Deep Dive: Myriam Sandler of MOTHERCOULD on Frustration Tolerance and Sibling Dynamics

Dr. Becky 0:00 Why is it so hard to find reliable answers to parenting questions? How is it in 2022 parents still search on Google for answers from strangers? Well, now there's a better way. Introducing the Good Inside Membership, an expert-guided, community-powered platform redefining modern parenting. In our library, you'll find hundreds of bite-sized videos, articles, scripts, and workshops tackling the trickiest parenting topics, and it doesn't stop here. We've created a private community guided by me, Dr. Becky, and coaches trained in the Good Inside parenting method. Here, you can ask questions, connect with other parents, or attend a live event on a topic that matters to you. This is the parenting handbook that doesn't exist. This is parenting advice at your fingertips, where you need it, when you need it the most. This is Good Inside Membership. Hi, I'm

Dr. Becky 1:01 Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical, actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away. One of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available to us in that moment. So even as we struggle, and even as we are having a hard time on the outside, we remain good inside. I'll be doing something a bit different on today's episode. I'll be sharing a parenting consultation-style conversation I had with Myriam Sandler. You might know her by her Instagram handle, MOTHERCOULD. Myriam asked if she could pick my brain about a recurring situation that happens in her home. A bit of background before we jump in. Myriam is a play activity expert, sharing her ideas on Instagram and on her website, mothercould.com. She's a mother of two daughters, Nikki, age six, and Emma, age three, and she has a third daughter on the way. On a personal note, Myriam has been one of the most supportive people in my own social media journey, offering guidance and connecting me with her community. I'm so excited to have her as my first guest for a Deep Dive. Let's jump in. Hi, Myriam. I'm so glad to have you join me and for us to talk through some situations together.

Myriam Sandler 2:50 Dr. Becky, this is awesome. I can't tell you how much I've been looking forward to this. I have so many questions I know we won't have time for, but we'll do as much as we can. [laughs]

Dr. Becky 3:00 We will definitely get a lot in. You and I always have a lot to talk about.

Myriam Sandler 3:03 Yes.

Dr. Becky 3:03 So why don't we jump right in. What I'd love to hear from you is really what's kind of bringing you in here today, and what's on your mind, and start wherever makes sense to you. We'll jump in there and then eventually zoom out to some bigger themes and zoom back in to some really concrete strategies.

Myriam Sandler 3:20 Okay. So I think the one thing I've been wanting to talk to you about is about frustration in play.

Dr. Becky 3:27 Great.

Myriam Sandler 3:28 And I feel like, um, both my six-year-old and three-year-old, we kind of raise them to be pretty independent, strong women. [laughs] Um, we're also Latin-

Dr. Becky 3:37 Mm-hmm

Myriam Sandler 3:38 ... so you know a little bit about our, our background. We- we're a little bit strong-willed, so [laughs] um, which I think are wonderful qualities as you grow older, but when you're little, it's hard to handle.

Dr. Becky 3:50 Yeah. Being strong is a great quality for later on. Kind of tricky when we're parenting. So can you paint a picture for me of what this looks like in your home so I can visualize it and jump in with you?

Myriam Sandler 4:01 So what happens often in our house is that our girls are three years apart, and my three-year-old, they're both girls, my three-year-old wants to do everything the six-year-old wants to do, but like everything. Let's say they're in the playroom and I'm cooking in the kitchen. This is exactly what happened. I'm in the kitchen, the girls are in the playroom, and they're building a magnet tile tower. And my daughter took after me and loves rainbows, so she, my six-year-old, is going red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple. But the three-year-old is coming in with the purple and the red.

Dr. Becky 4:35 Hmm.

Myriam Sandler 4:36 And she's like, "Please don't do that." But she's said it like a million times. Like, at this time she's, like, saying it over and over. But the three-year-old is like, "Purple and red are beautiful." So she's, like, putting it together, but my six-year-old is like, "No." So she gets to a point where, like I said, she saw black and she'll just, like, "Ugh," very, like, in herself. She won't hit anybody or do anything, but she, like, will go inside herself and she's just, like, cradle into that position. She's just like, "I'm done building this tower. I do not wanna do it anymore. Uh, it's all ruined. Emma ruined my tower. This is horrible." And just, and then at that point she's, like, screaming, so I come in from the kitchen and I'm like, I pull my three-year-old and I say, "Emma, you and I, let's build a tower, a separate tower, so we can do one over here and Nikki can continue." But Nikki's like, "No."

Dr. Becky 5:26 Hmm.

Myriam Sandler 5:27 "The tower is ruined."

Dr. Becky 5:28 It seems like once something doesn't go the exact way Nikki wanted it to, she really struggles. It's as if she has such a clear idea of what she wants, which is amazing, and yet sometimes this can get in her way because it can stop her from continuing to play when her sister does something that was outside her vision. So what's really going on here? Well, I'm thinking it must feel so bad to Nikki when things shift on her that she can't access flexibility and find a thought like, "This isn't exactly the way I wanted it to be, but it's good enough and I can keep going I think so many times as parents, we kind of know where we want our kids to go, and we rush there instead of just starting with whatever's right in front of us. I, and I know I do that with my own kids too, so I'll take my own advice and listen to this later.

Myriam Sandler 6:21 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 6:22 Um, so first thing first, I would think, is narrating exactly what's happening. Narrating is such a powerful tool because we can do so much. We can show a child how we see what's happening for her, and for all of us, kids and adults, when we feel seen, we start to calm down. And also, we can vary our tone and pacing in a way that kind of mirrors what our child's body just went through. So in this powerful non-verbal communication, we're showing a child that we really understand what's happening for her. Let me model what this would sound like because I think this will make more sense then. So Nikki, ugh, let me see if I got this right. You're building a tower in rainbow order, the real rainbow order, the exact order you know and you love and you can picture. You know what you want it to look like. You're so excited. You want it to be exactly that way, and then Emma comes in and she wants to play, and, ah, she wants to build, too. But now the rainbow order isn't the exact right order, and that all, oh, that just feels so bad. And it feels like, "Forget it. I don't even wanna do it anymore at all." [sighs] Is that right? It seems like I'm doing nothing. To me, that's actually almost, like, 90% of it. I'm just narrating what happened. I'm starting to build a story. Going back to that core idea that to learn how to regulate a feeling, we have to understand the feeling, and we understand things that we can narrate to ourselves and put a story t- to, and kind of quilt together. And because I'm narrating it, I'm giving permission for it in a way because I'm naming it. I'm in it. Tell me your thoughts of that. Is that, like, ever something you've ever tried, or how do you think... 'Cause kids respond to that in different ways. What do you think-

Myriam Sandler 8:07 Yeah

Dr. Becky 8:07 ... Nikki would do with that?

Myriam Sandler 8:08 It's interesting you bring that up because every time I do start with something like that-

Dr. Becky 8:14 Mm-hmm

Myriam Sandler 8:14 ... she kind of, like, takes it in herself to be in the moment and kind of, like, come down-

Dr. Becky 8:21 Mm

Myriam Sandler 8:21 ... from that black area to, like, starting to see white again because it's kind of like replaying it but outside of her.

Dr. Becky 8:30 Yes.

Myriam Sandler 8:32 So I do think that that helps-

Dr. Becky 8:34 Yeah

Myriam Sandler 8:34 ... a lot, for sure. It's just not something that I go to immediately. I'm trying to solve the problem, always. Let me see what I can do right now to end the screaming, to end the fighting, rather than sitting there, taking those minutes to cope with the feeling.

Dr. Becky 8:51 And look, I think that's so amazing to realize in yourself, and, and trust me, again, with my kids, when I'm not giving-

Myriam Sandler 8:57 Yeah

Dr. Becky 8:57 ... other people my own thoughts, and I'm just in it with my kids, I do the same thing also-

Myriam Sandler 9:01 Yeah

Dr. Becky 9:01 ... because we see our kids distressed, and it brings up our distress.

Myriam Sandler 9:05 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 9:05 And then we think we're solving their problem. We're just solving our own problem through shutting down-

Myriam Sandler 9:09 Right

Dr. Becky 9:09 ... their [laughs] meltdown. We're like, "We're just, I just wanna go back to the kitchen and finish cooking."

Myriam Sandler 9:14 That's right. [laughs]

Dr. Becky 9:14 "And this is, like, really inconvenient, so please stop this. So here's what you can do instead," right? But what ends up happening, if that's the general pattern, is it's kind of this intergenerational transmission of I don't wanna feel distressed, then you feel distressed, I feel distressed, I shut down mine, we shut down yours-

Myriam Sandler 9:29 That's right

Dr. Becky 9:30 ... and we're all in the same place, right? So-

Myriam Sandler 9:31 Yeah

Dr. Becky 9:32 ... we all do this. To me, a big difference in our building our kids' resilience is how our kid feels our presence in their difficult feelings versus whether they feel alone. And if you think about solving our kids' problems, there's almost an irony to it. When we're solving a problem quickly, we're also taking them out of that emotion to, like, a-

Myriam Sandler 9:53 Right

Dr. Becky 9:54 ... more pleasant one. And so what actually gets encoded in their body sometimes is, "Oh, so the next time I feel frustration with something not going my way, I'm kind of just as alone as I was before." Because if there's not someone to take me out of the feeling, I haven't learned that anyone is in this feeling with me.

Myriam Sandler 10:11 That's right.

Dr. Becky 10:12 So to me, that's always, like, an extra motivator to be like, "Okay, yes, Becky, like, this is really stressful, and whatever I'm cooking on the stove is, like, probably burning right now, and I'm gonna end up having cereal for dinner," and right? [laughs] Which is kind of delicious sometimes.

Myriam Sandler 10:26 Which is delicious, but okay. [laughs]

Dr. Becky 10:27 Uh, uh, like, 100%, my favorite dinner. But so many good things are happening right now, and I think reminding ourselves of that is really key because it reminds us, like, this is a good moment. This isn't a bad moment. This is a bang for my buck moment, not a distractor moment, or not a detractor moment. So if you are gonna see it that way, if you're like, "Oh, everything good with Nikki's gonna happen here," like, everything good-

Myriam Sandler 10:51 Yeah

Dr. Becky 10:51 ... is, the longer I can tolerate her distress, the longer she's going to be able to tolerate her own distress, right? And I think that-

Myriam Sandler 11:01 Yes

Dr. Becky 11:01 ... there is a direct relationship there. So let's say you say this to her, right? You kind of narrate because you've b- given yourself permission. I don't have to take away the distress, right? Resilience isn't getting out of frustration. Resilience is tolerating frustration, right? It's like being in frustration-

Myriam Sandler 11:21 Yeah

Dr. Becky 11:21 ... not getting out of it.

Myriam Sandler 11:23 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 11:23 The frustration kind of ends when it ends, right? So you've narrated this, but let's, let's say she's like, "Yes, that's exactly what happens, and I'm not doing it, Mom. I'm not doing it. No more tower. No. Emma ruins everything," or something like that.

Myriam Sandler 11:37 Yes. Sounds-

Dr. Becky 11:38 Okay

Myriam Sandler 11:38 ... accurate.

Dr. Becky 11:39 Right. So then what? Well, we just did this amazing narration, and we stayed with the feeling, and it seems like our kid is still as stuck as ever. Narration is one of the best strategies we have to connect with where our child is in that moment, and now that we've shown our kid she's not alone, now that we really get where she's at, now that we've built up that connection capital, we can now maybe add some agency or move things forward by adding a type of choice. It might sound like this. Look, sweetie, I guess you kind of have a choice right now. You can choose to say, "No more building. It all feels too bad," or my guess is you can find a way to make this tower still feel great, even if it's different from what you had imagined. This is tricky, I see that. And also, you're a kid who can handle tricky things and figure things out. Okay, let me pause and step out of that role play to talk a little bit about these words, this you're a kid who sentence starter. Here's the main idea. Our kids respond to the version of themselves we reflect back. So often when our kids are struggling, we reflect back a version that they're trying to shift out of, not stay in or grow, meaning we say, "You never clean your room," or, "You're so irresponsible," or in this case maybe, "Nikki, you can be so difficult." We want our kids to know that we see their problem-solving abilities, we see their flexibility. If our kids are going to grow these qualities, we have to make this possible by what we reflect back. So let's bring that all together. Giving a choice after narration and being mindful of which part of our child we're reinforcing might sound like this: Seems like you have a choice, sweetie. You can decide that this didn't go the way you wanted it to and that things feel too bad to continue, or you can remind yourself that you're a kid who can figure out tricky things like building when things don't go the way you initially wanted them to. And then after that, I could see you, Myriam, walking away and saying like, "I'm gonna go back to the kitchen, and I'm curious about what's gonna happen next." The reason I would do that, for my kids, they would need a little space after that. Like, they wouldn't wanna feel like, "Now I'm just gonna build a tower 'cause my mom said," or, "My mom now is, it feels like they're watching me." So in a way, I'm like coming in, I'm narrating. I'm kind of getting into that moment with them. And then when I feel that opening, I might give that choice, and I really mean it. It's not reverse psychology. Like, you can choose to be done. Okay.

Myriam Sandler 14:15 Right.

Dr. Becky 14:15 Or you can choose to do this other thing. I trust you to figure it out. And then I would walk away. 'Cause I think actually giving our kids space actually re- encourages them to try new things, and it, it really says to someone, "I trust you." Right? And I know, again, you're just like, "I wanna raise girls who feel good about themselves, and who feel like they're their own person, and they have independence." So-

Myriam Sandler 14:37 Yes

Dr. Becky 14:37 ... I'm coming in to regulate, but then I'm also, and I'm giving you a message that I trust you, and then I'm giving you space. Tell me what you think about that.

Myriam Sandler 14:45 This whole time that you've been explaining this, I feel like I think about it as myself as an adult, and my parents did none of this.

Dr. Becky 14:55 Mm-hmm.

Myriam Sandler 14:56 But the way that I cope with frustration is kind of talking myself down.

Dr. Becky 15:01 Hmm.

Myriam Sandler 15:02 In my own mind. I'm, I have conversations with myself, basically.

Dr. Becky 15:07 Yeah.

Myriam Sandler 15:07 And in my mind I'm like, "Okay, this is the scenario. This is what happened. These are the possible outcomes, and this is, um, my best possible outcome in this moment right now."

Dr. Becky 15:19 Uh-huh.

Myriam Sandler 15:19 This is what I do for myself.

Dr. Becky 15:21 Yeah.

Myriam Sandler 15:21 And this is nothing that my parents did, but at some point this kind of like started happening to me.

Dr. Becky 15:27 Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Myriam Sandler 15:28 And it's my form of coming down from that.

Dr. Becky 15:31 I'm so glad you're connecting that, that the things that tend to help us, the things that we tend to need in our tough times, they're the same elements our kids need. Such a good point. Okay, so we've thought through what to do in this hard moment. Let's think about what we can do to build skills outside of the moment. Because I think for me sometimes with my kids, when stuff like this happens over and over, which of course it does, our kids struggle with the same themes, and they just keep popping up in different ways, one of the things I try to think about is, okay, so there's the moment it happens, but what I really need to do is kind of store data in those moments to use later, right? Because I don't know about you, if I'm not acting my best toward my partner, toward my husband, that's not gonna be the best time for him to talk about my anger. [laughs] No.

Myriam Sandler 16:16 No. It's always, it's always a bad idea. My husband actually calls me the cold shoulder because I, in that moment I'm just like, "I'll be back later," because in that moment it will, it will not be good.

Dr. Becky 16:30 Right. [laughs] Not good. So you store it, and you figure it out later, but then we have to hold ourselves to the later. So what is this core struggle for Nikki? It's something about I want things to go a certain way, and I can get blinders on, and then it's hard to be flexible. Again, a quality you don't want her to lose in some ways. How awesome that she's so aware of what she wants, right? So again, how can we just harness that? So let's talk about how to kind of prepare for those moments, 'cause I think we really build skills outside the heat of the moment. So what I would say to take it a step further, I would love you to do more things with her where you get that same almost like huffy, puffy shutdown. So maybe it's in a project, or if they know you tend to kind of be experimenting there, maybe it's something a little different that would be a little, you know, new for them. Maybe it's, you know, drawing a certain figure or something like that, and you're working on drawing a person. You know, it could be something so simple like that, and I would do this right next to Nikki, right? So to me, the most powerful moments with our kids is when they kind of, quote, just happen to witness us doing something. Right? Of course, sometimes it's maybe a little pre-planted on, on our... And, and I would be drawing, right? Let's, it could be anything. It could be a person. It could even be I'm trying to draw a great five-pointed star, right? And you do it, and you're just like, "That is not the way I wanted it to go. No." Or maybe you're doing something, and your husband is like, "Ooh, I wanna do this with you," and he adds something. You're like, "Uh, what?" 'Cause maybe that kind of mimics what happens between your girls. "What? Now the whole picture is ruined." And you kind of plan this out, and he says, "Myriam, it's not ruined. It's just different from what y- You thought it would be, right? And you, I would s- if I were you, I'd say, "No," and then whatever Nikki would do, right?

Myriam Sandler 18:21 Yes.

Dr. Becky 18:22 And then just pause. And I could see whispering to Nikki. I, I love using a whisper voice to kind of alternate it, create something, like, intimate, like, "Oh, what do you think I should do? What should I do? Do you think the whole thing's ruined? Is there any way... Ugh." And then I would put words to this. "Ugh, I really want it to go one way. Your dad wanted to help with the drawing, but then it's different from what I had in my mind. In my mind, this was gonna be, like, all hearts and stars, and he added, like, these flowers, and he added, like, this football, and I, I didn't want that. And, like, that's not... Ugh, I don't..." Do you know what I mean? And even if she just says something that I would consider off-script, like, "You're right, Mom, throw it away," and you're like-

Myriam Sandler 19:01 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 19:01 ... "Oh, well, that was..." You know? Even if she says that, I'd be like, "Ugh, sometimes it does feel like when something doesn't go exactly the way I had imagined that it is something we should just stop and put in the trash. Ugh. I know sometimes it does feel like that. I'm just gonna take a moment." And then I'd introduce, like, a little mantra. "This didn't go the way I wanted. I can cope with it and still make it great." Something like that. "Okay, wait, I wanna say that one more time. Sorry. This is just actually helping me a little bit, so I'm just gonna

Dr. Becky 19:31 say it one more time. This didn't go the way I wanted. I can get through this. I can still make it great. Okay." And then I could see whispering to Nikki, "I'm still not that happy. I'm still not that happy about the football." To me, what's really key there is I think it's really important to model realistic regulation. Too often we see our kid, they're struggling learning how to tie their shoes, and then we're like, "Yeah, I'm gonna help them out. See? We just take a deep breath and then we try it again." Like, no. [laughs]

Myriam Sandler 20:03 Right. Right.

Dr. Becky 20:03 That's not, that's not really what it looks like, right? And also, when you're dealing with something less than ideal, the best you get is coping with it and accepting it. You don't have to like the fact that your husband made a different drawing than you wanted, and Nikki doesn't have to like the fact that Emma doesn't know the colors in order of the rainbow. We're trying to work with her just tolerating it enough to stay engaged and stay creative and stay involved. She can still end saying, "That kind of stinks. I didn't want it to look like that." But that would be a step beyond what she can do now. So I think sometimes we go to, and you were saying the solution, we go to, like, "But your sister's doing it that way and that's beautiful," or, "But you can just make another one on the side," and we offer all these alternatives that are also kind of feel-good alternatives.

Myriam Sandler 20:54 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 20:54 But that's actually not realistic. What's realistic is let's get through this moment and try to make it just a tiny bit better. And I think if you model that around her-

Myriam Sandler 21:04 Yes

Dr. Becky 21:05 ... it, it gets absorbed.

Myriam Sandler 21:07 Yes. Sometimes Emma, my three-year-old, will ruin some projects that I'm doing, and Nikki's eyes sparkle. She's like, "She's doing it to you, too."

Dr. Becky 21:18 Uh-huh.

Myriam Sandler 21:18 Like, uh-huh.

Dr. Becky 21:19 Yeah. Yeah.

Myriam Sandler 21:20 "What are you gonna do about it? Like, what's gonna happen?"

Dr. Becky 21:22 Yeah.

Myriam Sandler 21:23 And I could see it, like, actively happening, and it happens every time. Every time Emma does something and, and Nikki's, like, on the corner, like-

Dr. Becky 21:30 Yeah

Myriam Sandler 21:30 ... she's looking for either an explosion or a problem solve or a we're gonna sit down or a... She's looking for something. And it's possibly different every time. If it's, like, a really important project, I'm just, like, explosive. Or I'm just like, if it's not, not that important, or even if it's important and I, but I'm in a good mindset, it's like, "Oh, it's okay. We'll do it again. Doesn't matter. We have more glue."

Dr. Becky 21:53 Mm-hmm.

Myriam Sandler 21:53 "We'll try this one again." And she's looking for that. And it's interesting that you say model it, because she is looking, looking for it actively, like, what, what is Mom gonna do when little sister ruins her stuff?

Dr. Becky 22:06 Again, Myriam, you're noticing how you and Nikki are actually so similar, you have so much in common, and how actually you understand from your own experience how difficult it can be to work on something and then be so surprised by someone else jumping in and changing it. On that note, surprise. There's a way you can really help Nikki here. Being caught off guard, having something happen that you didn't expect, this is really hard for all of us. So one of the things you can start doing with Nikki when it's just the two of you is give her body a bit of a preview or practice for what might happen when Emma joins. Here's what this might look like. So you're playing alone with Nikki. Say maybe you're building a Magna-Tile tower. Then pause and say, "Oh, I wonder what would happen if Emma came in and wanted to add animals to this tower and you didn't want animals. Ooh, that would be so tricky. I wonder" ... And I would start with, "I wonder what that would feel like? Ooh." And just plant that seed, because then, and she might say, "Oh, that would be so annoying." I'd be like, "Oh, that is really hard when you wanna do one thing and someone else wants to join you. Ooh, that is really tricky. I wonder the different things we could do if that were to happen. Let's think, think of three different things." And I think a viable option sometimes is saying, "Hey, Emma, right now I have a really specific idea about what I wanna do with these blocks, and I don't want any help, 'cause I really want it to go that way." I think it's really important for her to feel the freedom. And actually, I think if she knows she has the freedom to say that, it becomes a little easier to tolerate the times that things don't go her way, because she kind of knows she has full ownership at other times, right?

Myriam Sandler 23:52 Yes.

Dr. Becky 23:53 And I would play that out with her. And then I, I, I'm gonna model it again, 'cause I, I, I feel like there's something to the ooh, and then what if, ooh, ooh, right? You're kind of, again, being a scientist there, like, "Ooh, I have another idea. Ooh, and what if? Ugh." And, right, our tone matters so much as we're kind of really getting into how it feels. "And what if you wanna do the rainbow thing again?" And you're like, "Here are the rainbow order," and then you look back. "Ugh," and then two colors are, like, not... In order. You don't even have to say that's hard-

Myriam Sandler 24:24 Yes

Dr. Becky 24:24 ... because in your tone, you're showing her that you get how hard that is.

Myriam Sandler 24:29 Yes.

Dr. Becky 24:29 So in that prep stage, you can first take on and act out the frustration yourself, and then we can do a couple things. We can model realistic regulation ourselves, which we just discussed, or you can do something else that's really powerful. You can act out the frustration and then pause without modeling the regulation and see what happens in that pause. See if your child offers you an idea, offers you a strategy, or maybe prompt her a bit, something like, "Any ideas of what I can do to calm my body?" So you're taking on this frustration, which is really hers in the first place, and you're really joining her in this way, right? So my kid feels less alone. Again, my kid feels less alone in the feeling if I'm doing the same thing. And then when we're doing that, our kid has access to their problem-solving because we're owning the part of them that's struggling, so they can own the part that's problem-solving, as opposed to what often happens, where our kid is struggling and we kind of own the problem-solving. We're totally reversing that.

Myriam Sandler 25:34 Right. We're letting them do the work.

Dr. Becky 25:37 Exactly. I love how you said that. We're letting a child do the work. That is so powerful. And while we've been talking, I keep thinking about another big theme that is clearly at play here, and that's siblinghood and how it's hard to be a younger sibling. We didn't even really talk that much about Emma. It's so hard to want to do things that you can't really do because-

Myriam Sandler 26:00 Yes

Dr. Becky 26:00 ... you're younger, and yet you really wanna do independently because you wanna be so much like this capable older sibling.

Myriam Sandler 26:06 Yes.

Dr. Becky 26:07 And it's really hard to be an older sibling who probably sometimes feels annoyed that a younger sibling is messing up their stuff, right? So to me, it's just so helpful every once in a while, even when someone's not expecting it, like you're having lunch one day with Nikki, and just saying, "Oh, isn't it being a big sister, like, it's like so many things, right? Like, sometimes it's great and so fun, and sometimes it's like, ugh, it's like really hard, right?"

Myriam Sandler 26:33 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 26:33 And just level with her on that.

Myriam Sandler 26:36 Yes. You just kind of like validate the feelings that she's probably already feeling. A lot of things that I'm guilty of is like, "You should be grateful that you have a sister. You need to take care of your sister."

Dr. Becky 26:48 Mm-hmm.

Myriam Sandler 26:48 Like, "You're, you don't even know how lucky you are to have a sister." Like, saying those types of things out loud is hurtful in, I think, in the long run because you're like, "You just, just be grateful." Like, when, when, when you're feeling sad about something and somebody is like, "Just be grateful you have your health."

Dr. Becky 27:06 Right. You, you have some, like, choice words you wanna say back, right? That we won't say on air.

Myriam Sandler 27:10 Exactly.

Dr. Becky 27:11 [laughs]

Myriam Sandler 27:11 Exactly.

Dr. Becky 27:12 It is really hard, and I think a, a couple things. It's one of the things I love so much about you. You're so amazing, Myriam, at kind of looking at something and reflecting on it with an openness and curiosity toward yourself, not a judgment, of like, "Oh, I, I do that. I don't think that's great," right?

Myriam Sandler 27:27 Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Becky 27:27 And that's such an amazing attitude. It's so, it's probably one of the reasons you can be so creative and create so many things, is that you're so open to kind of trying and not judging, so-

Myriam Sandler 27:35 Right

Dr. Becky 27:36 ... so amazing to always see that in you-

Myriam Sandler 27:37 Thank you

Dr. Becky 27:37 ... in so many ways and showing up here.

Myriam Sandler 27:39 Thank you.

Dr. Becky 27:39 And it's interesting at this point to kind of come to what actually we started with, and I wanna link back to that. We can only regulate the feelings we allow ourselves to have, so let's use that. I feel angry toward my sibling. Sometimes we feel so angry at a sibling that in that moment what feels loudest is, "I wish I didn't even have a sister," right? And I think we hear these things, we're like, "Ah," right? As if that's the whole truth. It's just-

Myriam Sandler 28:03 Yeah

Dr. Becky 28:03 ... in the moment, right? And let's say like-

Myriam Sandler 28:05 Same with, "I hate you," when they go, "I hate you."

Dr. Becky 28:07 Exactly. I hate you, right? So what happens to say, "I hate you"? I'm always, what, that's just the tip of the iceberg. What led to that moment? I felt frustrated. I felt something I wanted got ruined-

Myriam Sandler 28:20 Yes

Dr. Becky 28:21 ... by you, right? Probably.

Myriam Sandler 28:22 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 28:22 So if the first steps of regulating is allowing ourselves to have a feeling, the narrative of, "I should be feeling a h- pleasant, happy feeling instead of the feeling I'm feeling" is one of the biggest things that gets in our way of learning to regulate the feeling, because we can't regulate a feeling we tell ourselves we're not supposed to have. So if I feel frustrated and the narrative is, "Get to grateful, get to grateful. Where's the grateful? Where's the grateful? Should only feel grateful," now not only do I not know how to regulate the frustration, but I'm adding shame and blame to that frustration because it's an awful feeling to feel a feeling in your body that you think you shouldn't be feeling. You're like, "Oh, my body-

Myriam Sandler 29:00 Yes

Dr. Becky 29:00 ... is like working against me. What's wrong with me?" That's the what's-

Myriam Sandler 29:03 Yes

Dr. Becky 29:03 ... wrong with me narrative, right? So I think a really powerful reframe for parents is, especially with siblings, is I don't want my kids to have only positive feelings toward their sibling. I want them to get pretty good at understanding and regulating the tougher feelings they have, because then actually those feelings won't act themselves out as much in behavior, right?

Myriam Sandler 29:28 Right.

Dr. Becky 29:28 Our feelings are forces. I always like to imagine it that way, and what that means is if we don't know how to regulate a feeling and don't feel like it's okay to have that feeling inside of us, if a feeling is a force, then it literally has to explode out of us as a behavior. Our behaviors-

Myriam Sandler 29:46 Right

Dr. Becky 29:47 ... the, "I'm not doing this," and, "You can't build with me," even the, "I hate you," is to me a sign, oh, there was some feeling that felt too big and too unmanageable inside that it had to explode outside, right?

Myriam Sandler 30:01 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 30:01 So I love saying proactively to my kids, "It's okay to have so many feelings about your sibling, and sometimes we have many feelings at once. You can feel like you love your sister and you're so happy to have a sister, and- You can also feel very annoyed that your sister is playing with the same blocks. In our family, we understand that you can be mad at the same person you love, and that's something I'm gonna keep reminding you of. So when the rainbow tower doesn't go the way you want, I think two things are true. In that moment, you love your sister and you're very mad at her that she totally changed the direction of what this tower was going to be. I get that. That is going to help her stay engaged and regulate the feeling, right? The feelings are never the problem. It's the regulating of the feelings.

Myriam Sandler 30:55 Yes.

Dr. Becky 30:55 And so many of us were brought up, "Get rid of the feeling. Get rid of the feeling. Get to the happy feeling." And so that is our knee-jerk response-

Myriam Sandler 31:02 That's right

Dr. Becky 31:02 ... versus wait, we all have every feeling.

Myriam Sandler 31:05 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 31:05 Right? You have every feeling, I'm sure, toward the people you love in your life, too.

Myriam Sandler 31:09 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 31:09 Right? I don't know if every day you're like, "I'm just so grateful I have a husband. I'm just so grateful."

Myriam Sandler 31:13 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 31:13 Like, no, there's some days you're like, "Oh, my husband's really annoying me." It doesn't mean you're not grateful.

Myriam Sandler 31:17 Right.

Dr. Becky 31:17 It just means that's not the loudest thing-

Myriam Sandler 31:19 That's right

Dr. Becky 31:19 ... right then, right? And actually, the more we regulate those tough feelings, the more space there is for those other feelings to surface.

Myriam Sandler 31:29 When I tell my six-year-old, "No matter how mad I am with you, I'll always love you," she, like, starts crying.

Dr. Becky 31:36 Yes.

Myriam Sandler 31:37 And it's just like-

Dr. Becky 31:37 Yes

Myriam Sandler 31:37 ... so powerful to see, okay, she's mad but she still loves me. Yes.

Dr. Becky 31:43 Yes. You know, the other day I was playing with my three-and-a-half-year-old, and we were playing family. And I was the dad, and he was the mom. This is always the roles we have when we play family.

Myriam Sandler 31:53 [laughs]

Dr. Becky 31:53 And he looks at me, and he just goes, "Do you know that even when you're at work I love you? Even when I'm not with you I love you." And it was just so poignant, 'cause I was like this is what kids are trying to figure out.

Myriam Sandler 32:06 Yes.

Dr. Becky 32:06 This is on their mind all the time.

Myriam Sandler 32:08 All the time.

Dr. Becky 32:09 Right? And so even between siblings, right, we wanna teach them between siblings you can love your sister and not wanna play with her. You can feel very angry at her, and all of us still know-

Myriam Sandler 32:22 Yes

Dr. Becky 32:22 ... that you have a close relationship with her. And I, I can't help myself but going to the next step, which is knowing that you're pregnant.

Myriam Sandler 32:30 Yes.

Dr. Becky 32:31 [laughs] And there's another girl coming.

Myriam Sandler 32:34 Yes.

Dr. Becky 32:34 And to me, I think it's so empowering to say to our kids, "It's okay to have a lot of feelings about having a new baby coming." And I love to make things concrete for kids because feelings, it's like so confusing. Like, what is that?

Myriam Sandler 32:49 Yes.

Dr. Becky 32:49 And so I still remember what I said to my kids when I was pregnant with each other one, is, and I would kind of touch my arm just to make it kind like, "It's okay. Like, this part of your body might feel like so excited, so excited, can't wait, can't wait. And this part of your body might feel like nervous, like ooh."

Myriam Sandler 33:04 Changes.

Dr. Becky 33:04 "It's four of us. What is-"

Myriam Sandler 33:06 Yeah

Dr. Becky 33:07 ... "what is that gonna be like? And this part of your body," just some other part, "might feel like mad, like 'Oh, I think we're fine as we are.' Like, w- is this not... Like, I'm kind of mad." And we can have all those different feelings.

Myriam Sandler 33:18 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 33:18 And I still remember when my oldest, when I had my second, he came to me, and he actually goes, "This part of my body's glad you had a baby, but this part of my body misses when it was just us." And I was just like, that to me was part of his regulating strategy.

Myriam Sandler 33:34 Yeah.

Dr. Becky 33:35 Right?

Myriam Sandler 33:35 He took what you said and applied it, which is really incredible.

Dr. Becky 33:39 And I think that's what our kids, they, they're sponges. So the more you give permission just for a range of feelings, the more we're teaching Nikki to regulate them. We're teaching her how to regulate frustration by your modeling it and prepping-

Myriam Sandler 33:53 Yes

Dr. Becky 33:53 ... and narrating. And the part of this that might not just be about frustration, but is also just about all the feelings about siblinghood and how, and her... Sometimes older kids feel like they have to take a backseat and understand that someone's younger, and understand that they don't understand the color of the rainbow yet, and that's frustrating, too. So that could also be contributing to the like kind of, "I'm not doing anything."

Myriam Sandler 34:17 When we told the girls that we were expecting, they were jumping up and down. They were so excited. And then I remember that same night, Nikki comes to me and she's like, "Mom, another baby monster?" In my mind I'm like, this is how she thinks of her baby sister. And now she's like, "There's gonna be another one?" And the way she said it to me is, I was like, "We're having another baby."

Dr. Becky 34:40 [laughs]

Myriam Sandler 34:40 [laughs] "And but don't worry, she's six years younger than you."

Dr. Becky 34:46 So what I would really encourage, just to kind of bring this together again in this theme of we wanna help our kids sit with and allow themselves to have a range of feelings, the widest range of feelings, rather than give them the message that they should have a narrow range. 'Cause the narrower of a range we tell our kids they, quote, "should have," anything outside the range becomes immediately impossible to regulate, because they're learning from us what's allowed and not allowed. So at some point if it feels right, I would probably encourage you to have a conversation with Nikki that says, and I love the language of parts because it allows us to kind of sit with conflict instead of resolve everything into one.

Myriam Sandler 35:29 Yes.

Dr. Becky 35:29 I don't think the truth is that she's excited or the truth is that she thinks this is a monster. I think both of them are there, right?

Myriam Sandler 35:36 That's right.

Dr. Becky 35:36 Just like I'm sure for you, part of you's so excited and part of you's like, "Oh my goodness, what, what [laughs] are we doing?"

Myriam Sandler 35:41 Yes.

Dr. Becky 35:41 Right? And-

Myriam Sandler 35:41 Yes

Dr. Becky 35:42 ... one's not more true than the other. They're just both true. So I would say, "You know what it, it makes me think about," or, "Nikki, I was thinking about, you know, I'm having this baby, and it is okay to have so many different feelings. It's okay to be so excited about a new baby, and you're gonna be so much older, and to feel like, 'Oh, that's gonna be so great for me.' And it's okay if another part of you feels a little nervous. And when you said baby monster, that lets me know that a part of you knows that siblings can be kind of hard."

Myriam Sandler 36:13 Yes.

Dr. Becky 36:13 "And that's okay." And then I think a step further, "I'm so glad you feel comfortable talking to me about all the different things you feel." And I think sometimes when we just tell our kids, "Don't worry," or, "We don't have to think about it like that," we're also kind of saying, "I don't wanna hear, I don't really wanna hear that. I wanna hear more-" This. So I think that would be a really powerful conversation, and leads into the conversation about her having to share play space and negotiate things with Emma.

Myriam Sandler 36:42 Yes.

Dr. Becky 36:42 And also is just gonna set you up really well for when this new baby comes, that the more comfortable both of your kids are with the range of feelings that are coming, the more they can say to those feelings when they arrive, "Oh, it makes sense. I kind of knew I would have this feeling," which is getting you on the path toward regulating instead of acting that feeling out. So let me know how it all goes.

Myriam Sandler 37:01 I will.

Dr. Becky 37:02 Look forward to hearing more.

Myriam Sandler 37:03 Thank you so much for this. This is awesome. [upbeat music]

Dr. Becky 37:10 I love talking with Myriam. I think we can all relate to tricky sibling dynamics and to how hard it is to be flexible when things don't go the way you wanted them to. Let's tie it all together with three takeaways. First, the power of narration. When your child is frustrated, pause, breathe, and tell the story of what just happened. No need to solve or come up with some insight. Just talk slowly and name what happened. By doing this, you add coherence and connection to a moment that felt really bad for your child, and these elements help a child regulate, feel safe again, and reengage. Two, model realistic regulation. I always think about how us adults, we forget how capable we are as compared to our kids, who are learning everything. So if your child gets frustrated in art, make sure you too draw a picture that doesn't go the way you wanted it to, and then don't make it perfect right after, but instead model what realistic regulation looks like, which often means taking a breath, maybe saying something nice to yourself, and then tolerating something that feels hard. It might sound like this: "Ugh, that flower's too big. I don't like how it looks. Okay, okay, okay. Deep breaths. Deep breaths. I can keep drawing even if the flower isn't perfect." Third, we don't need to change feelings. We wanna help our kids have all of their feelings, which means they'll learn to manage all of their feelings, which means they are less and less likely over time to have those feelings show up in behavior. This is true everywhere, and definitely in sibling relationships. The more we normalize having a range of feelings towards siblings, the less likely we are to see those tough feelings, the jealousy, the anger, the competitiveness, come out in difficult behavior or nasty words. [upbeat music] Thanks for listening to Good Inside. Let's stay connected. At goodinside.com, you can sign up for workshops and subscribe to Good Insider, my weekly email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox. And for more ideas and tips, check out my Instagram, drbeckyatgoodinside. Good Inside is produced by Beth Rowe and Brad Gage, and executive produced by Erica Belsky and me, Dr. Becky. Please rate and review our show. Let us know what you think and what resonated. I actually do read each and every review, so please know that your feedback is meaningful to me. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle and even as I have a hard time on the outside, I remain good inside. [upbeat music]