Struggles membership. I answer questions twice every month from parents, and it's now just $25 a month, so I'd love for you to take advantage of that. Give it a try. And in the meantime, start noticing, first of all, when you move into lawyer mode or dictator mode, just noticing, because increasing your awareness is just a wonderful first step to learning how to be that captain.

The more you start to see the pattern, "wow, I notice I move into lawyer mode whenever they question a decision I've made or a limit that I've set. I notice that I go quickly into dictator mode when they make a statement about my character or about my capabilities." These are threads you can pull to see what's beneath that and to address that, again, with compassion, with some objectivity. This is where internal family systems is so wonderful, where we can start to see it from our vantage point of our healthy, grown-up wise self. "Oh, there's that part again, really trying to advocate for me or protect me."

If you're enjoying this series, I would be so grateful if you would leave a rating or a review, share this episode with a friend. And of course, if you want to subscribe, that's an option, and you'll find out when we release new episodes as well. If there's a topic you'd like me to cover, just drop a line to support@susanstiffelman.com. There's lots of support, by the way, at susanstiffelman.com, over 50 master classes with people like Dan Siegel, and Mona Delahooke, and Tina Bryson, and Laura Markham, and Gabor Maté, and so many great people, as well as a free newsletter in the Parenting Without Power Struggles membership and the Co-parenting with a Narcissist membership, which I co-facilitate every month with Wendy Behary, just a wonderful therapist who specializes in narcissism.

So take a breath. I know I always throw a lot in, but I try and keep these relatively short 'cause I know that you're busy, and I just want to give you things to ponder in a reasonable amount of time. Take it in, sit with it, see how it lands. Can you relate to this idea of a place in you already capable of being that calm captain of the ship, even if there are layers on top of it burying that from you?

It's there. We all have this untouchable, solid, pure, wise self, and we have that lawyer mode where we argue for our position, and the dictator that really pushes when we feel that we're being unappreciated or marginalized. Those parts live inside of us. That's how it is, and we have the opportunity, especially as we raise our kids, to grow and grow through that.

I recently sent out a newsletter, hopefully you're getting them, with a link to the forward that Eckhart Tolle wrote for my second book, Parenting with Presence, and I was rereading it as I put that together in this newsletter essay. And he talks a lot about how for almost any occupation you need to have some kind of credentials or qualifications or training, except parenting. And so that's why I'm here. It's not that I know it all, trust me, but it's that I've seen a lot, and I love to share what I have learned with you, 'cause I think parenting is such a great opportunity for us to heal and grow while we love up our kids, our beautiful kids.

So that's it for today. Let's take a moment, take a quiet breath, ground yourself. Be here for another few seconds and just remember that no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy. Stay well, take care, and I'll see you next time.