As you all know I absolutely love hearing from you all, and so many good questions are coming my way these days that I figured now is the perfect time to offer my responses. While some of these questions are specific to the pandemic and all that it entails, the answers, as you’ll see, offer information and advice that are beneficial at any time.
I’ll start by further exploring the ‘Govern, Garden, Guide’ concept which we have looked at in the past, and also share some strategies about ending the use of pacifiers and thumb sucking. Other questions I look at are regarding children who are still experiencing difficulty dealing with the restrictions that the pandemic has generated, addressing both typical and violent tantrums, teaching kids to be able to laugh things off, and instilling a good attitude in children. The topics may seem wide ranging, but woven through them all is the desire to provide our children with the strong foundation they need to enjoy strong and rewarding relationships throughout their lives. Let me tell you, there’s definitely something in today’s episode for everyone.
 
The Finer Details of This Episode:
· Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne is one of my favorite parenting books
· It’s developmentally inappropriate to try to guide a toddler
· You make your toddler feel safe by bonding, setting the rules and boundaries, and letting them know that you’ve ‘got them’
· If your child is having tantrums, you have to look at your governing and your boundaries for firmness and consistency
· If a child feels unsafe, it yields poor behavior
· It is very important to lay this foundation from 0-6 for future years
· If you wait until teen years to discipline, you are fucked
· Ending pacifier use can be a matter of just taking it away or slowly cutting a bit of a hole in it over the period of a couple weeks which reduces its ‘big suck’ appeal
· Before employing techniques such as putting a nasty tasting lotion on the thumb or putting a mitt on a child’s hand to stop thumb sucking, check in with your dentist
· For children who still don’t understand the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, check in on how you talk about the lockdown – ex. saying ‘I get to’ rather than ‘I have to’
· Kids forget and kids are resilient
· We are over-socialized – the true extrovert is very rare
· We need to transition our children back into social situations gradually from this ‘lockdown’
· The child who is very dysregulated in the house has to go to their room to learn to self-regulate – it’s respectful to let them have their big feelings in there
· Revisit the ‘Go to Your Room Strategy’ podcast
· Attitudes are caught – watch what you are modeling when showing your child how to laugh things off, help others out, handle angry moments, lose graciously, etc.
 
Quotes:
“You can’t guide a toddler, you have to govern.”
“It’s pure brain development.”
“Crappy behavior is often your child asking you to say, ‘No’.”
“You’re laying the foundation for the beauty of the relationship later.”
“Discipline is like teaching…and you can teach very simply by following through.”
“If your child is still pining for everyday life that was in February, there’s a culture in your house that is producing that.”
“Everything we do or say is teaching.”
“If you have a shitty attitude and you don’t shake things off, you know that’s like you speaking French in the house and expecting your child to just learn English – they’re going to do what you do.”
 
Links:
Jamie’s homepage - http://www.jamieglowacki.com/ 
Oh Crap! Potty Training – https://www.amazon.com/Crap-Potty-Training-Everything-Parenting-ebook/dp/B00V3L8YSU
Oh Crap! I Have A Toddler - 
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Oh-Crap!-I-Have-a-Toddler/Jamie-Glowacki/Oh-Crap-Parenting/9781982109738
Jamie’s Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/join/jamieglowacki?