Welcome back to become a calm mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlyn Childress.

I'm a life and parenting coach. And today, I wanna talk about how

limits actually work because we talk a lot in parent

education about how you have to set good boundaries. You have to have firm

limits, and it can be really confusing about what that really

means and, what how how how does it

actually work to help children bit pivot their behavior?

So one thing I teach a lot in my programs is

like and on the podcast too, but how in traditional

parenting, we use fear

to pivot a child's behavior. Right? We want

them to stop hurting their sibling or get in

the car or stop yelling or do their

chore or clean up after themselves. And so we can kind of, like,

get really mean and harsh and and threaten them and threaten to hurt them

or threaten to reject them or something like that and, you know, threaten something

bad. And what we're really trying to do is get the brain to

move into a place of, like, instead of

just being in the limbic center, which is the emotional center of the brain where

decisions are made based on, like, feelings. Like, if it feels good, I'll do it.

If it doesn't feel good, I don't wanna do it, so I'm not going

to. That's where children live most of the time. They're in their limbic

center. Ideally, we would want to move our children to their executive

function center, to the thinking center, to the cause and effect, to the way

that time works. Right? We wanna move them up to that part of

their brain and access kind of those neural pathways towards

thinking. But what happens when our kids aren't quote unquote

listening to us when they're not doing what we ask them to do,

we get upset. We are in our limbic center, and we start to

feel frustrated and overwhelmed and maybe feeling like our kids

aren't, you know, like, if they don't do this now, it's gonna

make a big mess, and it's gonna be a problem, and they're gonna be they're

so disrespectful and I have to teach them right now. And we feel that urgency.

We feel that emergency. And so we sort of sort of get into,

like, fix it, change it, stop it, solve it energy. And we want our

kids to listen and comply and do what we told them to do

right now. And so we often will trigger go into fear,

go into threat, to try to get them to comply.

And that pushes them into their more, like, you know, activates their

nervous system, pushes them more into that fight, flight,

freeze, faint, fawn. And in traditional

parenting, when we trigger our child into fear, they're

more compliant. Honestly, it's effective. And so you've

seen that before. Like, my kids only listen when I yell. My

kids only listen when I threaten. My kids only, you know,

follow directions when, you know, I tell them that they're gonna lose

something. Right? And so what you're saying there is that my

kids only really listen to me when I've triggered a

fear response. Now for some kids, you

trigger that fear response and they go straight to fight. They double down. They argue

harder. Then you have to amplify your fear. You have to get even

more aggravated and and aggressive with them, and it

sort sort of spirals. Right? You know how that is.

And so when we are talking about

emotional health, emotional well-being, self regulation,

self motivation, right, We're actually

wanting our kids to do what's best and do what's in their

best interest without triggering fear response. We don't want

our kids to be reactive and and

obey or comply or listen just because they're

afraid of us. Right? None of us want that. We want them

to listen and do what's best

for them because it's in their best interest. But then how do we

do that? So I wanna talk a little bit

about how limits work in terms of setting setting setting

them and why they're important. Now what

I'm teaching you is different. We're intentionally

we're I mean, we're not intentionally triggering fear in our children.

Right? In this model of limit setting, we're with compassionate limits,

with empathetic limits. We're still setting limits. So the

calm mama process, I'm calm. I connect with my kids feelings.

Their feelings drive their behavior. So calm, connect, limit set. I set

limits around their behavior. So

we're in this dynamic where we want our kids to listen. We

wanna be compassionate, but it can get really confusing because we don't wanna

trigger fear. But then what are you supposed to do? How do you get your

kids to listen? Really, it is

by setting limits, setting clear boundaries, and I'm gonna talk

about that, and giving your children

the experience of what happens when

they don't keep the limit. Okay. For example,

we can go to the park today and the afternoon as long

as there's no fighting in the car. Okay? So you pick

your kids up. A lot of times you see a pattern. They're being annoying. You

pick them up in the car. They start fighting. They start arguing with each other.

You already have a park playdate planned, and you say to the kids, hey, just

a reminder. We can go to the park today as long as there's no problems

in the car. Now, the first few times you set limits,

your kids probably don't believe you. They probably think it's a

threat. They probably think you're just trying to manipulate the moment.

And so they may listen or they may not, but a lot of times they

don't. Right? And you keep threatening them and threatening them. I

told you guys we're not gonna go to the park. If you keep fighting and

you give them, like, one more warning and you know you're in it because you're

trying to rescue them from having the negative experience of going

of missing the park play date. And in a in

this model, what I want to teach you is to have

your kids experience the negative consequence of their actions,

to actually have the experience of not going to the

park play date. Now,

that means that in the short term, you're not getting them to change their

behavior. Maybe they keep fighting. Right? So you're not really getting

that short term piece. So that's frustrating. Maybe you wanna go to

the park play date, and so that's annoying to you because now you don't know

what to do with these people when they're around. And then

you're frustrated. And then the so you end up finding a way to

still let them go. And what ends up happening is that the

next day, you're in the same pattern. You're stuck. And that can be

really irritating as a mom. You're like, they never listen to me. Right?

Because you're not really listening to yourself. You're not really keeping your own

boundary. You're using rules and limits and commands

and threats as a way to manipulate behavior in the

moment. And this process that I'm teaching you is not an

in the moment process. The goal of limit setting isn't to get

compliance. The goal is to get your kids to

think about their actions and

start to connect the dots between how they behave and what

happens when they behave that way. But

they don't have that impact if you keep rescuing

them and not letting them experience the consequence. Now, I'm saying

all this be because I know it's really important. And I also know it's really

hard. It's very hard to see your kid

every day after camp. You pick them up and all the kids are playing on

the playground And you want to say to them, you know, they have

to go straight to tutoring, or they have to go straight to the doctor's appointment

or whatever it is. And it's like every Monday, they have this experience. And you're

trying to say like, hey, if we go right now, we can come back and

we can keep playing here. The kids will still be here, but we have to

go now. And they're crying and they're having a big fit and you're so frustrated.

You're like, listen, we're not gonna come back here unless you stop it right now.

Well, then that one Monday, maybe you get compliance, maybe you don't. But

what happens the next Monday and the next Monday, then I want your kids

to see and to believe and to trust you

that when you say I'm happy to come back here and keep

playing as long as there are no problems getting to where we're

going. So you tell your children what the limit

is, what they can do, what they can get, what they can have.

You can have a play date. You can have screen time. You

can have an extra book. You can have your seat belt buckled. It

doesn't have to be always a prize. It can also be, like, really practical. Like,

you can have your dinner once you've put your napkin on your

lap. And you just hold the dinner plate until they've put their

napkin in their lap or whatever it is that you're trying to teach them.

Now, in the short term, are they going to listen

or not? No. Probably not. Especially if you're if you're new to doing

this. But let me promise you, I've been doing this teaching this work

since 2012, 2012 and 14 years

or 12 years. I don't know. I'm not good at that math, but I've been

doing a long time. I've taught thousands of parents this and

it works Over time your kids start to

learn that they're not they don't need to be afraid of you. But they

trust you. They trust that what you say goes.

That if you say you can have this

blankety blank, this privilege or this this routine or this

ritual or whatever it is that you wanna do, you can have it as long

as you meet these conditions. That's what a real good limit

is. And how it works is it helps your children

start to put the pieces together. It requires

thinking. Okay, wait, what? I can come

back here and play as long as

I get in the car without hitting my mom.

And maybe the first time they hit their mom, but then they start to connect

the dots. So, I want to have your

children not be pushed down into their

survival, their fight flight instinct. I want them to be raised

up into thinking to executive function, to understanding how the world

works. So a limit, a boundary

is really kind of helping our children understand

what is expected of them and what they get when they meet those

expect expectations. So it's actually

incredible when we are able

to slow it down and set up our limits. Now, the

way that you slow it down and set up your limits, the way that I

taught myself and the way it typically goes for people I work with is that

first you just say it sort of quote unquote wrong. Like, you say it in

the threat way or you say it in the bribe way where you're like, if

you don't stop this right now, we're not coming back here. If you don't stop

this right now, we're not going. If you don't stop this right now, we're leaving.

If you don't stop it, right? We kind of tell our children that they need

to stop doing something or else something will happen. That's

how we sort of start. And then the way that I've taught myself

over time is by saying, instead of, like, if you don't stop

this, you can't have this. I'm like, you

can have this thing. I will read

books to you. You can get in the car. You

can swim in the swimming pool. You can put on your socks and shoes.

You can whatever it is that they're gonna do the next thing.

And then you say as long as you have your backpack on your

back, as long as you are speaking kindly to me, as long as

you're not hurting your brother, as long as you

have cleaned up your room, as long the thing, the behavior you want

them to do becomes the condition. Now, why

this is effective is because at first, if you

tell your children to stop doing something, stop hitting, stop throwing,

stop yelling, stop crying, stop complaining, stop whining. When you

tell the brain to stop, it doesn't really

know what to do instead. It's

like trying to stop a train or, you know,

like, you're trying to, like, pull back the the reins of a horse.

It's very, very difficult. And so when you say stop

it or don't do that or no, the brain just

just works so hard. Just stop by the the It's really

difficult. But it's instead if you tell the brain what to do instead

or what they can have once they finish something,

it's like a little pivot for the brain. You keep that momentum of

whatever the mind is wanting to do and you just move it towards a new

action. Kind of the old school concept of redirection,

but we're actually being very specific in what we

want them to do. You can play

in this room, as long as you aren't

throwing Legos. So at first you might be like stop

throwing Legos or you're leaving. And then you just flip it. You

can What can they do? You can stay here. So

whatever your threat was is what you flip it to what they

can do. Whatever you're threatening to take away or

whatever you're bribing them with, you just say, hey, I'm happy to give

this to you. You're welcome to have this. You're feel free to do this thing.

And then you say as long as and then you give them the behavior that

you want, so that their mind has something

to work towards. So you're not trying

to stop the momentum of the horse and like pull back on

the reins and come to a complete stop. You're just guiding it,

this little horse, this little person towards a new behavior, towards a

new action. And you're giving the brain something to think about what it's

gonna have or what it's gonna get when it does that. That creates

motivation. So instead of triggering fear,

you're actually triggering thinking. You're actually

triggering some motivation, some interest,

some what's in it for me, right? That's the brain is attracted to

those kinds of sentiments and those kinds of statements.

If my husband is sitting there with me and he's, like,

you know, hey, stop, Like, stop being on top of me like or whatever if

I'm like getting upset and I'm kind of arguing with him. And instead, he's like,

Darlyn, I'm happy to help you and solve this problem and listen to you

if you stop attacking me. If you speak kindly to me, it's so

much easier for me to slow down because I know I'm gonna

gonna get what I want. I know I'm gonna get what I need. I know

that someone's part of what I'm like, they're in the conversation

with me. So your kids want that too. I don't know if that was a

good example, but this is what it came to my head. I don't yell at

Kevin that often, but I do get fired up and I do wanna be reassured

that he's going to listen to me. I will help you. I will listen to

you as long as and he tells me the conditions and then my brain's like,

okay. Okay. Okay. He's gonna help me. I just have to be

kinder. Like, my little kid brain shows up in my marriage

sometimes. And the same thing happens with my kids. Right?

I wanna tell them what to do and I wanna stop them and I wanna,

you know, command on them because I wanna get what I want. But instead, I

need to reset. So I give my command. I say: stop

doing that. Instead, I have to flip it. Hey, you

can. Even if it's simple, you can keep sitting here with

us. I'll keep listening to you. I'll help you right

now. I'll participate with your homework. I'll lay

down with you, whatever it is, as long as

I have a few examples of ways to turn your threat

into a limit that are from my actual life

that I have have had to say before. So I remember one time we were,

like, at the at Disneyland, actually, and my son was in line and he kept

spinning that umbrella. It was raining. And he just kept spinning and spinning it. And

I thought he was gonna, you know, like hit somebody or whatever. And

I I said to him, I'm like, stop spinning that umbrella or I'm taking it

away. Right? That impulsive threat

reaction normal. And then I reset myself. I paused and I

Listen, you can hold the umbrella as long as it doesn't

spin. And then the minute he spins it, I go:

Oh, no problem. And I hold on to it.

Now, you might be thinking, but then they start crying. Yep.

Yep. That's a big part of how they learn is by

experiencing the impact and having that negative emotion of that

impact and letting it be like, I just and they

feel a little bit bummed and sad and hurt and, like, whatever. That's fine. It's

okay for your kids to have negative emotion when they experience a negative

consequence. That's normal. That's how I am when something

negative happens to me. Even if I caused the

problem. Right? Even if I'm the one who, like, didn't pay my credit card

bill on time, and then I got a $25 fee, I'm

mad about the fee. Even though I'm the one who did the wrong

thing. Your child is entitled to their big feelings

about your consequences. So don't be afraid of

that. They will move through it, especially if you keep

the boundary firm. If you don't go well, okay, I'm gonna give it

back to you. Like, don't give in right then. Let them feel

it. And then you can reset. You don't have to be mean. You can say,

okay, listen. Are you ready to try again? Because

remember, I'm happy to let you hold the umbrella as long as it doesn't

spin. So you just reset. You try again. They

spin it again. You go, oh, no, no, no. I'm gonna hold on to this

for a while now. It seems like this is too much. So do

you see how kind I am when I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no. It's

no. We're not gonna do that right now. I'm smiling a little bit. They hate

that, but it's true. I'm like kind of like, okay, this isn't working. No problem.

I'm gonna put this away or I'm gonna hold it. Now in

public, obviously, it's gonna be hard if you have a kid who hasn't had a

lot of boundaries and they're not comfortable and they have a lot of resistance strategies.

They might cry. They might grab your hand. They might yell. They might make a

scene. And then you can stop and say, listen. We'll stay in this line as

long as you're not hitting mommy. Or if they're a little bit older, you

say, you're welcome to go on this ride as long as there are no problems.

So I'm gonna reset my limit in the moment if they start to be out

of bounds. This happened to me. I was, like,

laying down with my son. He was, like, I don't know, 5 or 6, whatever.

And he's, like, keeps poking me in the eye while I'm, like, laying down for

bed, like, being so sweet, sweet mama, and just keeps poking me, like, literally.

And I was like, hey, you better stop poking me or you're not gonna go

to so and so's house tomorrow. So I immediately went to the threat. And I'm,

like, paused. And then I just said, listen,

I will lay here with you as long as I don't have to worry about

being poked in the eye. And then my son

pokes me in the eye again. I get up. I stand up. I don't have

to be mean. I don't have to walk away all rude and mean and steely

silence. I just stood up, took a step back. His

mommy's laid down with me. Laid down with me. I said, okay. Happy to lay

down with you as long as I don't have to be worried about poke being

poked in the eye. And then I lay down again. He pokes me again.

I go, oh, no. No. This isn't working. I'm gonna go ahead and I'm just

gonna sit down and we'll try again tomorrow night.

So we wanna If they're little enough, we want to give them a chance to

try again to start over, reset your limit, see where they're

at and then move, you know, if you have to

follow through on the consequence, follow through on it.

I remember threatening my kids, like, you won't eat anything else,

You know, you won't get anything else to eat until you eat this, whatever it

is. And this example also happened, I think, at Disneyland.

It's like I knew there were gonna be a bunch of sweets and stuff, and

I was like, you need to eat this before I buy you anything else. You

know? And then I just said, hey. I will order more

fries once you have eaten your chicken nuggets or whatever it was. In

this example, it was actually yogurt, because my son would only

eat yogurt, and that was, like, the protein part that I wanted him to get.

We have this habit, and I that's what I really wanna help you

understand is that we have this habit of using threats and

using fear to get our kids to comply. And

it might work in the short term. That's why you say they only listen when

I yell. They only listen when I get upset. They only listen when I threaten.

Yeah. Because at that point, you've triggered some sort of fear response. You've triggered

them into fight, flight,

freeze, faint or fawn. Fawn is people pleasing.

Fawn is doing something even though you don't want to, in order to make the

other person happy, in order for you to feel safe in that relationship.

Most of the time your children are worried

if you are really upset with them and you're, you know, threatening

them and you're really angry with them, that triggers inside of

them a deeper fear of a of abandonment. I'm not saying

you're abandoning them at all. I'm just saying that's what it's

like to be a little kid is that you feel very vulnerable in the

world. And your person, your adult is the person that makes you feel

safe. You know, you get your needs met through them, and you need that

person to love you and take care of you because you're a vulnerable

little human. And if for whatever reason you start

to feel that that connection is in danger or

you're not gonna get your needs met, scramble scramble scramble,

obey, obey, obey. But that's from fear.

That's from people pleasing and from anxiety and from

an insecure attachment. I don't want that for your kids. I don't want

them to be responding because they're, like, afraid

of being abandoned or emotionally disconnected from you or being

physically hurt or or that they're gonna be even more

scared. You know, I'm gonna, you know, hit you. I'm gonna spank you. I'm

gonna, you know, put you in the car alone or any of those things that

you come up with. You're what you're trying to do is you're trying to get

your kids to comply. And it makes sense because you're

also in an emergency. But instead, I want you to set your limits.

Listen. I'm happy to read books to you as long as you're laying in your

bed or you're welcome to be in this room as long as you're being

participation with your, you know, your you're participating well.

And then you let them experience the negative consequence. And

then over time you do it enough times. I'm talking

like 5, 6 times typically, like like over the course

of a couple of weeks. And your kids will start to realize like, oh,

she's serious. She is not gonna get me a popsicle.

Like, oh my gosh, I have to put my socks and shoes on or she's

not gonna drive me to school. And some of you are like: They don't care

about going to school. They don't care about time. They do if

you're quiet and you stand by the door, and you just say:

we will leave once everyone is ready.

And, you know, keeping track of how long they're making you late.

And then when they get home, you say, guess what? We were 10 minutes late

to school today. That's 10 minutes that I would normally be going

to work, going to exercise, walking the dog,

you know, cleaning up the kitchen, getting gas, whatever it is that you would

normally be getting doing in the time that after you drop off your children.

You said I didn't have time to do that today. So instead, we're not going

to blank blankety blank because we're staying home, so I can get my

chores done. Or we can do whatever we were gonna do this afternoon once you

guys have helped me with my chores. I waited for you this morning. You can

help me out this afternoon. So that's a different that's more

about consequences, and delaying your consequences

and having a form of restitution. But when you

have a few of these experiences, these

consequences within the limit that your kids experience,

it doesn't take long they start to realize

that it's in their best interest to listen to you.

They're making a decision based on logic, based on

thinking, based on cognitive function.

Now, if they're really little, it's gonna be harder because they have really very

difficult access to that part of their brain.

But you wanna be at least building those neural pathways to

cause and effect, to when mommy says this and you don't listen, this was what

happens. Not you get hurt, but that there is

a, consequence. So

that's why I wanted you to understand how limits work and why

they're important versus threats or versus bribes.

Bribes motivate in a different way, but they still kind of

trigger, like, a dopamine kick or something like that. We don't

really want our kids to be always only listening if they get

something. So a lot of times the limit is just

whatever you would normally be doing in instead.

So, like, even silly things like you can you can put

your pajamas on once your teeth are brushed, and you're just holding their pajamas in

their hand. It's so funny because I've been teaching this so long that people

at first will think like that's stupid. That doesn't work. And then the kid

will be like, you know, what? I wanna buy my

jam my Amazon now. And they're like,

It likes that little reward. So the reward doesn't always have to be a

big ole like a sticker. It can be just like a little, hey, here's your

pajamas. Now you get to put your pajamas on. And the brain's like,

oh, yay. Now, of course, in a bigger rhythm, a

bigger like morning routine, evening routine,

meal routine, you're going to have it be set up

where it's like, if you if you don't make, you

know, your teeth brushed and your,

your pajamas on and whatever you're tidied up and all the

things, Like, I'm happy to read books to you as long as those things are

done before the timer goes off or before 8 o'clock or before

7:30 or whatever your rule is. Then you communicate

that. You let them not have books 1 night, a couple nights in a

row, or and that doesn't mean you just leave the room. You just don't read

that night. You just instead sing songs or something. And over time,

your kids want the routine back. And they

go, oh, in order to have what I want, I have to do these

things. And that's not manipulation.

That's how the world works. If I wanna fly on an

airplane with my luggage and I want

to pay just for the one luggage piece, right?

I can fly on the airplane and have my

luggage for $35 as long as it does not exceed

£50. That's the rule of the airline.

Right? So when I get to the airport and they

weigh my bag and my bag weighs more than £50,

I either have to pay more money or I have to take things

out of my bag. That's a limit.

Like literally is like your bag cannot exceed this limit.

Right? It says that. And so then I have to learn,

oh, I have to make decisions. If I want to take my bag with me,

I'm going to have to lighten my load. That's cause and

effect. And I want your kids to have a lot of those connections

in their brain of like this, then that. Once

this, then this. We want our kids to understand

that things happen in a sequence, that the world works in a certain way.

We wanna give them that understanding. And we do

that by setting limits, by setting boundaries.

Okay. This is a work that actually

takes effort to figure out how to change the language. It

does take some time and even setting up the limits. I've noticed this

in my programs, especially in the calm mama

club. When people come to the coaching call and they present a scenario,

they're not quite it's really kind of hard at first to get an

understanding of, like, what the limit should be. And I do teach a

process in the program, but it's helpful to have me help

you find your limits. And so if you are curious

about the Comama Club or working with me, go to my

website, comama coaching.com, and you can look at

programs. I have a 1 on 1 program where you get to work with me

for a few weeks, like, 6 weeks, at a pretty affordable rate.

Or you can join the Com Mama Club which is $30 a month, and you

can come to coaching call, raise your hand, tell me your scenario, I'll help you

with your limits. You go back, you set your limits up with your kids, you

let them fail, you come back the next week, you're like, well, that didn't work.

Then we talk about consequences. And then within 2 or 3 weeks, you understand

how to do the limit and then you can do it repeat it over and

over and over again. So this one, it is it is helpful if

you have a coach or me, you know, particularly to help

you understand how to do this. So I highly recommend you book

a consult with me, a consultation, discovery call. We could

talk to each other. You can tell me. I'll give you examples right then and

there if you want. But it does help to work with me for, you know,

a period of time in order to get used to doing this. So I highly

recommend you do that. Reach out. And so for this week,

I want you to practice noticing when you give a command, when

you say stop doing that, do this right now.

I want you to turn your rule, turn your command into a

limit. Flip it as much as you can. You are welcome to

as long as I'm happy to. Once you've done

this, just flip it, and then you'll get better and better and better at

it. Alright. I hope this is helpful. I know you're all

thinking about getting back to school soon, and I'll do an episode on

back to school reset, probably around 15th.

Yeah. The 15th. And that way, some of you already have

started and some of you will be about to start. So it's the best I

can do. But in this for this week, I want you to start thinking about

your limits and setting your rules and boundaries up in this

way. Okay. I hope you have a great week, and I will talk

to you next time.