Family-focused topics from Jason and Kim. We'll talk about a parenting hack: staying calm to diffuse reactive kids. Easier said than done! We'll also touch on the concept of "tending to the part of the garden you can touch" and how it is a good metaphor for how to get through crises in life, whether within your family, friends, community, and extending into problems throughout the world.

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Transcript: Season 2, Episode 10

Welcome back to that talking thing. I'm Kim I'm Jason. This is episode 10, season two, and we're talking about life topics. The first we need to wind to talk about our life. Uh, the first topic is as a parent, staying calm to diffuse anger and reactive behaviors. So this is something I think I wish I was better at when my daughter was two.

I'm getting better at now that she's 10. I found my self getting calmer and calmer and calmer. The more angry or reactive a child is when you talk to them about something and using calm words, using sympathetic empathetic language, it's not always easy, but it's interesting. I think as a parenting tactic to think about.

Yeah, it's so hard. And

one thing I noticed too, is sometimes the other parent can see, you know, like if our daughter, for example, is getting defensive about something she shouldn't like, why do I have to whatever do do this thing that I, or what shower it's like, you know? And we're like every day, everyone, everyone in the whole world showers about once a day, You have like 3000 times already.

Now this is like, why is it a surprise that you have to take a bath every day? Um, so she gets really defensive. Like I got to take a bath. And then if say you act defensively to that and you get engaged in this kind of like emotional conflict with the child. Like as an outsider, if I just haven't walked in, I'm like, I can see what's going on and tell like, oh, you let it get to you.

Or like you're taking it personally. And you shouldn't, but it's so easy as an outsider, or like when you see like another parent, like my brother with his kids and you're like, well, obviously he should X, Y, Z. And no, but the one I always say like in the shit, almost like when you're in the shit with your kids.

Cause that's what it is, is like, you're just like busy doing things. Yeah. So how do you cultivate that? You know, I don't know the attitude and the persona, like the, you know, the ability to. Wait and be calm and take it sometimes for me, it's like a sense of humor about it. It helps. It's like, oh, like, it's funny, like on some of it's funny that she's so like, it's like, this is crazy from the outside.

Looking in that is horrible to me to observe because I feel that you're minimizing their, how frustrated they are, how sad they are with laughter. Then I think they have something that they are justified in being upset about it's being laughed at her being upset. Yeah. So if you let that laughter get out, then it's just a different problem of you're laughing at them.

And then they're mad about that. And you're like egging them on. We re we were just on vacation. And so it was kind of really, it was a little easier. I mean, it was skipping ahead to future topics, but maybe one reason was that we were really self-conscious of like, no. You know, agitating the kids and it's like, why is it?

Like you have to walk on eggshells around your kids or whatever. They're like, I don't know. You kind of do. It's like respectful. Like they can't handle it. They're, you know, they're like, you don't have to stop playing video games. Is eternity that's forever. Um, we kind of recognize this with some of our customers not to make this business topic oriented, but, um, when, when people are deeply frustrated with something that isn't functioning the way they wanted it to, and we're like, okay, it's a simple thing.

We can help you fix it to them. It's the cornerstone of their business. The only reason they can point to for why they're not financially successful yet. And. So emotionally involved in it more than we are. And I think the same for the kids when they get reaction and get upset about something. There's another layer of feeling below what you're aware of, you know, something that happened to them one hour ago, something that they're expecting to happen to them three hours from now is involved and tied up in why they're angry or why they're reacting.

I think, I guess that helps too. If you realize, I feel like I say that a lot sometimes with the kids, when they're upset about something that's silly. And I tell myself, remember I tell you sometimes I'm like, oh, like, like they they're really upset though. Like I know it is silly, but to them it's really upsetting.

And so like, if you get on their level and like, yeah, that's sad, you lost a saved game and your video game, they're like, you could personally care less about, you know, in the grand scheme of things, isn't that bad. Maybe you can relate a little bit about like losing something. I don't know. But even so. You know, it's not a big deal.

It was like an hour of their time and all that, you know, they have tons of time and you're like, um, even at the, it feels bad, but there's other stuff that they don't really, you know, it's just like, you know, to them it's really. And so if you meet them on their level and you don't like the lesson now is, that's what I think too is in the moment they needed to be consoled, they don't need the lesson.

I think having like the weekly meeting, we do there's times where like, I'll file in the back of my mind where I'm like, Oh man. Yeah, that's really stinks. I'm sorry. You lost your save game. And in back of my mind, I'm like, oh, maybe we could talk about this at meeting, like how important are safe games or whatever.

Um, and sometimes that house meditation has helped me, like, it feels like life moves in slow motion, and then there's like, I'm a little bit detached from Jason. And so I'm like, oh, that's funny, Jason's angry. And then like, he shouldn't be angry now. Yeah. Like it really is. So it's a super power for meditation.

I noticed something Marin does is when somebody explains that they're having a feeling. So they're feeling tired, they're feeling sore, they're feeling hungry. She has to say how she also has that feeling or she has it more powerfully. Um, I've, I've started doing. To her. So she'll say, oh, I'm so tired.

She'll like, wake up, say I'm so tired. And then I'll say, oh, I'm so tired too. I've been awake for three hours. And that bothers her. So you're not, I don't think it does in her tiredness. It's something she does to other people. So now I'm doing it for also for her to like recognize, oh yeah. Her feeling isn't unique.

She's doing it to others. She's it's, it's how she reacts to other people. She's taking it fine, but it's been interesting too. That's sometimes worse. So when you're like, I'll show them, like, I think I'm doing it, like in an empathetic I'm using medic calm words. I'm not saying, well, you shouldn't be tired.

I should be tired. Yeah. It's funny. Like the subtlety of exactly how to do things really matters. So we, okay. So maybe we can analyze this situation. Do you remember? You got. Bill for roadblocks. Yes. Excuse me. So you got an email that there was $20 spent on roadblocks and you're like, I thought it was only $10.

Okay. Um, and then you sent it to me and you're like, did Marin buy roadblocks yesterday? And I was like, no, but she did like three days ago and it should have been this much, this much. So I thought the most obvious thing was that she bought Robox on roadblocks without permission. Yes. Maybe this is bad on us.

I didn't want to have to like always have my credit card when I'm buying stuff for the kids. And I think it's a learning opportunity. It's like, Hey, I trust you that you can click a button and buy something, but you have to talk to us first and give us the money and figure it out. Yep. So I was like, oh, does she like secretly buy something?

And at breakfast then I was like, Marin, like mom noticed that there was a robot under the bus. Maybe I didn't bring it up to him. I think I did though. I, but I said like, did you buy the robot? And I don't think I was, I was, I wasn't angry about it. I was like, did you go let's talk? Cause then she was like, oh, like, why would you take, I did that.

I did, of course I did it. And like, she was like really upset. I was like, I'm just trying to talk. We got to figure it out. Cause definitely someone bought Robux with our credit card yesterday, you know, like it really happened. Um, and she's like, it must be a mistake. And I'm thinking in my mind, I'm like, I don't think it was a mistake.

Maybe it was maybe it wasn't, but trying to talk her through it and. I think not accusing her, but talking to anyway, we figured out that there's like a delay of three days when the charge comes up. So it really was the purchase. She did three days ago. And that just happened to show up the day before. So it looked like it happened the day before.

And I spent like a half hour in the morning. I said, Hey, it's okay. We'll talk about that. Cause she was really upset and like crying and like hurt that we thought she had like betrayed our trust and it turns out like she didn't, that it just was. There was a delay in like how to charge mine. And when I went to the Robux and accounted for, it was like, oh, she only ever bought at the time.

She said, and she always gave us money for