Ep 76: Raising Resilient Kids: Why Punishment Isn't the Answer

If you are parenting a preteen or teenager, you may have had the thought, “What can I do to get them to listen?” This often leads to loss of screen time, removal of privileges and so much more. And for most parents, little is gained by this form of punishment. 

The truth is, the way you parented them at 7 stops being effective at 13. So something's got to give. You can no longer threaten to take away their toys and they do what you ask. Very often, what they do is raise you, like it's a game of poker. Staring you down they say "go ahead, see if I care..." 

In this week’s Episode, Pam will unpack the reason that punishment is not working, and what to do instead to get your kid on board with a new way of thinking and acting. 

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Transcript

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Welcome back to the peaceful home podcast. My name is Pam and I am your host and this week. We are talking all about shame. And punishment. So intergenerational shame. Small forms of shame, things that we don't think of as big deals, but shame in parenting in particular and how it negatively impacts our children. And how punishment. Creates. Shame. So if this has been something you've been curious about, you've heard me talking about it. Or you're like, I need to start parenting my pre-adolescent and adolescent. Differently because I really want them to be healthy. And successful in life. Then this is the episode for you. So let's dive in. According to Bernay brown. Shame is the feeling that you are bad. And as such. Unworthy of love. Connection. And belonging. And when we use parenting strategies that create shame and our children. This is the message that we're sending, that they are on worthy. Of our love. They're unworthy of belonging. They're unworthy of being connected. And I know. That you are not a parent that feels that way. And if you are, this is definitely not the podcast for you. But if you're not, and you want to do something about it or you're concerned like, man, am I. Contributing to this story in my own kid. Let's dive in. And figure out how to make that stop. Oftentimes when we shift into parenting adolescence or preadolescence, right? So nine. 10 11. Our parenting strategy needs to change. As a matter of fact, when I was a therapist, I used to have moms come in all the time. Well, they're like 10 or 11 year old and what they would communicate to me was somewhere around eight. They feel like their parenting skills kind of fell away. And they don't really know what happened or what created it, but things got hard. As a matter of fact, I had one mom that I work with who had, you know, six children who said, I feel like up to age eight, I was an amazing mom. And then they also challenging me in different ways and obviously some were easier than others, but it was, that was the line. That was the, the line in the sand. Where I, as a mom realized, man, this is not as easy. As people made it out to be. So because our parenting strategy needs to change because how we. Impact our children. We believe there's a story that says, oh, now they're hard. Puberty pre-puberty hormonal changes, emotional changes, relational changes. And we started to tell these stories. We start to hear these stories from the outside. That say, man, this is going to be a hard one for you, right? The hard years are coming. It's like when you're out in public and your child hugs you, your pre adolescent or your young teenager, hugs you and random strangers on the street will walk up to you and say, Hang onto that for as long as you can, because pretty soon they're going to not want you anywhere near them. And I just want to first and foremost call bullshit on that. When we believe these stories, then we start to feel, we start to believe. We have to exert control over our children to. Get all the shit figured out. Before they turn 13 and that is just a lie. Right. Your goal in parenting. When we're talking about happy and healthy, we're talking about happy and healthy adults. You've got plenty of time. To continue to support and influence them as they move along in their lives. And your job as the grown-ass adult. Is to do exactly that support. Guide. Be there for them. Love them unconditionally. So let's dive into this conversation about punishment in particular. So punishment by definition. Is an action with an intent to either hurt physically or emotionally in order to teach a lesson. Punishment is effective only to the degree. That the child experiences it as pain. So, what that means is that punishment is the purposeful infliction of pain on your own child. To get them to comply. Here's the real bummer. All punishment is experienced as painful. All punishment. And your child will never experience pain. That is purposely caused. By their parent. As loving. They can't, it's not. And how we're wired. The child will always experience shame as a result of punishment. Always they'll have shame that they are in good enough. Shame that they aren't worthy. And that even their parents. Find them lacking. Punishment increases shamed to the level where your kid believes. That your message is even the person or the people. Who is supposed to nurture and protect them. Are intentionally hurting them. Because they are not worthy. The response here is one of two paths. You either have a child. That works so hard to be the quote unquote, good girl or good boy. Always complying, attempting to be perfect. And always falling short. Reinforcing the original message. That they're not good enough that they're not worthy. This leads to depression and anxiety. At best. And I can tell you some horror stories from my years, working in mental health. With individuals that experienced complex trauma. The perfect recipe for a complex trauma. Is shame. In validation. And lack of resiliency skills. And we know that resiliency relies on having a caring adult in your life who validates and supports you. Exactly as you are. The other pathway. His children that become angry. And defiant. And resist their parents' guidance. So you either have a child that is like, works really hard to be perfect. And then struggles with anxiety, depression, or you have a child that becomes angry. And defiant and pushes back. And resists and either way. Punishment. Equals shame. It always creates shame. But the good news is. In order to effectively parent your child to move them along in their growth and development, you don't have to shame them. You don't have to punish them. As a matter of fact, research tells us that connection. Is the best motivator. For change and growth in your child. Connection that's connection between you and the kid. So if we know the punishment. Creates. Shame. Let's talk about other things that create shame as well. So you have an understanding of where that comes from. Remember that shame is there's something wrong with you, right? There's something wrong with me. And that means that I'm not worthy of all the good things in life. So anytime you ridicule, mock, Guilt trip, Or use shame and what is a seemingly harmless way? You expand that story of shame and increase the risk that your child is going to get stuck in. Shame spirals or your shame baggage. Any statement that you make to your child? That could be replaced with what is wrong with you? Creates shame. These could be things like, you know, you lose your head if it wasn't attached or. That's such a terrible thing to do. Why would you treat your brother like that? What are you a baby? Stop acting like a toddler. Isn't anything ever enough for you? All of these are statements that we use. Under the guise of guiding our children to change their behavior. But what they really do is they create shame so that our child internalizes that they are bad. And they extinguish the behavior. I mean, that's the goal, right? You want your child to be the good girl or good boy? For like 90% of us, this is how we were raised. And there's this movement. Now, this understanding that we're not looking for compliance in our children, quiet kids that sit. At the dinner table and never have. Outbursts at restaurants and never get down and run around. It's not the goal. That's not what we're seeking. Any time you ridicule or mock your child. Anytime you make fun of them or try to make light of the situation by poking fun at them in some way. Creates shame. And they're going to have this in their lives. They're going to experience this as a matter of fact, my 14 year old has experienced. These types of interactions. With my mom who that's, how she parented all of us. I was a child of the eighties and nineties. My siblings all grew up in the seventies and eighties. And it wasn't until her last grandchild. My child said. I'm not okay with this. You can't speak to me like this. That things changed. Now I'll be totally honest. I don't know if anyone in my family listens to my podcast, but. I have a sister that was pissed about that. And whether I taught my child, this and gave her the words so that she could put these boundaries in place. As a form of payback. Or. If it was just a part of my parenting. That supports her and her growth. I do not parent with guilt and shame. It's not how I want my kid to see the world. It's not. And I hope that for your children's sake. That's how you. You feel. And here's what happens as our children grow. There are more and more things that we can very easily. Poke at. And part of the reason we can poke at them is because they start to develop more insecurities. So maybe your adolescent has some acne or maybe they're struggling with regulating their emotions or maybe as their hormonal cycle starts. Right. The R UPMs story begins. Any of those statements? Are ridicule and mockery. They're designed to create shame. They're designed to cause you to shut down. So, okay. If I can't punish I can't guilt trip and I can't ridicule and I can't mock I can't poke fun of, and I can't. Work to try to control my child's behavior. What can I do when they get to adolescence where they have more freedom than maybe they are physically larger than you. My 14 year old is like half an inch taller than I am. She also happens to be a black belt in karate. And she has a very strong attitude of don't. Fuck with me. Which I love so much because I had the same attitude. But mine came from a place of insecurity and hers comes from a place of. Of confidence, but I often hear this question from parents. Like, what do I do now? I can't actually pick up my child and remove them from a situation. I can't carry them out of someplace kicking and screaming because now they're bigger than I am. What do I do? If this is your struggle in parenting, then chances are you parented in the early days through guilt or shame or manipulation or control. And those things don't work. You cannot coerce. Someone who has decided that you have no power over them. So first and foremost, we lead by example, we model. With the behavior we want to see from them. So if what we're looking for is respect, we give respect. If what we're looking for is open communication and we share openly. If what we're looking for is validation. We validate. It's really, really important that you model the behavior that you want to see from them. And you might be thinking, Pam, this is my adolescent. This is my teenager. They don't care what I do. They don't care what I say. They do. As a matter of fact, We know from a research perspective. That, this timeframe of adolescence, where the brain is growing and developing at a rate only second to the first three years of life. We know that more than any other human being on the planet. Your child looks for you. For what to do, they look to you for guidance. But the problem is we tend to want to guide them with our words. We tend to want to say, do this thing that I say, don't do this thing that I do. And what they are following. Is what you do. What they are following is how you show up in the world. And what they need from you more than anything is unconditional love, validation, support. And to feel heard. And if you're thinking, God, I can't give that to them. It might be time to look at what's getting in the way. What has created this dynamic. Now I understand there's lots of factors. You might be listening to this podcast and your kid's 16. You're like, oh my God, is it too late? No, it's not too late. One of the things that I said today on a call with moms inside my membership is that we are looking to grow happy and healthy and successful adults. When they're like 35 or 40. We're not worried about. How they're doing today. I mean, we're worried about how they're doing today, but this is not like the finish line. Right. It would be like stepping on a course to run a marathon, but only having trained. For five kilometers. That makes no sense. Why would you do that? That's completely nuts. It's but we do it with parenting. We forget that the finish line is actually years. In the future. And we start to get worried about, oh my gosh, I only have until they're 18, that's not true. That's just not true. True. So after modeling the behavior that you want to see from them modeling. Being the person you want them. To work towards. Next up is you have to welcome discussions on all. Issues. Because secrets cause shame.'cause they give kids the message that something is unspeakable. That. I mean, be age appropriate and what you're discussing, but nothing should be off limits. They should be able to come to you. With anything. And take what's happening in their world as an opportunity to communicate. It might be something you're watching on TV. It might be something that's going on with peers, an issue at school, an issue in your larger community, an issue in the world that they're aware of. Take these opportunities to just talk and communicate openly without shame without guilt. And get their point of view, get their opinion, get to know what they're thinking and how they think. Next up it's really important to embrace and encourage and reinforce their strengths. And I'm not talking about their physical characteristics or their smart, or like, Stupid peripheral things. Or stupid generalizations. Like you're just so sweet and amazing. I'm talking about qualities of who they are as a human being. Now your child might be really kind and you might see that kindness early in life, right in their toddler gears. Or you might have a kid that we had. This happened the other night we were driving home. It was rainy as hell. Driving home from karate, this little frog went across the street and I was like, oh, a frog. And I hit the brakes and I hit the frog anyway. And my daughter was like, oh my God. That's who she is. Right. She's a F. Strongly feeling empathetic, loving, and caring, human being. So I get the opportunity to nurture that. Look at what that is. Maybe there, your child's really loyal. Maybe they're really committed or dedicated to things. Maybe they're a great friend. Talk about these qualities. But not so in-depth that they're like, oh my God, mom. And they roll their eyes at you More where you have his opportunity to just highlight it quickly. Like you're taking a quick highlighter out. You're going, wow. Yeah. You know, I know that you're feeling really big right now, and that's such a great quality and you don't ever lose that. Okay. The last component of this. Journey in parenting. Is to set clear boundaries and limits. That are guided by empathy. Right. Empathy is your ability to put yourself. In your child's shoes. So recognizing. What your child needs at 10, 12, 14, 16, 18. And being able to have communication around that, being able to discuss. What's important and valuable to you and what's important and valuable to them. And create boundaries based on that. The thing that we want to be really careful about here. Because you don't want to do all this other work. And then set boundaries in place that are designed to judge or criticize. That mark. Or ridicule. Okay, the idea is to simply create guidelines. So that your child understands your expectations. It's something that's really important for you to understand. Is that when you raise the bar. Your child. Raises with it. So if the expectation is compassion and kindness and giving back, And collaboration and working together as a family unit. When that is the expectation. When the expectation is when there's a struggle, your child comes home and communicates it to you. It doesn't hide it from you. And isn't ashamed to share what's going on. They will come home and share with you. They'll come home and communicate. They'll let you know what's going on in their life. Because the fact that you set it as an expectation, a boundary, a guideline. Says to them that. Their journey is important to you. The what they're experiencing. Matters. This is usually about the time that parents say to me. Yeah, but yeah, but you don't understand my kid. We'll push back on these things. My kid won't collaborate. My kid is lazy and not motivated. These are our expectations. When you observe in your child, a desire, a deep desire to spend all afternoon. Playing video games are all night playing video games. And you pair that with the belief. That this equals laziness in your child, instead of what it truly is, which is dopamine reward. What you're doing. Is you're creating a story and setting an expectation that says, this is all I expect of you. And so then they do exactly that thing. When you work to help them to be contributing members to their community. And I mean, like maybe it's trying out for the play or doing things that are risky for them. If you want to help them. Change their dopamine reward center. Then you raise the expectations. And you ask them to meet those expectations, those challenges. And that could be something like getting involved. Participating. All right. I'm not talking about. Getting a straight A's or being a star athlete or star in whatever role they're in. I'm talking about doing things that feel like a risk to your child. But that are not so risky that you have to step in and protect them. That might mean auditioning for a play or trying out for a sports team. It might mean trying something new that they've never done before. It might mean. Asking someone out on a date. There's lots of things that. When risk rises. Reward rises as well. In a safe context, right? Not something that is so. Risky that you have to be worried about their safety. Because that's not what this is about. This is about parenting in a way. That encourages collaboration. And if your story truly is what I want more than anything is for my child to be happy, healthy, and whole. For them to be successful in adulthood for them to feel good about themselves and have healthy relationships. Then at this point, you should recognize that shame and punishment creates the opposite of that. And the only one. That can change that story. Is you. You have to make the choice to navigate your child away from shame and punishment. To move them towards collaboration and connection. To deepen the connection with you and the people in their lives. To help them seek dopamine so that they feel good. But to help them seek dove meat in a way. That is safe. So that is your challenge for today. Move away from shame and punishment. Move towards connection and collaboration and see how you can go about helping your children. Get to where you want them to be. And stop relying on the old stories, your old stories, your old beliefs. That say, this is the way to parent. Because it's just not effective. It's just not true. And it's really, really toxic. Thanks so much guys have an amazing week and I will see you all next time. Take care.