Calming Our Reactivity to Children's Irritating, Demanding Behaviors

Respectful Parenting: Janet Lansbury Unruffled

JLML Press

Kids & Family, Parenting

4.7 • 3.8K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2020

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A parent writes that she’s overwhelmed by her two girls constantly demanding her attention, following her around their home and calling “Mommy! Mommy!” even if they are in the same room. “It’s driving me mad,” she writes. “It’s like a dripping tap. It is getting to the point where I just want to scream.” This mom notices that the girls don’t have this dynamic with their father. In fact, even if he is sitting beside them and she is in another room, they still call to her. Understandably, she feels drained and wonders if Janet can tell her what she’s doing wrong. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Janet Lansfury. Welcome to Unruffled. Today I have a question that I received on Facebook.
0:10.1	This mother is having difficulty because her daughters keep constantly calling mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy.
0:16.6	And it's driving this parent up the wall. And I want to flesh this topic out a little to talk about our reactivity as parents and how we can ease that.
0:29.8	So behaviors like this one, children repeatedly calling our name and also whining and other repetitive behaviors that children sometimes will do.
0:40.8	How can we respond in a way that doesn't actually amplify the behaviors and cause them to persist?
0:48.7	So that's what I would like to explore a little in this podcast.
1:00.0	Okay, so here's the question I received on Facebook.
1:08.4	My four and a half and two point nine year old girls constantly call mommy. If I leave the room,
1:13.8	they call after me to ask where I am, even following me. If they ask a question, the word mommy could be said three or four times before the question. They call me from
1:20.5	where they are instead of coming to me. It's constant all day. The only time they won't is if I
1:27.0	give them an iPad to look at something or the TV.
1:31.2	It's driving me mad. It's like a dripping tap. It is getting to the point where I just want to
1:36.7	scream. It's overwhelming me and I'm getting angry. I don't know what to do. When their dad is home,
1:43.1	they still call me even if he is beside them and I'm in
1:46.9	another room. At the end of the day, I'm so drained. What am I doing wrong or not doing right?
1:54.6	So first of all, I want to respond to the very last thing she says here, what am I doing wrong or not doing right?
2:02.7	I would love to encourage this parent or any parent that this isn't about wrong or right.
2:10.9	It's about a pattern that we may be a little stuck in or our child is stuck in that isn't
2:16.7	serving us, that's making our lives
2:18.6	harder, but it's not this self-judgment thing of what am I doing wrong? What am I doing right?
2:24.9	One of the most important qualities we can have as parents is self-compassion, especially in a time
2:31.8	like we're in right now with so many stressful situations going on in our
	...

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