Good Inside with Dr. Becky - Stop Calling Your Kid "Defiant"

Episode Date: January 18, 2022

The biggest issue with “defiant” kids is our use of the word “defiant.” After all, labeling our children as “defiant” puts us in the mindset of seeing our child as the problem: They don’t listen! They’re purposely disobeying the rules! They always push back! In this week’s episode, Dr. Becky offers a total reframe: Defiance is actually a child’s struggle to regulate an urge *and* feel seen. Now, don’t worry—this doesn’t lead to taking an anything-goes, permissive approach. Dr. Becky shares practical strategies to put this framework into action, so you can show up as a sturdy leader, stay connected to your kid, and help your child build skills to reduce problematic behavior over time. Sounds like a total win, right? It is. Join Good Inside Membership: https://bit.ly/3cqgG2A Follow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside Sign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletter Order Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books. For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast

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Melissa and Doug, timeless toys, endless possibilities. Hi, I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical, actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away. One of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can. With the resources we have available to us in that moment. So even as we struggle

and even as we are having a hard time on the outside, we remain good inside. In today's episode, I want to talk about defiance. Now if you could see me, you'd see that I have defiance in air quotes because this is a term that I believe often puts us in a mindset where we really struggle to show up as the parent we want to be. What do I mean by that? When I say out loud, my kids being defiant,

my kid is such defiance, what defiant behavior? There is no other way I can feel than disrespected and angry. And I know for me with my kids, when I approach them from a place of interpreting their behavior as disrespect, I never end up having anything productive happen,

and I end up feeling really awful about myself after. So nobody wins. Here's a different way to think about defiance, and I'd encourage you to consider this. Just for a period of time, you don't have to accept it as true, but just consider it because it's a really different framework. That we can rethink about defiance as having a strong urge to do

something. Plus, feeling unseen. So I say to my child, no, we're not having a snack before dinner. You know, we're gonna have dinner in half an hour. And then I see my child eating chips from the pantry, right? I might say that is defined behavior. I just said no snacks, and they did the exact thing I said they weren't allowed to do. That's the framework where I feel, like my child is doing something to me. I feel like they don't appreciate me, that they don't respect the words I use, right? And I want to come back in a pretty aggressive way. I think I go into punishment mode myself.

Now let's go to this other framework. Having a strong urge that you can't regulate and failing unseen, both combined. Well, I guess my child really, really wanted a snack. They really wanted a snack. It was a really strong urge to have chips. And they didn't really feel seen or connected to. In that snack example, I might say, oh, you really want a snack. How much do you want that snack? So big, show me,

or I might say, oh, you really want a snack. It's probably really annoying to not have complete control over each thing you're eating. Or maybe I'd say, you really want to snack. We're not having snack right now, but tell me what you want, and I'll put a couple of them on your plate with dinner. Right? I have a feeling my child would be much less likely to quote, define me because I recognize their urge. I normalized it.

I connected to it. I was curious about it. And in that last example, I was even able to incorporate the thing they wanted into my decision. Even if I didn't do that, but instead I just said, oh, you really want to snack, I get that it's not snack time, I know that's such a bummer, I still would bet my child would be less likely to go to the pantry than if I just said no snacks before dinner. So as we listen to voicemails from three parents, we can look at these same moments through

the lens of this unregulated urge and a desire to feel seen and connected to. With that in mind, let's jump in. Let's hear from our first caller, Brittany. Hi, Dr. Becky. My name is Brittany. I'm from Northern British Columbia in Canada. I have an 11-year-old, a five-year-old and a two-year-old. My question is regarding my 11-year-old son. We are really struggling with one of his behaviors. From the time he was about one, he has been a very active and what I would call a boundary pusher that often takes more than one time telling him something for him to cooperate. The biggest struggles in the past month have been with him overstepping physical boundaries. Multiple times a day he is intruding in our personal space. He does this by grabbing in an often hurtful bear hug.

He walks by and hits. He will pick up his two-year-old sister despite her protest and move her around. And he can grab our faces and smooshes our cheeks to name a few. He has always been a very physical kid. He seems to need a lot of physical stimulation, but lately it seems as though this is escalated. I try and get in front of him to stop the behavior before it happens, but this is not possible every time. It is happening almost constantly, especially when the attention is diverted from him.

A few methods we have tried have been to have lots of cuddle time. We will play wrestle with him. A few methods we have tried have been to have lots of cuddle time. We will play wrestle with him. We have implemented an ask before you touch rule and have tried to reinforce the importance of the word stop, especially when this comes from his siblings and him physically touching them. I have a feeling of behavior with him seeking a connection. However, it doesn't seem to matter how much time and connection we give him. The bucket never seems to be filled. And as soon as our attention is diverted from him, like to one of his siblings, the behavior

is start again. I'm really hit a lot on how to move forward to help him. I'm hoping that you have some strategies or suggestions we can use to implement to help him regulate. Hi, Brittany. Thank you so much for calling in. And the first thing I'm reacting to is really how thoughtful you are. And how many different things you've thought about how you're so able to see the

most generous interpretation of your son's behavior, that he's connection seeking, right? So often we say attention seeking and we make that so negative. But if someone's attention seeking, they? So often we say attention seeking and we make that so negative. But if someone's attention seeking, they're connection seeking. And I love that you see that. Now, what's also true, like you said, is that this behavior is troublesome, right? So we can come up with a generous interpretation of our kids behavior and still work on whatever the underlying need or issues are because that behavior is problematic. And that's how we're going to proceed today thinking about holding those

two things at once. Okay, a couple ideas. I would love you to practice moments of inhibition with him, right? Inhibition is the ability to have an urge to do something and not act on it. It's hard to inhibit urges. I mean, it's hard for us to inhibit urges and through the lens of using a generous interpretation, what I would say is when your son wants physical contact with you,

he has such a big urge and his skills to inhibit that urge are not yet a match that leads to success, right? His urge is greater than his skills in a way. So let's work on building the skill of inhibition, right? So how can we do this? You can play all types of games for this. Red Light Green Light is an amazing game for developing inhibition. And I know your child's 11, we often think about red light green light for small kids, but if you have a large space, it can actually be a really fun game for big kids because they can actually run. They have to stop. I know in my family, we do purple light is kind of having a dance party. You can make

You know another color orange light means get on the floor and kind of roll around You can do a couple things but the point is whenever you say red light a child has to stop and a child doesn't want to stop They want to keep running. They want to win the game. They want to get there first So we're giving him a kind of very playful way to build the skill of having an urge and stopping. You mentioned play wrestling that we give him an opportunity to kind of let some of those, you know, more body-connected urges come out. I would definitely keep doing this and I would use that stop there to practice. Your simulating experiences, because when we give our kids opportunities outside of the heat of the moment, their bodies are actually changing because when we play wrestle with

the kid and say, okay, we're going to do this. It'll differently. Let's do this, but we're going to really practice the stop thing. And so at any point, I might say stop and then you've to stop. And then I'll say go and we'll do it again. And again, be kind of light about this. Oh, you stopped. High five.

That was awesome. Let's go again. And if he doesn't stop, you can say, look, I'm not going to play wrestle again. I need you to practice stopping. So I feel safe enough to do this with you. So there's lots of other ways you can do that as well, right? You can play a stop game on the way to getting dinner. You can say we're going to walk to get ice cream and when you say stop, I have to stop.

And when I say stop, you have to stop, right? So we can also model that same behavior. Another thought is he's looking for some physical sensory connection. And we can think about ways. We often have to get creative when we do this. Well, if you can't get that through me, is there anything I could get in my house so he could, in some ways, meet that need, but do so in a less destructive way. So, things just that come to my mind right now. A pillow or one of those huge stuffed animals.

I picture for some reason like a huge teddy bear. And you practice when you want to come to me in this way and I won't let you do that. Here's something you can do because the gap between giving you a huge hug or kind of grabbing your face versus doing nothing and waiting. I don't know, it's a really big gap and if we're trying to build a skill, we have to scaffold that skill. So what makes that gap a little smaller? Well no, you can't grab my face but here's your massive teddy bear and you can do anything you want. And it's there for that purpose.

I'm also thinking about a weighted blanket that if he's looking for one of these huge hugs, I wonder if that time he could lay down on the floor and you have a weighted blanket that again gives in some way the sensory experience he's looking for. I would actually really include him in this conversation. You can do this in a really non-shaming way. Hey, you know we're working on what to do when you really want to connect with us, and we're doing something else or we're working. We're talking to your sibling. I was thinking that it's probably hard to want to connect with us in that way, and instead have no one

or nothing to connect with. Here are some ideas. What about this huge teddy bear I found online? What about this idea of a weighted blanket? What do you think or do you have any ideas as well? And so we're now on the same team as our child, and when we get on the same team as our child around a problematic behavior, the chances of coming up with good ideas, skyrocket. Dr. Becky, my name is Stacey. I have two girls. They are five and two and I live in New Jersey.

I'm calling about my older daughter and we are having a very, very difficult time because she's very, very bright, very intelligent, very proposious and believes everything is an negotiation. Five minutes to bed time, she needs ten minutes to bed time, but she needs 10 minutes to bed time. And then whenever her time is up, she starts to really freak out. So a lot of things become negotiations and then when she doesn't get her way, or even when she does, and then the things she didn't want happens, she really sometimes she'll scream, sometimes she'll run, sometimes she'll cry. But we're finding the behaviors actually getting worse and we read a lot of books and articles and we try to be very intentional about our parenting

and it feels like nothing works or nothing works for very long. And we'd love to get out of the negotiation loop and not have everything become an argument. It's very difficult and it's becoming difficult on our family dynamic. Hi, Segi. I really appreciate you calling in with what's happening in your home. And I think this really mirrors what happens in so many of our homes.

And so that's not my way of minimizing it at all. Just because things happen in other people's homes. It doesn't make them any less difficult for us. It is my way of trying to normalize this because so much of our frustration with our kids can come from our expectations of what's going to happen or what should happen, right? Shoulds, they're the worst, right?

They lead us to intervene in a moment based on some idea of what someone expects or maybe we expect rather than what's actually happening in front of us. And I can say with pretty strong conviction that kids pushing back, kids quote, talking back, this is really normal behavior, especially if we want our kids to be assertive when their older have a sense of self, know who they are, those aren't developmental achievements that happen at age 18 or age 40. Unless we allow them when they're kids to voice their feelings and their desires.

Now, Segi, none of this makes it enjoyable. I believe these things strongly when my kids push back, when my kids are always in negotiation mode, it is exhausting and it is normal. One of the things on my mind is something that I think goes way beyond these moments, which is this idea of working. Is it working? What's working? This is working.

Nothing's working. It's really powerful to ask ourselves, what if we stop measuring, working by our kids' behavior? And instead started thinking about it in terms of our behavior. Meaning my kid might push back, my kid might go into negotiation mode with everything that I decide, how do I want to show up? How regulated do I want to show up? How regulated do I want to be? What would I need to work on in myself to hear my kids' protest, but still hold a boundary? And then we can start looking at that word working.

Is it working? It's not working. In terms of the things we actually have control over, which is our own approach and our own behavior. Now that's a general idea. And so let's get more specific because if I were you I'd be thinking okay I could think about it that way but still Dr. Becky what do I do when these things happen. So let's go over something to do in the moment

and then let's think about something you could do outside of the moment because it's always the interventions outside of the moment that lead to the most change because that's when we're calm and our kids are calm and we're most connected. In the moment, you're trying to hold bedtime at, let's say 7.30 pm and your child is protesting and protesting and negotiating. Why my friends say up till 8 pm and you let me stay up till 8 last night, right? They go into negotiation mode. I come back to this idea. My job as a parent is to make decisions, kind of hold boundaries, and empathize with my kids' feelings. My kids' job is to experience and express their feelings

because this is how they learn to manage feelings for the rest of their lives. So if I go back to that, my child's protesting for an 8 p.m. bedtime. I might say something like this. Sweetie, I hear you. Some of your friends stay up later. There. I might say something like this. Sweetie, I hear you. Some of your friends, stay up later. There are some nights you stay up later.

That's probably so annoying as a kid. There's some nights I get to do things and some nights I don't. And here's the thing. Bedtime is 7.30 tonight. You're allowed to be disappointed. I get that you are. I'm sticking with my decision.

Now, what is my child going to do? I don't expect my child to say, wow, mom, you're such a sturdy leader, you're so amazing. No problem, I'll go to bed at 7.30. That has never happened in my house once. My child might continue to protest, but when I go back to, quote, is it working? Well, I was able to hold a boundary.

I feel like I did that in a way that was firm and warm, and I feel pretty good about my behavior, at least I would feel good if I actually did that in a way that was firm and warm and I feel pretty good about my behavior. At least I would feel good if I actually did that. Right? That can leave me with a sense of satisfaction, even if my child protests. And then before I go to bed, I might say, well, Becky, that was a job well done. Yeah, my kid's still protested, but I'm not in the mode of controlling her behavior to feel good about my decisions.

Now, what can we do outside the moment? When a kid is in constant negotiation mode, one of the things that tells me is they're really looking for more opportunities to be in control. So I would think across the board, where are places I can really give my child control? Instead of picking out my kid's clothes,

can I say, you know what, you're five, why don't you pick your own clothes? Where would ever you want? Right? When my child says, ugh, I really want to, whatever it is in the morning, I really want to have a bagel instead of having a waffle. I say, you know what? That is something I can do for you.

You made that decision. Let's do it. I'll kind of over emphasize the idea that my child is making the decision. And then there's the your in charge game, which does so much for a kid. What's the your in charge game? It is kind of what it seems like it might be.

Tell your child, you know what, being a kid is hard. You have to do so many things that I tell you to do that you don't wanna do. How annoying. For the next five minutes, you've got to tell me what to do. And here are the rules. I'm going to set a timer for five minutes, or you can do it for whatever amount of time makes sense in your family.

And I have to do anything you tell me as long as it's safe. It doesn't put anybody in danger. And it doesn't involve food. I say that because there can be like, you know, eat, you know, something that, you know, you really don't want to eat or Is too much of a certain item. Now what's interesting, Sages, when I've done this with my kids I still remember this moment where I was playing this game with my daughter before I had to leave house and go to work and She said to me, I want you to change out of that shirt I don't like that shirt. Let's go to your closet and she picked out a

different shirt. I really don't like that shirt. I really didn't want to put it on. And I knew at the end of this game I was going to leave and I was in a rush. And so I might not even have time to change. I still really can recall how this feels in my body. I can feel it now. I feel the resistance, I feel actually almost like she was disrespecting me. And thinking about this really helps me with my kids because it lets me in on what it is to be a kid who was often asked to do something that really isn't in line with your priority in the moment or with what you want for yourself.

Let's hear from our final caller, Lindsay. Hi, Dr. Becky. My name is Lindsay. I live in Long Island, New York. And I have a boy who is almost two and a half and a baby girl who's six months old. It's been cold. Winter was COVID and we've been stuck inside and my son has not had much opportunity to get out and play and he is extremely active and energetic, which has posed the real problem for us. I understand that his energy is probably coming out in different ways where he will sit at the dinner table and throw his food and make messes and some of it's playing and exploring, but some of it certainly is defiant where we'll ask him to keep his foot on the table and will ask him to pick up toys after he's thrown them

and he will just continue to look at us with an eye that kind of reveals I'm not done and he continues to throw the toys or the food. I'm not finding success in my approach to discipline. So I was wondering if you could provide some pointers for how to help a child who needs to get his energy out, who is exploring, who is struggling, and who is young. And so it's hard for me to use words, my words, to figure out what to do to best help him and help me learn how to teach him these rules. So any help you could provide would be really, really greatly appreciated. Hi, Lindsay.

I've been there so many situations myself I'm picturing right now. Food throwing, I'm not sitting down those moments that just lead to such frustration in us where it actually feels really hard for us to show up as the parent we want to be. So I've totally been there. I'm obviously still there myself in a lot of situations with my kids. First thing, more powerful than any strategy or script is getting in the habit of asking ourselves this question. The way I'm thinking about this situation with my child, does that framework make me feel

angry and far away from my child? Or does that framework make me feel empathic and close to my child? Getting in the habit of asking ourselves about the framework with which we see a situation enables us to be the type of parent we want to be because we will only pull from the bucket of strategies and scripts that are in line with our framework. So if we think of our kid as defiant,

well, that makes me feel really judgmental toward my child. It makes me very angry toward my child. It makes me feel disrespected. And it really activates, I think, my authoritarian parenting bucket. So the only intervention I'm going to think about from that framework is one where I have a very adversarial probably controlling approach. Now if I can take a deep breath and say okay, what is a different way of seeing this?

That would help me feel closer to my child. I might even say, huh, I guess for me too, I have situations where someone tells me to do one thing and I don't listen. Is that because I'm a bad person? Or is it because of something else? Why would I kind of defy someone in that way? What would be going on for me? What's my most generous interpretation? And then maybe I'd think about, wow, it stinks to not be able to do something you want to do. Or if in general, I don't feel so close to someone or I don't feel so seen by them or I feel like I never get to do the things I want to do or if in general, I don't feel so close to someone or I don't feel so seen by them or I feel like I never get to do the things I want to do or someone looks at me with the least generous interpretation.

Well, then I could imagine doing the same types of behaviors as your son or my kids. So what framework helps here? I think it's the framework of it's really hard for a two and a half year old to want to do something and not do it. That your son is looking to feel in control, is looking to feel powerful. These are very healthy impulses for toddlers. And the way he's doing it happens to be annoying happens to be inconvenient, but he just hasn't quite figured it out yet. So what would I do from there? Well, I would think if my child has a difficult time

having an urge and inhibiting it, I guess I have to kind of be the boundary for him, he can't be. So rather than stop throwing your food, stop throwing your food, I probably think I guess I'm only gonna give him one or two pieces of food at a time, not because I want to be punitive, but actually because I want to set him up for success

And if there is food throwing, I'm gonna say I'm not gonna let you throw your food I might even hold his wrists or take the plate of food away again not to be harsh, but to help my child What else might I do? I might say, wow, my child really wants to throw and be active. Maybe before we have dinner, I'm going to say, oh, sometimes you want to throw, throw, throw, throw, I'm not going to let you throw your food. You can throw this tissue paper. You can totally throw these softballs.

Let's do throwing, throwing, throwing. Before we get to the table, because here's what's going to happen. If you throw your food, I will take the food away and we'll calm our bodies together until eating feels better for you. All of these ideas only even come to me because I feel on the same team as my child because I think my child is a good kid, not a bad kid trying to disrespect me. Last thing, we can get into major power struggles with our kids by trying to force them to do things like cleanup. It feels like success in the moment.

If we say, you have to clean up, you have to, you have to, you have to, and then they pick up one block or pick up one piece of food. It's really not a win, because what we're doing is we're prioritizing cleaning up in that moment, over-connecting and kind of securing our relationship.

Kids end up doing things they don't want to do because they feel close to their parents because they feel good about the state of their relationship. It's the same reason we do things we don't want to do in our relationship. And so actually, sometimes the best thing to do is to say something like, hey, it's clean up time. Let's figure this out. Or it's clean up time. I wonder if we can put on a song and clean up. And maybe even on model having fun while doing it. My child's going to be much more likely to cooperate. If I model that behavior, then if I try to force them. than if I try to force them.

Thank you, Brittany, Sagi, and Lindsay for calling in and sharing stories from your home with us. Let's tie it all together with three takeaways. One, let's rethink the word defiance. Today, try to look at your kids' behavior, the behavior that's easy to term as defiant, through this new lens of having a strong urge that's hard to regulate, plus feeling unseen. Just notice how that feels and how you intervene.

Two, another framework shift. When we ask ourselves, is it working? Is my parenting working? What shift the focus to the way we are showing up, instead of only focusing on our kids' behavior? This shift can actually be super empowering, because we remind ourselves that we can change our family system by working on ourselves, which yes benefits our kids, but it also really benefits us.

Three, kids who are constantly negotiating and pushing back. They're often looking for more opportunities to be in control. So do a review of your day and ask yourself, what can I give my child more control over and what decisions can they make and also try the year in charge game. I can pretty much guarantee your kids are going to love it. Thanks for listening to Good Inside. There are so many more strategies and tips I want to share with you. Head to GoodInside.com and sign up for a good insider, my free Weekly email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox. And follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Dr. Becky at Good Inside for a daily dose of

parenting and self-care ideas. Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Beth Roe and Marie Cecil Anderson, an executive produced by Erica Belzky and me, Dr. Becky. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review it. Or share this episode with a friend or family member as a way to start an important conversation. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside. I remain good inside.