6. Positive Discipline - the parenting style that actually WORKS for your highly sensitive child

Connection Before Correction - GET YOUR FREE POSITIVE DISCIPLINE CHEAT SHEET HERE!

Parenting a highly sensitive child while being a sensitive parent yourself? We see you. In this episode, Leah and Adrienne dive deep into how Positive Discipline can transform your parenting journey — especially when traditional methods just don’t work.

What You’ll Hear:

• Why sticker charts, timeouts, and yelling backfire with sensitive kids
• What makes highly sensitive kids tick (hint: their nervous systems are wired for depth)
• Real-life examples of how connection calms the chaos
• Tools you can use TODAY to build cooperation without shame

Why Traditional Discipline Fails

• Sensitive kids experience correction as threat
• Their brains flip into fight/flight/freeze — no learning happens
• Punishment = shutdown. Safety = growth.

What Positive Discipline Offers Instead

• Connection before correction
• Teaching through empathy, not control
• Emotional safety that leads to real cooperation

Tools We Talk About:

• Connection First: “You’re upset the tower broke. You were so upset that happened. What can you do to make things better?"
• Curiosity Questions: “What’s your plan for finishing homework?”
• Choices Within Limits: “Do you want to brush your teeth before or after pajamas?”
• Natural & Logical Consequences: “You spilled juice — let’s clean it up together.”
• Encouragement Over Praise: “You must feel proud of how hard you worked.”
• Modeling Repair: “I yelled earlier. I’m sorry. I was overwhelmed.”

“When you choose curiosity over control, you teach connection over fear.”

FREE CHEAT SHEET! GET YOUR FREE POSITIVE DISCIPLINE CHEAT SHEET HERE!

🎧 Listen now and ask yourself: 👉 Which tool do I want to try this week?

📲 Share this episode with another sensitive parent 🌐 Visit www.adriennebishopcoaching.com or risingsuntherapy.com for more support.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Real Parenting for the Sensitive Mom, the podcast for moms who feel everything and still show up. I'm Adrienne Bishop, your co-host and parenting coach. And I'm Leah Andrione, your co-host and family therapist.

SPEAKER_01: 0:13

Welcome to today's podcast. As you know, it's a huge challenge to raise and be a highly sensitive human at the same time. So today we're diving into tools that will help you more easily parent your highly sensitive child.

SPEAKER_00: 0:27

Highly sensitive kids can be sensitive to correction, they freak out when you yell, they can be controlling, particular, and very emotional. They can cry at the drop of a hat and be stubborn and strong-willed at the same time. Anxiety can prevent them from easily going to school, attending activities, making friends, feeling good about schoolwork, and more.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

And as a result, it's a huge challenge to get them to cooperate easily. You've probably tried timeout, sticker charts, or yelling, I said put your shoes on for the fifth time. And it just made things worse, and there's a reason for that. The truth is, it's not your fault. Highly sensitive kids need to be parented differently in a way that none of us were taught. And through her coaching and parenting experience, Adrian has found a very effective way of parenting them through using a parenting philosophy called positive discipline.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18

In this episode, we're going to talk about what positive discipline is, why it works, and how to use it in your daily parenting with real examples and tools that you can use starting today. So this is just an example from my own life. One morning, this past week, I made my sensitive 12-year-old cry. And he wasn't crying because I yelled at him. He wasn't crying because I criticized him. He wasn't crying because I punished him. He was crying because I got an email from his science teacher that said he had two missing homework assignments that he was able to make up and he could redo them and get the grade. And he burst out in tears. So as you can see, this doesn't always happen with every kid. You know, some kids might be upset or feel bad about it, but this was such a big deal for my son. And it's a couple of reasons why highly sensitive kids just react in this way and are more challenging to parent. And it's because they're very deep feelers. So every emotion they have can feel almost like pain or some physical sensation. They're very easily overwhelmed. They're really aware of emotions. Like they know even if you're saying this, if your emotion behind it is this, they're going to detect the emotion. They're going to detect the tone first and not necessarily hear the words. Also, their environment can be very, very overstimulating, can be very influential on how their behavior is. If there's a lot of noise, a lot of lights, smells, those kinds of things, any sensory things, they're going to sense it, feel it, and it's going to influence their behavior. So we're going to talk a little bit today about why that is, why traditional discipline does not work, which is rewards versus punishment. That's traditional discipline. Why does it fail at the highly sensitive kid level? And one of the biggest things is what we talk about in the last couple of podcasts with the moms was the nervous system, right? So our nervous systems as highly sensitive people are more reactive. So every correction, every little tiny change in tone or change in level of volume of voice, they're going to see as a threat. Your kids are going to take that in. And sometimes it can become a flight or fight when you're in that situation. So they're going to retreat or they're going to get really upset and fight you. So this is kind of like the idea that their brain is a supercomputer, noticing everything, the tone on your voice, the look on your face, also the physical sensitivities can make the tag in their shirt bother them. And then all they can think about is that tag. And then they get really angry or irritable really quick. Maybe they think their sibling looked at them funny and then they're going to go at them and start fighting out of nowhere. And you're like, what happened? Or the the idea is that their nervous system is just wired for that depth and intensity. So when we correct them or even just sound disappointed, it can feel to them like danger. And like I said, they go into flight, flight, or freeze. And so you might have a kid that tends to run in their room, shut the door, and say, okay, I don't want to talk to you. That's one way they could do it. Another kid will yell at you back or talk back. So each kid is going to respond differently. I think that's important to remember because every single one of my kids responds in a completely different way. So then you need to really adjust as the parent. How do I respond back or how do I manage them? Every child is different. And so one of the reasons that traditional discipline or punishment, threats, timeouts, they often backfire is because they feel unsafe. The kids feel unsafe when you do those things because of their sensitive nervous system going into flight or flight all the time. That means a lot of cortisol is running through their veins and they're just feeling very unsafe. Like they can't be who they are, or they can't make a mistake, or they did something wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 4:39

Everything that you're saying can make us as parents also feel baffled. Like, where did this reaction come from? Right. I see this with my own kids, meaning like, did she just flip out over me saying, don't do that? And working with clients, hearing their stories of their kids. It's very, you know, really disheartening for us when we see our kids have these huge reactions. We're not really sure where to pinpoint how to help them because we don't know where it's coming from, right? Like you said, their sibling looked at them funny and now they're going off and slamming their doors and maybe crying. And you're like, what? Did that actually happen? Exactly. So I like how you're bringing this up because sometimes I'm back and I'm like, I don't even know what to do with this.

SPEAKER_00: 5:25

Exactly. And it can be really daunting as the parent to say, like, how am I gonna help them? How am I gonna solve this? Especially when it's happening frequently in all these different ways. When they're younger, especially, their emotional regulation is really low. And so they're gonna have so many more instances of going into these situations where they're emotional and they're throwing tantrums and they're upset or they're like not wanting to talk to you. So as it as they get older, they get a little more mature, but the sensitivity is always there and it's gonna come out in these really strange ways. And even as teenagers, I have a 15-year-old and so do you. You see it come out all of a sudden out of nowhere, what it feels like when they're doing well. You know, they're doing great. All of a sudden they're like, what happened? I don't understand. I thought things were going great. Yeah. So so if this is you and you feel like you're resonating with some of the things I'm saying, just know nothing's gone wrong. Your kid just has that nervous system that is gonna notice everything. And there are ways, like we're gonna talk about today, to help them to first of all calm their nervous system down. And second of all, talk to them in a way that maybe will keep them in that safety zone so that there isn't as much flight or fight. And I'm not saying that you have to do this perfectly because one never will, and they're going to go into flight or fight just because they're sensitive. So it's okay if it happens, but you can kind of make it so that it's not as constant and not as, you know, consistently happening, so that you're not trying to solve problems 24-7. And instead, you're sort of preventing them. And that's why I love positive discipline because it does work in the prevention place, right? So instead of being reactive to what's happening with our child, we're being proactive. And that's one of the reasons why it works to adopt it in a way that isn't too difficult because you're not trying to change your emotional capacity after your kid's freaking out. You're not trying to calm yourself down after something big happens. You're working with your kid to be like, oh, I know that in this situation when they're doing their homework, they tend to get very frustrated. So how am I going to proactively be available to work with them in the way they need? So we make much more of a big deal out of the planning process and anticipating, not necessarily in the way we're going to be afraid of what's going to happen, anticipating it in a way that we can feel confident around when these things do come up. So that's sort of the goal for me, especially as the coach, to help my clients be able to do that. And positive discipline is an amazing philosophy because it's creating safety. That's basically the point of positive discipline is to create safety around all these things that are happening with your children, connection and learning. So one of the bigger things is that we're not going to be controlling the child. We're not going to be telling the kid to do what to do 24-7. We're going to be teaching. We're going to be getting the child to be curious. We're going to be asking more questions as opposed to commands. And there's really not punishment involved unless once in a while you may use a consequence. And I'll talk about that in a little bit, but it's a very low amount of times that you actually need to do that because we're being proactive. And this is exactly what highly sensitive kids need so that they don't go into triggering flight, fight, or freeze. And when we use timeouts, yelling punishments that can do that. So we take those out as much as possible and we add in more connection, more safety, and more teaching. And so when kids feel unsafe, what happens is they cannot function in the idea of learning something or being logical because their emotional brain is online. So when your emotional brain is online, your logical brain is offline. So if your kid is upset and you're lecturing them, what do you think is going to happen? Especially a sensitive kid that is flooded, their nervous system is completely flooded in fight, flight, or freeze. There's not going to be any information going into their brains. They're not going to be like, oh yes, mom and dad are right. They're telling me what to do, and I will do it exactly that way next time. They're going to just be so much more upset because they feel like not only are they freaking out and feeling unsafe, but now they're being corrected. So you have like this big pile of stuff happening at once. It's it's just going to make things worse in the end. So positive discipline, the catchphrase of it is connection before correction. So this is again, can be used as a reactive piece or it can be used as a proactive piece. So you're going to again teach instead of punish through respect, empathy, and collaboration, which is a huge part of parenting a highly sensitive child, collaborating with them. This builds emotional safety, which automatically makes your kid want to collaborate with you.

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

Yeah, I just want to jump in on that collaboration piece because I don't know about you, but most of us have not been taught how to collaborate with our kids, right? No. I'm definitely coming from a generation that was like, well, just do it. Just do it because I said so, was our parents in the generations before that was their catchphrase. Yep. So what I love about this is, you know, really, like you said, with respect, but treating your child as the person that actually knows what they need and getting their input on what could work because kids are really creative and they may come up with a solution that you haven't thought about, but will actually work for them. I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_00: 10:19

Good. Yeah, I'm so glad that you're, you know, reflecting on the collaboration piece because it is sort of the key to a lot of this working. And also it's the key to helping your child become emotionally aware and self-aware, which is my goal in general when I work with clients is to help them help their kids be self-aware. Because if you get to the point where your kid knows, hey, I just freaked out because I was worried about this test at school. And that's why I was really rude to you, if you can get a kid to say that, you got nothing to do. You're done. So, like that's sort of your eventual goal. And one of the analogies that I use with my clients sometimes is this idea of boss and employee relationship. So technically the boss is authority, right? They're the ones that are making the decisions. But if you had a boss that was incredibly critical of you and maybe you did work and as soon as they got it, they would redo all of it or they would tell you everything that was wrong. They never encouraged you and maybe they even yelled, would that motivate you to do more work for that person? Like, would you be like, I am so excited to complete this project for my boss? Probably not. And it's the same idea with your kid. If you're not motivating them in a way that feels safe, that builds connection, that has respect, they're not gonna be motivated to cooperate or to do what you're asking them to do or to just work with you in any way, shape, or form, whether that be something simple like getting their teeth brushed or something big like doing chores. That's kind of the analogy I like to use because as adults, we all know that boss that we've had that has been that jerk and we did not want to do anything for them. And then we also know the boss that was amazing and was able to be encouraging and was really respectful of us and what that felt like. It's the same thing with the kids.

SPEAKER_01: 11:56

Yes, because I can see a huge difference even in my own household if I'm connecting with my kids before I ask them to do something and already kind of have that I call it baseline relationship for the day, versus when they get up and it's like, hey, take out the trash, and they're like, no. Not exactly. Yeah. Or, you know, teaching them to do chores like emptying the dishwasher or sweeping or cleaning up. They have literally said, if you do it after I do it, I'm not doing it again.

SPEAKER_00: 12:24

I love that. That is such good feedback. I 100% agree. And it's really hard not to do that, especially as a sensitive mom that may be a little perfectionist. Gotta let that stuff go.

SPEAKER_01: 12:35

Let it go because it's just gonna build their confidence versus coming in doing it for them, and they will completely shut down.

SPEAKER_00: 12:42

Leah just gave us a couple of really good examples. Before you teach or before you redirect, connecting with what your child is feeling, which is what Leah was saying. What does it look like? So let's say your seven-year-old throws their crayons when you say it's time for dinner. So instead of that's it, no more art tomorrow. If you throw your things, we always threaten. That's like a tool that most of us have in our back pocket, right? So you can say something like, Wow, you really didn't want to stop coloring. You are in the middle of something fun. That's called validation. So because this is a seven-year-old, we're teaching them how to regulate their emotions and how to react, what's appropriate to do in reaction to anger. And so it doesn't mean they're never gonna throw their crayons again. It doesn't mean they're never gonna be mad again, but at least they understand, okay, so maybe instead of throwing my crayons, I can say something or I can use my words. But when you do a threat like no art tomorrow, if you throw things, are you gonna follow through with that? Because that actually probably doesn't work for you either as the parent. It doesn't work. You don't want them to stop doing art. You want them to have that time where maybe you're not actually working with them and they're doing something on their own and you have some some some space to do something. But the thing is that do you see how it's reactive versus you know what? Typically, my kid gets upset maybe when they are in the middle of something and if I try to redirect them to something different, they usually get upset. If you have that in your mind is already a possibility, you're gonna be like, oh, okay, so if this ever happens, this is how I react. So you have a plan and you're like, okay, I'm gonna validate, and then I'm gonna redirect them to doing something different with their feeling. The idea behind these ways of speaking to your child is that your child's gonna feel seen and safe, and then they're gonna be ready to learn. So when you validate them, you calm down their nervous system. So then guess what happens? Their logical brain goes back online, they feel connected with you, and then they're like, I'm open to listening now. They're open to learning. But if they felt shame or scared, like there's a threat coming, something they're gonna take something away, they shut down and there is no learning happening. So, with positive discipline, the background of it is that it was created in the 90s, actually, by a woman named Dr. Jane Nelson. And you can read the books. There's, I think, two or three of them. There's one for toddlers, there's one for three to twelve, and then there's one for early childhood, which is more for teachers. So she also trades teachers, which is really great. And it focuses on mutual respect and belonging. So this is based on Adler, actually, Alfred Adler. So he's the psychologist that she based all of her philosophy on. And he has a huge focus on belonging. So what that means is if you feel like you are a part of a community and you have a role, your mental health is better, essentially. You're more motivated to cooperate in the group. You're more motivated to contribute to the group. So that's what Dr. Jane Nelson thought would work in a community of a family, is if you felt like you belonged in the family, you felt like you were heard, respected, seen, you would be more motivated to cooperate. So that's sort of her reasoning behind it. And it focuses on long-term skills. And the idea is that we're not trying to immediately get the kid to do something just because. We're getting them to cooperate because it creates, well, using validation and connection, it creates better emotional regulation. And then they become good at problem solving, empathy, critical thinking, all of these really core skills that we want our kids to have. All you have to do is validate them and ask them a question. You don't even have to teach them how to have critical thinking skills or teach them problem solving. It happens naturally using these philosophies.

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

Yeah, it sounds like it's just creating the space for them to be able to develop those skills on their own and then be able to take those skills throughout life, throughout school. So when they're adults, they have emotion regulation, they have problem-solving skills and they have empathy to have more fulfilling relationships, all because you offer them the space to exercise those brain pathways.

SPEAKER_00: 16:34

Exactly. So you are building neuropathways, is exactly what you're doing in these ways of interacting. When you interact with your child, let's say they're upset about something, they're mad, they have these big feelings. And instead of punishing them, you help them understand themselves, you help them learn how to calm down. You're giving them tools, but not telling them what the tool is. So it's not a lecture kind of situation. It's just sort of, I like to say, unconscious. It's an unconscious way of working with your child because in reality, so I'm a hypnotist, my teacher always says kids are in their unconscious mind 99% of the time until they're a certain age, and then they definitely move away from that. But if you can appeal to that part of their brain, meaning the one that's getting programmed, the one that's not thinking about what you're saying, as opposed to feeling like you're programming it with, hey, this is safe for you to be upset. It's safe for you to be mad. We can have a space where you think and maybe you're wrong, maybe you are problem solving and that one doesn't work, and it's all okay. But the idea is that we're sort of programming them to come up with these things on their own and to be more independent around those things. And so one of the mindsets that she focuses on is that children do better when they feel better, not when they feel worse. So punishment, timeouts, yelling may kids feel worse, and then they basically don't want to cooperate at that point. But when they feel motivated or they feel heard or they feel respected, then they do better, meaning they behave differently. And so one of the interesting things that I've come up upon as a coach the last six years is that people think that positive discipline is like permissive or enabling or too soft. So I don't even like to call it gentle parenting because I feel like that's a misnomer. But permissive parenting is where you don't have any boundaries or you don't have any limits or you don't say no. But positive discipline is not about that at all. It's not about being a pushover. What it is about is being kind and firm at the same time. So if you if you can see, I have these different ways of sort of phrasing, paraphrasing what positive discipline is. One was connection before correction. You know, one is children do better when they feel better, not when they feel worse. And this is another one, being kind and firm at the same time. So the reason I go over these is because parents can kind of take these phrases and remember what they're supposed to do more easily. So kind and firm at the same time means you hold limits but with empathy and you create boundaries, but without shame. Okay. So we're creating the safety while still having limits, while still having boundaries. And that the key way to do this is again through the connection before correction. So if that makes sense, so the way that you would use kind and firm would sound like, I know you really want that cookie right now and we'll have one tomorrow. So what you do is you use the validation piece, which can be feelings-based or it can be used using the terms want or you didn't want. So you can use those phrases instead, and then tell them when or how they can have the thing that they want.

SPEAKER_01: 19:30

So instead of using the word but, you're going to change it up and use the word and literally writing this stuff down because when I work with the moms, we're trying to think of different mantras, different affirmations, different things to think about. Having these boundaries without shame, they're small tidbits that you can. I tell all my clients, write down on a piece of paper, write down on a sticky note, stick it on your fridge to help you remember because it's going to happen. And your child's gonna trigger you. And you need these visual reminders before their habits.

SPEAKER_00: 20:06

Yes. And that actually leads me into the next part. One of the key things that as a parent, you're gonna need to know how to do when using this new philosophy is to stay calm. So I'm not saying you have to be some sort of zen monk at all. It's just a matter of how do you regulate your nervous system? What are your tools to do that? One of the ways that I do that is through mindset. And the other way is through hypnosis. So let me just talk about why do you need to be calm? Well, we talked about the nervous system being the big thing and the highly sensitive people. So you have your nervous system and your child's nervous system. And your child is so in tune to what your nervous system is doing that they are going to mirror it. And that is something that is, again, unconscious on your part and their part. And if you're dysregulated, they're gonna be too. And again, not that you can never be dysregulated. That is not the goal ever. But you want to be conscious of what dysregulates you and how do you, how does it work for you to calm yourself? Or even just to bring yourself down a little bit into more neutral territory. And so the connection and teaching require your calm presence. Again, which means you don't have to be 100% regulated, but just getting yourself more into neutral zone and knowing what works for you and having the tools to do that is gonna be really, really helpful. And we did talk a little bit about those in the self-care episode, but I'm gonna do a little bit more of that mindset work in this episode so that you have some more guidance around that. So one of the easy ways is to actually, this is not easy, but one that we've heard before, simple ways, is to pause before reacting, right? So your kid does something, you can take three deep breaths or count to 10. And again, this does not work for everyone. So I'm gonna give you a lot of different options. So if you're like, oh my God, I can't do this, it's okay. It's okay if some of these don't resonate with you. This is another one that we talk a little bit about in the self-care episode, about grounding yourself physically. So pay attention to where your shoulders are, pay attention if your fists are clenched, pay attention to how your feet feel on the floor. Find that grounding sensation so that you can go back to yourself physically. And then you can name your feeling in your own mind, which is something like I'm frustrated and I can handle it. You can also step away briefly, but make sure that you tell your child what your plan is and that you come back. You tell them you're coming back and you come back when you're saying when you say you're coming back.

SPEAKER_01: 22:25

What I love about these, Adrian, is that like I tell my moms all the time, you are also role modeling what you want your kids to do. So you don't have to do it perfect, you don't have to do it 100% of the time, but even 80 to 90% of the time is a huge win. You're gonna be able to teach your kids pause, breathe, walk away if you need to, label their feelings, because they're always watching. Even if they can't do it yet, they're always gonna watch. And they're like you said, they're gonna mirror your regulation. So even if you can bring yourself down a tiny bit, they're probably gonna bring themselves down just that tiny bit too.

SPEAKER_00: 23:04

Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that you can do is narrate your experience, which feels awkward, but especially around little kids, if you're narrating, I feel really frustrated, but you know what? I'm gonna step away, take a breath, and I'm gonna be calm. I can handle this. You know, narrating some of the more positive things that are going on and talk about how you feel at the same time can be really, really helpful because you'll watch your eventually your kids are gonna pick up on those words and they're gonna start using them and those phrases that you're using. Definitely, if you do walk away, make sure you say, I'll come back and we'll talk in in a few minutes, right? Otherwise, that's abandonment. So we have to make sure that we let our kids know that we're not leaving permanently. And that what that's more for when they're little because they don't understand. So I also really like mantras in general to just say to yourself to help you stay calm. So one of the things is this is not an emergency. And the other thing I like to say is this is not a problem. It's not about me. So that's one of my biggest ones. Isn't there a phrase about not taking things personally? I can't remember what it is, but cute tip. Yes, thank you. Don't take things personally is a huge part of staying calm as a parent. If you're not internalizing that your child said something maybe not so kind, if you're not internalizing that, instead thinking, okay, this is not about me and it's about them. What is what are they saying in this moment? What are they really trying to tell me? You're gonna learn so much more about your kid and you're gonna stay calm at the same time. So it's not about me. This is not a problem, this is not an emergency. All of those things keep your body in more of a calmer state.

SPEAKER_01: 24:40

Q tip quick taking it personally is also that my child's not doing this to irritate me. They're not doing it on purpose to make me mad, as we can really get up in our heads about that.

SPEAKER_00: 24:54

Yes. And I always say, this is actually a positive discipline saying also all behavior is communication. So if we just take it as more of an observer from an observant place, almost like you were in a, you're at a zoo and you're watching an animal in a cage. There's no emotional attachment there. So if the monkey is throwing things at the other monkey, you're not gonna be offended by it. Or maybe even if they yell at you, like the monkey yells at you, you're not gonna be offended and take it personally. So the idea is you're watching them just slightly outside of an emotional attachment. I call it emotional detachment, but like not in like a severe way, just in a mild way. You're just mildly detaching, just a tiny bit, because as sensitive parents, we're gonna be way more wrapped up in their emotions than non-sensitive parents. So we have to be very careful to keep ourselves and our emotional capacity separate from our child's nervous system. So basically, these are kind of the ideas like give yourself some mantras and affirmations, use some of those self-care, staying calms, which is taking deep breaths, naming your feeling, talking out loud. And then even if you can, make sure that you can afterwards say, why did I get so upset? What really triggered me in that moment? And what can I do differently next time? Which is where a coach or a therapist would come in. We can really talk through some of those moments and be like, what really was going on with you there? And one of the things that I wanted to mention was that I've used mindset shifts. I've used helping parents understand their kids and why they're doing what they're doing. What are they communicating? So parents know all of those tools. And then sometimes there's me, there's moments where they cannot use them. And those are the moments I say that they are triggered more in an unconscious way. And so that's where hypnosis comes in. So I'm able to actually rewire the triggering that they experience in that moment. And it becomes automatic because in the coaching session, I'm rewiring it. So when it happens again, they don't feel that way. So let's say they get really upset because their child was talking back to them and they weren't allowed to talk back to their parents as a kid. Or maybe if they did, they would get very severely punished. So their nervous system is getting triggered by their child talking back. And it's almost an automatic reaction. It's not like they're thinking through what they're doing. So we can rewire that reaction in that moment. And the next time your child talks back, you don't feel that way anymore. You feel calm. So it's a really amazing tool that kind of got me able to help parents in those moments where I couldn't get to them. I couldn't help them think through it in the moment or use these tools. They just couldn't do it. It sort of bypassed the tools, it bypassed all the mantras. It's like, what is happening? And now I know it's an unconscious trigger. So think about was I triggered, or was it that I was just maybe didn't get enough sleep? Maybe you didn't eat eat enough food. Maybe I was stressed about something else during the day. And you can even admit that. Let's say you screw up and you do maybe yell or you say something you don't want to say. Definitely want to make sure that we're acknowledging and repairing and making sure that we make it right in the end, because that is a huge learning experience also for your child. And I'm going to talk about that a little bit more later, the repair. But you're you're basically undoing all the negative effects that you may have had when you do the repair at the end. If you go back, hey, I was really stressed about work today. It was not okay for me to yell at you. I'm so sorry. And then maybe even get them to help you brainstorm how next time you could work together in a different way. That's kind of one of the main things I wanted to talk about was the idea that like sometimes the mantras don't work, sometimes the tools don't work, and you may need to get some sort of rewiring or reprogramming. Not anything serious, but just something that's it might be bothering you a lot and you're noticing a pattern. That might be something to look into.

SPEAKER_01: 28:27

A lot of my clients, they have the some of them difficult childhoods, and we bring all that stuff up. And when we have kids, and especially if they're also sensitive and having their emotional dysregulation times, they can really remind us of ourselves. And when we grow up not having these tools, we are actively, you know, reparenting ourselves and learning all these tools along with them. So there will be times where you are triggered and you don't know where it comes from. And it's a lot of habit forming and you know, reprocessing your own life to be able to have space to offer for your kids. And everything that you're doing is role modeling for them, everything you're saying. So when you're saying your mantras out loud, they're seeing it. I had plenty of clients that say, you know what, I've been doing the breathing and we do it together. And now my kids are reminding me when I need to do the breathing, take the pause, take that break. Because they might actually learn faster than we do. Oh, yeah. And they can be our reminders. I always find that fascinating.

SPEAKER_00: 29:40

Yeah. And like if you think about how when we were growing up and we had a emotion, let's say we're really sensitive and we're crying and we're crying, and maybe your parent is like not accepting of that. They don't think it's okay. Can you imagine when your child starts crying and gets that way, you're gonna have some sort of reaction that's probably programming. It's gonna be there just from how you were parented. And like you were saying, we are learning this stuff alongside our kids, which makes it that much more difficult. So we had to be very, very patient with ourselves. But I do love the idea of embracing it. Like our kids are almost there to bring this stuff up for us, but not in like a negative way, but in a positive way, so that we can learn to grow. You know, our kids are pointing out the things that we need to work on. And so if you embrace it as an opportunity and really work on it in any way that feels comfortable for you, you're gonna have a lot of personal growth through that. You're gonna have a really good relationship with yourself, with your kids. So I almost say like they're like little Buddhas, like bringing us to enlightenment, you know? And it kind of helps you switch out of this is so hard. I don't want to do this, switch it into an opportunity, which again is not always possible all the time, but sometimes you can kind of use that as a way to motivate yourself to learn more things and try new tools and things like that. I'm just gonna go over the specific tools so you can use them in your parenting after you listen to the podcast. The first tool we talked about is connection before correction. Always connect emotionally first before addressing the behavior. You're really upset that the tower broke. It's okay to be angry and you will see a huge difference in their emotional capacity just from validating them. They will calm down and the behavior will disappear, especially if you're addressing addressing it proactively. It will disappear and you don't need to even do the correction sometimes. And so connection regulates the brain and then they can learn, right? So we talked about that. One of my favorite tools of PD is curiosity questions. And if you want a cheat sheet to remember these tools after this podcast is over, go to the end of this podcast description and there is a link there to download my cheat sheet off my website. So instead of commanding and lecturing, you're gonna ask thoughtful, non-judgmental questions, which encourages problem solving and accountability. So basically, even if your child doesn't know the answer to these questions, you're still gonna know that they don't know how to do it. Like you're still gonna be getting information from them. And also, instead of saying, put your backpack in the in the closet, put your shoes by the door, instead of repeating yourself over and over again with commands, instead, you're gonna throw in some questions. So it definitely feels better to you. It feels better to your kids. Instead of just assuming they don't know what they're doing and repeating yourself over and over where they're gonna just kind of tune you out, you can do this instead. So, what's your plan for getting your homework completed tonight? Again, this is probably gonna be six and above. What do you do with your plate when you have finished dinner instead of put your plate in the dishwasher, put your plate by the sink, you know, instead of repeating yourself? Where does your coat go when you come home from school rather than put your coat in the closet?

SPEAKER_01: 32:41

Yeah, I really love these two because when I use them, I can feel a physical difference in me before, unless, you know, if I'm saying, hey, you need to do X, Y, and Z, where my kids will probably look at me and be like, no, reminding them, looking at the plate on the island where I know where it goes, saying, you know, hey, where does this go? And then they come over grudgingly and put it away. But it takes away that demand. And if any sensitive kids can really be almost allergic to demands where they want to run away and not do it, it takes away that demand. But I would challenge anyone to notice how they feel when they're adding that question in there versus that demand, because I feel like the demand is coming from a more I want control, I want you to listen to right now, which is going to be a lot more tense versus the curiosity of where does that plate go? I physically feel completely different and it's gonna help me stay regulated.

unknown: 33:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:41

So if you're making a demand of your child and they don't follow through with it, you're setting yourself up for a fight, right? You're kind of getting yourself ready for them to say no. As opposed to if you're asking a question, there's no no. There's not a possibility of that argument, essentially. And they might not answer the question, but that's not, but you're still not setting yourself up for failure, essentially, in this situation. You're you're really giving yourself a chance to work with your child in these moments and give them that moment of, hey, I'm not correcting you, I'm not telling you what to do. We're working together. And so again, it brings in the collaboration and it helps kids feel respected and capable. So if you're asking them the question, you unconsciously are telling them you think they know how to do it and they know what they're supposed to do, and you don't have to tell them. So it's a really nice way, especially for kids that forget things a lot. It's a really nice way to kind of remind them without having that shame. Right.

SPEAKER_01: 34:32

And I want to jump in because I have a 13 and 10-year-old, it really helps when the kids get older because they do know, but then you're not babying them or you're nagging them or you're being too much of a mom. You're saying, I know you know this, I'm just gently reminding you. Versus younger kids, you're gonna need to remind them over and over again that plate goes in the dishwasher. We're gonna pick it up, we're gonna do this. But once they hit teen years, it's like, I know you know. How about we just, like you said, work together on this?

SPEAKER_00: 35:00

Right. And that is a really good way to work with teenagers because they need that respect to cooperate. They need to know that you're not trying to control them. The more you try to control them, the more they'll push back and the less they want to cooperate. Another really good one for all ages is choices. As humans, we love being in control. We love having choices. We don't want people to make choices for us. It gives kids a sense of control and autonomy. So always give two acceptable options. So two positive, limited options. So you're not gonna want to say, either you can put your toys away or I'm gonna take them away. So the two choices that you would want to say is do you want to brush your teeth before or after putting on your pajamas? Do you want to do homework at the table or on the floor? Right. And also in these questions, in these choices, you're assuming they're going to do it. So unconsciously, they get that in their head that it's not really a choice of not doing it. It's a choice of when, where, or how or whipped. Do you want to wear the red socks or the blue socks? All these things you can just throw in. And I wouldn't overuse this. I had a client that overused it and the kid caught on. And sometimes our sensitive kids are really, really smart. Most of the time they are. They're gonna catch on to some of these things. So just pepper them throughout. This builds independence, reduces power struggles, right? Because you're not saying do this, do that. And when they get small choices throughout the day, they're less likely to resist your big asks of them, right? So if you have little tiny choices and then you need them to do a chore, they're gonna be more likely to unconsciously feel like they want to cooperate with you because they feel empowered, not controlled. There isn't all this little tiny nitpicking all throughout the day. So those are two of my favorite tools. I have one more. It's called the when-then statement. And you wanna use the when-then statements instead of threats. So a threat would sound like if you don't clean up your room, then you don't get any screen time. So you're gonna switch it around and say, when you clean your room, then you may have screen time. So does you see how that feels in your body, Leah? Like, do you see how the difference is? The threat throws you right into flight or fight.

SPEAKER_01: 36:53

Oh, I'm ready to fight. Yeah. Yeah, you're like, no, I'm not. I'm ready. When I have that demand, I'm getting myself ready because my kids have, you know, reacted a certain way for so long. You know, you anticipate, I'm gonna ask this and they're gonna fight. So I'm almost preparing myself, which almost always ends in an argument.

SPEAKER_00: 37:16

So then the one-then statements feel more like a choice, even though again, unconsciously, you're telling them this is going to happen. We just have a little bit of leeway as to what when it happens, this comes first, then this comes next. There's another fancier way to say it, you're welcome to. So you're welcome to have screen time once your room is clean. And then there's a feel free to, feel free to go outside and play once your plate is in the dishwasher. The other one is I'd be happy to. I'd be happy to take you to the mall as soon as your chores are done. So those are the three ways that I like to say it a little bit more fancy. And this is again appealing to your child's unconscious mind that wants the autonomy and wants to make the choice. And so they feel in that unconscious part of their mind that they are getting an option. So try those. And then I wanted to talk a little bit about consequences. So, what Jane Nelson says, the woman that wrote Positive Discipline, the philosophy, talks about logical consequences, which are more things that you're putting on your child. So you're creating this consequence. That's a logical consequence. And she says we only use those 10 to 15% of the time when we're parenting. And I'll tell you what they mean in a second. Other kind of consequences, natural consequences. This happens without intervention. So no parental intervention is happening. It's just a consequence that happens on its own. You forget your coat, you're very cold. You don't eat lunch, you're hungry. With the natural consequence, that's something that you're choosing to not intervene in. You're not making your child bring their coat or put it on. So it's a very powerful tool.

SPEAKER_01: 38:42

This one's really difficult for any parents that have a hard time letting go of control because they have those shoulds going on. My kids should eat three times a day. They should be eating this, this, and this. They need to be outside with a coat on. And for some parents, it's hard. And it's bringing in that nervous system regulation tools when we have to let go, because natural consequences usually work faster than logical consequences or parent-imposed consequences.

SPEAKER_00: 39:13

Right. And it's just like we were talking about this whole time, which is more giving the control of the child, giving them that independence. They're going to learn those, what's good and what's not good, what works and what doesn't work really fast if they're the ones that are leading it and actually making that choice. So I agree with it being very difficult. I know that a lot of the clients I work with cannot fathom letting go of some of these things. But when you do, and you don't have to let go of all of it, I think it's a matter of what you can manage, like what your preference is. And so I like to start slow and just say, what do you feel comfortable letting go of? What can we start with? A lot of people can't let go of the food because it's too heavy. But the coat, they can be like, Well, you can put it in your backpack or you can put it on. And you can start with that one. And then the kid will possibly at the bus stop go, Oh my gosh, I should have brought, I should have worn my coat. And they have it in their backpack so they can get It out. So if you're feeling really nervous that something bad's going to happen, you can do it that way. But the natural consequence is a very fast way for them to learn, as Leo was saying. So it's a good option in a lot of ways. So a logical consequence, if we move to the other side, is connected to the behavior. So it always has to be connected to the behavior. And the way that positive Islam talks about it is it's the three R's and the H. So it's related to the behavior, respectful, reasonable in duration, meaning if you're gonna take something away for a certain amount of time, it has to be reasonable for the age level and helpful in learning how to change the behavior. So the point of the consequence is learning how to change the behavior or is helping them change their behavior. But like we were saying before, we're proactive in this parenting philosophy. So consequences are reactive sometimes. So we want to not use them unless they have the three Rs and the H, or use them proactively. So this is what it looks like. Let's say you're noticing that your child gets upset every time they have to turn off the screen. You want to have a collaboration or a discussion with them. I noticed that. I noticed that when I ask you to turn off your screen, you get very angry. What's up? And they're gonna say, makes me really mad. I really want to keep going. I was having so much fun. And you can say, like, okay, so what would work for you in regards to helping you not to feel that way? And so you can work with your child to not feel that way. One of them is you can sit with them for the five minutes before, two minutes before they finish their iPad time, and that helps them get out of the focus of being on the screen and then they can focus on you. And it's easier to sort of have that disconnection and there's no withdrawal symptoms. Or you can say, How about we plan on a consequence? Like if you're unable to get off the screen when I ask you to, what do you think should be your consequence? Most of the time, the kids will be like, Well, I guess I could lose like 15 minutes or something. And you'd be like, okay, so when and if this happens, and we're gonna work on it together emotionally also. If this happens, we're going to, you know, take 15 minutes off of your screen time for the next day. When you get into the position of having to, you know, actually enforce the consequence, the kid knows it's coming and knows that they talked about it. Doesn't mean it's gonna make it 100% easy and they're gonna be okay with it. That is one of the main ways that I recommend using logical consequences. It's in prevention, it's in advance, it's in collaboration with the child. Even if they're little, they can you can still talk about it beforehand. And you're probably gonna be the one that's gonna offer the consequence and not the child, but it still makes it easier when you try to enforce something that it's going to be easier to follow through on. One of the other ways a logical consequence works is in the moment. Let's say you need to do it after the behavior happens, make sure it's related. So you spill juice, we clean it up together. Okay, so that's the consequence, but it's related because we're actually helping the situation resolve and we're helping us to figure out how to make things work without shame. If you can see this has no shaming, and you're able to maybe even talk through, hey, like what is there a way that maybe we can prevent that next time? Is maybe we need a different cup, maybe we need to move it back off the table a little bit more. So you can kind of work together to figure out how to prevent it next.

SPEAKER_01: 43:13

Next time, what I really like about these is the collaboration piece because, like I said before, kids can be so creative. They're gonna, they might come up with a consequence that will work for them that didn't even cross your mind. Oh, yeah, 100%. You'd be surprised. And how it's taking away the shame of you did something wrong, you were bad. It takes that away to let's do it together, let's figure this out, let's more problem solve. So then they're gonna be more willing to listen, to do it.

SPEAKER_00: 43:43

And it's very respectful, right? We're respecting the fact that they are learning and that they do not have the fully developed prefrontal cortex that we have. So we are helping them figure out how to emotionally regulate, how to do things in a way that maybe is a more along the lines of how we would like them to do it, but we're not doing it by making them feel like something has gone wrong with them, which creates shame.

SPEAKER_01: 44:04

So we want to avoid going into those because I just want to jump in on that because that shame for a highly sensitive child is gonna make them shut down. Uh-huh. That's when you're going to get them running to their room, slamming the door. That's when they're going to cry. And it's going to take more work to work through that than it is to come up with these problem solving, these consequences from the get-go.

SPEAKER_00: 44:30

They feel shame, they go into flight or fight or freeze. And so you want to avoid that as much as possible. And again, it's not 100% possible to avoid it all the time, but you can plan for some of it. So let's say you can't plan for this consequence. There's a spilled juice. My one son, he got really, really angry again about the screen time and he pulled a bar off of my banister because he was really angry and he's a very physical kid. And I was really, really shocked, like completely taken aback by this. He's never done anything that big before. And so in the moment, I was like, uh what? I don't know what to do. Like, what would be related to this? How could I help him learn? He did, he could tell I was very shocked. So I know that was impactful. And I said, But I see that you're very, very angry about this. I mean, I've never seen you do that before. What can we do to make this right? And so we talked it through. And luckily, my husband is very handy. So I said, What if you help dad put it back together? And he said, Yeah, that would be good. Because he immediately recognized he did something wrong. It was this the thing about sensitive kids. They know 100% they did something wrong. The last thing they need is for you to berate them about it on top of their own self-talk, their own negative self-talk. That worked because we were able to put it back together in a way that was successful. But if I hadn't come up with a related consequence, maybe I would have had something like maybe you pay a handyman to put this back together because we do give them an allowance. So he does have a little bit of money, or you pay half of the money to get it fixed. So you can come up with, you can be creative with a lot of this stuff. And again, I didn't necessarily ask him. We kind of brainstormed together, but it was just enough that he didn't feel like he was completely powerless or he didn't feel that really heavy shame. And he hasn't done anything like it since. So it just depends. Like sometimes they will do it again, but most of the time that respect you're giving them is going to really help with them wanting to do better because the relationship that you have with them is strong in that moment. And so I did try to, you know, I did hold them accountable. That's the thing. We're holding them accountable for their actions, but we're doing it in a way in a way that doesn't have shame or extra punishments. And there's no I told you so's, which is one of the worst things you can do, especially if you're using like a natural consequence and they don't wear their coat and they come home and they said they were cold, the last thing you want to do is say, I told you so. That's completely gonna erase all of the learning. So instead you say, Oh man, that stinks, buddy. Sorry about that. What are you gonna do next time? Something like that. So the other way that you can get your kids to cooperate a little more easily is to work with encouragement. So we know what praise is, right? Praise is you're so smart, you're so good at this. It's very fixed mindset. But instead, we want to move toward encouragement, which again is more growth mindset. So the difference between those two, if I don't go too far into it, is fixed mindset is I am this way and I can't change it. Growth mindset is I always have the ability to work on this situation or this thing. And encouragement leads to internal confidence and growth. And so instead of I'm proud of you, you must feel so proud of how hard you worked. So this is something that I don't say you don't, you can't say ever. You can tell your kids that you're proud of them. But you want to lean toward getting them to feel internally proud of themselves and not depend on you. You don't want them to depend on you to give them that confidence. You want them to be able to have it internally based on their effort. So it's based on effort versus talent, natural smarts, that kind of thing. Because let's say you tell your kid, you know, oh, you're so good at math, and then all of a sudden they encounter a math they're not good at. They have an identity crisis, or they might not try. They might not put forth that effort to take on that challenge. And we want our kids to say, this is a challenge, but I am a hard worker. I can figure it out, I can try and fail, and it's okay. That's growth mindset. So encouragement encourages that. And now just to remind us about the regulation, repair, modeling regulation, and making sure that we apologize or repair. So when you lose it and you will, you're gonna model emotional repair. I yelled earlier, that wasn't okay. I was feeling overwhelmed. I'm sorry. So basically, that shows your child like this is how relationships work. People take accountability for themselves. It's not just one versus the other. It's not the parent is always right. It's that relationships are both people need to hold themselves accountable and that they can recover from some of the mistakes that they make. And this builds resilience and trust. So it teaches us that we're all human, we make mistakes. And once you do repair after messing up, that mistake or that impact that you've had or you thought you think you might have had is no longer stored in your child's subconscious. And instead, they remember the repair and then the positive interaction instead. So it kind of erases the negative and the positive is what's stored. So that's really important because I know a lot of moms that I work with are afraid of damaging their kids by whatever they're doing, even if it's not anything terrible, they still are afraid of that. And I say, as long as you're honest, you're open, you communicate with your child and you apologize, recognize a mistake, hold yourself accountable. That's gonna go way farther than any other things you're doing, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01: 49:36

One piece of parenting where I feel like not many of us grew up hearing. So again, we are learning, we are changing the patterns from our parents down to us, from us to our kids. And you're not gonna possibly say it perfectly, right? All of this is learning, all of this is a work in progress. But understanding how powerful this repair can go within the relationship, I think is really important. And knowing that you can go on Chat GPT or Google and say, how do I repair with my child? And they'll be able to give you certain statements to practice. Oh, yeah. Especially if you haven't heard it from other parents or in other relationships.

SPEAKER_00: 50:23

Exactly. And I think that that's a really good point. We haven't had it modeled in a lot of situations, and so it feels really scary sometimes for people and parents now that are trying to break that cycle to admit when they're wrong or to even say, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm trying, but I'm not really sure what the right thing is. And I just want you to know that I really love you and I want to do the right thing by you, but I'm gonna make mistakes. And please let me know how you feel about these situations. I want to make sure we're communicating, you know, just saying, like, hey, I don't always know everything. I don't actually have all of the answers. And a lot of my clients that I work with will do that and they'll see this huge shift in their relationship with their kids when they do that. One of the things I just want to summarize quickly is why does this approach work, right? For the sensitive kid. They need safety and belonging to learn. Connection regulates their nervous system and opens learning pathways. It builds self-discipline, empathy, and problem-solving skills. It strengthens the parent-child bond and mutual respect. And as a result, long-term, your child most likely will have more confidence, be emotionally aware, and be more cooperative naturally. So, again, this is a proactive approach as opposed to reactive. And for parents, we talked about Leah and I talked about you're not going to get it perfect, but that's not the point. The point is that you're making progress and you're trying. Your kids will 100% see that. They will see that they don't need you to be perfect. And as a matter of fact, it's better if you're not, because they're not perfect and they don't want to see that. That's the expectation for them. And every time you pause and connect, you rewire your child's nervous system. When you choose curiosity over control, you teach connection over fear. And sensitive kids aren't difficult, they're just very aware of everything around them. Because your child is sensitive, you're going to be able to really have an impact on them so that they become more compassionate and emotionally intelligent. So I just want you to think about after we've talked about the different tools, which of them do you want to try this week? You can just pick one. Go really small, pick one little moment in your day that frustrates you. Pick one of the tools, give it a try, plan it, and I'd love to hear how it goes. You know, you can definitely email me or you can send me a message on Instagram and let me know how it goes. And if you know somebody that's struggling with a sensitive parent, please share this episode with them because they'll get some really good tools and they'll be able to start, you know, making some small changes, which feels really, really good.

SPEAKER_01: 52:51

I just wanted to kind of point out or reiterate what I love about the positive discipline and how you lay it out is because if you're like me, you want to have a plan. You want to have a plan, you want to be proactive when you're going into you know parenting your sensitive child. And I know with all the moms that I talk to, they're like, what do I do? What do I do instead of this? How do I do it? What does that look like? Right. Because as moms, we're trying to plan and be everything and everywhere to so many people. If we can have a solid plan, and I think you lay it out as a solid plan, that helps us feel more grounded in what we're doing, how we're doing, and just knowing that we need to practice just along with our kids. So the planning and the proactive piece about the positive discipline, I think really hits home for a lot of our listeners. I know it does for me, and it does for a lot of the moms I work with because that's what we're looking for. We can't read 15 different books to try to piece it together, but having this solid plan, I think really builds in everything so we can have that positive relationship with our kids.

SPEAKER_00: 54:04

Yeah. And if you're noticing that you're struggling to make the plan or you're trying to implement things and they're just not working, or you're not able to stay calm, these are what Lee and I work on with our clients. And so I'm happy to talk to you further about it. Or if you feel like you have someone in your life you can work on it with just to help you, maybe if you find triggers and you don't know how to resolve them, you know, make sure you reach out for some support because it can be very quick and not a very long process to really shift all of those things into a positive place. So we're happy that you're here and we hope to see you in two weeks for our next episode. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you. In the meantime, as always, you can find Leah and me on social media, my Instagram at Adrian BishopCoaching, and Leah's is at Leah Andreoni. Hope to see you soon.