When Your Child Breaks the Rules (Don't Do This)

My goal is not that you raise nice kids. That's one of them. That's a byproduct. Okay. That's great too. My goal is that I want you to have fun with your kids. You can't have fun when they're acting out. I want you to enjoy parenting like I did. I think that some people think, well, that's just not attainable for me. Oh, it is. It is. Welcome to the Brat Busters 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 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 are we talking about today? Okay, it's all about when your child breaks the rules. How do you approach it? Oh, that's a really big topic. It is. I have some talking points here, though, so I'll help guide you along the way. Bless you. Okay. Okay, I think that maybe we'll start off with some things that you see parents resort to that you maybe don't recommend. So the first one would be yelling. Okay, yelling. The reason my parents do it is, well, one thing is you've probably been yelled at as a kid. So it's in your normal zone. Like you think that's kind of normal to yell. I've never been yelled at. So that's why I never yelled. I had an advantage that way. So that, but you yell. So that's one reason it's just a go to because you were yelled at. That's how your parents discipline. The other reason is it kind of works in the moment, especially, but it backfires down the road. So that's why parents do it. It does work in the moment. It's fear based intimidation based. It's not the way you want a parent. Like I don't want to do that. Um, so, but it makes you look weaker over time too. They will rebel against you. It will backfire, but that's why parents yell because it does work, but short term. And I think that this one just goes to be said and I'm just going to throw it in there is that you don't recommend spanking or anything. I don't recommend spanking or yelling. They're, they're just not effective. Well, you know, they might work, but not in the way you want. Right. I wouldn't recommend either. Okay. The, the next one is parents repeating themselves. Um, oh, so you say. I told you to do that. So the nagging and then reminding, I say something once and, but I'm careful though. I only ask for what I'm willing to follow through on or what needs to be done. Okay. Um, I don't just say, oh, clean up your room. If there's no precedent, there's no rules or chores or chart to say what the procedure is. I'm very good at letting people know what's expected of them with kids. Like I let them know, look, if I say clean up your room, uh, that means you have to make your bed, put your laundry away, whatever, maybe a couple of different things and it has to be done within 10 minutes. Okay. That could be a rule on the behavior board. So I forgot your question, your comment, or repeating yourself. Now, if you said to your kids, didn't you mean to repeat it mom? If you said to your kids, clean up your room and they don't do it, then you have to keep saying it. Whereas I wouldn't, there's no way I would repeat myself. I said, because I've already set the precedent. I've already set the expectation. The rule on the behavior board is, okay, this, I don't use, I've never used behavior board, but that's what I always tell parents to start with. Um, cause I was already a leader. If you're learning how to be a leader, that's what the behavior board's for. It's a teaching tool. Okay. So I would put on there, um, clean up your room within 10 minutes of being asked to do so and then explain what that is, make your bed and have it be really quick. Like should only take them about two minutes to do. Okay. Be very fair and reasonable when you're starting this stuff out. So then when you say, okay, I want you to, and do it when it's fair and reasonable to do it too. Don't do it when they're right in the middle of their favorite show, which you've allowed them to watch. Do it when they're finished and they're not really into much. Say, okay, I'll tell you what, now's a good time to clean up your room and the 10 minutes starts now. They already know what's on the board. Okay. So now you don't say another word. Oh, I don't want to do it. I don't, I'm not, I wouldn't answer that. I just say, well, whatever. Oh, five more minutes. I'm just a timekeeper. And then if it's not done, then I say, okay, let's go to the board. Now let me see the rule was clean up your room within 10 minutes. That wasn't done. So here's your consequence. You see? They're totally in charge of how that goes. All they have to do is clean up their room. That's it. Or they get a consequence. They understand that because you've already shown them the board. You've laid it all out. There was a precedent. There's an expectation. You're organized. So there's no need to repeat yourself. And if someone's listening and they want to know more about the Brat Brester's behavior board, you can get access to that when you join the newsletter. It should be in the show notes. Okay. And also repeating yourself. A lot of parents do it when they're just hoping their kids are going to do something that isn't necessary. Oh, can you pass me that over there? And you know you've got to define it, kid. He's not going to pass it to you. And he doesn't really need to, but you want him to be careful with that. Because if there's no precedent set or no expectation set, you can't get mad at him for disrespecting you. Okay. You've got to earn that respect. And you haven't put it on the board or anything. You haven't laid it out as a rule. Right. And you can't just expect them to do whatever you want whenever you want them to do it. But I'll tell you what I did with my kids. I really never told them what to do. What I used to do is I'd wait when they were little, like two, I would wait till they said, oh, hungry or something. I'd say, sure, we'll go have a snack. As soon as you put your toys away, they had no clue that they were actually putting their toys away. They just thought they were earning a snack. They didn't think anything of it. Plus I'm a minimalist. I didn't have many toys out for them. It was easy for them to do. I would never say, you know, as soon as you scrubbed the kitchen floor, it was something really doable and it was usually cleaning up after themselves. Or I'd wait till they say, can we go to the park? Sure, you can go to the park as soon as blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, so I did the as soon as method. So it was really interesting with them. By the time they were about two to two and a half, they wouldn't even ask for anything until they looked around and see if there was toys they needed to put away first. So they just got trained. You got to do what you need to do until you can do what you want to do. And they didn't think anything of it. They didn't feel they were following orders. They thought, well, you just, this is what you do. They didn't know any different. So that's why I never had to repeat myself because I never really said it in the first place. I think that's also comes hand in hand with like the threats and the warnings. Like they feel like if your child is breaking the rule, it feels like the next logical step. It does. But if you're always telling them what to do, right? Was this way I, my kids sort of thought they were sort of self-disciplining at this point. And if you're always telling them what to do, you're just raising obedient soldiers. There's no pride in being an obedient soldier. It doesn't feel great. Okay. I would rather be feel like I had control over my own life and I'm doing the right thing. So I have pride in myself. I have responsibilities. I do them. That's what you want to give your children. That's the gift you want to give them. Give them the gift of pride, having responsibilities. If you keep nagging them, that's there's no pride in doing what you're nagged to do. Zero. You're actually stripping them of pride. That was a bit dramatic, but I wanted to get my point across. You're stripping them of pride. It's so heavy. Because you asked them to get the remote control. Okay. You know I talk in absolutes to get my point across, but anyway. Okay. And then do you want to talk about how you approach this? Just in general, children free and over, talk a little bit about the behavior board and why you have two consequences on there. Okay. The behavior board has everyone free and over above, including parents, because leaders are accountable, because leaders are showing how you want them to act, right? That's leading by example. Anyway, so you're on that board also. You have your rule is usually no yelling and your consequences usually something fun for the kids. Hide and seek for 10 minutes or whatever. Really fun one that I do with parents of teenagers is, especially if they have girls, we don't call the behavior board with teenagers. It's usually just the rules or something. And then if the dad breaks a rule or he yells or something, then the teenage girls get to give them a makeover. And he has to go out in public to the corner store or something with the teenagers. They take videos of it. They love that stuff. So it's always something fun and connecting with the kids. Now the kids rules and consequences are a little bit different. The rules are kind of, it's all action based, no attitude. You can't put attitude on there. Attitude is something you've taught them. If they disrespect you, you've taught them that because you haven't earned respect, okay? So you can't blame them for what you did to them. That's the way you want to look at attitude, okay? Because they just don't respect you. You got to earn their respect. And then the attitude is the very last thing to go away organically. You never address attitude, okay? It's always actions. It's something that you want them to start doing or something you want them to stop doing. No hitting is a really common rule for the kids or it could be put your shoes and jacket away within five minutes of arriving home. Okay, that's another really common one. So anyway, that's the example of their rules. The consequences usually this, there's lots of different things that we have to do because a lot of people don't have media. The kids don't have screens at all. But my standard consequence for the kids, there's two of them. The first one is a positive action. So it's usually something like this. Do a chore within 15 minutes of being asked to do so. The chore should only last about two minutes, but you give them 15 minutes to argue, procrastinate, complain, whine, et cetera. Okay, if it's not done, then you go to the second consequence. That's when you take something away for 24 hours. Now it's usually media blackout for like no screens for 24 hours, okay? That's the second consequence. They chose that because they didn't do the first easy one. You don't make that first consequence difficult. It's a really easy action. It's like a good deed. So they did something naughty or they didn't follow the rule. Now they have to do a good deed to make up for it. If they choose not to do that, you resort to the second. I call it the negative deprivation. So you start with a positive action. If they choose not to do it, then you go to the negative deprivation. Now, if you don't have screens for your kids, whatever they're into that day or recently, you take that away for 24 hours, okay? It changes day to day with a lot of kids. They might be really into Lego that day, really building something. You take it away for 24 hours. So whatever they're into, you take away. There's lots of other sort of examples of that. But anyway, that's the general idea behind the behavior board and you do three of them. You do one the first week and then you don't, whatever else you were doing with everything else, I don't care. You don't apply that consequence to anything else that they're doing wrong or not doing right. It's the behavior board is just the sign of your new leadership skills. It's you learning how to do this. It's more focused on you because I teach parenting, not kidding. So you've got one behavior board the first week. The second week you do a brand new one. Now you've got two, two behaviors that you're dealing with, two battles that you're dealing with. By the third week you do a third. Now you've got three rules, three behaviors, three battles that you're working with. You're just getting better at it. So by week four, you go off the behavior boards. You can still keep them up. But now kids know right from wrong, past the age of three. So they know right from wrong. So whenever they do something naughty, you just say, oh, okay, so that you did that, that was naughty. So here's a consequence. You don't need to go to the boards anymore. Just use those same consequences for everything now. Because now that you've learned how to do it, you can apply it to everything. I could go on for hours about this, but that's the gist of it. Okay, should we get into the parenting questions? Sure. First one is Janelle from the United States. Five, 10 and 12. Our first behavior board we selected not to get angry for dad. And that proved to not be a good choice. Because sometimes when kids aren't obeying, well, we get upset. What are some other good choices for parents on the behavior board? Oh, a really common one is no yelling of course. And then a lot of parents say, well, I don't yell. And I say, well, no angry tone. So you can get as mad as you want. You can look as mad as you want, but you can't use an angry tone. And yeah, it's hard to do, I know. But you have to practice this stuff. You still have, you have to do it. Here's the thing. If you can't control your own emotions around the kids, how on earth is it fair to expect them to control their own behavior? I don't think that's fair. So parents will often say, well, they're driving me nuts. How can I not show it? And I say, well, how can they not drive? How can you expect them not to drive you nuts then? Like you're expecting so much from them, but nothing from yourself. You've got to learn to control yourself. So if you do get angry, that's okay, but you just don't use an angry tone. You might even use singing. I have a, I've done this with lots of clients. They don't all do it. They just learn how not to use an angry tone because they don't want to do this. If you're really mad at the kids, sing it out. Like you've got to be very, and it's usually, we usually pick a song. So you have to sing out what you need to say. So that you can't, if you're singing, then it's no angry tone. That's the way we sort of do it. We have to practice that and everything. But yeah, that is your challenge. You can't expect something from your kids if you say, I can't do it. You see, it's not fair. I think also the reason why, specifically with this question I wanted to dive into it is the idea, I think that the parents are saying essentially, I could be misjudging this, but see, I do, well, we are getting upset. We are getting angry. So we're breaking out rule, but you often talk about how important it is to break the rule sometimes on the behavior board. It's a good point. You got to break it sometimes, but you got to stop breaking it after a while too. They need to see that you're human and you make mistakes. Also, you're going to show them how this is done. So I usually say to the parents, when you first introduce the behavior board, you say it starts tomorrow. So you've got it up on the wall, it starts tomorrow. So I say, make sure you're the first one to break the rule. Getting breakfast ready. I told you, let's go to the board and call yourself out if they don't. Let's go to the board and you never do the board without going to the board. So you go to the board and you say, look, my rule was no yelling. I just yelled. So here's my consequence. We're going to get off to school. I don't have time to play tag for 10 minutes right now, but after school we will. So you do the consequence when you have time or when you're able to do it. 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. I think that, yeah, just the idea is I think that some parents maybe feel like if they've broken their rule, like they're not being successful with the behavior board. It's hugely important to show that you're vulnerable, that you're human and you make mistakes like everybody in this whole world does. But the thing is you want to start learning from them. So everyone makes mistakes, but you want to teach them that we can all change. So can I. And I love you enough to change myself. I teach parenting. I don't teach kidding here. I'm teaching you how to calm down. I'm giving you tools to use instead of yelling, instead of getting upset, but it is that transition time. It is challenging. I have never said this is easy. Getting respect is really hard work, but maintaining it's a piece of cake. And my goal in my whole business, my goal is not that you raise nice kids. That's one of them. That's a byproduct. Okay, that's great too. My goal is that I want you to have fun with your kids. You can't have fun when they're acting out. I want you to enjoy parenting like I did. I wallowed in it. I absolutely loved it. I was a leader from day one kind of sailed right through the teen years. Okay, there's the odd up and down, but not much, not much to write home about or anything. So yeah, you want to set yourself up as a calm leader so that you can relax and enjoy your kids. I want you to have fun parenting like I did. That is my main goal. Cause I'm teaching you, I'm teaching you how to be a calm leader and also how to connect with them in a really fun way. You stay calm during the storms and crazy during the rainbows. You always connect in their world, not your world. But yeah, I want you to have fun. Parenting is fun and easy. Once you get, once you know how to do this, it truly is. Remember people used to say to me, you know, Lisa, you're so excited about becoming a mother. I was, I always wanted to be a mother. I was from day one. I remember being little. I was mothering earthworms when I was like a toddler. So I was always, I was just built to be a mother. So many people, I thought this was ridiculous. They kept saying, well, Lisa, you've got mothering built up to be so much more than it really is. It's hard work. Anyway, had my kids and said, yeah, it was just fun. I freaking loved it. I was built for this. That's why I teach it. Okay. That's why I'm sharing this with you because I know how much fun and how easy parenting can be. You know, when they're throwing up and all that stuff, that's not fun. There's a lot of stuff that is difficult, but overall it was the most fun time of my whole life. I loved it. And that's what I want for you. It can be fun, but you got to get this stuff cemented first. You got to set yourself up as a fun leader. You want to be calm during the storms and crazy during the fun, the brain bows when everything's going well. Okay. I want you to be fun. I want you to be friends with your kids, but your number one role is leadership and you're leading by example. If you're yelling and getting upset, you can't expect anything from them. But you do it once in a while and you say, whoops, here's my consequence. It's okay to make mistakes, but you got to make up for them. I can say as well as your daughter and just witnessing you like as a grandma and just in general is like, she genuinely does love parenting. And I think that that's, it's something that's a little tricky, I think with online because some people, when you talk about how much you loved it and how easy it was, some people will go, well, that's not me. So I don't think the calm leadership is for me. You don't think that fun and enjoying your kids is, I don't quite get, what do you mean? I think that some people think, well, that's just not attainable for me. Oh, it is, it is. I've taught this to thousands of parents and once who sometimes, oh, I can't, such a funny story. And I don't think I ask permission to tell it, so I can't. But anyway, I've had parents who I thought, this ain't gonna work and it still does. And sometimes what'll happen is they say, it's not in my personality to be fun. I've never been around kids. I'll be honest, if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't even have had kids. I've had that more often than 10, 20 times, okay? And so, but it's not that they don't love their children. They're just so overwhelmed. They just can't enjoy them. And it's really difficult. So anyway, these are the ones that I say, I'll tell you what, what I want you to do is just write down everything I'm saying, take these notes, write them all down and then just follow through. See how it works. Give it three weeks. If you're not getting any results, we'll change tactics and try and work around it. But just give it, and they say, they just write it down and they just follow through without thinking about it. Remove all emotions when you're disciplining and then just focus on having fun with your kids. I did get permission to tell this one story. I thought this was so cute. This one mom said, she, I don't remember if it was a boy, oh, I think it was a little boy. It doesn't matter. Six or eight years old, I can't remember. Anyway, she said that she'd actually never played with her son. Never. She'd never got down on the floor and played with them from day one. And she goes, it's just not my way. I've never been around kids. I'm looking forward to him growing up so we can be friends then. But she wasn't enjoying him and his behavior was showing it. So anyway, I said, I'll tell you what. What I want you to do is if you yell and make sure you yell, your consequences that you have to play Lego for, I think it was 10 minutes or something. So no, I think it was 20 minutes I put down. So you have to play Lego for 20 minutes. She didn't want to do it. And then, so she didn't yell the whole week. So she comes back the next week and I said, how'd it go? And she goes, oh, you'd be so proud of me. I didn't yell once. And I said, oh, I'm not buying that. You just didn't want to play Lego. That's why you didn't yell. So I caught her. Anyway, so the next time she came back, she had this funny smile on her face. And I said, oh no, what happened? She goes, I didn't play Lego for 20 minutes. And I said, oh no. She goes, I played for three and a half hours. I said, what? She said, she sat down on the floor and he ended up crawling in her lap the whole time. And she goes, I kind of fell in love with my son that day. I thought that was the most beautiful thing. Isn't that pretty? It is really nice. So she wasn't the type to get down the floor and play with kids, but she sure was when her son started cuddling with her on the floor. And she goes, it was just beautiful. And everything started to get easier after that. So anyone can learn this. She wasn't into playing with kids at all. But that day she did. And she goes, and we've played every day since too. She did that, I think, right after we talked the last time. And then she played with them Lego every single day, just for fun. I just wanted to bring that up, though, the topic of that this may not be your thing. Like parenting just may not be your forte. That's true. And also a lot of parents, a lot of moms say, I feel really guilty going off to work. I don't even have to work, but I just need a break from the kids. I said, happy mom working is better than miserable mom staying at home. I do happen to love playing with kids. I think I got a lot of toddler in me. So I happened to really enjoy being around kids. But even that, as much as I love mothering, I still needed to get out every single day. And I still do when I'm with my granddaughter, I still get out every single time I'm with her. And we got to, I need to get out. I need to be around other adults too. As much as I love being with her and my kids, I still needed to talk to other adults, even if it was just a checkout person at the supermarket, something like that. But yeah, it's not. So even if you're not in the kids' world, it's better. You still want to connect with them. You had those kids. You want to connect with them because it's a connection that really cements the leadership. But it doesn't mean that you have to be home with them all day either. It doesn't mean that you have to be sitting on the floor for three and a half hours. But you still want to learn. You still want to talk to them, show an interest in their world. And you probably will start to enjoy them. Especially when the bad behaviors dealt with. They're really fun to be around. Find your inner child. Get down the ground. Play with them sometimes. You might actually enjoy it. Doesn't mean you have to do it all day. Like I took my kids to the gym daycare every single day because I wanted to work out. And they'd go in there. That was their social life. And that was mine. The daycare ladies used to laugh because us moms, the class lasted for one hour. But we sometimes wouldn't get back for two. We walked really slow from the aerobics room because we're all chatting, chatting, chatting, chatting. We'd stop and chat, chat, chat, chat, chat. And we knew our kids were having fun because we could actually hear the daycare. So we didn't hear any crying or anything. But yeah, so it is important to have adult time. But you can do that with your kids too. Play groups. Go to classes with your kids. So you can still get some adult stimulation too. Because you can't really talk to a little toddler, a little kid the same way you can talk to an adult. So you got to be happy yourself too. But I think you'll enjoy your kids more once you get all the behaviors cemented, set yourself up as a leader. They're a lot more pleasurable to be around. It's actually a second part to that question that I want to touch on. And a second question would be, if a child breaks their rule on the behavior board and they don't do the consequence, they end up with the secondary consequence. But then they break the rule again within that 24 hours. What happens? Yeah, I get this question a lot. So all you can do is you just say this, well, that's why you've got 24-hour media blackout. You just remind them why they're in that. Your hands are tied. There's nothing else you can do. Just remind them. It might be one hell of a 24 hours. But it's worth it. I had this one client. She had a seven-year-old little boy. And she heard him. He got the PlayStation back at. And he was actually a really quite an easy little boy. But there was something they were addressing. I don't think he was cleaning up after himself or something, whatever. But he was actually a pretty easy little kid. He ended up getting the 24-hour media blackout. So he didn't get his switch, I think it was, which is like a gaming console. So he didn't get that for 24 whole hours. So when he sat back in front of the gaming console the next day, he didn't know the mom was there. It was listening. And she heard him say to himself, well, I won't be doing that again. I thought that was so cute. He learned. He understood it was his problem, his issue. He caused it. She didn't. So they start to learn that they really are in control of their own lives. I used to say to my kids, life will be, I said, you're good. Life is good. If you're not so good, life won't be so good. I'll make sure of that because I'm your mom and that's my job. I wanted them to learn to be accountable. I wanted them to learn how to earn stuff and be responsible for their own lives. Yeah. And they got that from a very young age. I remember once my son forgot to make his bed or something. And then he said, oh, he came home. And it was no big deal. I don't even think I did anything because it was such a non. It was nothing. Anyway, he came home and he says, oh, mom, sorry, you're going to have to discipline me. He apologized to me because I was going to have to hand out a consequence. And I said, forget it. Like, I don't even think I did it. It was something really little. But yeah, he understood that that was my job. It was to hand out a consequence. Interesting, eh? I remember feeling that way, too. Yeah, you're in control of your own life. And there was pride in that. There's a lot of pride in feeling responsible and in control of your own life and doing the right thing. My favorite is when we got to give mom a consequence. Well, I was in trouble all the time. It was always me. I would always say, sure, it was usually around food. I hate cooking. Mom, can you please make something special tonight? And I'd say, sure. And then, of course, I'd forget. And then I'd be in trouble and I'd have to get a consequence for it. It was either that or it was like, you got impatient at the grocery store. OK, at the mall, especially when Christmas. Oh my god. Yeah, she gets this thing called mall flu. I get mall flu. I literally think I hate shopping so much. I literally, if I walk into a mall, sometimes it'll hit me. I think I'm going to throw up and I'm going to have to run to the bathroom. I've never thrown up. But as soon as I walk out that door, I'm fine. So I was talking to someone else about this. And they said, they had mall flu, too. And they always feel like they're going to throw up. And then we decided that they pumped something into the oxygen in the air. I don't think they do. I think it's just all mental. I was about to say, because I don't think you'd get mall flu if we went to a cleaning store and we just looked at all the cleaning supplies. Oh, the cleaning supplies. Yeah, I never get mall flu if I'm in the cleaning aisle. Yeah, I love cleaning. Even hygiene, anything with soap or anything. Anyways, OK, we'll go on to the next question. OK, yeah, that's getting a bit nuts. But anyway, yeah, so I would get impatient. And I'm going to say, come on, come on. And they'd look at each other and smile, because they knew. And I'd look at them and go, oh darn it. I was getting a bit snotty was nice. They'd say, yep, so I'd get a consequence. OK, the next one is Matt from the United Kingdom. Two boys, three and five. I've been listening to the podcast and implementing leadership parenting for over a year now. We do well day to day, but both kids have routines and follow well. However, I need your advice on how to manage situations when they do multiple things worthy of discipline while on a day out, mainly the five-year-old. And he's in a sort of silly mood. When listening to your examples, it's very, oh, you did this. When we get home, we'll have a consequence. And everything carries on as usual. I have situations where my five-year-old will be, for lack of a better term, on one. And over the course of four hours, he would break rules and also just do annoying things. So for example, throw sticks making random noises, excited screaming, laughing loudly, running off, bashing into you, being mean to his little brother or cousins, just pushing all the boundaries to get a negative reaction. I understand that these can all be addressed individually, but I really need an answer on what to do in the moment, because when I call him over and say, there'll be a consequence for that, he obviously doesn't snap out of the silly mood. So should I remove him from the fun? And then because of all the bad behaviors, just go straight to no TV and skip the chores. Well, you got to do what you got to do in the moment. Okay. So you might have to pull him away from the fun. Say we're going to sit here for five minutes. Okay, he sits with you. That's not time out, because he's with you. Time out's usually done alone. So I say, oh, you're getting a bit wild here. You're going to sit with me for five minutes or whatever. You can try that during the day. Anyway, what I would do though, is if he's that, you know, disruptive all day long. After dinner, I would say, come on, let's talk about this. Today was a bit of a wild one, wasn't you? And mention a couple of things he did. So I'll tell you what, we're going to go straight to the second consequence and we're going to do media blackout for 24 hours. So you go, you surprise him with that one. Don't threaten it during the day. It makes you look weak, but he'll learn. Okay, he's going to have a fit. Remember those fit scenes, meltdowns and tantrums are the lessons. You want to go through the storms to get to the rainbows. So yeah, just tell him, well, today was a whopper. So this is, I didn't know, I didn't, well, you'll know next time, won't you? And then just follow through. And then if he's really doing all these rotten things again in that 24 hour media blackout, cause he knows you got nothing else you can do to him, then just say, well, that's why you've got 24 hour media blackout. And then you can just say that, but try to look on phase by at all. Okay. So yeah, you just come, a surprise attack. You're coming out later on and saying, by the way, 24 hour media blackout starts now. I haven't heard you say that in a long time, but you would say, well, that's a whopper. Quite a while. That's a whopper. Yeah, it was a whopper of a day. Yeah. That's like, I should I talk about it? I guess I will a little bit here, but when I was working with kids, I had no leverage. And when I was, you know, I would just go quiet, right? That was my leverage. And they didn't like that. Cause when I was working with them, it was like an hour or an hour and a half just in a class. And it was full on me talking to them. So if I went quiet and they liked me and I liked them. So if I went quiet, that really bothered them. But with the teenagers, that wouldn't bother them very much when I first started working with them. So if they said something, said some horrible rude word or whatever, I didn't really have anything I could say or do. So what I would say was I said, ooh, that was a whopper. And they looked at me all confused cause I wouldn't try and correct it. Cause what are you gonna do? 16 year old boy says a bad word. What are you gonna do? Right? And I go, ooh, that one curled my hair. But I often would say, ooh, that was another whopper there. And they started to get embarrassed because I wasn't trying to correct them, but I was pointing it out every single time. And they were starting to respect me and like me. So it started getting embarrassing. But I used to use that term a lot when I was working with teenagers. Okay. The next one is Alexa from the United States. My children are five and six. What's an alternative to 24 hours with no screen time when a family doesn't watch TV often? Yeah. A lot of people don't. So what you can do is whatever they're really into right now might be doll houses or Lego or cars, toy cars. You take whatever they're into today, you take that away for 24 hours. Okay. So they usually are into something. And if the other one, you don't take it away from the other one, but they can have it alone in their room if they want to play with it. Okay. Because they're five and six, very close in age. I don't know if they're the same sex, but if they like the same things, then the other one gets to have them for that particular thing for 24 hours. You do talk about though, it's not a comfort toy. You never take, like a teddy that they sleep with or anything. No, I would never take that away because that's taking love away. I wouldn't do that. Just wanted to clarify. Yeah. Okay. The next one is Vanessa from Canada. How do you handle a child breaking a rule in response to getting a consequence? For example, it's been established that we don't call each other names or hit. There's been numerous times when one of my daughters gets frustrated for getting a consequence after breaking a rule and then breaks another rule in response. Do I give another consequence for that or focus on completing the first consequence? I know you mentioned three strikes throughout. So I just wanted to get an understanding of how you manage behaviors after a consequence is given. There weren't specific ages for this. That's a very good question. So what they're asking is let's say she says, you're stupid, like a bad word, right? She calls a name calling or bad words is usually what I say to put on the board if they do that. So she goes, you're stupid. And then you say, okay, let's go to the board. So your rule is no name calling and you just called me stupid. So here's your consequence. Then she says again, well, you're stupid. So in that case, I might say, I'll tell you what. So I might say this, we're gonna do back to back consequences. I'm gonna give you 15 minutes to do this. Then I'm gonna give you 15 minutes to do that. If she says it again, I'll say, forget those con, if she says it again right then, oh, that you're stupid. I'd say, I'll tell you what. So you see how calm I am? And I look like I'm kind of thinking on my feet. Just to clarify, you're not laughing as you're talking to the child. No, I'm not. I'm laughing because I'm thinking all I'm saying is I'll tell you what, but I'm just laughing at myself here. So which I do a lot deservedly so. But anyway, you say, I'll tell you what and you slow it down. You say, let me think here for a second. So you've handed out two consequences. She hasn't even started both. Or let's say she's done one, then the other one, she says, stupid again. Okay, it's all in close timing, right? I'd say, I'll tell you what, I'm gonna think about this for a second. So you called me stupid, then you got a consequence. Then you called me stupid again, so you got two of them. And then you did it again. So I know what we're gonna do. We're gonna go straight to the second consequence. And you don't even have to do the first ones now. Done. Do not backtrack with that. Just go straight to the third one. Because she's just spiraling. So, and I'm assuming she's, I don't know how old she might be. Let's say she's five or six. So yeah, just say, okay, we're gonna go straight to the second one. But I didn't know. Well, you'll know next time, won't you? And then shut down the conversation around it. It's the conversations. Parents always, they wanna talk about it. You know why you wanna talk about it? Two reasons. Revenge, you wanna get it out of your system. Or the second one is, you think they don't understand. They understand, they get this. They just pretend that they don't, because they don't like the way it's going. It's not suiting them. So yeah, it's not a lack of understanding that causes kids to do the wrong thing. It's a lack of consequences, a lack of follow through, a lack of your calmness that makes them continue to do naughty things. You know, often in the first session of coaching, parents will brag about how intelligent and gifted their child is. Then by the third session, let's say, well, he forgot because he didn't really understand it. And I say, you cannot have it both ways. I wrote down, you said he was gifted in session one. Now you're saying is a moron. You cannot have it both ways. They do understand this stuff. It's very clear. And if they don't, they'll learn as you go. Okay, well, that was it for the parenting questions. Okay, so the topic was, when your child breaks the rules. Okay, so it's all about discipline here. And I always want to emphasize that really, that's the correction stuff. My main focus is always the connection. You always connect in their world. That's always where you want to put all your energy, all your emotions. You're completely emotionless when you're correcting. It's like a business transaction. There are no emotions that are appropriate when you're correcting a child, when you're handing out discipline. It's just like a business transaction. I know what's hard to do, but once it starts working, it gets easier and easier and easier. But you got to go over that hump when it's really hard to do. Cause all you want to do is yell, you're mad. You can't show it. You can feel it, but you can't show it. Okay, so that was, I liked this episode. I thought it was a really good one. Sort of back to basics, which I like. Anyway, thanks so much for joining us. Back again soon, 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. Thank you.