How to Stop Kids Screaming (Without Yelling Back)

Do you think they feel good about themselves when they're screaming? I'm teaching you how to stop the screaming so they will feel good about themselves. They feel like crap about themselves when they're screaming. For that two hours, did he feel good about himself? No, I'm telling you how to stop the screaming so that he has room to feel good about himself. I don't want him to ever feel alone in his feelings, but I also don't want to reinforce the tantrum cycle. How do I support him without feeding the meltdown? I feel really guilty and unsure of what the right balance is. That's a tricky one because welcome to the Brat Buster's Parenting Podcast. My name is Lisa Bunnage. I'm a parenting coach. My mom, I'm also a grandmother. And I'm Amy Bunnage, Lisa's daughter, and I handle the marketing and planning here at Brat Buster's. While I don't have kids, each episode will dive into parenting topics and Lisa will answer your questions. Let's get started. Hi, sweetie. I don't know why I said hi. Anyway, what are we talking about today? Cause we're just yabbering on. Then all of a sudden I said hi. Anyway, what are we talking about today? Today is all about kids screaming. Oh, lovely. Lovely. Okay. I think maybe let's start with, cause I think there's different kinds of screaming. Do you want to cover those? Well, there's two different types of screaming. There's one that's just done in anger and then there's one screaming while they're crying cause they're upset about something. But anger is upset in us, but you know what I mean? One cause they're mad and the other one cause they're sort of sad. Now, do you handle screaming differently with toddlers versus kids? Not really. I don't really address it. I don't see screaming as a bad behavior in that it's just a by-product. Of your lack of leadership. That's the way I look at it. So I don't really address it. I address the leadership and then the screaming basically stops. Kids who have a really calm leader don't tend to scream. It just doesn't, doesn't happen. So it's just something that it's, I put it in the attitude department, which the attitude you never address you once you're a leader and you're consistent over a period of weeks or months or whatever, the attitude goes away organically. You don't address the attitude. It just goes away organically. Once you're a leader. So I guess that's all I've got to say. We can wrap it up here. Thanks for joining us. Now, do you find that kids tend to model this behavior? Like maybe if the parent raises their voice, does the kid tend to raise their voice too? There's a lot of reasons why kids scream and it's not always because parents scream, but that is certainly one of the reasons why they'll scream. Monkey see monkey do. Remember, they're not listening to you. They're watching you. Certainly up to about the age of seven. It's all through observation. Okay. So if you yell, they're way more likely yell, of course, because you've just said it's okay to yell because I do it. So why can't they, you know, you can't have two different sets of rules, except when it comes to being able to drink wine, you know, stuff like that. But basically, yeah, if you yell, you're probably going to have yellers on your hand. And I can imagine as well that this must be really intense. Like if a kid is screaming, that can't be a calm, serene environment to practice your calm leadership in. So how do you approach that as the parent when things feel really overwhelming? Actually, it is a really good opportunity because I've found that when I worked with kids, the more rambunctious or defiant or challenging they were, the quicker they were to turn around because all kids are looking for a leader. They need Craven want leadership. So I see screaming as them screaming for a leader. So once they come up against one, once you get good at this, they tend to back down pretty fast unless you're inconsistent or unless you're just not good at the leadership initially, which is that's just part of it, right? You're practicing as you first start, fake it till you make it. When you get good at it and you get confidence and you relax in your calm leadership role, they will stop screaming. You also said something. Uh, what was it? Um, they're screaming. Oh yeah. Yellers will raise Yellers or cowers. They'll either fight back and match your screaming or they will cower in a corner. You don't want either of those. Okay. So they don't all yell when you yell. Some of them will get scared and we'll just get real quiet and they won't talk to you and you scare them, right? Okay. Should we get into the parenting questions on this? I think that's a good idea cause I'm going to lot right now to say, but I'm sure I will. Okay. The first one is Christa from the United States. A 34 month old, almost three daughter is extremely strong willed. When she puts her mind to do something or not do something, she sticks to it. You mentioned in a toddler podcast that kids love heightened emotions. And I think our daughter thrives on our anger the most. She loves the nervous laughter that comes with not listening and getting us to chase her. She doesn't respond to heightened positive emotions and never really did. She never cared for shows like Miss Rachel and during daycare, she will not participate in sing song movement. She just stares at the other kids having fun. But when she's at home by herself, she'll sing and dance to no end and completely tune us out. How on earth do we begin to shift this behavior and have more positive engagement with her as well as encourage her to engage positively with peers and teachers. I feel like we are constantly redirecting and correcting her. Lately screaming at the top of her lungs has been her favorite thing to do. We've tried your advice to give it little attention and just say it hurts out ears, but that makes her do it even more. And she laughs about it. Why on earth would you give her that information? It hurts our ears. All she hears was it's working. I'm going to keep doing it. Right. You just, you just validated her. Anyway, yeah, I would just completely ignore it. But then when she stopped screaming, then I would, I would try and connect with her. I would say, Oh, do you want to play a game? I never mentioned the screaming. Yeah. As soon as you said, Oh, that hurts our ears. She's like, Yippee, I win. I'm going to keep doing this. Right. Can I interject? Yeah. I have seen a video of yours where I've posted it, I think where your advice was to go, Ooh, and you would kind of like signal to your ears that it didn't feel great. Did I say that it hurts my ears though? No. There's a difference. There's just a difference. Oh God, how am I going to explain this? God, I think you're going to have to be. It sounds like it's exactly the same thing, but I just go, Ooh, but she's not getting any attention for it. I'm not talking to her. You just gave her attention. Ooh, that hurt my ears. You are talking. There's a difference. If I just went, Ooh, and walked away. It's she got nothing from me. Nothing. Because I walked away. I didn't, I did not converse with her. That's the difference. It just is different. That is a nuance. And I'm glad you explained it because you know, what's interesting is when I'm coaching, just it was a couple of days ago or whatever, one of my clients said, just I've listened to all your podcasts, all your videos. And she goes, I've never, ever heard you say anything. She goes, coaching is completely different. And I said, the reason is it's full of nuances. It's all these subtle things depending. Now, also I'm also feeding off the parents' personalities too. So the information is quite different. That's when you sort of get more sort of advanced with all this stuff. And the better you get at this, it is a lot of nuances. It seems like it's it's contradictory, but it isn't because I can always defend it because I'll say, well, the difference is this, the difference is that. So there are a lot of nuances, but without knowing all that, without coaching, you can still go a really long way and be super successful anyway. Okay. But anyway, coaching just fast tracks it. That's all, but you can still do it without coaching. I'm just saying it's there are a lot of seemingly contradictions, seeming contradictions, but they really aren't. That's also why we did actually intentionally set this up as a Q and A style format, because each question is going to have little nuances in there. And I feel like you do answer each question a little different sometimes. I have to. Um, yeah, I have to. I know whenever some parents will say, yeah, but last week you said that. And I said, well, tell me the note. And it seemed like the exact same situation. It was so subtly different. And they went, oh, I see because of the eye contact. It was something like that. They looked at them the first time and they didn't the second time or something like that. It was so little, but that's what it comes down to. Now here, here's the reason why that, that's so normal to, for it to be nuances. Think about when you're, even as adults, when you're talking to people, it's so much of it as body language tone of voice, facial expressions, isn't it? It's not even always what people say it. Sometimes the way they say it, right? It's like that just with kids. It's a good way of putting it. Oh, was it? You mean I actually got something. I think so. I said, me say something good. I was in my head thinking about another analogy where it's like, if you're at the gym and you do like a squat, there's like 1500 different versions of a squat. I know another one that you brought this up. I thought, what a good point you made because I love being teased. I just always have, I was teased growing up. And I remember once I walked into a family gathering and I was adopted. And one of my cousins, and I love being adopted. I, because I was a lot younger than everyone else. I felt really special. So anyway, I came in and one of my cousins yelled out, he goes, oh, the fun stops. The adopted ones here. And I laughed. I thought it was, I never forgot it. I thought it was hilarious. And then my daughter said, okay, she goes, what if so and so said that to you? And this would have been someone that I didn't like. They said, what if they said that to you? I would have, would have been disgusted with them. I didn't like them anyway, but it's so much of it is nuance, right? So what people can get away with and what they can't has to do with your relationship with them too. And that's another big point is my relationship with my kids. I got away with a lot. I used a lot of sarcasm and humor. I don't teach that very often in coaching very rarely, unless it's the basic personality of the parents and they already have a pretty good relationship with their kids. There's a lot of things that you can take liberty with once you have a stronger relationship and once you feel connected with someone without that connection, that other person can't get away with anything. That's what that's what you were getting at is because I wasn't connected to this other person she mentioned. And yeah, it wouldn't have worked. It is really nuanced. Yeah, so much of it is, but a lot of it's general. And when we're talking here, it's basically general advice. And I'm very careful about that. Uh, cause like, I don't tend to talk, I talk very differently in coaching because I can explain the nuances and it might suit that particular family, but I wouldn't tell it to another family. Like sometimes I'll get sisters who hire me or whatever, people who know each other and they'll compare notes. And I say, don't ever do that. Because then they'll, one of them will say, we were laughing because we said, are you sure you're talking to the same Lisa? My advice was completely different for each family nuances again, nuances. Okay. Okay. We'll get into the next question. So we have Sema from the United Kingdom, daughters, nearly five. And since starting school a few months ago is screaming the house down over every little thing. What do we do in the moment when she's kicking and screaming on the floor? So we don't give attention to the tantrum, but acknowledge that she's really upset and angry. Why do you need to acknowledge that she's upset and angry? I don't understand that question. I don't acknowledge that. If, if a kid is, is having an absolute fit because they're mad, by the way, a tantrum is not big emotions and feelings. A tantrum is a loss of emotional control, not getting their own way. There's a difference. The thing is that you want to ignore the crazy and reward the calm. When she calms down and she decides to talk to you nicely, then I go, oh, what were you saying? I don't need, I don't even discuss the tantrum afterwards ever. I, it's like it never even happened. I completely ignore tantrums. I think this does come from a genuine place of not wanting to stifle down kids emotions. This comes up all the time. As I said, it's not big emotions and feelings they're doing. It's anger at not getting their own way. It's okay to ignore that. It's okay that they don't get attention just because they didn't get their own way. Okay. There's a difference there. Now I'm assuming you're already connected to your kids and they know that they can talk to you about anything, but you got to be quick to connect after that scene. Soon as they're done, you say, oh, y'all done. Do you want to go play a game? Keep it light and airy. And then you can open up the lines of communication after you get the fun going after you change the energy in the room. You be in control of the narrative. You be in control of the energy. I remember once my mom's, I don't talk, I don't think I've mentioned this anywhere, but in coaching, I talk about this a lot. I might have mentioned it. I remember once I was really little, like four or something. And I was complaining to my mom about the neighborhood kids. One of them had taken something from me, whatever. It was a, you know, it was just a war zone out there. That was back in the day when the streets were full of kids. We all knew each other. Anyway, and I was one of the younger ones. So I often got picked on or someone would take something from me. And I was complaining to her about it. And I can remember her staring right at me, looking interested. And I thought, wow, mom's never looked that interested me before when I'm yabbering on. So I kept going and going. And I was just yabbering about nothing at some point. You know, it just, it went past the point. So it's, and then she went, then my mom was just staring at me, just nodding her head staring. And I thought, wow, I must be fascinating. And then as soon as I stopped talking, my mom said, this is my mom, typical, my mom. She said, I'm going to go bake a cake. Do you want to join me? Like, in other words, that's enough. Like, and I said, sure, okay. And that was it. She controlled the narrative. She controlled the energy. I wasn't really upset. She knew that I just started complaining and kept going with it. She controlled the energy in the room. And I always say, you stay on the high road, the calm road, the positive energy road. They will eventually join you there. If you get, if you wallow down and slither down to their low road when they're complaining and whining and screaming and tantruming, you're both there. And then when you do slither down to the low road with them, that ladder is kicked out to that high road again. You're stuck on that low road with them for the rest of that day. It is, I think it's just general dynamics as well as I feel like when you're with someone and one's complaining, it's like, you kind of need the other person to lift them up a little. Yeah. And I wasn't so much, I wasn't upset. It was more just complaining. I was just going on like a moron. And mom put me in my place real fast. And I can remember being kind of embarrassed because I looked up to my mom. She was a leader, right? So I looked up to her and when she said, you want to go bake a cake, she didn't say shut up and get lost. She invited me into the positive, right? We ended up baking a cake, having a great time. And then I didn't even think about dad came home. I didn't even complain about what had happened in the neighborhood. So it was over. Mom had, mom had brought me up to the high road, basically. She was very good at that. I do remember that growing up as well as I felt like I could tell you anything, but you also really didn't take a lot of complaining. No, I did not like that. I don't like whining and complaining. You tell me your problems. That's fine. Let's figure out a solution. Let's get it out of our system. You can cry over it, but now come on. What are you going to do about it? I like my kids to be problem solvers and positive thinkers and grateful. I like gratitude. You know, we've all got a lot to be grateful for. And sometimes we don't have stuff to be grateful for, but my mom used to say, sweetie, everything's temporary. The good and the bad. If it wasn't for the bad, we wouldn't appreciate the good. I love that line. Yeah. She had a million of them. And she, she also said happiness is a choice, not a circumstance. It's not the cards you're dealt. It's how you deal with them. And when she had dementia, went into a care home, I put a bunch of cards up on her wall and I wrote a poster out and I said, it's not the cards you're dealt. It's how you deal with them. That was my mom in a nutshell. She was mispositive and she had a tough life, but she was, she was a very warm, positive people were drawn to my mom. She was very funny and very positive and just knew how to make people feel good about life and what a gift. Yeah. Okay. Let's get into the next question. We have Elizabeth from the United States. My two and a half year old son refused to get in the bath. So I calmly put him in and washed him quickly. He screamed the entire time asking to get out. So when I finished, I let the water out immediately after he screamed for almost two hours wanting to get back in. Every time he calmed down, I tried to acknowledge him. He'd start again. It felt like nothing I did helped regulate him. My question is in a moment like that, should I continue to ignore the behavior until he fully calms down? I worried that if I stay too neutral or hands off during those big emotions, I could accidentally create some sort of disorganized attachment or make him feel like he can't trust me. I don't want him to ever feel alone in his feelings, but I also don't want to reinforce the trend tantrum cycle. How do I support him without feeding the meltdown? I feel really guilty and unsure of what the right balance is. Well, a couple of things you said disorganized emotions. I have no idea what that means. You can't regulate and organize their emotions at that age. So they don't even go there. I don't know who's teaching this stuff. That's ridiculous. You want to organize a two year old's emotions. It was attachment. Attachment. Disorganized attachment. Was it? Is it emotions? It was disorganized attachment. Now I'm kind of embarrassed. Disorganized attachment. I don't understand that either. What does it mean? Okay. The whole idea is it's disorganized. You can't organize it. You can't organize anything with a toddler. So I'm still on the right track here. So we're disorganized. I'm just a little bit embarrassed now, but anyway, I'll let it go. I'm used to being embarrassed. Okay. The other one that you said was you don't want to ignore him. Now what context was that in? So I don't get that one wrong. I worry it was near the end and I worry about ignoring something. What was it? It says, I don't want him to feel alone in his feelings, but I also don't want to reinforce the tantrum cycle. You said I don't want him to feel alone in his feelings. Aren't you there? They're not. Okay. You're there. You didn't leave the, you didn't get your keys to your car and drive away. You're still there. He's not alone. They're not listening to you anyway. They're watching you. He knows he's not alone. So I don't quite understand all that. Now I'm assuming you look upset. I might be just calmly sitting, reading a book or looking at a magazine. I wouldn't be looking at a phone. Okay. And I wouldn't be getting into a conversation. If he's having a fit, I'd just be sitting in the room with him. I'd just be looking through probably his books and I'd just be looking through his books. I probably wouldn't say them out loud because he's going to come over and slam the book on you because he's going to get mad. So I would just pretend like I'm just casually looking as soon as he stops crying and say, Oh, do you want to read the book with me? See, starts up again. Just start reading it alone by yourself. You are there for him. That's the most there you should be for him. Okay. He needs to learn how to regulate and organize himself. You can't do that for them. You being calm is helping him to calm down. When he's looking at you, as soon as you enter and talk to him and try and associate with him somehow, all of a sudden you're both on the low road again. You're in the zone with him. I'm over there on the high road. I'm waiting for him to join me and they will eventually. I'm assuming you didn't always do this. So he's got a history of you not ignoring that stuff. So he's trying to get back there. That's what I'm assuming things often get worse before they get better because they remember you, you know, going on the low road with them. Did that make sense? I worry now that I didn't make any sense because I messed up that whole disorganized, but I didn't really, it's disorganized because they are not organized yet. That's the whole point. They don't really start to be able to get organized till they hit three. That's when they have that's when the sense of reasoning and common sense starts to kick in. They can learn how to think before they do or think before they say or think for the whatever. So, but at this point, no, it's just chaos, but him seeing you sit there calmly, leafing through a book. He understands what you're doing. You're waiting for him to join you. They just understand this on a, on an animal level. It's in there somewhere. They will event, but if you keep looking over at him, it's not going to work. As soon as you look at him and get eye contact, you're in his zone again. Would you like me to explain what AI says disorganized attachment is? Um, sure. So it says it's an insecure attachment style where individuals both crave and fear intimacy, leading to a confusing push, pull behaviors and relationships. So it stems from early experiences with caregivers who were a source of both comfort and fear, often due to abuse, neglect or extreme inconsistency, making them feel trapped and unable to form a coherent strategy for connection. So when it talks about causes, it, it says like maybe being yelled at or a parent is maybe in one moment scary or neglectful. And then it leaves the child confused. It doesn't really add any information to what I said. Um, yeah, that's like that, um, unhealthy attachment style stuff. It's the same thing. Okay. Just the word disorganized. I hadn't heard before, but it's that, um, yeah, the unhealthy attachment stuff. Um, but yeah, that's what I teach. I teach attachment and connection and bonding with your kids. I am modeling what I want for them. I'm modeling who I am for them to join me. And they do children are drawn to a leader. They're drawn to that consistent, calm leader that they can rely on and trust. They knew I'd never, I've never yelled. So they knew I'd never yell at them. Okay. They knew they were safe with me. All kids kind of react this way with me because they know I'm a safe, calm leader. Okay. I model what I want from them and they do join in eventually. They just do. It's a natural instinct to follow a calm leader. Children are drawn to that. You set yourself up as a calm. If you yell, you really wreck it. Okay. You can't yell, but you're probably yelling right now. That's, you know, you didn't really want to overcome that because that does scare them. By the way, by the way, when you yell at kids, it doesn't make them mad at you. It makes them feel like crap about themselves. They internalize it. Okay. So think about that yelling is not something that, that, that they want to fight back at necessarily they will defend themselves by yelling as they get older. But they take it out on themselves. They feel like less of a person when you yell at them. They take it out on themselves, not you. Okay. I think that we should go deeper into this because I see the comments online and I want to say that I understand where this parent is coming from with the disorganized attachment fear. So just try and have a person, like a bird's eye view. Someone comes across a video of yours. They for starters see the word brat busters. Okay. So they're already leading with brat. They don't know your thoughts on the word brat at this point. They see a tantrum video and maybe it, they haven't seen a video about how you connect with your kids. So they're just seeing ignore the tantrum, ignore your kid. Oh, is that going to create a kid who is going to feel like they have insecure attachment. So I can understand where this parent's coming from. I can see that, but I'm quite happy to be misunderstood because it's a package that you have to sort of unwrap and figure out. I'm going to say stuff that sounds harsh, but my main goal is that I want kids to feel good about themselves. I want kids to like themselves. That's what I'm good at. I'm good at making kids feel good. I know how to make kids feel good. I never yell. I play with them really well in their world. Okay. I'm funny. They love humor. They love laughter. They're fun as their love language, by the way. And I'm very affectionate with kids. So I really love connecting with children. That's my strength. Discipline is just something I have to do to get it over and done with. But the funny thing is, is once they realize what I'm like, they, they are drawn to a leader. They like fun Lisa. They used to cook. My nickname was fun. Lisa is not funny. That it's such a lame name. He's to nickname me fun Lisa. But anyway, and why would they ever act out around fun Lisa? Cause I would disappear really fast just for 20s, 30 seconds. I'd say, ooh, that wasn't a very good thing. You just did. I'm just going to go quiet for 30 seconds here. And then I would, and then they'd say, sorry, Lisa, it's okay. 20 more seconds. That's what I did when I worked with kids, little kids who would act out. That's all I had. I had no other leverage. I took away fun Lisa. Okay. Connecting is everything. That's how that's what I used for discipline when it was other people's kids. I had no leverage, right? That's all I had. I could take away fun Lisa. So connecting is all about leadership. It's not just about playing with them and hugging them and telling them they're wonderful. It's about bringing out the best in them. Do you think they feel good about themselves when they're screaming? I'm teaching you how to stop the screaming so they will feel good about themselves. They feel like crap about themselves when they're screaming for that two hours. Did he feel good about himself? No, I'm telling you how to stop the screaming so that he has room to feel good about himself. And this is how you do it. You stay off off to the side, life, like reliefing through one of his books, and you stay completely calm and completely ignore him. If he comes over and sits in your lap, beautiful. Don't mention anything about the bath or the tantrum or nothing. He's just learned that you are a safe place to land, that you're not going to discuss the screaming and tantrum because he doesn't want to talk about it. Sometimes they won't go back to, they won't go to the parent because they're worried the parents going to bully them and discuss all the bad behavior. Kids know I will never do that. I don't do that. I just don't, I never discuss bad behavior. I deal with it, but then I focus on the good kid. So I know how to get kids to feel good about themselves. Therefore they don't scream. They have no need to scream. Right. So sometimes it is a rough start, but it's the outcome that I'm after here. It may seem rough, but believe me, you want to go where I, where I'm trying to take you, you want to be that calm leader for children. You want them to trust that you're never going to discuss bad behavior because you're not going to shame them and blame them and bully them, which is what I consider that to be. You're not going to put them in time out. I consider that very mean, okay, but you're not going to validate this screaming and acting out because you know, they're miserable when they're doing it. Okay. I know the best way to stop that is to ignore it. And then as soon as they calm down, then you connect. They learn to move away, what doesn't work and move toward what does. Okay. So we're investing in tomorrow. Everyone wants to fix today. That's ridiculous. You're investing in tomorrow. Boy, that was a rant. I'm sweating. I get really emotional sometimes. Why is that? I think you really care. Oh God, do I ever, and I'll tell you something. This is something that is very difficult for me to say is, and I already said it. It's when I tell parents that they internalize you're yelling, you know why I don't like telling parents that? And I get, I'm getting emotional and saying this now. I don't want you to feel bad about yourself. I want you to realize that you're only yelling because you don't know what else to do. I don't want you to feel like you're ruining your kids by yelling at them. Look, I'm getting all upset now. Anyway, that's why I don't talk about that a lot, but it really, it hurts them to the core and went, Oh God, I'm getting upset here because I know what it does to kids. And whenever I've asked a kid, would you rather be spanked or yelled at? I don't condone either, by the way, but at whatever I've asked them, kids who have been spanked and yelled at, they'll say every single time they say they'd rather be spanked than yelled at yelling hurts them deep down inside. It destroys something in them. Can you repair it? Yes, but it takes time. 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's really good. And again, yet another reason as to why we've decided to start the podcast in general, I think because these short little videos that people see is that I think that so much can get taken out of context. So I really liked that we were able to dive deeper into these words. Why did you decide? I'm just getting upset because I don't like hurting parents. And I know that that's going to hurt them, but I think they need to hear it. Do you agree? No, I know. I just don't want to hurt you because I know you're probably yelling, right? Okay, just leave this in whatever, leave it in. But anyway, yeah, just try and stop yelling. All my clients yell when they come to me. I never judge them for that. You're only yelling because you don't know what else to do. I'm here to teach you what else to do. Okay. Okay, we'll get into the next question. So Samantha from the United States, how can I get my toddler who's 26 months to stop running through the house screening? Sometimes it's while he has a toy or his hat, but other times he doesn't have anything. It seems like he's mostly excited when he does it, but I'm worried about the four month olds hearing. That's a tricky one because toddlers and newborns are not a very good match. Toddlers are loud. Newborns need sleep, but it is a tricky area. It's sort of the physical time, really physically demanding. Now, if he's running around the house, I would look really interesting doing something else. Oh, what's this over here? I would have some, some activity going in a corner that he only sees when the baby's sleeping or something. So I would have a diversion in that case. Okay. Oh, what I'm really good at this. I'm really good at saying, Oh, what's going on over here? That tone of voice, they can't resist that. Even me, I'm 65 years old. If I was in a room and someone said, no, what's this? I would be over there in a shop. What you got? What you got? What you got? What you got? So it's, it's a very like enticing tone of voice. I would use that. What's going on? Oh, look at this. Wow. This is a magic trick. Wow. So yeah, that's what I do with kids. I divert them with that voice. Two things. You know, I'll tell you something funny. I remember years ago, I was working with kids and they, they were getting wild. So I said, Oh, what's this? And I had nothing in my hand. So what I did was I just put up like four fingers instead of fifth and I pretend my fifth finger was missing. Where did it go? What's all gone? It's right there. Ladies, that's right. Where? And then I'd hide another one. It just was hilarious. You know what was funny about that too? Because I remember that they thought they were so much smarter than me because I couldn't find my finger. That's very wholesome. Well, yeah, but that's what kids are. They're wholesome. I know when parents talk about them, it's like they're little demons. Sometimes they're not, they're completely wholesome. They're completely innocent. They're just going to do demonic things from time to time, but they're just going to, they're just going to give stuff a go. Right. I get that. I just understand kids. I just do. I studied them my whole life. I always found them fascinating. The reason is that we were all there once. If you can really understand a two year old, a three year old, a four year old, a five, if you can understand all those ages, you have a much better perception of where you came from and why you are the way you are. I can envision a parent if they're kids like hitting them, they're like, yeah, real wholesome. Yeah, I know. A couple of things. I do enjoy how you said that the toddler and baby, those ages just don't mix. So everyone should just stop having kids around those age gaps. What I mean is it's not a calm environment, but it's just that crazy time. Right. It's my least favorite client is one who has a toddler and a newborn. Couple reasons for that. One is that the toddler is always going to, or almost always going to be, you know, a menace with a newborn. So you got to watch them like a hawk. And also the mom's tired. She's worn out. She's up throughout the night. So my hands are kind of tired. I can't tell her everything I'd like her to do because I have to understand. She's tired. She might have postpartum or something too. So yeah, it's a whole thing. And then the other thing I want to bring up is though, what she got, what she got. Do you want to bring up your toy closet that your mom? Okay. My mother was, and I'm not just saying this because she's dead. My whole life, everyone loved my mom and I, she was my best friend growing. She was always my best friend. She died in my arms at 93 years old. I really idolized that woman. She was someone I always aspired to be not so much when I was a kid and a teenager. I didn't get it. You know, you just don't have the same context, but my mother was just a joy seeking missel. She made everyone feel good. She just had this beautiful charisma about her. Anyway, when I was a little kid, she and I got bored on a rainy day. And in back in the day, I was born in 1960. So we were all out in the street playing. Well, on a really miserable day, we couldn't go outside and play. So we got bored real fast. We didn't really watch TV or anything, right? There was no screens. So anyway, mom always had this activity closet. She'd just go out and get some cheap toys, you know, just whatever that coloring thing where it's plastic and you lift it up and the drawing disappears, that kind of stuff. She had tons of those things up in this cupboard that I couldn't reach. So she'd say, well, let me see. I'll go in the cupboard and see if I can find something. Well, I just about wet myself. I'd get so excited. I'd be standing there doing this little dance. What you got? What you got? And she'd drag it out. I didn't realize that that she, mom's not very bright. She can never find anything. But I look back, she was giggling too. She was loving it. Now let me see. No, that's not the one. Oh, I'll save that one for another day. What's that? What you got? What you got? Nevermind. That's for now. Find the one I'm thinking of. She would take forever to do that. And then she'd finally pull something down. It was never anything bigger. Fantastic. But I was so excited, but she was always good at sort of making. She had this mystery quality about her. She was just a really warm, fun person. And I always remembered that, the, the, the toy cupboard. She always felt like she had just an exciting bag of things that you didn't know about. Bag of goodies. Like what's going on? She just seemed magical, you know? Yeah. Okay. We have one final question. So Kaliya from the United States. Sorry, let me stop here. Do you know what my father would have done? This is the difference between them. If I'd said, what's up there? He would have lifted me so I could have looked and seen everything and taken what I wanted. I remember my mom saying, never do that. She, cause she loved the game, right? But he couldn't do it as well. He'd just say, well, what do you want? And I'd say, well, I have to see it first. I knew I could have got my dad. So that's why mom always did that. Worked the system. Yep. Okay. Final question. Kaliya from the United States. My daughter is almost five years old. She has a fairly loud tantrums two to three times a week. I try to follow your advice about pretending like you're waiting for a bus, keeping her in the same room, but continuing to work on something like dishes and giving positive attention only once the tantrums over. This works only after about 20 to 30 minutes of ugly crying and screaming on the floor near my feet. I don't make eye contact with her or try to talk to her either. My husband follows a similar approach, but after five minutes of throwing the loud tantrum, he sends her to her room to finish the tantrum. After about two to three minutes of screaming in there, she calms down, is totally reset and comes out ready to calmly interact with us again. Should I continue to keep her in the same room with me while she throws a tantrum? Or should I also send her to her room since it seems to have a quicker reset for her? Are there any negative effects from just sending her to a room once the tantrum starts? I just don't like time out, which is what you're doing. Um, yeah, a lot of stuff works in the moment, but backfires down the road. I just don't like it. I don't think you get as many brownie points as in leadership by doing that. It's like you go away because I don't know how to deal with you. That's the way I would interpret that as a kid. I can remember being all those ages and I would think, well, they don't even know what to do with me. That's why they're sending me away. You see the difference was I want them to see me calm as anything. If she's right at my feet, I might go, Oh, I forgot to go and check the mail or something. I just slowly wander off, you know, like I make sure, but I, she probably follow me, but yeah, it's weaker. That's all makes you look weaker. So she's coming out because she wants the attention for the tantrum, but she haven't really gained any leadership brownie points with that. That's why she's going to continue doing it. I would assume. Would that be your assumption as to why the quote unquote reset happens within a few minutes when she doesn't, she's not getting attention, which is what she wants. So she stops and that's good, but then she'll keep having them because she doesn't think, she doesn't think better of you as a result of that. There you go. Whereas if, if she sees me being calm, I go up in like, I just go up in leadership right away. So if you're working on yourself, remember, I always say we're not fixing kids. We're fixing parents here. So you're working on your leadership and that's staying near them so they can see you being calm during the tantrum that you, it doesn't bother you. You don't need to send her away because you know what you're doing, right? That's way more effective. You're, you're working on your, your leadership here. Okay. That was everything. Okay. Uh, sorry, I cried, but leave that in because I think it's important people to see that, you know, I get really upset sometimes. And also why I don't go on about yelling at kids because, you know, I totally, and I don't judge you for it. Trust me, you're only doing it because you don't know what else to do. That's all. Now kids screaming is just usually one of two things. One is that they're really upset. They're mad about something that they didn't get their own way. Or the other one is they're sad or they're hurt over something. There's a difference between the two. I would never ignore if they're hurt, but if they're just mad, cause they didn't get their own way, there's no freaking way they'd get attention for me. Okay. They've got to learn. If I, if I know I've done the right thing, right? I've taken something away that isn't theirs or whatever. Anyway, on also make sure you connect though. If you're not connected, none of this stuff works. Their love language is fun. It's play and they've got to feel safe with you. And part of the way they do feel safe is when you play in their world. It makes them feel like you understand them. That's when they feel the most understood is when you're playing in their world. Like my granddaughter, she's just two years old. But when I sit on the floor and play kitchen with her, she has this little kitchen, it's just adorable. The kitchen with her, she feels respected. She feel it's just a different level of, of a relationship. When you get down the ground and enter their world, they feel respected and they feel like they really matter because you, they know that that's not your world. They're not done. They know that when they're two and older, they get that. But they, they appreciate the fact that you're doing it almost, you know, it's really sweet. So yeah, enter their world, connect with them and then ignore this crazy anger stuff, it just, because they're not getting their own way. They will eventually stop screaming once you get your leadership cemented, but it takes time. It's not going to happen overnight. It takes time. Remember, you're not fixing your kids, you're fixing yourself. So you're working on your own leadership skills. That's all I'm teaching here. Is that it? I think that's a great place to end it. Excellent. We'll be back again soon talking about another parenting topic. Happy parenting. Thanks for tuning in. 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