How to Stop Being a Pleaser Parent

I can't stand the Pleaser Parent style. I think it's a total disaster. I'm a Pleaser Parent and can see some of the damage this has done. For example, my four-year-old being sassy and having huge outbursts when some things are not going his way. A lot of parents get into this habit where they let their kids choose what they eat, choose what they wear, choose what, you know, yeah, there's certain things that you don't want to give kids choices with. Welcome to the Brat Busters Parenting Podcast. My name's Lisa Bunnage. I'm a parenting coach. I'm a mom. I'm also a grandmother. And I'm Amy Bunnage, Lisa's daughter, and I handle the marketing and planning here at Brat Busters. While I don't have kids, each episode will dive into parenting topics and Lisa will answer your questions. Let's get started. Okay, sweetie, what is today's topic? Today's topic is all about the concept of the Pleaser Parent. So we'll be going over maybe your thoughts on the Pleaser Parent, how you can tell if you are, and if you're wanting to move away from that, what you can do. I was just going to say I don't want to, because I would say a lot of parents are Pleaser Parents. And then if I identify you and then tell you not to do that anymore, I don't want to insult anyone here. Although I have lots of times I'm sure in the past anyways. I can't stand the Pleaser Parent style. I think it's a total disaster. You're going to raise self-entitled snowflakes with mental health issues. Okay, I'm exaggerating slightly, but if you're trying to please your kids and make even chores fun and you don't want them to ever be displeased with anything in this world, they are in big trouble because it's a war zone out there. They've got to learn how to have responsibilities, do things they don't like, put up with crap from people, right? And if you're trying to protect them from all that, you are not raising strong individuals. It's a disaster. I saw that coming in 40 years ago with participation awards, and I thought we are in trouble. And it just gained more and more strength and momentum. Total disaster, but people are pulling away from it now. But I do think it comes from a genuine place of maybe parents were raised in a way that they don't want to raise their kids. They were raised with the authority, and it felt like the kinder option, and it felt like the alternative. It did, but it's not. It's that if you're going to err on either side, the old-fashioned authority or the new fangled pleaser parent style, you're way better off to go with the authority because you're raising stronger individuals, okay, who have more self-higher self-esteem, okay, because you're forcing them to do the right thing. With the pleaser parent style, a good example of that, I'll tell you, years and years ago, I used to have a column in a newspaper here, and I wrote an article, oh, I got in so much trouble. You can imagine it was really hard for me to hold my tongue. But the pleaser parent style, like 20 years ago, had a real firm hold on parents, and because it sounds so lovely, you talk about their feelings, and you say, use your words. You get down on their level, and you try and soothe them through a tantrum. It's a disaster. It's an absolute disaster. But anyway, I wrote this article because something had happened, and I think it was California, and I'm up here in Vancouver, Canada, anyway. This mother had sued the school because her child did not get a participation award for Sports Day. Now, that child never even went to Sports Day, and she was suing the school over not getting a participation award. I think she won. I think that's why I was so angry, and I had to write. I can't remember now. That was like 20 years ago. I was so peeved at that, that parents would support that. This parents came out with the parades and rallies supporting this mother. I thought, have we gone insane? Have we gone absolutely loopy that kids should get an award for doing squat? This kid didn't even turn up. I feel sorry for that entitled little kid who's just gonna grow up to think that everything should revolve around them. It's a disaster. Now also, those kids never respect their parents or themselves. They tend to have lower self-esteem, and they tend to be weaker. They tend to be that entitled, oh, you look at me the wrong way. Well, I'm just the bus driver, lady. I mean, they're very highly sensitive and entitled. That's what you're raising. Boy, did I go on a rant. Anyway, the old fashioned authority style, the reason my people didn't like it is they didn't feel that they had a voice. I wasn't raised like that. I was born in 1960. I was raised more by, I would say, a leader, and my mom was my best friend, and I could tell her anything. I felt like I had a voice. I'd never been yelled at. So the authority, it's not a bad way to parent, but if they have it in them, they're gonna re-bell in the teen years big time, because they're gonna keep secrets from you. They're gonna re-bell, but they're still gonna turn out stronger and more confident, okay? The pleaser style is the one that's going to the rescue. They make excuses for their kids. They don't wanna discipline them. They just wanna sort of congratulate them when they're good. They like reward charts for good behavior. They're always praising them all the time, but they don't turn them into nice individuals. They let them get away with a lot more. They put up with a lot more. Also, the pleaser parent style is the most likely one to scream and yell at their kids, because their kids are the most out of control. So they get really frustrated. They're trying to discuss their big feelings, and their kid will literally slap them on the face or something. I hear this all the time, because they'll get down on their level and say, use your words, and the kid will hit them right across the face. Then the parents will yell. You see where it's just a disaster. It's an absolute disaster. I can see that as well, though, whether it's like almost a spiral, is like you feel guilty about discipline, but then if your kids are acting out, it feels like you just don't know where to go. I can see, and you know, I can see why, if you didn't have any experience with kids, I can see why it would be appealing. I get that. But once you realize it's not working, abandon ship, okay? I don't teach either one of those. I teach leadership. I've never yelled at my kids. I was never yelled at either. We discussed everything, but I had rules. You'd be nice, treat people well, and that's it. If you don't, then there'll be a consequence. You have chores. If you don't do them, there'll be a consequence. You got responsibilities, but we had fun. I raised kids to be nice, and they were fun. All we got to do is relax and enjoy our kids, because they weren't acting out, because I was a leader, okay? A leader is someone that's a safe place to land. They'll tell you everything right through the teen years. It's not perfect. I mean, there's gonna be little bumps along the way, but not much, I'll tell you. It was pretty darn easy, and I really enjoyed it. I love the teen years even. So the leader is the one that, you're more like a mentor. You're someone that they look up to. You're someone that brings out the best in them, okay? And also, I'll give you a good example of a pleaser parent style. Let's say you have a five-year-old little boy, and you go up to him and you tell him, you're so wonderful, you're so special. I just, you can do anything you want, and everyone loves you. You know, you're just praising, praising, praising, but there's no meat to it. The kids get that. It's just empty words to them. So then you say, okay, I'm gonna go do the dishes now, and he's still standing there. That meant nothing to him. You say to that same five-year-old little boy, hey, what are you doing? Can I play too? Watch him light up. Their love language is fun. It's not praise. Praise is okay, but don't replace fun with praise, okay? Play is their love language. Play and fun with you in their world is what brings out the best in them and makes them feel the best about themselves. They feel valued and worthwhile, okay? Just praising them doesn't do that for them at all. Does not hardly anything for them. And reward charts for good behavior is horrible. It works in schools because that's a business. It's completely different. A reward chart for good behavior, the message that you're sending your kids is, you're normally rotten. If you should happen to be good, you'll get an award. You'll get a reward or gold star or whatever. A behavior board says the opposite. You're normally great, but if you should happen to do something naughty, there's gonna be a consequence, okay? And discipline is very quick. It's you get it out of the way, get it done, and then you connect with them again, okay? So if you check out the pool story, Bratbusters pool story, you can just Google that. It'll come up and it kind of epitomizes exactly how I treat children. I don't ignore bad behavior. I deal with it, but I deal with it very fast and then I focus on the good kid. My goal is always to make them feel good because if they feel good, they do good. If they feel bad, they do bad. And I think your message with calm leadership as well is that I think a lot of parents feel like it has to be either you have nothing but boundaries, like maybe they were raised and they just felt so stifled by the boundaries, that maybe they tried to do less boundaries because of that. But you're saying with calm leadership, there are boundaries, but they're fair and reasonable. Well, I had them too though. I was accountable too. If I did something, my kids didn't like, would you have said anything? No, I never would have. Would you have said anything? Oh, my kids would have been in there in a dirty shirt. Mom, you were really impatient with us and I hate shopping. So if we were shopping together, that's when I was at my worst. I'd say, come on, come on, I hate you. Let's get out of here. Oh, my kids love that. Cause as soon as we got in the car, you were short with us in there, weren't you? We'd like to go to the water slide park after school tomorrow. So you see, and then we'd laugh and then I'd take them to water slide park. So I was accountable too. If your kids don't have a voice in how their life is going, you're doing it wrong. You need to be accountable because leaders set an example. You're not the my way or the highway. You're not the dictator. You're a leader. A leader leads by example. I make mistakes. I have consequences. You make mistakes. You have consequences. It's not about perfection. It's about being accountable. There's also no shame in messing up. If you're trying to shame and blame your kids every time they mess up, you're doing it wrong. Don't discuss bad behavior. Don't focus on it. Where you put your energy and focus is what grows. I don't discuss bad behavior. I just say, yeah, that was bad. Big deal. Here's your consequence. Now do you want to go play a game? That's pretty much how it went, wasn't it? It was. I do envision those grocery shopping trips. Boy, oh boy, because I love grocery shopping. I have such memories of just watching you speed down those aisles with that cart. Keeping up to you was challenging. I was just a blur. Yeah, I hate shopping with a passion. And I hate cooking too, so you can just imagine. But I made everything from scratch too because I'm a real health food nut. But oh my God, it was awful. Anyway, so yeah, that was when they knew they had it. And they loved it when I messed up because they knew I'd make it up to them. Oh, I'll give you a really good example of this. This was a little bit different. But my son, I'm going to tell the story about the PlayStation how I saved the game. Yeah, OK. My son was eight years old. And PlayStation's were new. They'd just come out. And so he had this game. We bought two games. One was a racing car game for my son. And the other one was Crash Bandicoot. They were both for him. But my husband at the time and I really got into this Crash Bandicoot. That was fun. And by the way, I finished all the levels. Only took me about a year. But anyway, so what would happen was he'd play his game. And we let him play quite a bit when we first got it because he got it for Christmas or whatever. So he was so excited. I'm on level five. I'm on level 10, whatever. And there was like 50 levels. So anyway, he was so excited by this progress he was making. So then he'd save it on the memory cards. We OK, love you. Good night. And blah, blah, blah. So his dad and I would stay up and play Crash Bandicoot. So we were playing. And it was my turn. So then I saved it. And my husband went, you know what you just did? And I said, what? Stupid, right? What did I do? And he goes, you just saved over his game, all of his levels. And I said, no, I didn't. And we just had this one little memory card. And he said, OK, find it. I had. I'd erased it. I'd saved over his levels. Oh my god. He was so proud of all these levels that he'd worked so hard on. I thought, oh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? I didn't sleep very well that night. It was a Saturday night. So Sunday morning, I'm up early having a cup of tea. I already decided what I was going to do. Anyway, so I hear him starting to wrestle. And he's starting to wake up. So I went into his room. He was still in bed. And I said, sweetie, something happened last night. And I'm really sorry about this. And he goes, what? And I said, I accidentally saved my game over yours. He goes to start crying. And I said, but I'm going to buy you a brand new PlayStation game to make it up to you. And he went, oh. He decided it was a pretty good deal. I think it was within an hour that morning, getting back on his PlayStation. He got right back up to where he was, because he'd become so good at it. It didn't take him any time at all. And I'd spend $80 on a brand new PlayStation game for him. See, I'm accountable. I made it up to him. You don't just say sorry. That's not a good apology. You make it up to the person, right? That's adults. A lot of adults just say sorry. And they think that's it. No, what are you going to do to make it up to me? I make amends. And that's my consequence. And my kids learned through me, you mess up, you make amends. There's no shame in it, though. It's just that's what you do. That's normal. That's why there was no anger. If they had a consequence, there was no anger, pushback, because I had them too. OK, should we get into the parenting questions? Why did I get so heated there? I don't know. I felt it. I know. OK, parenting questions. OK, I just want to do the disclaimer that I'm not saying that these are pleas or parents. It's just questions about calm leadership in general. OK, the first question is Shreese from the United States. My child, three, hurts himself, so minor scrapes, bumps like all children, maybe 10 to 12 times a day. When she does this, she has no tears usually and lets out a high-pitched crying sound, which I wouldn't call whining. I never tell her she's fine or stop it or get over it. But besides a kiss and a pat on the shoulder, I don't acknowledge it, since I don't want her to get in the habit of making a big deal out of every minor injury or give attention to what I view as her wanting attention. My husband always comforts her and holds her on his lap and asks what's wrong and comforts her. He says I'm too cold about her behavior. I think he's kind of an enabler or either of us right. If not, how should these incidents be handled? I got a really good answer to this one, actually, because my parents were polar opposites with this. I wasn't accident prone because I wasn't super active, right? So I didn't hurt myself a lot. But the odd time I did, my dad would go, oh, sweetie pie, come here, daddy. And I would get worse and worse and worse, because he would just try and hug me. And are you OK? Are you OK? It would make me worse and worse. My mom would come in the room and she'd say, OK, let's take a look at it. Come on, let's get a band-aid on it. You're all right. And I'd stop crying and I felt great. So take what you want from that. But yeah, if you fuss over it, unless they're really hurt, obviously, my mom would comfort me. But overall, she would kind of be more likely to say, let's take a look. So in other words, problem solved. Let's take a look. OK, here's what we're going to do. We're going to put a band-aid on it. You're all right. Do you want to read a story with mom? And then that would, I'd be fine. But my dad fussed over me so much. It almost scared me. I didn't want my dad. My dad, I love my dad so much. He spoiled me rotten. He was terrible for that. And my mom wasn't like that at all. She was always getting after him. But anyway, my dad would coddle me. And if I was upset, I'd get worse and worse and worse. And my mom would just say, what are we going to do about it? Come on, you know what to do. Wear the band-aids. You go get one. You can help mommy. You see a problem solver, calm, calm problem solver. Reminds me of the Australian, the Shelby, right? Shelby, right? That's in us. Yeah, my kids were born and raised in Australia. So we still have a lot of Australian. My son was 15 when we moved to Canada. My daughter was 10. She doesn't have an Australian accent anymore, but he still does because he was 15 when we moved here. So I'll also paint the scene is if you move over here in high school and you have an Aussie accent and you're a guy, you're pretty cool. Like that's a cool thing to have. If you show up in middle school when you're quite awkward, maybe you want to lose something that makes you a little different. Yeah, just I think he probably worked to hang on to his Aussie accent. Whereas I was at home doing like listening to the tapes on how to have a Canadian accent. You were not. I wasn't. Yeah, but we just talked about a lost track about the falling and hurting themselves, falling and hurting. Yeah, I found my dad's pity made it worse. My mom's problem solving made it better. But if it was something big, she was still there, but she was she was the problem solver. Come on now, you know how to do it. Let's figure this out. We'll figure it out. That was my mom. My dad was, oh, my poor angel. It made me way worse. So take what you want from that. OK, the next question is Dijana from Germany. I've just combined two questions into one. I'm a pleaser parent and can see some of the damage this has done. For example, my four year old being sassy and having huge outbursts when some things are not going his way. I often find myself in situations when they ask me to do something or hold something where I think, why not? It's not going to harm anything. But then after some times I regret my decision. It's a causes problem. So for example, my four year old wants to get a wooden cooking spoon. And a few minutes later, he is using it to bang on all kinds of things. And then I'm like, why did I give it to him in the first place? But on the other hand, many kids, especially little ones, like to play while cooking. I'm wondering how did you decide what is OK to give in and what's not? My husband sometimes even says you cannot hand them anything. But sometimes I'm too soft in that way and do not think of all the consequences. Are your kids driving you nuts? They don't have to. Check out bratbusters.com for my boot camp courses if you want to learn how to become a leader. I don't really understand that. But what do you mean when you give in when you don't? I don't know what's wrong with handing him anything. But then if he mishandles it, then I would take it away. So it's OK to hand him a cooking spoon. There's a wooden spoon. That's OK. But if he misuses it, I would say no, you're getting a bit wild with that. We're going to put it away now. I would take it away. I can see the confusion here because it's just this idea of did you lead them right into the bad behavior if you're handling them like that? I really can't see that. Like what I mean is just you're handing him something that it's OK if he has. If you don't want him to. And also, are you being consistent? Like some days you'll give him something. Another day you'll give him something. I don't quite know what you mean by giving him stuff. Is it stuff he should have? Or is it something maybe the remote control? You don't want him to have it, but some days you just decide to let him have it. You got to be consistent. Do you always want him to have a wooden spoon or never want him to have one? Do you always want him to have the remote control or never have it? There's certain things that are just off limits. You might be mixing a message here and saying, well, it just depends on a whim what I'm feeling like. But if you hand him anything that you want him to have and if he misuses it, I would just say no. I don't want him to have it. If he misuses it, I would just say no. You're getting too rough with that. We're going to put it away for the rest of the day. Nothing wrong with that. The next one is Alexis from the United States. Age three. My son's been picking out his clothing lately. Sometimes he picks out something that doesn't match. Like two very different patterns of a shirt or pants. I feel like making him change is overbearing. But I also don't like his terrible outfit, LOL. What would you do in this sort of situation? Well, I would say, well, look, why does he need to choose his own clothes? I mean, if you just... A lot of parents get into this habit where they let their kids choose what they eat, choose what they wear, choose what... There's certain things that you don't want to give kids choices with. One is bedtime. One is meal time. Like you're going to eat dinner and we're not going to eat candy at eight o'clock. We're going to... And I would say clothes are one of those things, too. I don't let kids choose their clothes because there's no need to do that. If you really want to do that, what you can do is you can lay out two sets of clothes for him to choose from. And they can mix and match, right? So, yeah, I just don't think there's any need for kids to choose their clothes. Either that or you don't... Or just don't worry about what he wears. If it's really important for you that he chooses what he wears, then don't worry about it, okay? And also, what I give... I do give kids a lot of choice. For one thing, if I do something wrong, they have the choice to discipline me. That's one thing. They love that. And they always got to choose what we were playing with. I play a lot with kids. So, they're in charge of the play. There's certain things you want them to be able to choose. And that was one thing I did. They're in charge of all the fun, right? So, I just followed along. It's time to implement the capsule wardrobe so everything will match. So, you never have to worry. Well, it's funny because my wardrobe is basically capsule. Neither of us are really into fashion. You could literally take any of our clothes and mix them with anything else. What color do we wear? Black, white, gray, and beige. I'm not into fashion. It's funny. I'm not usually bright colors either. And my friend, I made some artwork and I have it on my wall. It's very bright. And they were fully shocked when they saw it. And now Amy knew how to add color. Color? What's that? So, we're very plain. But yeah, I just don't think that they need to choose that personally. You know, there's certain things. I love to give kids choices on things, but not clothing and food and bedtime and necessary stuff. Yeah, I don't like to give them choices with that. Okay, we have one final question. So, Vicki from Ireland. Hi, Lisa. I have a 20-month-old who throws a tantrum when I can't read to her when I need to feed my four-month-old. I've even memorized the books, but she's not happy for me to just tell her the story out loud. She wants me to physically hold the book and turn the pages and tantrums if I don't. I ignore the tantrum, but when she's finished, I still need to feed the baby so I can't easily do something else fun with her as the reward. Do I put the baby down and read the book after the tantrum is finished? Or is that making her think the tantrum worked? Would love some tips. I would let them have the tantrum, but I would read the book to the baby. So, yeah, just keep reading the book. If they want you to hold it and turn the pages, you already know the story. I would just say the story out loud anyway to the baby, and they can join in if they want. I would let them tantrum, just ignore tantrums. If you want to know how to ignore tantrums, there's a real way of doing it, and just look up Bratbusters tantrums. But yeah, just read the story to the baby. And they can join in. They'll learn the story is going to happen my way because I'm feeding the baby and I can't hold the book. You can join in or not. That's your choice. But you're still there. You're still telling a story. Just not on their terms. It's on your terms sometimes. And that's okay that they learn to adjust to that. Okay. That was everything for the questions. Okay. I like this topic. It was the Pleaser Parent Style. How do you know you're the Pleaser Parent? I do like how you started at the very beginning. You were like, you know what? I just don't want to talk negatively at all about that. And then I went off on a big fat rant. Yeah, I do that all the time. But anyway, the Pleaser Parent is a total disaster. Like I said, I saw it coming in 40 years ago and I knew it was going to be a big disaster. You're raising really fragile individuals if they never learn how to deal with anything. If you're trying to solve all their problems for them. Like I'll give you a good example of this. My mom was more of a leader. If I went to my mom with a problem, I would say mom. I'd say, let's say I was five or six. I'd say, mom, this is going on and I'm upset about it. She'd say to me. And then I'd say to her, what should I do? This was my mom. She would say, I don't know. You're a big girl. You can figure it out. And we would start talking about it and she would offer suggestions. But I always thought I was solving all my own problems. She raised me to be a problem solver, to be confident, to be free thinking, to be strong. And I admire her for that. I really am very grateful that she did that to me. I did that to my kids too. If they came to me with a problem, I didn't try and solve it for them. I wanted them to learn to solve it themselves. And that's part of that connection too. They feel really proud of themselves when they do that. And you're teaching them this. So they tend to look up to you too. Because I got the fact that my mom was encouraging me to solve my own problems. And I thought it was pretty clever to do so. But really, she was feeding me all the information. But I thought I was solving all my own problems. But she made me feel very confident as a result of that. So I find a lot of kids who have pleaser parents are extremely entitled. It's the most prevalent negative personality trait is the entitlement. Because you're so busy trying to make everything easy for them, solve all their problems, and not teach them how to be strong. And they tend to be weaker individuals and expect people to cater to them. So I see that a lot. And I see it going away though. I see that people realize it's not working. It was a disaster. And now they're pulling away from that. But they don't want to go back to the authority either. I don't teach that either, right? So they want the leader. Well, I think they should want the leadership. I love that because they feel respected. You know, if you're not accountable and if you're not leading by example, like this is what I want from you. I want you to, it's okay to make mistakes. We're all human, right? Life is messy. People are messy. It's okay to make mistakes. But you've got to be accountable for them. There's no shame in being imperfect. There's only shame in not owning it and not making up, making it up to other people. There you go. Okay. That's a great place to end, I think. Okay. We'll be back again talking about another parenting topic. Happy parenting. Thanks for tuning in. If you're ready to dive deeper, check out bratbusters.com to learn more about the behavior board, parenting courses, and private 101 coaching with Lisa. If you've enjoyed the show so far, we'd love it if you could take a moment to follow, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more parents just like you. The information provided in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Lisa is a parenting coach, mom, and grandmother. She is not a licensed psychologist or counselor. Her services do not replace the care of psychologists or other healthcare professionals. For a full disclaimer, please visit bratbusters.com forward slash disclaimer.