Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Change Your Parenting Approach to Help Your Child Succeed Pt. 2 with Dr. Charles Fay

Episode Date: July 24, 2018

Who controls the emotional weather in your house? Is it you, or is it your child? In the second part of a series on parenting with Dr. Charles Fay, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss the parenting tips and techniques that will best benefit your child and help them to develop a sense of accountability.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. So we are back with Dr. Charles Fay. I'm so excited. We are still talking about love and logic and parent training. I know we think it's going to be child training, but it's not. It's parent training. I can attest to it firsthand because it took me far longer to get this than it took my daughter who with every consequence just got the behavior.

She's a really quick learner. Well, and as a child psychiatrist, parents bring their kids to us all the time and they go fix the kid and I'm like, hmm, may not work that way. We have to like get everybody in the family right. And yes, I can drug his brain or her brain into submission, but it's probably not the best long-term solution. Dr. Right. And I borrowed one of your, if I can just quickly, and then I want to have you jump in, Charles, and tell us another example. But I just want to really quickly,

I stole this right out of your book. I borrowed it, stole it, whatever, but it worked. So I had this daughter, she was so strong-willed and she just, she was throwing this massive temper tantrum because she didn't get what she wanted this one day. She was five or six. And we were doing something really special as a family that day.

Now, this was the hard part because it's painful to let your kids pay consequences. And I find that when I'm actually trying to help people and coach them through this the biggest problem is parents don't want to follow through because it hurts when you watch your kids paying consequences right so I set it up in advance because she had been going going through this and we had this big day plan she threw this massive temper tantrum I had to leave the room for about 20 minutes because I was just

like mmm you know ready to just lose my mind. I had to leave the room for about 20 minutes because I was just like ready to just lose my mind. I had to let myself cool down. I needed the time out so that I could cool down without losing my temper. I did not lose my temper and I was ready for it. I had a babysitter on standby. I've never had a babysitter for my daughter, so it was highly effective. She was shocked because she's never had someone come to the house and watch her.

She walks in and my daughter immediately looks at her, someone she knew, and she goes, oh, you're going with us. And she goes, she looked at her confused and she looks at me and I said, before they could even get into it, I handed her a list of chores and I said, after she finishes her chores and her homework, there are some games you guys can play but not until she's done with everything.

My daughter starts screaming bloody murder. She's so angry. This is all your fault. This is all your fault. I looked at her, kissed her on top of the head, and I said, you have plenty of time to think about that. No, I told her, I said, I'll give you an advance on next week's homework if you don't have enough allowance to pay her. If not, she takes. Allowance.

Next week's allowance. And if not, she takes toys for payment. And I walked out. But never, never again. I came home. She was in a great mood. And she never again did that. Never.

That's the beauty of it is if if we're brave enough it was hard yeah to take charge and mean business in a loving way we ironically don't have to do business as often right and uh there are a couple concepts that you brought out that maybe we can unpack a little bit and be helpful for people participating. And the first is that when we change, very few kids come to us and say, nice work, mom. Oh, yeah, no. Dad, I really appreciate those new skills. You are rocking.

You know, I mean, you're just all that. No, they make you feel guilty. Yeah. Change is hard for all of us. Good change is hard. And this is good change, but it's forcing the kid to grow. Yes. You know, it's growing is not fun. It's hard. I remember when I was a little kid and I grew and sometimes I just have pains and I just, my arm was longer and so it got stuck in car doors when I didn't want it to and things like that. It's just a hard process, growth is. Our kids will not grow unless we are able to hold them accountable and set those limits. And so, that's the first concept. There

is a price to pay, and that is that the kid will not thank us. And the second concept is we need to have something on the tip of our tongue we can say instead of blowing it. That helps. You know, a concept in psychology that I learned years ago is that it's always more effective to give somebody something new they can do rather than saying, don't do that. Don't do it. Right. Right. It's always more effective to say, hey, when you're hungry, you might want to go out and

walk rather than saying to the person, don't eat so much. And we say replace, don't erase. Yeah, exactly. There you go. It's a much more effective concept. And the same goes with the parents. And so I don't go around saying to parents, don't get mad when the kid argues or don't give in.

I don't say those things. I say, oh, the next time the kid argues, experiment with not thinking about it at all. Just kind of go to a little happy place in your mind and just kind of go brain dead and then smile at the kid and say, what did I say? It's helpful if you can sing. What did I say? Well, this is, I have to go to practice now because my coach is going to be really mad. And he's going to, oh. And what did I say? Yeah, but I shouldn't have to do that stuff now.

What did I say? Yeah, but is that all you can say? Yes. And then putting some space between us and the kid. Right. But, you know, big concept, big picture concept again is, who's controlling the weather in this house? Yep.

Yep, I love it. Is it the kid or is it me? Yep. Yeah. One thing I found is that over time, so when I first started doing this, it was really hard, but it got, not only did it get easier with practice, but I started to find something. It's so much less work on the parent. Once you finally figure it out, because it takes the work off of you and, and puts the, the responsibility on to them where it belongs so instead of me

rescuing her me figuring out me always stressed out me trying to be frustrated because she's not doing what she wants and me trying to figure out that is just too much work that's why that's why i kept thinking parenting's not supposed to be this hard it's not that's what i learned with love and logic was that when i finally figured this out and I did exactly what it said when I finally was better and better at letting her pay the consequences of her own action, letting her like deal with those consequences, I went, wow, okay, I actually got to now be her coach. I got to be authentically empathic and be there for her as she suffered. So talk about homework because homework is such a big issue.

And a lot of my patients, the parents will fuss with the kid for hours. Yeah, no, I did. At night. It was a battle. And so what was the love and logic technique you did with them? Oh, I stole this one, again, right out of the book. So maybe I didn't do it perfectly, but it just finally she was- Third grade? It was either the end of second grade or the beginning of the book. So maybe, maybe I didn't do it perfectly, but it just finally, she was third grade. It was either the end of second grade or the beginning of third grade. And just this battle

every night, every, she would not sit down. She would not do it. It was just this huge battle. And I finally walked and she's not a kid with ADD. She's not a kid with any sort of, I thought she did because of this, these crazy behaviors. I finally walked up to her one night and I said, sweetheart, I love you so much. "'I'm never going to ask you to do your homework again.'" She got super suspicious. She's like, that doesn't make any sense. And she was very articulate early on,

which was part of the problem. And so I said, no, I'm serious. I love you so much, I don't like to fight with you. I'm never going to ask you to do your homework again. You either choose to do it or you don't. I've already done second grade. These are your grades. They're not mine.

And I realized I've been making them my grades. So if you don't want to do it, you don't have to. She looked at me really like she still did not believe me. And so I said, she goes, well, that still doesn't make sense. I said, no. I said, it's okay. If you're okay with the consequences that go with it, if you're okay, cause she loved her teacher. I said, if you're okay with Mrs. Mink being upset with you, if you're okay with sitting in the classroom during recess,

if you're okay with those things, that's fine with me. I'm okay. I love you enough that I'm going to let you do what you want. And you're such a cute kid you're gonna make new friends next year when your friends move on to third grade oh my god she threw her pencil down jumped off the seat she's a very strong-willed child jumps off the seat I never said I'm not gonna do it I just didn't say I'm gonna do it right this minute walked away comes back on her own 20 minutes later, never asked me for help. She actually never, ever said a word to me about getting her homework done again, other than if she got stuck on a problem and needed my help. Never again. Like it was the craziest thing. It was crazy.

Beautiful example. And I often say to people you know great leaders they're always trying to work themselves out of a job you know right and what that means is they're empowering other people with skills or say hey here's how we do this oh here's a way to do it and then they allow the people to make mistakes right that sounds kind of familiar and then they allow the people to make mistakes, right? That sounds kind of familiar. And then they allow the people to learn from it and they keep backing themselves out as much as they can so that those other people are really, really empowered. And that's the beauty of it is when we love people, we empower them. And so, yeah, as a parent, we are really backing ourselves out of the loop as much as possible. So and here's the goal.

And I don't know if we ever reach this goal, but here's the goal. The kid is tireder at the end of the day than we are. Yes. That was really the goal. I want my kids to go to sleep and think, whoa, she's making all these decisions today. I mean, my goodness, you know, and my parents just walk around all the time and act nice and I love those suggestions, but they don't do anything around here. I have to add one comment to that because there's one thing in addition to being tired.

My daughter blames us for the fact that she now has an anxiety disorder. She's so anxious about everything being in on time. She's like, it's your fault that I'm so nervous all the time about my grades, about schoolwork, about, I'm like, how is it my fault? She's like, because I just, I worry about everything now. Which she is the one that should be worrying about it. Like, right? She's the one that should be worried about it.

It shouldn't be me worrying about her grades. It should be her worrying about her grades, but she blames us for anxiety disorder. Well, and just so our listeners get this clearly for me, I used to think my job as a psychiatrist was to decrease people's worry until I realized that's completely not my job. The don't worry, be happy people die the earliest from accidents and preventable illnesses. Right. She has appropriate worry. I don't want people going around worrying, but I want them to do the right thing so that their life is amazing. And she's getting straight A's in school. She has straight A's. She's appropriately worried.

She's appropriately worried. Yeah. And all that, the research tells us that stress can be really good for kids as long as it's not like over the top. It's appropriate. Right, of course. But the key factor seems to be, is that stress buffered by a loving relationship with an adult. Right. And so kids can take some pretty tough classes and have some pretty tough coaches and, and run in some pretty challenging problems they need to solve. And when there's a parent or a teacher or both, ideally that is,

is there saying, Hey, I love you. Yeah. And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm rooting for you. And I will be here to give you ideas. Yep.

Will you make my coach start me? No. Oh, honey, nice try with that one. But I will give you some ideas about how to talk to your coach. Right, right. So what about when you're out and you're at the mall or you're in the grocery store or restaurant and they throw a fit? What would the love and logic approach to the fit be? Well, one of the things I, I think this, I don't know if I can back this

with any data. I probably can't, but I think kids can sniff out when we're worried that they might embarrass us. Oh, for sure. They can kind of sense, you know, mom is looking a little socially conscious today. Maybe I just might ramp it up a little bit. And so with all joking aside, I want to have that demeanor that non-verbally communicates to the kids that I'm really pretty hard to embarrass, but, you know, I will hold you accountable for what happens in the store. And so let's say that my kid goes to the store and has a major fit. First thing, I learned this from my father. First thing is my own self-soothing behaviors. I need to have a little voice in my head that I repeat. And I just say to myself, I did not come to Starbucks in the mall right now to build a lasting relationship with other coffee drinkers.

Oh, I like that. Yeah. And so I'm just going to hang out here. And then when the kid starts throwing a fit, I can, I like to use humor. I, there are many times where I've looked at my kids and my kids have thrown own fits in the store and I like to look at them and say you know boy I'm so disappointed in that fit the last one you threw was just so much better and I'm really concerned that you're losing your touch I mean this is a problem you need to put a little more effort into that. I'm really disappointed with it. Oh, that's great. The big value in this family is working hard and you are really slouching on that fit. That's awesome. It really irritates them. And if they have a fit, because some kids are strong

well enough, they will test it. You just go with it. You say, wow, way to go. That's looking so good. And other people give you the stink look. Who cares about them? You're giving them some entertainment and you are providing an important community service. You're improving their self-esteem on that day. So that's awesome. I just laugh about this stuff because it is kind of fun and it does set the tone differently. Again, repetition is the key to learning. So here I am, you know, my background is in teaching education, who's creating the weather in the home. So where is the consequence there though? Oh, well, the consequence might have to come later. And that's one of the big differences with Love & Logic is we don't try to come up with consequences when, you know, we're just in brainstem and we can't function.

We might have to say to the people, I like that. That's where people ground children for the summer. That's the consequences. You know, you're grounded for the summer. And you know you're consequences. You know, you're grounded for the summer. And you know you're not going to stick to it. I like this one. The next time you go out, you say to the kid, and you don't tell them ahead of time. You just let them know right when it happens.

You know, I love spending time with you. And I really do. And this is sincere, by the way. The empathy has got to be sincere. I really do love spending time with you. And the day you were born was one of the greatest days of my life. And today, I don't have the energy for a fit at Starbucks. And so you'll be staying with Miss Helen.

You remember her. Well, she doesn't even let me play with my. Yeah, well, she's, you know, she's tired. So try to make friends with her. And by the way, she's going to ask you how you plan to pay her. And so have a good one. And when I get home from the trip, and this really is important. It's eternally important. When I get home from the trip,

I'm just glad to see him. Yeah. I don't bring it up. Yep. You know, just when it's done, it's done. And tomorrow's a new day. I like that. So you let it go. Well, when we come back, we are going to talk about some hard things like drug abuse and love and logic. And what about young adults who you have enabled to act badly and didn't set limits? When we come back with Dr. Charles Fay. You can learn more about his work at loveandlogic.com. Use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation

at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.