How to Raise Children With Grit (Without Pushing)

We're currently running a special limited time five week Q&A series exclusively for our Bratbusters boot camp members. Throughout April, I'm featuring selected member questions alongside the most common implementation hurdles in an exclusive episode each week for five weeks. If you're not already a member, it's not too late to be part of this series. You'll get an instant access to the episodes already released and the final episode question submission deadline is April 23 at 3pm Pacific Time. Go to bratbusters.com or check out the podcast description to learn more and join the Bratbusters boot camp today. You do not want obedient soldiers. That's ridiculous. There's no grit in that. There's no pride in that either. You're just listening to your parents all the time. You're just an obedient little soldier. Where's the pride? Welcome to the Bratbusters Parenting Podcast. My name is 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 Bratbusters. 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 how to raise children with grit. Grit. Did we do one on this before? How to raise kids with grit? You've talked about problem solvers and I think that a lot of it will be overlapping, but I think that this topic comes up because parents... It can be a challenging one to approach this. You don't want to be too lenient, but you also don't want to be too strict. And just kind of raising kids who will grow up and be able to face the challenges of the world. So kids that are tougher, they have some fortitude. They have some strength. Is that it? Yeah. Okay, well, we can talk about that. I think we'll start out with what I would assume you're going to say is talking about making everything easy for them. Yeah, the Pleaser Parents style tends to do that. That's the participation awards. That's where it started. That's the first time I ever heard of that about 40 years ago. And yeah, you don't want to make everything easy for them. If you're trying to make everything easy for them, how are they going to survive when anything tough comes up? You want to train them for real life. You want them to understand that not everyone's going to be catering to them. They're not always going to get an award for doing nothing. That there might get a bad teacher that doesn't like them. That's okay. That's the world kiddo. But I always made sure that home was good. I always said, look, you come home to a very loving, fun environment and that's all great. But you go out in the world and it's a war zone out there or it can be. So I said, yeah, you got to get used to that. You got to expect people to be difficult. Sometimes they might cut you off in traffic, etc, etc. So I always was sort of talking to them like that. Like, yeah, life can be difficult sometimes, but that's okay. Doesn't mean it has to be a negative. It means that you get really strong and that you can deal with that stuff. That was my goal. It wasn't that I wanted to expose them to things that were going to hurt them. I wanted to expose them to things that I knew they could learn how to handle. And you know what I appreciated growing up is the idea that if there was a problem that needed to be solved in my life, if I came to you with just the problem without any idea of a solution, you were kind of like, well, let's work on this together. Yeah, well, I'd say, well, let's figure it out. And I might offer some suggestions, but I wanted them to problem solve on their own. I wanted to hand them out some ideas and say, well, you know, I did this when I was your age or I heard someone else did that, but I wanted them to come up with their own solution. I wanted to empower them. I didn't want them just coming to me to solve their problems because that's not fortitude. That's not grit. I wanted them to learn how to figure things out on their own. And they're both really good problem solvers. They're not winers. So I think that has something to do with it. I didn't accept any whining and say, well, what are you going to do about it? You know, if they were upset about something, well, what are we going to do here? You know, let's figure something out. Or do you want to go play a game or something? Like I was there to make sure that they had, you know, that we could connect them. So let's say, because things aren't always going to be fixable. You might be left out of a group at school or something, you know, a little some a little friend click or something. You might be left out. So I couldn't solve that. They couldn't solve that either. So we just play a game or something. I try and distract them by making sure that we did something fun. But, you know, sometimes you just got to feel sad too. I don't know if you said it in so many words as well, but it's also the idea that no one's going to really care about your well-being the same way that you are. You will for kids. But I think in general, it's like you kind of got to take a little bit of ownership over your own life. Well, and I used to tell them when you're with us, you know, your family, you're special, you know, we just think you're wonderful. But when you go out in the world, no one really cares about you. Like they just don't. They all care about themselves and their own kids. Don't expect everyone else to treat you like you're special, like you get at home. And they learned that from a very young age. So they were never entitled. They didn't expect special treatment from anybody and they didn't get it, but they got it at home because we were crazy about them. And we love them, right? So I didn't want them to think that they were more special than other people when they were out in the world. I said, you got to earn that. Don't expect anything to be handed to you. You've got to earn it with everyone else with mom and dad. It'll be handed to you. Okay. But that's different. Okay. It'll be handed to you on a silver platter because we adore you, but you go out in the world. You got to earn people's respect and you got to earn how they feel about you. You got to, you got to sell yourself. Basically, I think that's what it was. Okay. I think the next topic that I have here, excuse me, let me take that back. Sell yourself almost sounds like you're a pleaser. What I mean is that you have to earn people's respect. You have to, you have to be, you want to be yourself. You don't want to be a people pleaser. So I didn't want to come across that way. But yeah, people aren't going to see you walk in a door and go, oh, how wonderful. You got to earn that stuff. The next topic I want to talk about is instant gratification. Oh, is this not Q and A's? We do have a Q and A after, but I want to really kind of flesh out your thoughts on grit and instilling that in kids. Instant gratification. What do you mean by that? I think it falls into you often say you need to do what you have or you need to do what you need to do before you can do what you want to. You got to do what you need to do before you can do what you want to do. I was like, I'm like halfway there. I could feel it. I obviously didn't say it enough to you. You got to do what you need to do before you can do what you want to do. In other words, you got to earn the fun stuff. So I didn't want them to just get handed fun stuff all the time. I said, sure, we're going to go to the park now. So let's put your toys away. As soon as you put your toys away, we'll go to the park. So they learned responsibility. And so they learned that you want to do something fun. And they would literally before they even asked to go to the park or go in the pool or whatever, they would literally look around to see what they had to do, clean up before they did that. So yeah, you got to do chores. You got to be responsible. There's things that need to be done around in life, basically. Like you can't, you might have a really nice apartment, but you got to pay the rent first. You see, you got to earn stuff in life. You are big on delayed gratification. I said instant because I think that you want to go, your method is the idea of going away from that. But yeah, a lot of kids want this instant feedback. Oh, I want this right now. I want, well, you know, if you save up your money for a period of time, let's figure it all out. Then you might be able to buy that, you know, so we're always trying to teach them how to earn stuff, how to, how to think ahead, not just go, I want that. I want this. There's a lot of that stuff going on where parents think that they're being nice by giving their kids whatever they want right in the moment. You know, so I would rather them have to earn it or wait for it. I think I maybe take this too far because you know, it's one of my favorite things. I know exactly what it is. Oh, do you? Mm hmm. Okay, I was going to say walking up a hill because you know, you get to go back down it. Oh, I see. Oh, no, you know what? What she often says she loves is the delayed gratification. She loves suffering with something for a while because later on then she'll, she'll really appreciate it when she gets something. Yeah, I love a good suffer. And by the way, I don't. We all have our preferences. The next thing is the idea of children learning to fail. Hmm. And this goes along with trying to solve all their problems for them. I like my kids to try something and fail. And then I'd say, what a great lesson that was. So that's not for you. Or did you want to try again? I never treated failure like failure. Like, you know, if you try something and you know, good at it, say, well, that's one thing you can cross off your list of things that you want to do in the future. So if it was something that they, you know, I always encourage them to go outside their comfort zone. I'm not great at it, but it's something I really admire and I do try to do once in a while. But yeah, the road to success is paved with failures. Plus that's that open mindset. What are they? I always forget what it's called. There's a fixed mindset and an open mindset. An open mindset goes, well, that sounds like fun. How about giving it a go being open minded to different things? I really admire that. And I really, you know, want to aspire to being that way all the time pretty much a fixed mindset says, well, I wouldn't be good at that. So I'm not going to do it or I'm not comfortable with that. So I'm not going to do it. I didn't want my kids to go there because you're never going to experience new, exciting things if you're not willing to go out in a limb once in a while. We could all learn. I think most of us want to go into our comfort zone because we're built that way. But they say the most exciting things in life happen outside of your comfort zone. And there's a lot of failure that goes with that because when you do that, you're often going to be uncomfortable, shy, you might fail at something and that's okay. Okay. And I think something else you want to talk about when it comes to grit is the idea of like when to praise, when to not pray, like how much praise giving you would approach with giving children. Okay. I do praise kids when they do something like if they try something and they fail or try something and they succeed, I do praise them for effort, but I don't tend to praise kids just for basic talent, like for being born smart or being born good looking. I said, those are gifts you're given. You can't take credit for them. But what I did praise my kids a lot for, what did I praise you the most for? I think if we were nice to someone, if they were nice, because I really valued that. I really valued nice. I mean, yeah, school grades and all that, that was all great, but it was the behavior part. I always look for your kids exemplary behavior. I was, oh, that was what I was always looking for. So it's how they treat people. So that I did praise a lot for that. But I didn't praise for, oh, you're so good looking or you're so smart. I did. I mean, I said, yeah, you're pretty and you're smart and all that, but I didn't go on about that stuff because I didn't want them to feel entitled. I didn't want them to take pride in stuff that they were just handed that they didn't have to do anything for. I like them working for stuff. I like them trying for stuff. I really admired them, their work ethic and their attitude that nothing should be handed to them. Okay. Is there anything else you want to talk about on this topic before we get into the questions? Grip. Not yet. I sort of do, but I'll wait because I'm sure it'll come up. Okay. Some of these topics have to do with grit. Others are just general parenting questions. So the first one is Stassa from Serbia. My 16-month-old daughter has started getting really loud when she doesn't get something she wants. Not really crying, but more like shouting. And sometimes she hits herself on the head. It feels like it could turn into tantrums. My husband and I stay calm and try to gently redirect her, but it doesn't always work. In those moments, I usually take her to another room or outside. Should we keep redirecting or is it better to sometimes stay with her and let her go through those emotions? Also, I don't yell, but it does trigger me and I worried I might lose my patience if it gets worse. How can we handle this in a calm and supportive way? Okay. She's on the cusp. She's just coming out of babyhood and going into toddlerhood. And with babies, I redirect. I don't discipline. So I redirect, but what I would do, she's just on the cusp. I would hold her hands and I would say no. And then I might start singing a song or something. So I would sort of redirect, but I don't want her hitting herself. So I would definitely hold her from doing that. So, and then you start singing a song or you say, okay, let's go over there. Let's do something. So I would still redirect, but make sure that you hold her hands. You do not want her hitting herself. The more they do it, it's almost becomes muscle memory and they'll be more likely to continue doing it. So with that first hit, you grab her hands right away, say no, and then you redirect her. She's still kind of a baby. So. Okay. The next one is Jessica from the United States. My son who's five was diagnosed with ADHD and has very high emotions when it comes to being upset. He gets angry and lets it out on anyone yelling, screaming and running away. I also have a one and a half year old daughter that sometimes wants to play with him, but when she takes his toys, he will yell at her. How do I stop this? I've tried being calm and telling him the behavior is not acceptable. I've tried separating them in different rooms of the house. I've tried showing him how to teach him how to share. I need this to stop before kindergarten in a few months. He genuinely seems like he can't control his emotions. I'm afraid he's going to get mad at another child and start screaming and crying in the classroom. Okay. I don't know what, what, why you would tell him no aggressive behavior because there is aggressive behavior. Like I love it when parents say, well, I said to them, we don't act like that. Well, yeah, they do. Like there's no point in talking to them. They learn through consequences put use the free behavior board. It's on my website, Bratbusters.com and you put as his rule, no aggressive behavior and then explain what that is. That means hitting, kicking, whatever. So that's his rule. No aggressive behavior. Whenever he does, there's a consequence. They learn through consequences. They don't learn through these therapy sessions discussing what you shouldn't shouldn't do. They're not listening at all. Okay. The next one is more from the United States. I have a 19 month old and when he doesn't get his way, he has a habit of throwing things. When he's not allowed to do something, I let him have his tantrum. But do you have any advice on teaching him to not throw? You don't teach them to not throw. Yeah. It's not so much focused on not throwing. You just prevent him from doing it. Basically, I know that sounds silly, but you say no and then you pick and then you would pick up whatever he threw and put it away for a period of time. So you want to prevent that action. It's kind of like hitting. It's aggressive behavior. Okay. But he's really little. You can't put that on a board because he's only 19 months old. So every time he's throw something, you take it and you say no and then you put it away. And then you might have to physically restrain him. If he keeps picking up stuff and throwing it, you just say no and you might just hold him for 30 seconds, then let go and then grab him quickly when he grabbed something else to throw. Remember what I just said about the aggressive behavior? If you allow them to hit, if you allow them to throw things, they get used to doing it. It becomes easier for them to do it becomes their go to their muscle memory. So yeah, just prevent the future tosses, whatever he's throwing. Do you find that having these like fair, reasonable boundaries, even in toddlerhood, can you be setting them up to be to have a little bit more grit as they go older? Well, the thing is they you want them to feel like they're in control of their own lives. You don't want them to think that they're just, well, you don't want obedient little soldiers. You want kids who have pride, self-discipline and high self-esteem. Okay. When they have that combination, when they have that, they don't tend to act out anyway. That's what we're going through here. You're teaching them right from wrong and they instinctively know when they're being wrong past the age of about maybe two, especially by two. They kind of know right from wrong. They're starting to pick up on that and they start to not feel good about themselves. It doesn't really kick in till about three, but you'll see it coming where they really don't feel good about themselves when they are acting. You know, so the nicest thing you can do for your kids is to teach them how to have self-control and they learn that by about three. They can start to learn that. So yeah, this is all about kindness. You want them to feel good about themselves. If they like themselves, if they feel good, they do good. If they feel bad, they do bad. So yeah, all this is leading to high self-esteem, which has a lot to do with grit. They have a lot of pride in themselves when they can do things, when they can not do things, prevent themselves from acting out. They tend to feel better about themselves and more in control makes them feel good like they're more empowered. You do not want obedient soldiers. That's ridiculous. There's no grit in that. There's no pride in that either. There's no self-respect in that either. You're just listening to your parents all the time. You're just an obedient little soldier. Where's the pride? We want pride. Did I mention that enough? Pride? I think that you've mentioned that you want pride in there. Yeah, we want kids to feel good about themselves and they feel good about themselves when they have pride in what they've done, what they've accomplished, which is just being a nice person. Okay. You want them to give them something to be proud of. Guide them in the right direction so they're nice kids. Yeah, but you know what? Self-esteem is not built by being told you're great. Self-esteem is high self-esteem is built by being great, by being nice, by doing the right thing. You're going to make mistakes. We all do, but it's overall you want them to feel like they're nice people. Are your kids driving you nuts? They don't have to. Check out bratbusters.com for my bootcamp courses. If you want to learn how to become a leader. Okay. The next one is Alessandra from the United States. I talk about meeting your kids needs and managing their wants and having also said that your kid when your kids is sick, you give them everything they want. Can you further explain the boundaries you see on this? Can I lay in my sick three year old's bed so he falls asleep even though we don't do that other nights? Can he quote unquote get away with more in terms of behavior? I'm all for catering to him as much as I can while he's sick because being sick as a kid is terrible. But where's the line? I was home sick with him recently. Both of us are sick and I found myself being inconsistent with the way I normally handle things. Do kids pick up on this? Any sick day advice would be helpful. Oh, yeah. Of course you give into them given whatever they want. You know, if they want you to lay in bed while they fall asleep, that's fine. Do whatever you want. Whatever they want. Whatever makes them feel good. They will ricochet back into the old way once they're feeling well. They're not in the right mind when they're sick. All they're thinking about is I feel loud and I feel like they're sick. They're not in the right mind when they're sick. All they're thinking about is I feel lousy. So don't worry about that. They will ricochet back and you should too, by the way. Don't ease back into it. As soon as they wake up and they're healthy, go, okay, back to normal again. They will start to understand when they're sick, life isn't normal. You actually said that you almost hated it when you got well because mom was bringing you food in bed. Not a million years I wouldn't have done that if you weren't sick. You'd come in. How are you feeling, sweetie? I'm like, uh... Unfortunately, I feel fine. Okay, out of bed. Yup. Suddenly. Okay. Next one is Steve from the United K. Oh my gosh, I keep on saying that. Maybe I'll leave that in. I need to stop doing that. She does that. She goes from the United K. You don't say the United S for the United States. I do not. Why is that? I don't know. Okay. The next one is Steve from the United Kingdom. How do you recommend co-parenting as a leader parent with a gentle and permissive parent? My boys, when they're with me, are whole wonderful and regulated, but are aggressive and dysregulated with my ex-partner. Oh, they're different homes? Well, then just follow through with your leadership. You can't control the other home. And they get used to, oh, when we go to school, things are different. When we go to swimming lessons, things are different. When we go to mom's house, things are different. When we go to dad's house, things are different. The thing is that they will, they're more likely to lean into their personality when they're with the leader. Because their self-esteem is the highest when they're with the leader. They tend to like themselves the most when they're with the leader because the leader brings out the best in them. So their personality, you have a more dominant influence over them as the leader. That's all the power you've got. You can't control how the other parent parents, okay? So just work on your leadership skills and they will carry your umbrella everywhere they go, that leadership umbrella. Okay. The next question is Anna from the United States. My six-year-old son has to be told what to pick up and where to put it when it's clean up time. Is this normal? It's normal if you don't have a good outline. Like what I would say, I would put on the behavior board. His rule is pick up 10 toys within 10 minutes of being asked to do so. And then I would say, and don't ask me where they go because you already know. Okay. And if he does, then it's not done right. And don't, don't micromanage him. Okay. While he's doing that, he has to do it all by himself independently. Okay. So if he doesn't do it, then there's a consequence and that's simple. 10 toys in 10 minutes, he knows where they go. If he asks you, he hasn't done it. He's failed. So he gets a consequence. It's amazing. He'll probably put them all exactly where they belong. If he doesn't want a consequence. Okay. We have one final question. So T from the United States. I'm expecting a child and was wondering how do you train them to not be clingy? I've seen that some babies cry every time they're put down after about six months old. Is this normal? When do they grow out of it? Um, by boat. Well, let me think here by about 10 months. I know it's when they start crawling. It's when they get some mobility. They tend to get more independent because they go, wow, this is fun. They got nothing else to do. All they can do is be picked up. Otherwise they're just laying there like a potato on a mattress. That's why they often are really clingy when they're really little, right? Once they get some mobility, they tend to pull away a bit more because they got something to do. So that's completely normal. You know, if you can, you know, if a baby cries, I pick them up. That's just the way I am. Babies cry for a reason. If they just want to be held, then I'm still going to pick them up. If I can, right? If I can't, then I won't. Um, but yeah, that's why usually once they start getting more mobile, they get more independent. Not always, but that's the general rule. Okay. Well, that was everything to the questions. Okay. How to raise kids with grit. Don't solve all their problems for them, but work through them with them. Okay. And also don't try and make their life super easy. If they get a teacher they don't like, don't try and transfer them into a different class, unless there's a really good reason to do so. You know, I remember both my kids got teachers that maybe weren't all that great and I was like, yippie. They were the teachers were the school, you know, none of the kids wanted them. And I thought, great. Now my kids are going to learn how to have a really bad boss one day too. Right. Yeah. Like I wasn't trying to protect them from that stuff and it's not like I was trying to push them into it at all. But if it happened, I didn't try and stop it. You didn't prevent anything like that. I didn't want to because I thought life's not like that, you know, like, you know, we're often going to be in situations where we have a boss that we don't like or a coworker that's mean to us. You know, the earlier you learn these people skills and how to solve problems, the better. Okay. I don't know why I said it like that. I don't know why you did either. I don't know. Anyway, okay. So that just wraps it up, I guess. Hey, did you have anything else to say? I think that's a great place to end. Okay. Great kids with grit. That's what we're talking about here. Anyway, thanks so much for joining us and we'll be back again next time 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 one-on-one 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.