116: Episode Parenting Challenges: Routines and Defiance

Fostering Independence in Children Through Personality-Aware Parenting

Autumn Carter and Karen Wagnon delve into the importance of understanding and utilizing the DISC personality model to foster independence and confidence in children. Autumn, a mother of four with diverse personality traits, shares her journey of teaching her children responsibility and decision-making. Karen explains her experience with her dominant daughter, emphasizing the need to adapt parenting styles to each child's unique personality. The discussion highlights practical strategies for nurturing children's independence, resilience, and self-discipline while balancing parental guidance. They also touch upon repairing and restoring parent-child relationships and the significance of aligning parenting goals with core family values.

00:00 Introduction and Host's Parenting Journey
01:02 Challenges of Teaching Independence
04:41 Karen's Insights on the DISC Model
07:39 Parenting Strategies for Different Personalities
08:45 Karen's Personal Parenting Stories
14:30 Autumn's Reflections on Her Upbringing
20:22 Encouraging Independence in Children
26:06 Balancing Parenting Styles
28:10 Understanding Individual Needs in Parenting
28:43 Fair vs. Equal Parenting
29:18 Tailoring Discipline to Each Child
30:31 Teaching Self-Discipline and Natural Consequences
31:49 Encouraging Independence and Responsibility
33:02 Perceptions of Favoritism Among Siblings
35:18 Balancing Individual and Family Time
37:59 Encouraging Decision-Making and Emotional Independence
44:18 Repairing and Restoring Parent-Child Relationships
47:23 Reflecting on Family Values and Virtues
51:35 Final Thoughts on Parenting Strategies

One last thing to cover the show legally. I am a certified life coach giving general advice. So think of this more like a self-help book. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist. So this podcast shouldn't be taken as a replacement for professional guidance from my doctor therapist. Or any other qualified expert? If you want personal one-on-one coaching for my certified coach. Go to my website, wellness and every season.com. 

For more wellness tips and exclusive content, join my newsletter! Sign up now at wellness-in-every-season.ck.page and receive a free 5-day guide called "Awaken and Unwind: 5 Days to Mastering Moms Life's Mornings and Evenings." Plus, you'll get free guides, special offers on my programs, practical tips, personal stories, and so much more. Don't miss out on these valuable resources designed to help you thrive as a mom and as an individual. Join today and start your journey to wellness in every season!

Transcript

116: Episode Parenting Challenges: Routines and Defiance

Autumn Carter: Welcome to Wellness in Every Season, the podcast where we explore the rich tapestry of wellness in all of its forms. I'm your host Autumn Carter, a certified life coach turned wellness coach, as well as a certified parenting coach dedicated to empowering others to rediscover their identity in their current season of life.

Autumn Carter: My goal is to help you thrive both as an individual and as a parent.  

Hi. I was interviewed on a podcast all about parenting and this is a group of parenting coaches. This is where I received my certification from and the. The mom, who I received my certification from, is the one interviewing me.

Autumn Carter: I wanted to share this with you because I think we all struggle with this in one way or another. I still do. I'm still learning. I'm still growing. We remind our children of that often. And at the end of this, there is also an opportunity for you to receive a free course from me. That is all about morning routines, getting your kids out the door without losing your mind, So enjoy

Karen Wagnon: So giving choices, and it just moves them along. Okay. Do you want two stories tonight or three stories tonight? You choose, you decide. Do you want me to stay here and lay with you for a few minutes? Or would you rather be alone? Choices, so that they feel as though they have a level of control.

So that's what they're looking for. Not being told the dominant child does not like directives because they feel control.

Welcome to Real Talk with the Parenting Blueprint Coaches. Will we discuss all aspects of parenting using the foundation of understanding personality dynamics to raise independent, responsible, and resilient children. My name is Karen Wagon, founder of teaching our youth and the parenting blueprint.

Let's dig right in with today's topic and have some real talk with the parenting blueprint coaches.

So what if you have a child that no matter what you do to try and instill routines in the family, they resist. Everything. Today we're going to be talking about routines and resistance when rewards stop working. My name is Karen Wagner. I'm one of the Parenting Blueprint Coaches and I am here with 

Speaker 2: Autumn Carter.

Hi, I'm another Parenting Blueprint Coach. 

Karen Wagnon: Another one of our amazing Parenting Blueprint Coaches. And today we want to dig into what I call a case study of a family that has been experiencing resistance to routines while they're working with their child. So let me the scenario and set the stage of what this is all about.

The mom writes and she says, we've been struggling to get our eight year old to do his morning and bedtime routine for over four years now. 365 days, times two, times four, two thousand nine hundred and twenty times. When he was three or four, he had four things to do in the morning and also in the p. m. I made him illustrated cards and put them on Popsicle.

sticks so he could move them from one cup to the other as he completed them. Worked for a few days, maybe, then defiance. Then we tried an app. Worked for a few days, then defiance. Then we tried a timer. How fast can you get through these things? Worked for a few days, then Defiance. Of course, over the last four years we've also used sticker charts for immediate rewards and bigger reward for him to choose based on several stickers that were on the board.

Then cooperation cards that we'd give him whenever he cooperated nicely, even if it wasn't perfect. He could redeem them for a trip to the arcade or wherever of his choosing. Worked for a few days maybe? Then Defiance. Over and over. How many of you have experienced defiance when it comes to trying to instill predictable patterns and routines within our day to day stuff?

Look, every family needs routines. I think it brings the kids security, they know what to accept. And what the expectation can be, but then there's times where there's pushback. And Autumn, I'm excited to have you on here with me because you've got four kids right now, right? And I am sure with your kids, you can experience this with, if, one, if not more than one child.

Because as we know, when we're looking at Parenting by Design, it is not a one size fits all approach. Autumn, based on this particular case study or scenario, what's the first thing that kind of steps out to you? 

Speaker 2: There could be two different personalities here, but when we talked ahead before this, there's one that is very much sticking out and it is the child who made me become a coach and who got you on the same path the very dominant.

personality is coming through here. And it's interesting you get an idea for the mom's personality as well when she's giving you that math in the way that it's said. So there could be a dominant personality, which is more than likely. And there might be some of that supportive where they need. somebody alongside them.

So I have one child in particular who really likes it when I'm doing my morning routine right alongside her. And then I have my son, the one who started me on this journey with the dominant, the defiance, I totally, I'm right there with you. I'm seeing a lot of that. And I'm seeing that mom probably also has the dominant personality and two really strong personalities together, there's some friction there, which this is just the tip of the iceberg that she's talking about as well.

Karen Wagnon: Yes, and I appreciate how you were able to recognize as I did when I read that because she used the word defiance every time because as we talked about with the dominant personality, their internal emotional needs are challenged being challenged choices and control. And when those needs are not being met is when we will experience.

Defiant behavior and every time she was trying to set up a structure for him, it worked for a little while and then he became defiant. So to me, it's telling me that he doesn't have choices in this. He's being told what to do and it's he's not interested. Why? Because he does not feel as though he has choices and a level of control.

And the second thing that you picked up on and you are so on spot is what's driving the mom. With all of these different strategies to get the compliance, is she that dominant mom who wants control? Or, maybe she's a cautious mom that just needs to have that perfectionism, everything needs to be done a certain way.

And it's so powerful when we understand what drives our parenting personality to get these outcomes, and then how is our child perceiving that, and how are they reacting? To our parenting. And so she's tried multiple things. Look, dominant kids don't want rewards. They want control. You know who wants the rewards?

The inspiring kids. They want the stickers. They want the red stickers, the gold stickers, all the stickers. They want to go to the arcade. They want all of these things because that's that for that recognition, approval, popularity. That's all those fun things that will drive them to reach those goals. But that strategy is not necessarily working.

with this child. Autumn, I'm gonna call on you again for some insights because I know you're living with me. I like the check mark. And I know, it's off the stickers. But that's true that there are certain personalities that will, but when it doesn't, we keep trying other things when in reality, it is not the stickers and reward he wants.

He's probably driven more for control. So with that being the case, what would be. In your opinion, based on how we frame things up using the parenting blueprint, a couple of alternative strategies that this mom could try instead? 

Speaker 2: Let me back up a second and let me give you just a teaser.

Here's what I'm doing in my own family and see if you guys can figure it out listening or watching along. So my dominant personality child, he was not ready to let go of his overnight pull ups. He is totally ready. He's been ready. What helped is he saw me looking at an ad at Target. Shout out to Target here.

There was an ad on the onesies. The super popular, you're basically wearing a blanket, but it's pajama, but it has a big zip up. He was seeing me buying some for his sister, and they are 19 months apart, basically the same size. And he wanted some. We had that conversation that if you want these, that means you are wearing underwear.

Because doing the whole pull up thing is going to be a pain for you, and you need to make sure that you're waking up to go potty. Most mornings, he has a dry pull up. It's not even a thing. It was just he wanted that security blanket of still having them. Now that he had a reason to have undies and not a pull up He's been dry.

He's been fine. He loves the onesies. He loves showing them off and he looks adorable in them, if I could say so myself. I'm not prejudiced against my children at all, but do you see where I'm going with this? If you're listening along, following along, it's giving them something and it fell in my lap because it's something that he already wanted.

I was not coming up with the reward. He came up with it, it was one of those let's finish coloring this picture type of thing. He gave me the printout. So find something like that. Find what motivates 'em. Make sure you actually have a relationship with your child so that you know them well enough.

And if you're struggling with that's what the parenting blueprint is about. Yeah. So contact one of us. There are some things that I want to hit on as well that are talking about having rewards for behaviors you want to see, but focusing on the positive things.

So What really helped me prepare me for my third child, the one who got me on this path, was I had a dog. I know, I'm going with dogs. I'm a dog person, so just bear with me. But it's like dog training, where you are rewarding for behaviors you want to see, and the newest craze 10 years, is that you are ignoring the behaviors you don't want to see in dog training.

And you know what? That's exact same world with parenting. You do the exact same thing. Obviously you're not feeding them treats, but you're finding different rewards. So you are rewarding for behaviors you want to see. So she should be doing that in other areas, not just here. So that it's very much okay.

I know what's going to happen. I know what to expect. And she should be making sure that she is having a consistent response. So it's making sure that there's those security and those boundaries, you know what to expect, all these things that Karen was talking about. It gives you such a sense, go back to your childhood.

Of when you felt peace and when you didn't. It's because routines were happening. You know what the next step was going to be. You knew what to expect when you were coming home from school. You knew what, fill in the blank. Making sure that you are setting up that. Making sure that it's not. Remember that the child is young here, that you're not giving them a huge list of things to do, a verbalist, whatever, and then walking away.

So for my dominant child, it's one thing at a time, and it is so tedious for my personality, but if everything falls apart, then he's triggering his siblings, and it really topples down in my house. So it's really focusing on the one thing at a time, and not having this long, List of I want you to do this and this and this so slow it down make sure that you are meeting them at their level for their age, their level for their personality, their level for their maturity, because age and maturity, as we know, looking at adults and children are very different.

And that you're meeting them at their level of maybe if they have trauma in their childhood, you could try as hard as you can to prevent it, but life circumstances still happen. There can still be trauma. So make sure that you fully understand your child. 

Karen Wagnon: That's some great stuff. And I love how rewarding the positive is.

Oh, that's where we get into our affirmations. When we talk about the affirmation statements, that we're appreciating and noticing the positive things they're doing. So we're not always directing and correcting. That's a wonderful thing. And then having consistent responses, a couple of strategies from clients that I've worked with in the past that are parenting kids like this and offering them choices.

So for instance, let's say for a bedtime routine, sometimes getting them to brush their teeth can be a challenge, right? So you want the green toothbrush or the blue toothbrush, they'll typically pick a color to brush their teeth, right? So I'm not saying it's time to brush your teeth because as soon as you say time to brush your teeth, they don't take a directive.

Do you want the blue toothbrush or the green toothbrush today? Do you want the bubble gum toothpaste or do you want the other toothpaste? Okay, so giving choices, and it just moves them along. Okay, do you want two stories tonight or three stories tonight? You choose, you decide. Do you want me to stay here and lay with you for a few minutes or would you rather be alone?

Choices choices, so that they feel as though they have a level of control. So that's what they're looking for. The dominant child does not like directives because they feel controlled now as a dominant mom and this mom may be too i can so relate to this because i got place to go and things to do and you need to line up with my agenda okay because i don't have time for this but once i understood That my approach was not working.

It was frustrating me. I'm frustrating my son and the whole house is a hot mess because I am not a good mom. Now we're in a good mindset as a mom now, because I had one kid that pushed my buttons. I needed to change my approach. And so with the dominant kids offering choices within your boundaries, yep, you're going to have to get another toothbrush, maybe, and so how do you work those things out? And even working now with my grandkids, because now I've been doing this long enough to identify it quicker. Become aware of what I'm dealing with, adapt my interactions, and apply the right strategies. I don't have problems when I put these kids to bed now because I know what each one of them may need in that routine to do what?

Meet the internal social emotional needs. When the internal social emotional needs are not being met, We experience the disruptive behavior. We tend to want to address the behavior, but if you don't get to the why, and to me, I'm seeing as though this particular child may not have felt he had a choice.

Now, maybe he did. Based on what she wrote to me, I'm feeling as though the mom is trying to come up with a reward program to get him to develop this pattern and routine, and it works for a little while and it's not why, because he's being told what to do, take this and put this to here, do this and then do that.

He still doesn't have a choice. 

Speaker 2: So honestly, there's the stimulus. It's not stimulating them. It's not just that they want to be defiant. They're not stimulated. They're bored. They're a different kind of smart. And I really liked when I interviewed you on my podcast how you talked about Kyle and doing homework.

And it's not just you want to This toothbrush or this toothbrush, you don't have to buy a ton of things if that doesn't work for you. Yes. Toothbrush. It's not that expensive, but there's even the which do you want to do first with doing his homework? I really liked your example that you gave with that.

And you even gave that within the course of, do you want to do your homework now or at this point and realize that if you do it at this point, you might lose out on this. So it's giving them that map of here's how things connect and here is What the future will hold if you choose this door or this door type of thing.

Karen Wagnon: Exactly. And that's what I'd said to him. Do you want to do your homework when you get home and then you're done for the day? Or do you want to play on the game system and then do it after dinner? He always defaulted because technically I go, I can get on a whole nother soup box about homework or kids are six hours in school.

They need to come home and be with their families and have some time away from school work, but that's a whole nother episode. Okay. 

Speaker 2: Oh, our county does it. It's by third grade. You get one homework assignment and it's for the whole week. 

Karen Wagnon: Yeah. That's it. I just think it's too much of that.

That's a whole nother thing, but he would default because when he came home, he wanted time to decompress and play before he had to do work again. So as you were saying, sometimes just remember what it was like to be a child and always being told what to do and understanding your personality is going to influence the way you parent your kids.

But what is the parenting style that my child needs from me in a way that will reduce the conflict, increase the productivity and maintain a positive relationship where they feel seen, heard and understood. So this was just an example of a mom who was doing her best to try and establish routines when working with her child on just the basic things, morning and evening routines, only to find out that she was hit with resistance over and over again.

And to her best avail and his creativity. As, as creative as she was in trying to find different ways to motivate the child, Autumn you nailed it. It's what motivates them. Not, we did, we asked what motivates them. And as with your son, the motivation was. That I want to be in one of these onesie sleepers, and he, he was capable, but it had to come from within.

So when those kids, the dominant kids have choices, they own it because they got to choose and they were getting less pushback and more cooperation. 

Speaker 2: And he is acting more grown up and feeling good about it when he puts them on. And there are times where you can just ask them, what do you want to do once you complete this?

Yes. You don't need to come up with all the answers. Yeah. You can allow them to do it and you can allow. space to what would you like for dinner? Okay. If we do that, we need to do this and I'd like your help in the kitchen. He loves helping my husband cook. It's so cute. And he is a miniature version of my husband.

Just in looks not in personality. So like seeing them side by side in the kitchen, I'm like, I know what you're going to look like when you're older. It's super cute. It's giving him that one on one time. That's also my other question. Are you spending one on one time with your child? Are you just so overwhelmed and so frustrated with him because you can show up nice and everything, but there's still, you've been in rooms where you feel tension, where they're acting nice, but there's tension.

Your child can feel that too. Make sure that you're spending one on one time with the child and you're doing what they want to do. Let them give you the rules, let them show you how they want to play their game without you stepping in and changing the rules. It's hard for me too, don't worry. And then, I am coming from a wellness side of things, so make sure that you're not trying to have your needs met by your child.

Yes. What do you need? When the child's in bed for the night or whatever, what do you need? How are you meeting your needs? Because the more you're taking care of yourself, the better parent you're going to be, the more willing you are to figure out their personality, to figure out their love language, to figure out how to speak their truths.

to them in a way that they will understand it. So definitely take that time to what am I neglecting in myself? How can I put that in? Do I need to get a babysitter once a week? And if I can't afford it, maybe I need to trade off with somebody else or ask a family member if they're close by. Make sure that you are filling your cup so your cup has good quality things in it that you can pour into your children's cup.

So I just wanted to soapbox that for just a quick minute. 

Karen Wagnon: You, I love the way you do that because that is something that I did not do when I was parenting my kids. And I just dug a deeper rut until I was just exhausted. 

Speaker 2: Or exploding. 

Karen Wagnon: Yeah. And just really exactly. Because my fuse was so much shorter because I wasn't filling my buckets.

I wasn't giving myself the rest that I needed, whatever your self care is. And I think we've already done an episode on self care based on personalities, but you need to take care of yourself so that you can be your best for you. So autumn, I want to thank you for joining me for this.

I don't know if you have anything else you want to add to this, but I think this was some great awarenesses for moms who may have the best intentions of trying to establish routines. But when you're finding that something is not working over and over again, that's insanity. Okay. We keep doing it.

not working. We need to find another approach. And in this particular instance, I really believe that child needs more communication and collaboration rather than more direction and correction wants to be part of the solution and not feel as though he's the problem and always being told what to do, but also understanding where we're coming from with our parenting style.

We look at the kids, but one thing I had to learn as going through the blueprint myself was What was my personality contributing to the situation? Because I ended up being fuel on the fire. I was going to get Kyle to comply to my way of thinking. And I was breaking his will rather than working with him to help him be the best he could be.

Helping your kids make choices is good. They're going to go through life and be confident with the choices they make. Because you know what? We're going to have choices in life. Then there's going to be times where we don't have choices, but if you've had choices all along and you get to a point where you don't have a choice, it's not a big deal because you've had choices in the past.

If we are always being told what to do, when to do, how to do it, that is not necessarily the best approach in working with kids, to help them become independent, resilient. Young adults, 

Speaker 2: what I was thinking when you were talking is that there's so many times where we default to the way that we are raised.

Yeah, of course. And it doesn't even align with our personality style. So it just feels yicky. . I have a course on how to stop yelling at children, and it's such a habit that we keep doing it, but then we feel guilty. So then it feeds into it and we do it more. And it's the same way with doing the parenting styles that don't match us.

We know it didn't work on us, but we're continuing them, that generational trauma thing. I am actually in the middle of creating a free program. That's all about morning routine. I will make sure and send it to Karen so she can put it in the description.

Once it goes live, it's about a couple of weeks overdue because life, but I have four kids and October, they were off at least once a week. For all kinds of teacher days, so I'm very behind in life, but it is coming out. It will be free because I know that there are so many moms like her that are just at their wits end.

They're yelling because they just need to hurry up and get this done. So they can actually get to work on time or get these kids in school and time and everything else. I have somebody I'm coaching who. Half the time, her child's hiding when it's time for school and he's in middle school. So there's a lot to dig in there.

We all have areas where we need to be better as parents, be better as humans, be better to ourselves. Let this be the time for that. That's my other soapbox. 

Karen Wagnon: That was wonderful. And I appreciate what you're saying because I think I fell into that trap early on in my parenting that I was picking up patterns of my mom because all we bring into parenting is how God wired us, our personality, who we are, what's driving us, how we were parented equals how we parent today because no one teaches you how to raise a human and we are left to our own devices of the experiences we had in the past.

And even though I said I wasn't going to be like that. When push came to shove, that's all I knew. I didn't know another way because when I was defiant with my mom, she yelled at me. It's like you open your mouth and you hear your parents. How many of us have been through that? I'm not going to do that.

And next thing it came out. Did I just say that? So this is such a transformational program to be able to identify through the data of personalities, what's truly going on within the family dynamics. Once you see how your kids are wired and understand their needs and their communication styles and their fears and their preferred environments, we can now create that because we have a roadmap.

We don't have to be playing whack a mole to try and figure this out. That is the power of putting together a parenting blueprint. So Autumn, I'm excited to have had you on this particular episode as well. As we looked at what routines and resistance and how many parents experience that. So looking forward to your course.

 Check out Autumn's link. And if you'd also like to learn more about parenting, different personality styles, we'll provide a link to the Parenting Blueprint Toolkit, which will give you an overview of how to understand different personality styles in your family. Thanks for joining us for the day's episode, and we look forward to seeing you again.

Click the subscribe button so you don't miss another episode of Real Talk with the Parenting Blueprint Coaches. We'll see you on another episode.  

Yeti X & HD Pro Webcam C920-1: I hope you enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed having that conversation with Karen. If you have any questions related to any of this, please let either of us know, because all of the podcasts that she does is related to parenting, and I'm one of several coaches, and we rotate through who is having the discussion.

If you want more of that, subscribe to her podcast, because you will still see me, along with others. And if you are very new here, please subscribe. I talk all things wellness, and parenting is part of wellness, because When we are trying so hard to put our own wellness practices into place, sometimes our children can topple them over.

I know, it's happened recently with all the snow days here in Maryland. I am so excited you're here and I will see you guys next week.

Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode. I am your host Autumn Carter, a certified life coach dedicated to empowering individuals to rediscover their identity, find balance, miss chaos, strengthen relationships, and pursue their dreams. My goal is to help people thrive in every aspect of their lives.

I hope today's discussion inspired you and offered valuable insights. Stay engaged with our wellness community by signing up for my newsletter at wellnessineveryseason. com slash free resources. When you join, you'll have the option to receive a five day guide called awaken and unwind five days to mastering your mornings and evenings, along with free guides, special offers on my programs, practical tips, personal stories.

And much more all related to wellness by signing up for both offers on the page. Don't miss out on these valuable resources designed to help you thrive in every area of wellness. Join today and start your journey to wellness in every season. Your shares, subscriptions, and reviews help us reach more people seeking empowerment.

So please spread the word about our podcast and about our newsletter. Thank you for being a part of our podcast community. I look forward to continuing our conversation, sharing stories, and exploring wellness in all of its aspects. Take care until our next episode. You can also work with me one on one or on demand through one of my programs.

By visiting wellnessineveryseason. com slash programs. One last thing to cover the show legally. I am a certified life coach giving general advice. So think of this, this more as a self help book. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist. So this podcast shouldn't be taken as a replacement for professional guidance from a doctor or therapist.

If you want personal one on one coaching from a certified life and parenting coach, go to my website, wellnessineveryseason. com. That's where you can get personalized coaching from me for you. See you in next week's episode.