"I feel like I'm gonna turn into a witch. I need a timeout," parenting educator Julie King used to tell her kids when she was feeling overwhelmed.
She and Joanna Faber take on whining, fighting and meltdowns in the new book How To Talk When Kids Won't Listen.
Photo: Anna Shvets / Pexels
Parents are always modelling to their kids how to respond to feelings, Julie tells Kathryn Ryan.
"Even very young children pick up on our anxiety and our feelings… and when we try to hide them they still pick up on something going on for us.
Depending on the age of your child, it can be fine to say that you're not feeling very calm and need to leave the room for a moment.
"Children need to know that we are human beings with feelings also. We get anxious, we get angry, we get worried, we get sad. We have a range of feelings."
After telling her kids she needed a timeout, Julie says she'd then go into the closet and say some nasty things out loud to calm herself down before re-entering the room.
"Our kids are watching us at every moment. So when you tell them you're angry and need a break ... we're managing that moment but we're also modelling."
Just like adults, children don't behave well when they don't feel well, she says.
"If you think back to any time in your life when you weren't your best self… it tends to be those times when you aren't feeling your best. Those tend to be the moments when we don't handle ourselves as well."
When a child expresses negative feelings to us, the impulse is often to counter or deny them, Joanna says, and say something like 'don't be upset' or 'there's nothing to be afraid of'.
To help a child regulate themselves, we actually need to help them accept their feelings.
"It's uncomfortable for us to accept a negative feeling but when we do it's a gift. It's a great feeling for that person to have their rough feelings accepted and it immediately gives calm and it brings down the tension, it brings down the heat.
"We don't have to agree with the feeling… but we have to accept the feeling.
"That calms the situation down. It opens up the lines of communication."
Joanna Faber and Julie King Photo: Allen & Unwin
Letting a kid know that their fears are heard and understood should diminish them but you have to come across as truly empathetic, Joanne says, as you might be to a friend.
Parents using a super-calm voice when they acknowledge a child's difficult feelings can sound a bit creepy, especially to teenagers.
To come across like you're really listening and you genuinely care, she recommends "injecting a little drama" and matching their emotion.
As different people have different preferences and different needs, conflict between siblings is totally normal, Julie says,
Instead of feeling sad that you don't have a peaceful family, she recommends working to create a family that knows how to resolve conflicts when they occur.
Punishing one child for attacking another doesn't make the recipient any safer and may well just stoke hostility, she says.
"We need to acknowledge the feelings not just of the kid who was attacked but also the kid who resorted to fists or feet because he was so angry or frustrated.
"They also need to feel like somebody gets what's going on for them."
When listening isn't enough, collaborative problem-solving is valuable work for parents and children to do together, Joanna says.
"Kids are time-consuming … and figuring out how to resolve these small conflicts in a way that respects everybody's needs, without hurting each other, this is one of the most important things we all need to learn in life. It's fantastic practice for being an adult.
"If you find yourself spending time with your kids on this, it's not a waste of time - it's an investment in the future and it could eventually lead to world peace… it all starts with working it out over the red lego brick."
King and Faber's previous book HOW TO TALK has been translated into 22 languages and they've also created the apps HOW TO TALK and Parenting Hero.
