00:00I feel like there's this misconception that when you are doing gentle parenting,
00:04authoritative parenting, that your child gets away with a lot of things, there's no discipline,
00:07there's no boundaries, there's nothing like that that teaches them the right way to do things or
00:14expects a certain type of level of behavior from them. Now there absolutely is, but it has to be
00:22developmentally correct. So you can't expect, as you wouldn't, a six-month-old to be walking,
00:27you can't expect a two-year-old to be listening to every single thing that you're saying.
00:32Their brain's not fully functioning, you can't expect a two-year-old to never have a tantrum,
00:36you can't expect a four, five, six, seven-year-old to never have a tantrum or have big feelings and
00:40express those big feelings in what you perceive as maybe a negative way.
00:44But I do want to share a clip with you because I did manage to get one of me disciplining George.
00:50Just a bit of a backstory, we'd gone over to the Vanguard Center for breakfast over at M&S
00:54and sat down and had breakfast. George had some beans on toast and bacon and then he had a little
00:59Colin Caterpillar cake thing afterwards as well. Left M&S after picking up Dottie some clothes and
01:05he saw two young girls 10 o'clock in the morning having themselves an ice cream. Go on my girl,
01:11it's summer holiday, do what you want. However, George had already had quite a high sugar morning
01:18with the Colin Caterpillar cake, he'd also had like quite a sugary cereal before his second
01:22breakfast. I don't need to justify myself but my guy asked for an ice cream and I said not today.
01:28Obviously he was pretty pissed off about this, he was disappointed, he felt like it was unfair,
01:35he was pretty angry, he was frustrated and when we were walking to the car he very much vocalized
01:42how angry he was that he did not get an ice cream. Now as he's talking and talking I can feel myself
01:50becoming more triggered because I have all of these preconceptions in my brain of if he's not
01:57appreciative, why doesn't he just remember the fact that he's just had a really lovely breakfast
02:01at M&S, like that's he's going to turn out to be such an ungrateful little boy and I'm starting,
02:06right, I can feel myself. Does he not remember that he's literally just had something to eat,
02:10like how, how dare he then ask me for that and then kick off about it even though, so I was like
02:16now's not a good time for me to speak. Anyway long the short of it is that I had to obviously
02:21get George in the car, I had to get Ariella in the car, I validated his feelings the entire time but
02:25as I say the tone in which he was speaking to me and the way in which he was speaking to me
02:29was rude, was disrespectful and was not the way I want him to speak to me or to anybody else.
02:34But in this instance it is all about connection, it is all about just getting him back to his
02:41regulated logical thinking brain and out of his survival brain and I'm sure as hell not going to
02:47be able to bring him back to that brain by saying to him, do you not just remember that we've actually
02:50just had a Colin Caterpillar, okay, do you not, do you not remember that I've just bought you
02:54breakfast, like you're not even, that's not gonna, that's not gonna do it. So all I said literally
02:59in the car was, when he kept repeating please can I have one, please can I have one, I said not today,
03:04I can see that's making you frustrated and angry, I totally get that and I totally understand
03:09and then he would kick off again and all the rest of it. Anyway, car ride home, he had pretty much
03:14calmed down and then about 15 minutes after we got home I was feeding Ariella, he was completely
03:20regulated, I was completely regulated and I thought now is a good time to have a discussion.
03:25Is that all right if we have a little chat about what happened at the shop? Mummy's gonna talk,
03:30all right, and then you can talk about what you want to talk about, all right.
03:33You asked me, mummy can I have an ice cream, all right, I said no. Understandably you are going to
03:39be upset and frustrated that mummy has said no to you having an ice cream and I understand that,
03:46all right. When mummy says no to something you are more than welcome to be frustrated and be
03:52upset about that but what you are not okay to do is speak to me disrespectfully, it's not kind.
04:03Ice cream, okay and mummy said no and that's the end. That's the end of it, is it? That's all you
04:14wanted to share on it? Yeah. Did you think the way you were speaking to mummy was okay? No.
04:21How can we better handle disappointment? So if somebody says no to something,
04:27how can we better handle it? What sort of things can we do when we feel frustrated?
04:34I mean that's a good idea, we could throw bronnie in the rubbish bin but I don't really know
04:37how much that would help our frustration. What other things can we do?
04:42Um, not shouting at mummy. But to help you calm down? Um, maybe we can find some books.
04:53What can we do?
04:56You can blow out your candles and it helps you, it helps you to calm down,
05:01doesn't it? Okay, I love you and I'm sorry that you were disappointed we didn't get an ice cream
05:07today. I hope you had a nice breakfast and I hope you enjoyed your Colin Caterpillar cake though.
05:12It's nice, huh? I was disappointed when they said they didn't have any pancakes left. Me too.
05:19Maybe we need to get some. Oh, for everyone. For everyone? What, for the whole shop? Yeah,
05:24so he said we can just throw them in the mouth. So what? Put syrup on it, put strawberries in it,
05:31put blueberries in it and then throw it in the mouth. Oh yeah. And then we're all done and we
05:38can go back home and then throw pancakes in our mouth. Then everybody will have pancakes in their
05:45tummies and they'll be happy. So, next time mummy says no to something and we feel frustrated,
05:52what are we going to do? Blow out candles. We're going to blow out candles. I'll do this.
05:57It's okay to feel frustrated but it's not okay to be unkind to mummy, is it? Or to anybody. I just
06:04thought about everybody having ice cream. Yeah, you saw those two girls having ice cream, didn't
06:10you? Yeah. Maybe thought it was a bit unfair that you didn't have one, huh? Yeah. Yeah, I get it.
06:17What? I love you. I love you. What are you going to do now? I'm going to play with my balls.
06:21Okay. I'm trying to play with my ball. I'm trying. Well, I can help you when I finish this task.
06:28Okay. Okay. Love you. Love you.
