How Do I Keep My Patience as a Parent and Not Lose It?

1. 0:00 – 0:22

   Why parents feel “fine until they explode”

   1. BEDr. Becky0:00

      People say to me, "Why am I fine until I explode?"

   2. SPSpeaker0:03

      What I've heard is, "Lock yourself in the apartment for three days. Let them run around naked."

   3. SPSpeaker0:07

      "That, that."

   4. BEDr. Becky0:08

      Yeah.

   5. SPSpeaker0:08

      And I'm like, "What is that?"

   6. BEDr. Becky0:10

      Listening to understand versus listening to fix or prove.

   7. SPSpeaker0:14

      Is that really the best way?

   8. BEDr. Becky0:16

      How do I just not lose it?

   9. SPSpeaker0:18

      I think generally speaking he's like a agent of chaos sometimes.

2. 0:22 – 0:36

   Potty training myths and the “three days naked” approach

   1. SPSpeaker0:22

      So we are like starting to talk about potty training her.

   2. BEDr. Becky0:26

      Mm-hmm.

   3. SPSpeaker0:26

      What I've heard is, "Lock yourself in the apartment for three days. Let them run around naked." I'm like, "I don't really have time to do that." [laughs] Is that really the best way?

3. 0:36 – 1:00

   Shift focus from outcome (pee/poop) to the learning process

   1. BEDr. Becky0:36

      People talk about potty stuff, like very rigidly.

   2. SPSpeaker0:39

      Yeah, yeah.

   3. BEDr. Becky0:39

      I think first important it's about what is it really about? We all focus on like peeing-

   4. SPSpeaker0:44

      Yeah

   5. BEDr. Becky0:44

      ... and pooping in the potty.

   6. SPSpeaker0:45

      Yeah.

   7. BEDr. Becky0:46

      But it's important, that is the result of a process.

   8. SPSpeaker0:49

      Mm-hmm.

   9. BEDr. Becky0:50

      And a parent's job is to focus on the process.

   10. SPSpeaker0:52

       Yeah.

   11. BEDr. Becky0:52

       Because the more we even focus on the outcome, kids get really resistant, 'cause it's kind of the one area of life they can control and they're like, "Whoa, stay in your lane."

   12. SPSpeaker0:59

       Yeah.

4. 1:00 – 1:18

   Set up a low-pressure environment with accessible potties

   1. BEDr. Becky1:00

      The thing that I would do at a young age is I would just put some potties out.

   2. SPSpeaker1:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. BEDr. Becky1:03

      No pressure. Get the ones on the floor.

   4. SPSpeaker1:05

      Yeah.

   5. BEDr. Becky1:06

      Mommy has a toilet where I can have my feet on the ground, and you have a toilet where you can have your feet on the ground.

   6. SPSpeaker1:11

      Yeah.

   7. BEDr. Becky1:11

      Same, same. But don't even say, "Do you wanna sit? Do you wanna sit?" Because then kids read, "Whoa, this is kind of my one domain. Now I'm less interested."

   8. SPSpeaker1:18

      Yeah.

5. 1:18 – 2:25

   Teach body awareness: narrating sensations and bathroom routines

   1. BEDr. Becky1:18

      Don't do it. The biggest thing about the process that we want kids to learn is increased awareness of their body sign.

   2. SPSpeaker1:24

      Mm.

   3. BEDr. Becky1:25

      It's a way of saying to your kid, "You are the owner of your body."

   4. SPSpeaker1:28

      Mm-hmm.

   5. BEDr. Becky1:28

      "You know your feelings best."

   6. SPSpeaker1:30

      Yeah.

   7. BEDr. Becky1:30

      And so starting to say around her, "Mommy has that feeling. Oh, I think it's that feeling where I have to pee."

   8. SPSpeaker1:38

      Mm.

   9. BEDr. Becky1:38

      "Let me check." And then she can watch you go to the bathroom.

   10. SPSpeaker1:42

       Yeah.

   11. BEDr. Becky1:42

       If you're comfortable, I say let her come in. Sit, don't pee right away.

   12. SPSpeaker1:46

       Yeah.

   13. BEDr. Becky1:46

       Because that's not how it looks like for kids. "Oh, is that, do I have to?"

   14. SPSpeaker1:49

       Yeah.

   15. BEDr. Becky1:50

       "No. Oh, wait, let me wait a little long. Oh, I did."

   16. SPSpeaker1:53

       Yeah.

   17. BEDr. Becky1:53

       "And now I'm peeing." It seems silly, but the arc of I'm recognizing a feeling-

   18. SPSpeaker1:59

       Yeah

   19. BEDr. Becky1:59

       ... that means I have to walk to the potty, now I have to sit, then I have to figure out how to release it.

   20. SPSpeaker2:04

       Yeah.

   21. BEDr. Becky2:04

       That's what it's about, and it's actually all just about, "Oh my goodness-"

   22. SPSpeaker2:07

       [laughs]

   23. BEDr. Becky2:07

       "... is that my leg?" It's all about understanding your body.

   24. SPSpeaker2:11

       Yeah.

   25. BEDr. Becky2:12

       And that's something even at a young age, the more you do that early, you're kind of voicing over noticing the process.

   26. SPSpeaker2:18

       Yeah.

   27. BEDr. Becky2:19

       And you have potty options around. So many kids will make so much progress on their own.

   28. SPSpeaker2:25

       Yeah.

6. 2:25 – 3:35

   Why accidents are helpful (and how to respond)

   1. BEDr. Becky2:25

      Where potty training goes wrong is we focus so much on the outcome. Did you pee? Did you poop? That's actually not the focus. We want to help our kid learn to recognize what's happening inside. Not only is that going to lead to truly successful potty training, that's gonna be the building block of everything else we care about, confidence, self-trust, feeling like you know yourself. The other one thing I wanna say about potty is we actually want accidents to happen. I don't know any good sports coach who said, "When you're in practice, I want perfect, perfect, perfect. I want you to make every three-pointer." What? The only way you're gonna get better form as a three-point shooter is messing up a little and saying, "Oh, I wonder why that happened. What would I do differently the next time?" That's how you're gonna make the big shot in the big game. So when your kid has an accident, I want you to say to yourself, "This is part of the process. I actually want this to happen. This doesn't mean things are going wrong. This means my kid is exactly where they need to be. This is how they learn." And that's what the potty process is really all about.

7. 3:35 – 3:54

   Paternity leave handoff: avoiding the trap of preventing all feelings

   1. SPSpeaker3:35

      So I just recently took over paternity leave and my wife, who went back to work. What's some good tips or tricks to, like, make sure together as, like, we're parenting in this, like kind of baton hand off where he's a little bit more mature, he's doing more fun things. He may say, "Dada" a little bit more than Mama these days too.

   2. SPSpeaker3:53

      Mm-hmm.

8. 3:54 – 4:47

   Partnership skill: listening to understand (not fix or prove)

   1. BEDr. Becky3:54

      Whenever someone asks me, like, "How do I do this without my kid getting upset?" Or, "How do I manage this without my wife feeling guilty or resentful?" I think we're actually setting ourselves up for failure. Your wife might feel guilty. And actually in some ways not making that the boogeyman and instead shifting to, so if that happens, like, how do we communicate about that?

   2. SPSpeaker4:11

      Right.

   3. BEDr. Becky4:11

      I think that's probably the most underestimated thing in any partnership is just listening to understand versus listening to fix or prove.

   4. SPSpeaker4:19

      Yeah. Yeah.

   5. BEDr. Becky4:19

      And so listening to understand, I think is a key thing in a partnership and knowing your wife's gonna see things differently than you do. And actually just trying to understand it doesn't mean you agree, but it's usually the thing that helps simmer things down a little bit.

   6. SPSpeaker4:33

      Yeah, that makes sense.

   7. BEDr. Becky4:34

      Tell me some of the challenges.

   8. SPSpeaker4:36

      I think generally speaking, he's, uh, he's like a agent of chaos sometimes-

   9. BEDr. Becky4:40

      Uh-huh

   10. SPSpeaker4:40

       ... which isn't a bad thing. Um, for me personally, I can manage chaos well, where for her it's not always the easiest.

9. 4:47 – 5:19

   You don’t have to parent identically—build a shared language

   1. BEDr. Becky4:47

      I hope this feels relieving. Parents don't have to see things the same way. We are always going to see certain situations differently, but what really helps a marriage through parenting is saying, okay, let's say my wife likes a certain book, or you see a certain workshop that you liked, just being able to say, "Hey, could you watch this also? And it's okay if you don't agree. It's not about this being right, but at least if we watch the same thing, we can talk about it. And then even if we're not on the same page, we speak the same language."

   2. SPSpeaker5:15

      Yeah.

   3. BEDr. Becky5:15

      And I think that's what's so key.

10. 5:19 – 6:10

    Toddlers communicate before they can talk: validating the frustration

    1. SPSpeaker5:19

       He's pointing to things he can't really tell me yet.

    2. BEDr. Becky5:22

       Yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker5:22

       He's like, "That, that," and I'm like-

    4. BEDr. Becky5:23

       Yeah

    5. SPSpeaker5:24

       ... "What is that?" [laughs]

    6. BEDr. Becky5:25

       Yeah.

    7. SPSpeaker5:25

       So being able to, like, communicate with him has just been a new challenge.

    8. BEDr. Becky5:29

       I think so many people think, "Oh, at this age, like, what do they know?" Or, "They still a blob," or, "They're not gonna remember this," or ... But they are communicating.

    9. SPSpeaker5:37

       Oh, yeah.

    10. BEDr. Becky5:37

        And in some ways it, it's the most frustrating form of communication. They really do know what they want.

    11. SPSpeaker5:42

        Yeah.

    12. BEDr. Becky5:42

        There have been times, I remember them over and over, where I knew my kid knew what they wanted, but I had no idea, right?

    13. SPSpeaker5:51

        Oh, yeah.

    14. BEDr. Becky5:51

        And, and so even saying that, I swear, would calm my kid down. I would say, "I know you know what you want. I don't understand, but I kn- You know I believe you. I'm sorry. I can't figure it out. And i- I swear my kid, like, really received that, even at this age

11. 6:10 – 6:56

    Safety boundaries + feelings: ‘I won’t give you scissors’

    1. SPSpeaker6:10

       Being able to understand that he's his own person is just an interesting process to, like, going from just existing to being an actual person who has his own feelings. I'm like, "Oh, you're, you're not gonna want the same thing I want for you," or grab- you want this, and I, I'm like, "You can't have the scissors." Like, does it, how do we process those emotions or feelings-

    2. BEDr. Becky6:29

       Right

    3. SPSpeaker6:29

       ... with that you really want this thing that's gonna hurt you?

    4. BEDr. Becky6:32

       One of the things I think as early as possible that we can practice with our kids is actually just doing the same thing that we're gonna end up doing when they're 3 and 13-

    5. SPSpeaker6:41

       Mm-hmm

    6. BEDr. Becky6:41

       ... which is some version of, "My number one job is to keep you safe. I'm not gonna give you the scissors. I know that's so annoying. You're allowed to be upset about it." And then maybe I give something else-

    7. SPSpeaker6:53

       Yeah

    8. BEDr. Becky6:53

       ... or maybe I just acknowledge kind of sometimes we don't get what we want-

    9. SPSpeaker6:56

       Yeah

12. 6:56 – 8:32

    Keeping your patience by naming limits earlier (before level 10)

    1. BEDr. Becky6:56

       ... and you're allowed to just feel that out. But for some reason for me, saying that out loud, "My number one job is to keep you safe," it kind of reminds me of, like, why I'm doing this. How do I just hold my patience and, like, not lose it? Yeah. And, like- Yeah ... how do you keep your peace? Yeah. So first of all, nobody has endless patience. Yeah. And I think it's especially us women, we've been kind of trained to just keep the peace, always be patient. But all that sets us up to do is ignore low levels of our own needs or annoyance, and then it sets us up to explode and feel guilty about it after. Right. So I think actually this is a great age now. If people are around and you notice, for example, "I need to be alone. I need my visitors to leave." If your next thought is, "Oh, it's probably not a big deal," honestly, it is a big deal, 'cause if you wait another half an hour and then, I'm making it up, your great aunt says something annoying, you're gonna lose it, and it's not because of the comment. It's actually 'cause you wanted to be alone a half an hour ago. Right. So much of the core job when we're a parent is knowing I need to speak up for my limits earlier than I think so I don't explode, and I need to get ready for other people to be a little upset about it. Yeah. Honestly, that's such good advice- [laughs] ... [laughs] 'cause I feel like I've been like a ticking time bomb. [laughs] I think that's what happens, and I think by the way, the same thing- It could be ... could be true in a marriage. It's, it's true- Yeah ... everywhere. Like, it's like people say to me, "Why am I fine until I explode?" Nobody's fine until you explode. It just means something's happened where we've ignored level one, level two, level three, level four, level five, and then we're at level 10- Right ... and it all comes out.

13. 8:32 – 8:54

    Closing moment: the ‘Mr. Man’ song

    1. SPSpeaker8:32

       Sebastian, we call him Mr. Man. We have a song.

    2. BEDr. Becky8:34

       Is there a Mr. Man song? Can I hear it?

    3. SPSpeaker8:36

       Mr. Man.

    4. BEDr. Becky8:36

       Can I hear it?

    5. SPSpeaker8:37

       Yeah. Mr. Man. You ready? Okay. So it goes, Mr. Man, Mr. Man, what is your little plan? Mr. Man, Mr. Man, do you have a plan? Mr. Man, Mr. Man, Sebastian little man. Mr. Man, what's your plan? Do, do, do. Mr. Man. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 9:07