Should You Ignore Disrespect From Kids?

Don't sweat the small stuff. If they do something stupid and it's not a big deal, just say, well, that was stupid. Do you want to hear what I did when I was your age? Or do you want to hear what I did yesterday and laugh it off? It's okay for them to make mistakes. They're not mini-mes. They're not going to do everything that you want. And they shouldn't. They're exercising their own individuality here. I have a 25-month-old boy who speaks or plays loudly when I engage with others. How do we stop him from rudely interrupting? He's doing it because he wants your full attention. I've got to go into so many different directions with this one. How oldest can have a bad attitude and makes rude or disrespectful remarks when he's upset? When you get there, I would say, by the way, you were being rude in the car. So what we're going to do is... 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 rude behavior from your kids so that could be talking back, mean comments, interrupting, bossiness, swearing, attitude, the works. Mm-hmm. We do address some of that as bad behavior. If it's just disrespect towards you, we can't do much about it. But if they are rude to a teacher or someone else, I will address it as bad behavior. But if it's just rude, disrespectful behavior towards parents, I don't. We'll get into that though. I'm sure it'll come up as we go along. Yeah, I mean, so for this podcast, I'm assuming we're generally talking about kids three and older. For this one, yes. Yeah, under that, yeah, they're just learning. Their language isn't even there yet. So yeah, three and over, good point. Yeah, three and over. So let's first address back talk from your kids. Okay, SAS. So you say something and then they say, no, I hate you, let it go and just follow through with what needs to be done. So if you say, okay, we're leaving in five minutes and then they say, no, just say, well, we're going anyway. And then if they are too old or you can't just pick them up and put them in the car, then you just say, I'll tell you what, we'll discuss this later. And then you do whatever you gotta do to get them going if they're a lot older, right? And then when you say we'll discuss it later, that means there'll be a consequence later. There's no, if you have to go somewhere, there's no point having a consequence or disciplining your kids in that moment. Just say, we'll talk about this later. That was just an example of that. But yeah, rude behavior, SAS, back talk, all that stuff when they're talking to you, it's just a sign that you're not a leader. You got to work on your leadership skills and they don't talk like that to a leader. So it just says you got some work to do. That's the way I look at it. That's the way I treat it. Let's say you have a seven year old, you go and pick them up from school and you hear that they've been back talking to teacher. Would you still approach that the same way? Absolutely not. If a kid is rude to a teacher, that's a different level. You just say, I'll tell you what, I understand you are rude to the teacher because you can demand respect to a teacher, but you can't demand it for yourself. It's just different. Parenting is a different relationship than a student and a parent and a teacher. It's just a different relationship. So I would say, no, you can demand polite behavior at school. Yes, you can. So you see, I'll tell you what, you were rude to the teacher, so what we're gonna do, there's gonna be a consequence for that. And then follow through with the behavior board, which is free on my website, brapestors.com. And then as far as let's go on to mean comments. Let's say they say something mean to you or mean to a teacher, like are you still addressing that the same way? The same way, rude, mean, nasty, whatever. The only thing that is different that I would address toward the parent that I would address it if they said it, is when they name call or swear. So I would put no bad words or name calling on the behavior board. And that goes for everybody, like what I mean is they can't say it to anybody. So anytime they, because that's just really, it's really rude to just use those words anyway. So I treat that as bad behavior, okay? But everything else that comes out of their mouth, aside from like toward you, I just ignore it. You can't address attitude towards you, you just can't. There's no point whatsoever. But if they have a bad attitude towards the teacher, yes, I will address that, yes. What about if they are saying mean comments to their siblings? Yeah, no name calling and no bad words. It just applies to their siblings too. But if they're fighting back and forth, then that's a different topic. And then as far, let's move on to interrupting. Okay, interrupting is, I treat that a little bit different. Interrupting, if they're interrupting past the age of three, it means that you've allowed it in some way you must have been feeding it. You must have been giving it some attention. I would just, so three and above, but they shouldn't be interrupting unless you've trained them to do that. So I don't treat it as bad behavior. I treat it like this. Well, I start this way anyway. I say, I'll tell you what, interrupting is kind of rude. You know, no one wants to be interrupted when they're in a conversation. I feel like I just said this on a podcast, or was I talking something? We have discussed interrupting in a recent podcast. We did, yeah, because it feels really familiar. So yeah, I would just say, I'll tell you what, you may not even be aware that you're doing it because we trained, you know, we weren't addressing it before. That's our bad, you know, the parents' bad. And then you just say, when you interrupt, when someone's having a conversation, like if I'm talking to someone else or on the phone, then I will touch my nose. And that reminds you that you're interrupting. It's also gonna let you know that I'm going to ignore you now, okay? So you're reminding them that they're interrupting. And then if they can, and then say, and if you continue interrupting, there will be a consequence after that, okay? But if they just interrupt initially, you touch your nose and they stop, I would let it go. Also, do you get them enough attention? Like I wouldn't do that so much with both parents because you're often chatting all the time anyway. So they're kind of more allowed to interrupt you unless, you know, if you want to have a deep conversation with your spouse, probably wait till the kids are in bed, right? So I don't have that exact same rule when you're talking to each other. I would be more likely to let them interrupt. But within reason, I'm assuming like this, sometimes they interrupt because you're not giving them enough attention. So I'd have to assess that. But to clarify, you and I can interrupt each other whenever we want. Well, it's a law between us. We have to, it would be weird if we didn't. But yeah, we're a mother, daughter, we're adults, but yeah, of course we interrupt all the time. We became extra aware of it when we started this podcast, or at least I did when I'm editing because I'm like, I see both of the voices going at the same time. I was like, oh no, we do it a lot. Well, we've had to learn not to do it on the podcast, but it hasn't changed us our behavior when we're not doing the podcast. No, it hasn't at all, no. No, we still talk over. I don't even think we listen to each other, do we? Okay, one-way street there, but the next one is bossiness. Bossiness, that can be construed as bullying. You've got to decide what, is it bullying? Is it repeated? And they're actually bossing someone else around and the other person doesn't like it. It's okay to be a leader. There's a difference between being leader and being bossy. When you're a leader, the other people are also happy. When you're bossy, the other people are miserable. Leadership and bossy people are very different. A leader does what's best for everybody. A bossy person only does what's best for themselves. Because I've known some kids who are really good leaders and they might not even be doing, they might not even want to do what they're saying, but they know what's best for the group. Like this is where a lot of kids who are sort of in charge, what do they call that, the captain, the team or whatever, they're really good team players, that kind of stuff. Those are leaders. A bossy boots just wants what's good for them. They don't care if anyone else wants to do it. So that's the difference. So if they're being really bossy, you have to decide who that's with. Is it with their peers at school? Is it becoming an issue at school? Then I would talk to them about it. But at home, if they're bossing around little sibling, I would also talk to them about that and say, I'll tell you what, if you keep bossing your little sibling around and expecting them to do whatever you want, then we might turn the tables. For the next half hour, they get to tell you to do whatever they want. So I might turn it around and say, how does that feel? And the final one is attitude. Okay, attitude. Attitude is based on your leadership, good or bad. So if you're a really good leader, they tend to have a really good attitude. Because it makes it, your leadership increases their self-esteem. And when they have high self-esteem, they tend to have a good attitude, a positive attitude. They tend to treat people really well. But if you're not a good leader, they often have a bad attitude. So I always say that's on you, okay? Their attitude is on you, usually. That's the way I view it anyway. We talked about this quite a bit in one of the podcast, Nurture vs. Nature. Nobody really knows what's more prevalent. Is it nature or nurture? Nobody can answer that for sure. But I always go about it like it's all nurture. Because nature, you can't do anything about it anyway. And as a leader, I'd rather take control. Even if I don't know if I have control, I'd still rather be able to feel like I'd change things if they needed changing. Rather than just saying, well, that's just, her father's just like that. So there's nothing I can do, that kind of stuff. I would never take that attitude. Okay, before we get into the parenting questions, I just wanna have a little sidebar conversation here. When I walked into my mother's home today, do you know what I was greeted with? Okay. I think as well, my mom talked so much about finding your inner silly, finding your inner goofy. This is my mom. Okay, well, I'm really hurt by the fact you think that was funny. What happened was, stop laughing. What happened was my very favorite genes, they died. They were puckering everywhere, thinning everywhere. And I called them my gambling pants because every time I wore them, I was taking a gamble that I, you know, they'd rip whenever I moved. So anyway, I decided that was it. They just went through the wash. Actually, there was a Seinfeld episode, baby blue. And they're like, anyway, he had an episode on his favorite t-shirts. Oh, yes. That's similar to that. I just remembered that. Anyway, so these genes died. Now I've had them for probably eight years. They were just like pajamas, right? They were so comfortable. So anyway, what I did was I said, I'm having a wake tonight down in the lobby of my building for the genes. So I told her that a couple of days ago. So today, of course, I made up a little coffin, put them in there, covered it up with the tank top that they loved being partnered with. So their favorite tank top. And then I had candles all around it. So she came in and I said, I'm just preparing for the wake tonight. Anyway, now she thought that was funny. I love those genes. They passed. I'm very upset about it. And you're trying to make fun of it. I will take a video on my phone and I will insert it. If you're watching the video podcast, I'll insert what I walked into just so you get a grasp of what we're talking about. Anyway, so just a little note. My mom always says, find your inner goofy. Kids love that. Well, I think you were construing my seriousness as goofy. I think so. Okay, I think we'll get into the parenting questions. Okay. The first one is Lindsay from Canada. Three and a half year old son, four month old daughter. Lately we've been getting a lot of attitude from the three and a half year old son. He will say things like, mom, you're not the boss or dad, you're not the boss of the house. Rude remarks out of nowhere. He will also say things like, don't talk to me like that or stop talking, especially when I'm disciplining. I honestly don't know what to do. Should I ignore the rude comments? Later kid will come and find me and say, I love you, I'm sorry for being mean to you. Should I accept his apology and move on? I know you're supposed to ignore the crazy and reward the calm kid. I'm having such a hard time knowing how to navigate this challenging time. And I feel like my kid doesn't respect me at all. He's only saying it to get a rise out of you. And it sounds like he does, so it's working. Okay, so if the kid said that to me, if he says you're not the boss of me, I'd say, yeah, anyway, here's what's happening. I would just continue on. I would acknowledge it by going, okay, anyway. So you see, I'm letting them know I did hear you, but yeah, I kind of am the boss of you and that we're eating dinner now, it's time for bed. So yeah, you are the boss, right? So you have to be, you're the one paying the rent. You're the one who gets them off to bed and feeds them. So yeah, when they say that, they're just trying to get a rise out of you. And if it works, they're gonna keep doing it. They stop so fast. They only do what works past about that age. Three and a half to four, they only do what works. If it's still upsetting you and you're reacting to it, which is what he's after, he's gonna keep doing it forever. Yeah, just say, oh, okay, anyway, here's what's happening. And just follow through with what you were doing. Are your kids driving you nuts? They don't have to. Check out bratbusters.com for my bootcamp courses if you wanna learn how to become a leader. I just wanna clarify because you said you are the boss. Maybe discuss your thoughts on the authority and how calm leadership is different. Okay, you're the boss in that you know what's best. You know what needs to be done. If they get hurt, you're the one who takes them to the doctor. They don't decide whether or not they go to the doctor. You do. So you are the boss. They're just, he's three and a half years old for goodness sake. Things do chop and change a lot when they're teenagers. I just wanna make that very clear. But yeah, you are the boss. For sure you're the boss. You're the leader. But you're not the authority. Now how on earth am I gonna differentiate between that boss and authority? The reason why I say we're not teaching authority parenting here is it's more my way or the highway. But as the boss, I guess it's sort of the same thing but I am the leader and that I want them to also have a voice. But if it's something that needs to be done, then I'm the boss. Maybe as well, like you often discuss about the fact that with the Bratbusters Behavior Board, parents are also on there. And so I think you more discuss with the authority that they wouldn't be on the behavior board. Well, they wouldn't be accountable because they will, and I get this, I mean, I see, I sort of saw that when I was growing up and it was all authority back then. But my parents weren't. My mom was more the leader. I've never been yelled at. So, but yeah, I can kind of see that with the behavior board. You have to be on there because you're a leader. Leaders are accountable. Now leaders, if you think about it, the word leader, you're leading by example. You're showing them how this is done. That's why you have to be on that behavior board. I was in trouble all the time. It was more me than my kids for sure. It was just goofy stuff, crazy stuff. You know, I was always doing something. So like the other day, remember the ribbon routine we talked about that? My poor daughter was working in a gym, gymnastics place, and I turned up to pick her up. She would have been 16. God, I still cringe every time I think about this. Well, I went to pick her up and it was cold, so I waited inside, but she didn't want me in there. Now I know why. I saw those sticks with ribbons on them and did an entire ribbon routine in front of one of her coworkers. She was humiliated. Do I know how to do a ribbon routine? No. You sure acted like you knew. Wasn't even a good one. But yeah, I got in trouble for that. So I would have had to have, I don't know what I did, but I would have had to have made amends for that. Or my favorite was when we were rushing around, like we'd be like grocery shopping. And if you got short with us, we could call you out on that too. Yep. And it's funny because when we were shopping and I was rushing them around, come on, come on, we gotta get going. And they would look at each other and smile. And I go, oh, trats, what am I in for now? So I knew when we got in the car, they'd go, mom, you were a little bit impatient with us, weren't you? Yeah, yeah, yeah, what do you want? And he would drag it out. My son was older. He would do, well, we're gonna think about it. We'll have a little meeting later and discuss what we want from you. So that's leadership. But I was the boss when it was something important, right? Like, you know, something that needed to be done. We're going to school now. If they said no, I would have, that would have been my authority or my bossiness, whatever you wanna call it. So you are the boss, you're in charge. You make sure that what needs to be done is done. So if I said, no, you're not having ice cream for dinner, you're gonna have vegetables and healthy stuff for dinner. I was the boss of that. Okay, should we get into the next question? Sure. So we have Cappy from the United States. I was wondering how to work on rudeness teens have. I have a 14 year old boy. He interrupts almost everyone. If we need to go somewhere and are ready to walk out, he has to quote unquote do something. So he's last out and we're all waiting. If he's called for dinner, he will say he will come later and wants me to make something for him. Last night I didn't and said he wasn't eating. Try again tomorrow. He stays in his room all day, all day whenever he is home. So 14 year old boy with a poor attitude sounds normal to me, but then if he's not on time, so I would say to him, before you even have to go out anywhere, I'd say, look, I'll tell you what, sometimes you're running late. Also, you remember, are you ever running late? Like if you say you're gonna pick him up at a certain time and you're not there, are you accountable? This doesn't work unless you're accountable too. So are you 100% reliable? You gotta look in the mirror first, okay? So that's the first step. The second step, what I would say, I'd say I'll tell you what, sweetie, or whatever you call him. So I'll tell you what, son. What we're gonna do, son. Well, I call my kids, my son is babe, my daughter is sweetie, it's just I've always done that. Anyway, so I'll tell you what I was thinking. Sometimes when I say we're gonna be leaving in five minutes, you're not ready, okay? So what I'm gonna do from now on, I'm gonna give you 30 minutes notice and then I'll give you a 15 minute reminder and a five minute reminder, okay? So then you say to them, does that sound fair? And see what they say. If they say, yeah, sure, then just go along with it. If they say no, say I'll tell you what, what do you want from me? You negotiate. Maybe you do something annoying. Say what would you, you know, we've gotta go at 10 o'clock in the morning. What if we have to go at that time? What do you think's fair? Let's start the negotiations. See what they want from you. Maybe you're nagging them too much. Maybe you don't like what they wear. Okay, so that's just that. I would negotiate that with them. Now, you said they just wanna stay in their room. 14 year old boys, they're usually, yeah, that's very, very common. That would be a bigger picture kind of a conversation. So I might just say, look, if you wanna be in your, well, what I did with my kids too is we never had any screens in their room, but then to be honest, phones weren't as big back then either. Like everything was sort of done on the PlayStation and the TV. So that was a bit different. So what I would do is I would limit phone time and I would say, I'll tell you what, you spent a lot of time in your room. I'm assuming you're on your phone, that's fine. But I'm gonna, I wanna take your phone for a half an hour every single night and we have a, maybe we play a game or we have dinner together or something, just plan something out. Then say, do you think that's fair? Let's start the negotiations. You might whittle it down to 10 minutes, whereas they don't have their phone for 10 minutes and they have to come up and talk to you for 10 minutes. They don't even have to say anything, but they just have to be there and you can just talk at them. But start negotiating with teenagers. If you're not negotiating with teenagers, you're doing it wrong. Okay, I'm gonna read out my top five tips for parenting teenagers. Because you're the leader when they're young, but when they start to get in the teen years, you wanna pass that leadership torch over to them more and more and more, okay? They're gonna be adults soon. Now, these are my top five tips for parenting teenagers. Number one, listen to understand and show empathy. You don't listen to gather information to lecture with or they will tune you out. If they want your advice, they'll ask for it and they already know it anyway. Number two is what I was just talking about. You negotiate almost everything. So you say, hey, I want your dirty clothes and the hamper from now on. What do you want from me? Let's start the negotiations, see what they say. Number three, sometimes they'll say, stop being such a pain. You say, well, that's not gonna happen. Let's start negotiations again. So yeah, you gotta kinda use humor too with teenagers. Number three, don't sweat the small stuff. If they do something stupid and it's not a big deal, just say, well, that was stupid. Do you wanna hear what I did when I was your age? Or do you wanna hear what I did yesterday and laugh it off? It's okay for them to make mistakes. They're not many means. They're not gonna do everything that you want and they shouldn't. They're exercising their own individuality here. Sometimes they'll go against the grain just so they can be different from you and you gotta respect that, okay? They're growing up. Number four, don't leverage the good times to discuss the bad times. Oh yeah, sorry, I thought I got out of order, nevermind. So when do you discuss the bad times? All parents wanna discuss the bad times with their kids and teenagers. You just don't do it. What's the point? You address bad behavior when necessary, which is usually always, and that you address bad behavior, but then you focus on the good kid. You turn it right around and you focus on being positive, okay? And number five is you can be a right fighter or you can be happy with a teenager. Even if they know they're wrong, they'll still die on that argument hill. They just will. They're gonna dig their heels in and keep arguing. You don't wanna be part of that. Just say I'll tell you what, let's just talk about it later or let's just forget it. So yeah, make sure that you are not a right fighter with a teenager. That's actually good advice for anyone for any age, like when you're with adults too. You can be a right fighter or you can be happy. So that's my top five tips with teenagers. Very common, especially boys, lock themselves in their room. Yep. What would you look into it to see if there's something more going on? I would, but the thing is, I know exactly what I'm thinking, but I don't really wanna say it because kids sometimes listen too. So yeah, they discover a whole bunch of stuff on their phones. So yeah, who knows what they're looking at? Okay, you might wanna look into perhaps saying, you know what, I wanna check your history every so often. And I think that's fair enough that we do that. And then say, what are you, because we're paying for the phone, how do you feel about that? By the way, they know how do we race it, but you're sort of letting them know that you're kinda wanna check into things and say, is there anything that you wanna tell us or what are you looking at? Just open the conversation, be as open as possible. Let them tell you stuff. And when they do, don't freak out if they tell you, maybe they're looking at questionable material, right? So you kinda know where I'm going with this. So yeah, just say, oh, okay, and then open up the discussion around that. Don't say, well, you shouldn't do that. Just start talking, let them talk. Let them open up to you. I think that that is something that I remember from being a teenager too, is I felt like I could come to you and ask you any question without fear of being outwardly judged. Maybe you were judging inside, but you didn't outwardly judge me. I don't think I was. No, because I never saw myself as perfect. So I thought, well, you mean you're gonna make mistakes and poor judgment calls just like I did or just like I do? So I think that's it. I was very vulnerable with my kids. I was very quick to own my own flaws. So how can I judge them if my flaws are out? Like I don't have a filter, right? I'm just out there. So especially in my inner circle, not with everybody, but my inner circle, I'm very quick to admit my flaws. And so then how on earth can I judge your flaws or things that I don't like if I've got them too? So I think that's where I was coming from. Like my way or the highway, I'm better than you are. When I question parents on this, and I'll often say, so you mean you were way better than your kids than your teenagers are? And sometimes they'll say, yeah, I was a really easy teenager, but more often than not, they'll say, you know what? I was like that too. So I said, okay, well, let's be fair and reasonable here. You're not perfect. You never were, none of us are, right? So I think that's where I was coming from. It's not that I thought that all the decisions they were making was great. It's just, I didn't think all mine were perfect either. You see? Does that make sense? I like that. Yeah, it's like we're all imperfect. None of us are perfect. Who would ever want to be around a perfect person? How boring would they be? Do you know it's our flaws and our vulnerability that makes us likable? That's what connects us to people. Okay, let's get into the next question. So we have Carrie from the United States. Hello, I have a 25 month old boy who speaks or plays loudly when I engage with others. So my husband, family members, friends, or others. My husband and I can tell that he does this to get our attention. Other times he'll tap on us and mention, too loud, mommy or daddy, they're fighting now, stop that. I don't like that at all in a loud, demanding voice. I look at him, say no and usually continue on with the conversation, but it continues and has been happening now for a few months. Other times we tell him not to tell others what to do and continue with the conversation. How do we stop him from rudely interrupting? How do we teach him to wait for our attention? I can't take away the fun because the attention is not on him at the present time. My husband and I are very goofy and playful with him. We're the aunt and uncle that are down on the floor with the kiddos on the holidays. But when we need to divide our time with others, that's when we see this behavior, what can we do? He's doing it because he wants your full attention. I've got to go into so many different directions with this one. He's only 25 months, so he's just turned two years old and they can't really learn that very well yet, but just ignore, keep sort of snubbing him. If you're in the middle of a conversation, you can just go, wait a minute, and then you ignore him, okay? But then afterwards, when he walks, this is what a lot of parents miss, when he does walk away and stop trying to interrupt, then you go in and say, oh, what are you doing over there? So you got to ignore what you don't want in this situation and then reward what you do. A lot of parents miss that. They go, oh, he walked away, now we're just gonna chat forever. That's when I'd be more likely to go in and then talk to him. So you're rewarding that when he stops interrupting. A lot of parents forget that. Okay, the next one is Elisa from the United States. We have boys five and three and recently started listening and working on our parenting leader journey. El oldest can have a bad attitude and makes rude or disrespectful remarks when he's upset. I know attitude will take months to fall into place, but if we're headed to an event he is not looking forward to, he makes snippy remarks on the way. Do we take away the event as a consequence, ignore the comment or another third option? It feels odd to do something that he wants to do when he's disrespectful. Looking forward to answers for this period in our journey. Okay, I'm gonna set up a scenario that's more clear because I'm not sure, you did say, it sounds like you're going somewhere where he wants to go. So I'm gonna work with that. Let's say you're going to Disneyland. He wants to go and he's being rude on the way. Okay, so something like that. I would say by the way, you were rude in the car, when you get there, I would say by the way, you were being rude in the car. So what we're gonna do is you're, let's say you're going to paintball or I guess the three year old's too little, you're going to some trampoline play center or something. And you say, I'll tell you what, you were saying a lot of rude stuff in the car. So your little brother is gonna go and play and you're gonna sit with me for the next 15 minutes. So you're gonna withhold the fun just temporarily at the very start, never do it at the end because then you've got one heck of a nasty drive home. So always delay the start, the fun starts. So you're going somewhere he wants to be, delay the fun at the very start, 15 minutes or so, whatever. Say you were being rude in the car, so now you're gonna sit with me for 15 minutes. That's what I would do. Okay, the next one is Chris from Canada. Two girls ages two and a half and seven. Both are strong-willed and the oldest is very bossy with her play. She likes to play dull daycare, but there are lots of rules. No one can touch anything she set out unless she says so and people only allowed certain roles. The two-year-old obviously doesn't follow the rules and touches whatever and the older one gets mad constantly. This happens almost every day during play. When the two-year-old is playing happily by herself, the seven-year-old comes in and although the younger one is happy at first, they play together. The older one takes over, changes the game and adds so many rules that the two-year-old ends up frustrated. Is this a behavior board thing to stop the bossiness? The two-year-old is too young for the interview method still. Yeah. I've just got so many different ideas for that one. Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh. What I would do is I would say to the seven-year-old, I would say, I'll tell you what, whenever you guys play this, it was a certain game they mentioned, wasn't it? What was it that they mentioned? So it was about playing dull daycare. Dull daycare? So I would assume that the seven-year-old has all the dulls and they're just doing daycare with all the dulls. Doing daycare with, okay, then I would have rules and I would say, okay, from now on, here's how it's gonna go. I would lay down the rules and say if you don't respect those rules and if you cause problems, then there'll be a consequence. Okay, so yeah, I would just have boundaries. Just set boundaries. You're letting it be a free-for-all. Play is a free-for-all, it ain't working. So have boundaries around the play. By the way, dull daycare isn't working from now on, so we're gonna stop it for the next week. Here's what you're allowed to play. And if you don't play nicely, then we'll come up with something else. So yeah, I would start that way because the seven-year-old's just basically taking charge and I would take charge of that. The daycare is closed. Yeah, the daycare is closed for the next week or it could just be the weekend or whatever. But yeah, I would say it's not working, so let's find what does. I vividly remember that as playing with someone or like, I don't know, you'd be playing like with a cash register and it'd be like checkout. And then one person always got to be the checkout person and I felt so annoyed. Yeah, you weren't a pushy kid. So there's always pushy kid that always gets in there. And I was like that too. There was always a pushy kid that always got what they wanted. The rest of us would stand around drooling over this one toy that that pushy kid got. But yeah, that's this kind of life. That's life, right? That's life. Now, when it's your own kids, you can deal with it. But if you're sending them out into the world and it's a war zone out there, you just got to learn. It's a war zone. Other kids just take the cash register. It's horrendous. That's how it felt. I can remember, well, back in my day, back in my day, because I was born in 1960 and we were all playing in the streets all day and literally the lights would come on, that was our signal to go home when the street lights came on. But yeah, I knew my place. I knew the best stuff was only the first turns were always going to go to the older kids because I was one of the younger ones in our little section. I think there was seven or eight of us. And we all knew our place. It was really cemented. There was no adults around to referees. So we worked it all out. And that's just part of life, right? But at home, there's a big age difference there. And they're your kids and you want to teach a seven-year-old to play fair with the little one. OK, we have one final question. So Emily from the United States, four-year-old kid says, mean things to me, the mom, when he's upset. I know from your content, I need to work on my leadership skills to gain his respect, but I'm having a hard time bouncing back from the mean comments. There, for example, you aren't special to me anymore. I'm going to get a new mom, stuff like that. I find it super hard to let the comments roll off my back. He gets the meanness out of his system. Then he's in a bouncy mood again. But then I feel like the life has been sucked out of me. It takes me ages to feel upbeat and playful again. It feels like we're in this unhealthy cycle I cannot break out of. How do I not take it personally and be the leader here? Well, I can't help you with your emotions. That is your responsibility. But I know exactly what I would say if the kid said that to me. I don't know if I should say it. But I use a lot of sarcasm. If the kid said that to me, what was it he said specifically? You aren't special to me anymore, or I'm going to get a new mom. I'm going to get a new mom. I said, ooh, does that mean I get a new kid too? That's exactly what I would say. He's four. He's maybe a little bit young for that. But my kids would have got that right away. I think it's really, I just want to interject. You also used a lot of humor with everything. Whereas I could imagine that being taken really differently if you have a parent who never uses humor. Well, that's why I don't teach what I did. I teach what you need to hear. Because my style is, I was raised with a lot of humor too. So to me, that's my comfort zone. We always look for the funny. My mom was always really funny. My dad was pretty funny too. So I remember once, this was so funny. I was mad at my dad for something. And I said, oh, I only love you because you're my dad. My dad said, love you too, sweetie pie. I was so mad because you didn't bother him. But I just basically said, love you, dad. Like, I still wasn't very bright. But anyway, so yeah, they're going to say stuff. So what? He's just trying to get under your skin. That's all he's trying to do. So yeah, now, if it's not your style to say that, does that mean I get a new kid too? That kind of throws it back at him. And then you just sort of laugh it off. It's no big deal. But if it's not your style, don't do it. That would come across as really rude. So yeah, don't do it. But anyway, yeah, I would just say, OK, whatever. And then just move on. He's just trying to annoy you. That's all. He's trying to see if he can fluster you. And obviously he can. That's why he's doing it. Now, I used to mentor troubled teenagers. I can't say anything they said to me. I mean, they started out saying some pretty nasty stuff to me and teachers. So yeah, I had to learn. I never took it personally. True, they were not my kids. But the stuff they were saying was pretty vile. But yeah, I just thought, no, as a leader, you just got to let that just water off a duck's back. I could have walked out. I was just a volunteer mentor. I could have walked out. But I thought, oh, this is good. What a great challenge for me. That's where I learned the most was how to let that stuff go. When they're in pain, they mean when they're in pain. When they feel good, they do good. When they feel bad, they do bad. Your kid doesn't feel good when he's saying that, OK? He does not feel good about himself. So just say, yeah, whatever. OK, then, all righty, then. And then just change the subject. You control the energy. You control the narrative. Don't let him do it. He's trying to control you. That's all. OK, well, I think that's a great place to end it. That's it for the questions. Thanks so much for watching. We'll be back again talking about parenting again next time. Happy parenting by now.