Honey You're Ruining Our Kid - Ep 19 When Mealtimes Go Bad & Is Time Up For The Time Out

Episode Date: January 30, 2023

Want to know the parenting life hack that allows you to cook one dinner for the whole family, makes mealtimes fun again and won't cost you an extra penny. "Tina's Tapas" are perfect for those kids that won't eat what's put on their plate no matter how hard you try to make it special for them. This week Tina revisits the core ideas behind letting your kid create their dinner from the ingredients on the table. It's "facepalmingly" simple but effective stuff. Another topic gets a second look this week in tantrums. When is the naughty step useless? Is there an age when a child is too young for this measure. One emailer needs Tina to settle a bet! Does your partner wake up angry with you for something you did in their dreams? Well Jarlath feels your pain. When is subconscious cheating not cheating, when it's Tina doing it!

Hello and welcome to another episode of Honey, You're Ruining Our Kid and welcome to all our new listeners, all the people that listened in and tuned into us on the radio. It is episode 19 and we have got some humdingers questions for you this week. Are you ready? I am ready. I hope. There's no fear in you. And I did want to talk about that to start things off about your, your kids having a healthy bit of fear for you as a parent, right? You're going to think this is controversial because, you know, you don't.

Well, it's that word. You don't, you don't want your child to be afraid of you, but you want them to be afraid of the consequence that you... Yeah. I just feel sometimes like when I'm asking a kid to do something, like he's not afraid in the way I was afraid. Yeah, well, I think that's a good thing though, Jar. My parents didn't hit me.

I never got any of that. Yeah. a good thing though jar my parents didn't hit me i never got any of that yeah but i knew i better do this because my dad's asking me to do it yeah i don't don't you think it was linked in though with how catholic our upbringing was in the schools because mike mike he doesn't have any of that catholic guilt no he doesn't have it bizarrely yeah he doesn't have it. Bizarrely. Yeah. He doesn't have it and I think that's a big thing. He's not, he doesn't think

there's someone always watching what he's doing. He's free and I don't want to take that away from him. But I would like him to be a little bit

more respectful. Our relationship operates on a certain amount of fear in it, right? That's because I'm always threatening to her then.

But you always said that it's not a bad thing in a relationship. I think your husband should be a little bit afraid of you, yeah. Yeah? I do. To the point where... Not in an abusive way. I don't abuse you. Yeah, but, you know, there have been a few things where it's like,

that's crazy. No, I just have very clear lines and what i will accept and not accept but not only in this world but also in the world of slumber don't do this to me and said i'm not happy with you please and i was like sorry what are you talking about she's like i'm no i'm not happy with you was like, the first thing you think is, was I talking in my sleep last night? Because you have given me shit for that in the past. Yeah, yeah.

I'm like, what did I do? You were not nice to me in my dream last night. I was getting grief for things I'd done in your imagination. Yeah, but those dreams were so real. It took me a while after waking up post-coffee to realize that hadn't actually happened. So he turned around to me in the morning.

He was like, you better. Like, it's like the old Muhammad Ali line from his press conferences. Like, if you insult me in a dream you better wake up and apologize that's basically you're the muhammad ali tina i love that i'll take it our relationship but our first question today does revolve around something we've covered in the past and that is the difficulty in getting these little chumps, these gorgeous little children that we have to eat some food. Yes. That isn't Blandy McBlanderson, just the most basic.

Yeah. We have so many emails in on this. I'm just going to pick one at random and go through this again. Because if you miss Tina's advice advice on this this has probably been the most popular piece of advice across the whole series yeah because rest assured if you're listening to this you are not the only parent who's having difficulty getting their child to eat hey tina and jar absolutely love the show i'm a new convert to honey you're ruining our kid having discovered you on 98 fm's podcast

error which is brilliant that worked that's great charlotte you're so honest welcome aboard my question is around eating habits i'm really worried about the nutrition of my kids because it is such a battle to get any food into them whatsoever. I am trying my best. I give them the normal meals in the day, but trying to get the food down, they will eventually eat it. But trying to get the food down them is so difficult. OK. I try to vary it.

I've tried to find different foods, experiment with different things. But ultimately, they will only eat pasta, plain pasta. There is not enough nutrition in plain pasta for my kids to do well. So I'm giving them the vitamins. But again, when we go out somewhere, we're back to square one. We can't get them to eat out

and it really limits what we can do as a family i'm down on my knees i'm begging you please tina can you help yes well with this one i really can't help but what i've been like we've gotten a lot of emails in about this and what i have been trying to stress in my answers is you've got to be patient like this pattern of them not eating and being very picky eaters has been established and you're going to try and change this it's not going to happen in a week and i feel like when i've told people about this tacos or diy dinners tapas why do i always call it tacos tacos are delicious i think i always just want tacos i love tacos yeah the tapas or the diy dinners which another mom that had gotten

touched to say that's what they call it in their house and it's working i don't think they realize that those diy dinners have to go on for a long time and like you have to be ready to invest in that for a good period of time and then start phasing it out oh okay so i don't think i even took that in so what tina's tappers feeding idea for your kids is in a nutshell is the preparation of of whatever dinner you're making just serving it up in the middle of the table in all separate bowls. So all the components separate with a spoon and leaving empty plates on the table so that the pressure is off your child trying to finish what's been put on their plate and what they feel has been imposed on their plate. And in time, they will naturally explore what's in more bowls.

And you've got to put out a few things that they'll actually want. We just skipped one bit there. Okay. So you place it out in the bowls. Yes. And they're asked to fill their plate. Yeah, themselves. Using a pick-a-mix method.

Yeah. Of help yourself to something from each bowl. Now, do you say to them, you have to have something from each bowl now do you say to them you have to have something from each bowl no because unfortunately jarrett that is where people are going wrong with the food you cannot be controlling about food and you cannot introduce pressure on the eating because what is the most important thing at the end of the day that your child eats yeah so i mean i see it a lot and i hear it a lot where parents don't allow their kids to snack i just not for that if your child's hungry let them have whatever they want i'm not talking like sweets and biscuits but there should be

healthy snacks available on the counter all the times your child is growing so fast they're burning calories so fast they need food way more than we do they need to be fueled nearly every two hours i mean if you're if your child is not behaving have you fed them when's the last time they ate this is a really really good point that i had to learn the hard way right i think we were all raised in houses where it was like you'll ruin your appetite if you eat and you know we were living in tighter times right things were tight in the 80s in my particular case you you were trying they were trying to protect you in that way and there was this thing about clearing your plate and that's your dinner that's all you're getting right i mean all of that is

very unhealthy that leads to controlling behavior and food yeah yeah so and sneakily eating and stuff like that eating i was doing that i definitely was doing that i would find a way to get food um but also i remember being left with mikey our son for the first time and not you were like you gotta feed him every two hours you're messing me on you gotta feed them every two hours and i didn't realize what that looked like that actually they're kind of constantly grazing yes and even then yeah they'll still put away the dinner they will and what here's what happens if you're not feeding your child every two hours they'll get a pain in their stomach and they'll go downhill really fast

like they will they will feel sick and crampy and then they can't eat at all which leads to them actually getting sick they will have mood swings of course they will we all know what it feels like to be hangry and we are not growing anymore we're not relying on this food to this is our petrol i always say to children just like we put diesel or petrol in a car to keep it going that is the job food job of the food without the food we don't have energy yeah and if you let it run dry yeah you can actually damage the car yeah i do think that i do want to focus on that point for a second because we do get emails from people going, my kid is cranky. Yeah.

My kid is never in a good mood. And, you know, it was this morning when we were preparing for the episode and I was like, that should nearly be the first question you ask yourself is, well, what's the eating situation? Yeah. Because if you're like me. Oh, I was just going to bring it up because we have a friend Mike Donnelly incredible filmmaker and years ago he was working on a project with Jarlett

and the guy is just a lovely soul and he used to bring a lunchbox around for Jarlett because he was like oh it's coming on an hour and a half

since he last ate I better get him some food or he's going to get angry what a gobshite am I that I can't figure out for myself that I need to eat

otherwise I get cranky but my blood sugar goes low but unfortunately this is the problem as adults we're not as hungry I'm shy to my that I can't figure out for myself that I need to eat. Otherwise I get cranky. But my blood sugar goes low. But unfortunately, this is the problem. As adults, we're not as hungry as kids. So you've got to actually change your mindset into thinking, OK, I'm not hungry, but I still have to give my kids some food. Right. And I know it's tricky, but you even just a carrot, like just what is the word?

Peel a carrot? Yeah. Yeah. That's the right word. I don't know. Peeler. With a peeler. Is that what that's called? They say in France.

Peel. But I mean, that's a brilliant snack. Peel a carrot. Give it to your kid. Let them chomp on it. I mean, that's a great snack. It keeps them going. And it's a slow burner.

This is the other thing about giving them veg like that with a bit of a dip on the counter oh yeah that is a slow burning fuel yeah that it's not like you know having some jellies out where they're going to burn it go high as a kite drop real low and be in worse form having had yeah i just think well in my experience like everyone has to do their own way but i don't i think you're in your house your child should always feel welcome to open the fridge open the cupboard and help themselves to something right um i if you put rules on food you are entering dangerous territory because you are laying in you are and what is that word embedding yeah you're implanting an idea that you should control

food that you just can't enjoy food guilty pleasure and kids should enjoy food now when i say the tapas and the diy yeah let's get this straight here's what i mean when you start off when this mom starts off trying to do these dinners for her family prepare the dinner that you want to make for your family okay for example like spaghetti bolognese okay perfect spaghetti bolognese here's what you're going to do you're going to put the pasta in one bowl the mince in one bowl and the sauce in the other bowl and the parmesan in one bowl and the bread in another bowl okay and then if your child me too if your child doesn't like any of the food that's in the spaghetti bolognese have another cheeky bowl with something that you know

they will definitely choose that will phase out in time but the most important thing is that your child eats yeah so if it's if they if they don't like the stringiness of the spaghetti you do a different pasta yeah put something in there a successful thing that you know at the end of this dinner i can just praise my kid you are not going to tell your child you have to pick something from every bowl yeah you're the pressure is off right everything everything's available just let him explore let her explore reminds me of those like tina's obviously trained in the Montessori method of presenting. Yeah. And in so many ways, the Tina Tappas dinner idea, it allows the child to see the grown-ups. Yeah.

It's presented to them. I pull from this bowl. Yeah. I mix it up. Yeah. It's a bit of fun. I know. It's actually fun. I love the Tina Tappas idea, but I can't claim it.

I'm claiming it for you. I don't think I can. No one can claim the idea of Tappas idea, but I can't claim it. I'm claiming it for you. I don't think I can. No one can claim the idea of Tappas. But I just feel so grateful to the mother who told me about this because we did have the tricky eater. I mean, Mikey gagged all the time. Mealtimes were a nightmare. And this woman introduced this to me.

Charlotte, shake your head all you want. I'm not claiming this. No, the daughter didn't write Wonderwall. Okay, the cords were there. Okay, look. All I'm saying is I am internally grateful and what makes me happy

is passing this on. Now, I need to stress this. The problem I'm having with the moms and dads who are getting in touch is they're expecting the end result too fast. Right.

This process of the bowls on the table and the empty plates going to go on for a while how long roughly a month i don't know a month maybe right you can start making it a bit more and normalized by getting you know those um pita breads and the pita boats right and all of a sudden the child is filling them and putting them in like wraps in their mouth and then when you've noticed that your child is happily trying loads and loads of different foods then start plating up the dinners right don't say

anything about it because there is a lot of work in this yeah and then well yeah but what's better what's the outcome work more work or the tears and yeah and they're not eating whatsoever they're not eating whatsoever and that's what this emailer was, is the situation they find themselves in. And as we said, loads of people are in that situation. Can I ask a stupid question to finish off? Well, it wouldn't be unusual. It wouldn't be the first time. That's my job here.

Somebody is thinking the same thing as me. Okay. What about dessert? Usually not a huge problem. But do we observe the tapas method for dessert too? I just wouldn't be doing the dessert. You wouldn't do dessert, would you? Do we do dessert?

Rarely. We do suppers. I think, actually, I'm glad you brought up suppers. He's rolling his eyes right now. He's rolling his eyes at me. Why don't you just let's hand me? Now his hands are in the air. Why don't you just go, yeah, well, I guess if you are doing dessert, you're like, eh, me neither.

Why should I advise people if that's not something I do? Yeah, but you know what I'm thinking? If you're struggling to get your child eating their dinner, now he just pretended to shoot himself in the head. It's such a joy making a podcast with your wife, guys. I can't recommend anything more. I hope this is a big help to you, to this emailer. I want to say something i've got my hand in the air i want to say something um supper not enough people are doing suppers supper yeah suppers by that you mean my mom told me this when mikey was very small he's never going to sleep through the night if he's hungry

and the minute we started giving him like you know that semolina or whatever when he's very small. Now at night time he has toast, a scone, you know, sometimes a waffle. At about nine. Obviously, darling, never does it. Six o'clock or seven. He goes to bed happy and he doesn't wake up till morning. It changed our life. It's so simple. I actually remember when the semolina arrived in the familiar i loved the

taste actually it's gorgeous but that is like if we're looking at life hacks for your kids yeah the supper was tapas yeah and the supper yeah you're getting some good value on your podcast this week lads those are huge and of course you can have desserts in your eyes if you want i just feel like if your child's a fussy eater don't reward them at the end of the dinner with a dessert. That's also the question. That's kind of what I was trying to ask. Anyway, if this doesn't work, as always, Tina, we'll get back to you. But my money's on this working.

Just a big, look, hand on my heart. I have had so many emails back from parents about the tapas saying they can't believe it changed their life. We couldn't believe it changed our life. It does change your life. Take the pressure off. Don't. As long as there is something on the table your child will eat that's all you

have to care about. Let them explore. Let them feel in charge. They're not really in charge. You are. You're putting food on the table. Just you know take one battle out of your day. And be patient. Be patient. You know, speaking of, you did something in the dream that I should feel bad about.

Mm-hmm. This is not a coincidence. I have raised this with Tina, but a couple of nights ago, we were on holiday in a dream and we're in a pool and a woman comes over and compliments Tina on her swimsuit in the dream.

Okay. Tina takes the compliment and starts shifting the woman in the dream okay tina takes the compliment and starts shifting the woman hey weird in the dream like you have to keep have to keep because if anybody just tunes in now and they're like sorry what's going on jaren tina we're on holidays when we came up and complimented tina swimsuit and then tina started shifting her that's what happened in my dream okay that's what you did in front of me in my dream compliment for you i love your black swimsuit is what she said because we've been talking about black swimsuits

that day this woman comes up to tina in my dream says i love your black swimsuit tina takes the compliment starts shifting her in front of me the woman yeah shifting full-on shifting like at a teenage disco okay the woman then finishes shifting tina and leans over to give me a kiss tina goes at that that that that no and i'm literally going in the dream i'm like i'm i beg your pardon first of all just to be clear i didn't want to shift this woman so strange she was leaning to shift me but you jumped in with i don't i don't think so i didn't throw a full-blown tantrum about it in the dream but it was the most hurt i've been in a long long time he spent all of yesterday just looking at me

like really disappointed i was like it was a dream this did not happen this would never happen we'd just be like walking along the road and i look around he's like unbelievable i'm like that didn't happen how could you do that to me you were so double standards in my own dreams of my imagination but you were like properly wounded still a a tiny bit wounded today. Has your partner done something in the dream that you were pissed off with them about the next day? Well, that was my one. And that's what brought up the whole, I'm not happy with you.

Hi guys could really do with your help with my seven year old the never ending tantrums all because I say no or not today or don't do that leads into a full blown screaming

hitting, name calling, throwing items etc. Her frustration I feel is not being able to express her feelings. Or she just doesn't know how to. When things have calmed down, I try

and explain things to her. But she will not listen to a word I say and storms off. This sounds like one of my tantrums. I'm not a perfect mother. Nobody is. i'm not a perfect mother nobody is nobody i am not perfect mother by any means there is only so much calmness i can do before the yelling starts and even that doesn't work like it is the thing before we go any further with this like it's not a crime

to raise your voice to your kid of course sometimes we beat ourselves up over raising your voice. If your kid runs out in front of a car, you're allowed to shout at them. Yeah, of course. I mean, you're not perfect. You're human. And you're going to lose the rag the odd time. Yeah. If you feel bad.

They're driving you to it. It's the feeling bad about doing it that's the good part. Because if you didn't feel bad about doing it, then you know you're in a troubled area. Yeah, you're in tough territory. Okay. I just feel so stuck this mother says if remaining calm trying to walk talk with her is not working what do i do i'm walking on eggshells here in case i say something wrong i'm waking up every morning

with anxiety wondering what mood is this kid going to be in? Will she go to school today? Many times, oh, here we go, many times she's refused to get dressed to go to school. What kills me more is I'm not able to control her.

She's controlling me. Okay, that's very tough. Very tough question. There's one final thing she says here. Listen to your podcasts over and over. Love them so much. Amazing advice. I love sticking with it. That's what's in the email and it's lovely to hear

it. How do I help my seven-year-old who is very mature be a kind, sweet little seven-year-old who will listen to their Emmy and daddy who is only trying to help them learn and understand. This goes right back

to my first thing at the top of the show that like there's a confusion here isn't there Tina? Where I'm like well am I to revert

to what my parents did of going waving the finger and going the hell has no fury like a parent scorned here you don't do it there's a lack of respect in this house the mom is feeling powerless and overwhelmed and the child is also feeling overwhelmed because she's feeling like she doesn't have a direction either there's

a lacking of boundaries here and how do we re-establish boundaries we do that thing we've talked about a lot where we have to meet that child with the respect that we want back from them and that is getting the family together sitting down and coming up with a set of house rules for your house open the dialogue have a discussion about what you think is good behavior what do you think is not good behavior how do you feel mommy feels how do you think mommy feels when you talk to me like that get her to empathize with how her actions are affecting you and then offer up the same from her and don't take offense whatever your child says you got to take it on the chin because if your child says something horrible like well you never listened to me and you're mean to me and all this don't deny it just

acknowledge it and just be like i'm sorry you feel that way i'm learning how to do this too i want us to be a happier family let's set out some ground rules seven could be a tough age oh really tough and for a girl who's already thinks acting older than that, very, very hard. And it is going to be tough. It's going to take time because there is a window between the ages of zero to six where behaviors are much easier to change. Your child's brain is in a different stage of development. When your child moves by the age of six, it's not impossible,

but it's a much tougher task to change patterns of behavior. Of course you can, but you're going to really have to put in the work. So this kid needs rules and boundaries. She needs to know that if she shouts at you from now on, you're going to come in with a warning and tell her, you keep shouting at me, there's going to be a consequence. And then you have to have what I always say, a manageable achievable a consequence that you're going to follow true on as the parent you've got to be brave enough to follow true on it following true on a consequence i hope i don't sound pretty right now i don't mean to no well let me following true on a consequence jarrett is so important because it's the follow-through that can stop the behavior the next time that's the center of the respect yeah that like and your kid is shouting at you yeah like i said at the top of

the show they don't view you as somebody that you can't shout at right so when you say sit down together as a family yeah establish what we all agree as the rules of the house yeah open that dialogue how do you think i feel yeah when you talk to me like yeah you know share your emotions share your feelings so then once you've all established and you've written it out maybe on a little yeah piece of paper and she has got to choose maybe two rules and you choose two rules that you come and agree on okay things that are expected behaviors within this house she does not get to be involved in the consequence or the warnings that is the grown-up's job okay but what i really feel this child her frustration and i don't know as i say a lot it's much easier if i meet these children in person i'm going by emails

and i'm just guessing. Yeah. So come back to me if I'm wrong. I'm happy to know I'm wrong and try again. Of course. But I feel like this child does get frustrated. They do feel shut down when this mother says no. This seems triggering for them. So what I would suggest is to get that wall planner up, get a calendar in her room. When she asks to do something and it's not manageable in that moment say i love that idea let's go and figure out a date where it's workable and then she sees don't really work this shut it down she doesn't like that language obviously that is triggering for her now and you're gonna have to stop doing ask for such dumb stuff though tina

yeah but you can just say to your child, I love that idea. Let's try and do it. Don't say no. I remember working in a school where no was a word we weren't allowed to say. And oh my God, it was so hard to get out of the habit of saying no. It was so hard. But the benefits of never using that word was incredible. And then the children never use that word.

I want to go to the shops today. I want to go to the shops today. I want to go to the shops now. What do you say then? Well, you say, I love that you enjoy going to the shops. What is it that you want in the shops? Let's work out a plan of when we can do this together during the week. That isn't that you're yes anding. Let's yes and our children's ideas. And also, let's not forget, sometimes you can just say, love it, let's do it. That's enough. They'll forget about it. They'll forget. Yeah, love it, let's do it. But first, let's do this. Distract them. Distraction is your biggest tool.

At the end of the day, like Tina's the king of this, I have to say, I've never seen such deflection. I mean, I feel like you do it to me sometimes as well. Great idea, Ger. Brilliant. Let's get into our lingerie and go upstairs. I'll tell you what. Sorry, that was a big laugh. No, I'll cut that out. No, you don't need to.

Can I tell you something that Mary, a lady I used to work with, sometimes we had two different home times, which was a nightmare in our classroom because I have a terrible memory. And some days I'd have a few kids ready to go home and then I realize, oh, shit, this child is not going home at this time. They're going home later. Jacket on and everything. And the other teachers would be panicking.

And then they'd hear me say, oh, my goodness, got great news. We get to keep you longer. You get to stay. You've been so good today. You're going to stay in school an hour later. Get your coat coat off let's go play and it'd be all fine but like honestly not coming in with negatives going towards positive phrases will help look this woman is in a this is a tricky situation she feels completely taken for granted that's why just start over but i can't tell you enough people getting in touch with me a lot saying,

I don't know how to stay calm with my child. If you can't remain calm when speaking to your child, then go silent and remove yourself from that space until you can come back to them with calmness because shouting and screaming at them makes them feel rejected and also you're modeling behavior that you don't want you cannot give out to your child for behavior that you are doing to them like i'm sorry that's double standards like it is a serious point that yeah i can remember being shouted at at times and you do forget how tiny you are yeah at that age well yeah of course it's scary yeah um and i know they've pushed you to the limit yeah but like you

say how we can't really expect yeah our kid to do not to do things that we. But like you say, how, we can't really expect our kid to do, not to do things that we're doing. If you have a seven-year-old child and you are so angry and they've pushed you and I know that feeling,

you feel like completely like, oh my God, I feel so stressed out in this moment. Take yourself out of the room, get yourself a cup of tea, a glass of water, a glass of wine,

count to 10, count to water, a glass of wine, count to 10, count to 20. Glass of wine, she said. Yeah, why not? Red wine could really help you in that situation. If you're that stressed out, a little bit of red wine just eases that pressure off. Take a moment, take a few breaths, remind yourself that you love this kid. And when you are ready, go back to that child and be like I'm ready to listen. I talked about the de-escalation script actually when I got in touch with this mom during the week. I told her a

de-escalation script is something that's used in schools with teachers all the time. As a parent it's really important. It's so simple. It's five sentences. First when your child is kicking off you just say their name. That can be really calming to your child. You're just acknowledging their presence. Then you say, I can see something has happened. I can see that you're sad or that something has happened to make you feel really angry. And then you say, I'm here for you. Okay?

Then you just wait. You just wait and you say I'm waiting here and when you've calmed down or don't use that word actually when you're ready when you've calmed down when you're ready

you can talk to me and then when they're calm you say come on let's go let's go talk about this somewhere else and you just move them

that really does work I've seen that work on kids who are furious wow but it's the calmness my final question on it is because that de-escalation script again in terms of parenting life hacks i mean it's right up there with it's the tapas yeah it's like you showed that to me in a folder that you had in the house and you're just like wow so there is actually kind of um a way to

unplug the wires well what do we all want to know that we are? We want to be heard. We want to feel like we've been noticed. Your child wants to feel noticed. And most of the time, they don't actually know why they're feeling angry, but they do like that you've noticed. And they're like, okay, I am angry.

You can even say things like, i can see that you're so angry and you don't know what to do with your feelings i'm your mom i love you i'm here to help here's a question right within this question okay something's happened during the day where you've lost it and it's all gone okay best will in the world. Yeah. You've done the meeting. You've figured out the rules of the house. But things went bananas. You're not good at it. They pushed you over the edge with some kind of stupid request. Yeah.

You said, look, that's not going to happen today. Or you forgot to do the whole, let's look at this. Maybe we'll look at that later on. Or that's not a bad idea. Well, that's very real, what you're saying. Yeah. It goes off. And you have difficulty yourself in moving on from it because they've upset you so much that, like, you just have a difficulty in going.

Like, you're still going, are you sorry for what you did earlier? No, well, we know what you need to do there if you have had taken the time to do this meeting with your kids drop these ground rules tell them the behavior you want to expect from them you know what you have to do there the first thing you need to do with your child is apologize yourself for losing it you need to go first you need to say i'm really sorry I'm expecting all this from you. And then I didn't do it. I'm learning as well. When you acted that way,

it made me so sad that I couldn't control my temper. And I'm working on that too. That is the healthiest thing you can do with your child. You're apologizing to them. Why not? Why not apologize to your kid?

Well, it's a habit of a lifetime. Yeah. Isn't it? Because you want them to own their behavior, own your behavior too. And you want them to see you as human. Yeah. It's really healthy,

so healthy to apologize to your child. You're getting things wrong because we don't know what we're doing. We're not ruining these kids, but we definitely are learning as we go. And your kid is a different kid every single day of the week. So it's not like you can get cozy in parenting.

It's changing all the time. Don't be afraid to say sorry to your children. It actually makes them feel great about themselves and it'll bring you closer together and you'll get those hugs you need. And you need those hugs. Me and Charlotte are always saying, keep hugging to keep us normal. Ten hugs a day, apparently. bring you closer together and you'll get those hugs you need and you need those hugs me and jarlett are always saying keep hugging to keep us normal but 10 hugs a day apparently 20 20 hugs a

day to keep it normal but hug hug hug it out because hugs are so important honey you're ruining our kid at gmail.com if you're a similar situation buying it into tina here but i've just i've just remembered something that I said to this mom that's really important get your children to do the think sheets I've talked about before

when she has calmed down you know you make up your own think sheet you call it a think sheet I'm really trying to hit my TH there

I hope I have you write down three things yourself that happened and just you say things like why did you do whatever it was leave space for them to write what do you think happened because of that how did that make the house feel or home feel next line what can we do in the future to stop this from happening

just give your child a space you don't have to do it every time to reflect on how their behavior affected the whole house. I actually think that there's a bit of a running theme to today's show for the first time. Really? Because our final question comes from a mom who wants us to settle a bet

between her and her husband. Settle a bet. I get nervous. I guess it's a differing view on something, which is really common nowadays, and that is the use of the naughty step. Oh. I guess it's the old stand in the corner was the old method. Thanks to Joe. Joe, it's not Joe Wicks, it's Joe, Super Nanny,

has become the go-to form of punishment for your kid that needs to have a time out. Sit on the naughty step for however many minutes you were in this world. So four for a four-year-old, five for a five-year-old and so on. Well, this mom emails in and says, Hey, Tina and Jar, absolutely love the show. Can you settle a bet for me and my husband? My husband believes that you're never too young for the naughty step. Whereas I believe that three is too young and that our three year old, as badly behaved as he can be, shouldn't be put on the naughty step. Because in my opinion, he doesn't know why he's there and i think we've

all had that situation where he's like do you even remember what this was about at the start when kids are that small yeah it's a brief email but it is very complimentary you don't want me reading out the compliments but they said they love the show and they'd love if you could settle this bet for them. Well, you bring up Supernanny. I am not anti-Supernanny. I think Supernanny was amazing. And she went into homes with extreme behaviors. And that's no easy task. And she did help a lot of people in that journey.

Timeouts, unfortunately, because people watched that show and they saw her using them, they kind of took that idea and they put it into practice in their own home there's timeouts naughty step corner behavior and without realizing what is actually age appropriate and this mother raises a really good point in my opinion now this is a zero judgment podcast but I feel like the only time a little bit of judgment creeps into me my soul is when i'm like i'm sorry you put your two-year-old on a timeout like what are you thinking like how do you even get a two-year-old to stay in time there's three yeah this is three i know but i'm just saying like when i hear these things so i think but

you've heard of people yeah two-year-olds... Oh my God, yeah. Facing the wall. And like holding them in place. Of course you have to hold your two-year-old in place. They have no idea what you're expecting of them. Because it's completely unreasonable. I think timeouts are an effective way of getting your child to reflect. From maybe the ages five onwards i don't think

they should be made face the wall i'm not looking to make them feel ashamed of themselves time out should be a time for reflection and the hope is that when you come back to them at the end of the time out they have reflected on their behavior they're ready to say they feel bad about it and it ends with a hug and a thank you for reflecting on your behavior let's try not to do that again i feel like that's the bit from joe wicks that got joe joe wicks if joe wicks was doing that that would have been more interesting in the mornings during lockdown but the hug afterwards and the thank you for the resolution got a bit lost i mean i'm not saying that's what this mom does oh yeah of course so when you think about that but that's the expectation of a time out i'm sorry how how in hell can a one to a four

year old ever achieve that i mean i'm not limiting what the the potential of those kids but you're expecting them to do a very grown-up thing like they're just about they're stumbling around the world they're learning how to do everything so what do you do instead that's and that's what this dad is probably gonna say that if he says right granted I think anybody can accept what you're saying there but if your kid is flying off the handle, trashing the place, they didn't say any of these things in their email. But I imagine that it's a case of where we've reached a tipping point.

How do we isolate and calm? Well, I don't really believe you should be punishing any child under the age of three anyway. Like the idea that they would be punished seems really tough. Like I get that we come in sometimes charlotte's doing a what face but you come in with a warning and an achievable consequence but actually punishing them actually making them face the wall jarlet oh okay you know like why

would you do that to a three-year-old child that is that's just too much for them i have actually been trying to help parents realize that sometimes at this age, a better way of dealing with whatever behavior they're doing is complete distraction. Okay, your child is losing it. They're kicking things over. Go get a wet sponge from the kitchen or something. Give them the wet sponge with bubbles in it and just put it in their hand and then say, hey, let's go clean the table. They're scrubbing the table, right? This is very much a

Montessori approach I know that this is very much a Montessori approach but it really does work they're scrubbing the table they're getting all this silly energy out of themselves this anger is coming out they're doing something purposeful at the end of it you get down to their level and you say I was really sad it made me feel really sad when you were behaving that way. That is not okay. And I do not want you to do that again. And that's enough. I think that's enough. I know that there can be massive, massive things like biting and hair pulling and stuff. And that's when you come in with a warning and you say, you're not allowed to do that. That behavior is not acceptable in this house. I'm you a chance a warning but this is what's going to happen if you do it again and then you follow through on that consequence but I just think unless your child is really mature emotionally putting them

on the timeout is just setting yourself up for failure as a parent where you're going to entrap yourself in a situation where you have to hold them in time out where you keep having to put them back to time out where um you know they're screaming they're not calming down the time out is not successful i just and time out i don't think was ever meant to be a long-term solution no it's not meant to be okay well you didn't do your homework set on time out yeah but if you think about it and you do think about those episodes of super nanny you've watched it wasn't even a punishment then like i'm talking about distraction but the time out was a distraction in itself in that the child is told this is your place where you go for your time out you're going to sit there now for five minutes and i'm going to come back to you and in those five minutes you need to reflect it on your behavior then you come back to the child and hopefully they are ready to talk to you about that if they're not it is okay

to say i can see you need more time okay i'm going to come back and you need to be ready you're modeling a behavior you're teaching them you're teaching them how to be in time out they don't know what you want if you don't tell them so i just think i mean it's easy for me to say it i've all this experience with little ones and jarrett's rubbing his face which makes me feel so uncomfortable and question myself in these moments but i think i think look i got an email during the week from a parent asking me is it okay to lock their child in their room instead of doing a timeout? I had to be brave enough to say, please don't ever do that. Don't ever do that.

I mean, I know it seems out of control in your house right now, but that is really unsafe for your child if they're tantruming. You know, just stay in the room with them and be calm. Don't interact with your child when they're in that tantrum. Wait for it to finish. Then distract them. Then when they are in a calm place again, get down to their level and talk to them about what happened and get them to tidy up the mess.

Like, sometimes as parents, we want them to feel like they were punished they want to feel guilt yeah we want them to feel it but that's not really something they're capable of feeling yet and what is more important them learning and it being a positive experience or you feeling justified that you've got to punish your child and that they learned because that method doesn't work, just doesn't work and it just leads to them exploding, exploding more the next time. You know what, Tina, this has been an amazing episode. Oh, well, I don't like when I sound preachy.

Well, I don't think so at all, because look, the advice that you give, Well, I don't think so at all, because look, the advice that you give, sometimes it's hard to actually accept that the simplest, most straightforward, often boring and repetitive answer is usually the right one on this. That being said, you did shift that woman in your dream. Jesus, I don't know if Charlotte's ever going gonna get over how traumatized he is by this you know i felt like i was hurt by that and then to then have the double standard it's been a fun episode uh make sure to give us a little rating or tell one person about the show that's always or just say to someone who you know is not getting any sleep anyway that on sunday nights we're on today fm at 11 o'clock last week we told you 10 o'clock what did i say and even you may be listening to this some years in the future when you're going,

oh, I wish it was a radio show. Who knows? Maybe this will be someday. But for now, the only way to support our podcast and to allow us to keep making it is to sign up on patreon.com forward slash

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the podcast but I cannot make the show without you Tina thank you so much for doing it and I'm sorry for shifting that girl in your dream

okay but it was still hot I'll be honest with you oh my god it in your dream. Okay, but it was still hot. I'll be honest with you. It's never happening. Okay, that's fine. And if it is happening, I just don't want any double standards. Oh my god. an Irishman Abroad podcast presented in association with GoLab. Editing, research, and production by Jarlath and Tina Regan. Find us on patreon.com forward slash Irishman Abroad today. Don't forget to email Tina your questions on Honey You Are Ruining Our Kid at gmail.com because hey,

in all fairness, it's hard to raise kids not to be gobshites.