Ep #60: Strategies for Greater Communication with Your Children with Kathy Bowers

Before you set new year’s goals with yourself, with your kids or for yourself, you are going to want to listen to this episode. Oh my goodness, Bree Nelson is back and she is amazing. And today we talked about setting goals. We talked about the critical things to include in your goal setting, how to measure them and checkpoints and things like that, how far apart checkpoints should be. She also talks about the CTFAR model and how to start with your R line or your results to determine what your goal should be and work back all of those different steps. It was so good.

When we ask our kids to do something, do we have the correct expectations? Are we expecting them to go do it right now? Are we expecting them to remember multiple things at once and know the correct order to do those in? Today I’m talking with Kathy Bowers who is a parenting coach. And we had a lovely conversation around how to improve your communication with your child, how to help them know their identity and know who they are. And how to talk to them better. How to make things more clear. How to make it fun, how to show gratitude. And then really important, routines and boundaries.

And she has a great tip for helping your kids take ownership and actually delegate part of their tasks back to you as you’re helping them through their tasks. The conversation was really helpful. It’s coming up right after this.

Welcome to the Raising Healthy Kid Brains podcast where moms and teachers come to learn all about kids’ brains, how they work, how they learn, how they grow and simple tips and tricks for raising the most resilient, kind, smart, compassionate kids we can. All while having lots of grace and compassion for ourselves because you know what? We all really need and deserve that too. I am your host, Amy Nielson. Let’s get ready to start the show.

Amy: Welcome, Kathy Bowers to the show. I’m so happy to have you on today.

Kathy: Thank you, Amy. It’s a real pleasure to be here.

Amy: Yeah. I’m so excited. And we get to talk about something that’s so important and something I’m really passionate about which is relationships between parents and children and specifically around communication, yes?

Kathy: Yes.

Amy: Okay, this is going to be good, I can tell already. This is something that I think all of us can use at any stage and we can always improve a little bit. So I love stuff like this. Before we get into it and I start asking you all my questions, can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this and became passionate about this topic?

Kathy: Well, originally when I was at school, I wanted to be a vet but girls couldn’t do the physics and the chemistry. We could only do the biology at the time I was going there. So I thought, what have you got to offer me? And they said dressmaking, secretarial, art. And I went, “Well, I don’t want to do any of those.” So I thought, well, what’s similar? And I thought, children, children, like animals need to take [inaudible]. So at the age of 16 I went and trained as a nursery nurse. And that was great because I had really good experiences in schools and nurseries and private nurseries, where they took me all the way up to the age of 11.

Usually there’s nought to seven, but the headmistresses said, “This is crazy. We’ll take you all the way up. We’ll train you.” So I had all that knowledge. Then I did agency work. So that could be anything from a parent coming from abroad who needed a nanny or it could be a children’s home, anything like this. So I did that for a long, long time.

And then I eventually went into Social Care and Children’s Services. And that was an interesting but very demanding role. Originally, when I started 20 years ago, it was helping parents who were just a little stuck. So you came in, you gave them some advice, you helped them through whatever issues they were going through with their parenting or behavior or just basically it’s a new baby, I’m not really sure what I’m doing. Can you help me set up a routine type thing? Even though the routine would change, that was great.

But the Social Care suddenly thought, this is a good service, we can use them. Rather than our social workers going in regularly, we can get these people to go in regularly. And then they can feed back and we can put their information on our notes, which would make it easier for them. So over the years I became a senior in what I did and I kept on getting all the high end problems, which were the families that were stuck and they were repeating the same patterns but with another child.

They might have three, four, five children, but they still weren’t getting on to change. And we were offered as a last resort, but it was horrible, because they said, “If you don’t work with them, that’s it, you’re going to have your kids removed anyway.” And I went, “Hold on a minute, that’s not how I work. And no one would want to work with me if you sold me that package. I wouldn’t want to work with me.” So I said, “Although I have to explain myself and feed back to you, it’s up to these parents. You don’t have to have us.” And it was a much easier relationship and they trusted me.

But unfortunately I suppose about 70% worked, but the others weren’t working, they were having children removed. And then 2018, I trained as a performance coach and I brought that back in. And I said, “Now you have full responsibility and control over what you want to do. I’m not advising. I’m not suggesting. I’m just going to direct questions at you and help you and support you.” And that was much better. But, I think, about six years I was really disillusioned with how things were going with cuts and everything.

And the parents were, rather than, I was with a parent maybe for a year or two years in some families, all of a sudden they said, “No, six weeks, that’s your limit.” I said, “How can you expect anyone with a trauma to open up to strangers when they’ve had maybe 10 social workers going through in one year to keep repeating themselves, why would you do that?” And they said, “Okay, well, maybe another three or maybe six weeks and that’s your lot.” And I just thought, this isn’t working, so I just [inaudible] getting out.

So, 2020 I got out, wanting to build my business, hopefully, originally part-time, but that never worked because they kept on giving me extra work and then they had COVID. So I’m not IT minded, we were talking earlier about laptops and stuff. So I was trying to do the posts. I saw posts online. I was doing it like that but they were generic. And then when I went on a course they said, “No, it’s got to be personal.” So I’ll learn about that. Then it was your website, although someone’s set it up for you, they don’t really know what it’s like for a professional website.

So again, so I was tweaking, tweaking, tweaking up to two weeks ago. I’ve had things all sorted out for me now because I thought, well, I don’t know what this is and GPR. I’ve put this in, but it’s obviously not right, put a little bit in. So again, this great guy came in and sorted it. I literally said, “Have you finished?” They said, “Yeah, done and dusted, Kathy.” So I just thanked him today and said, “I’m ready to rock n roll now.” Yeah, so life change coaching is, I feel it’s been my vision for years.

And I really feel this is my vocation, because all the knowledge I’ve had over the years working with different families, I mean hundreds of them and the kids have all come together. And now I’m working with parents who haven’t got major problems. They’ve become aware, they’ve tried things and they thought, this still isn’t working, I’m stuck. I want to improve my relationship with maybe one of my children or all my children. I’m having parenting issues that don’t seem to be getting any better, they seem to be deteriorating, what can I do?

I’m not sure about putting in boundaries. I don’t know what boundaries to put in or routines to put in. How do you do this, that makes it work? And what’s consistency? I’m not very consistent, so does that really matter, so all those things. They come to me, I offer three different packages and they come in for a 30 minute free exploratory session on Zoom. So I find out about them and then they find out a little about what I do. And if I think coaching is going to help them, so then we take it from there.

Amy: So I’m so curious because this is a question that’s been coming up from people in my life and so I’d love your opinion on it. Do you feel when there’s a challenge with parenting that comes up, where you have a child that’s struggling with something and you feel maybe you’re asking them to do something. Or maybe they’re getting more angry or more emotional or more defiant, or, I don’t know, whatever challenges you’re having. Do you think that relationship is kind of the number one way to kind of target that, building a relationship first or where would you start with that?

Kathy: I think communication. Communication is a biggie, it’s for everything. It’s giving your child the understanding of who they are, their identity, taking in consideration their age, their abilities, their personalities. Because one thing won’t fit every child in the family. If you’re putting in a rule of what you’re asking, you have to really look at your child and say, “This is who you are. This is your age. This is how I see you.”

Obviously what we do as adults very commonly, when we ask each other to do things, we give them in one sentence, maybe three or four things. And it’s hard for us to sort of think well, which one do I start with? You do that to a child, a child freezes because they’re trying to absorb what you’ve said and then they’re thinking, which one do I do first? And so they’re not responding as quick. And as adults we’re saying something to a child and we think instant response. We want you to do it now.

And I’ve said, I’ve done it, reversed it to the parents, I’ve said, “Right, I want you to do this.” And then they go, “Okay.” I say “No, I want you to do it now.” And they go, “Whoa, hold on a minute, we don’t.” I said, “Why would you expect a child to do the same thing?” You have to absorb. You have to think about it, process it and then act on it.

And if you’re asking say a teenager to do something for you, they might be involved in, I don’t know, listening to something on their screen or they might be talking to someone or they might be doing a bit of homework or drawing something. They might not be 100% ready at that instant thing to do it. So you say to them, “How long will it take you to stop? And then can you do this for me?” So it’s consideration, it’s really important to consider that.

Amy: So when you’re asking a child to do something and you say, “How long will it take you to be ready to do this?” Or what would the wording be for a small child?

Kathy: A small child, what age are we talking about, a three, four year old?

Amy: I would say yeah, between four, six.

Kathy: Yeah. So what you do is obviously you get down to their eye level so you always have eye contact with them. And you’ve got to make sure that your body language is approachable as well and you’re warm. And you, you can just say if they’re playing with a toy, say, “Well, let me help. Let’s get started in just tidying up this game in a few minutes. Just finish doing what you’re doing here and then I’ll help you.” So you’re giving them a warning. And so it’s not immediately grab the stuff from them and put it in the toybox because they need warning.

And then if they haven’t heard you the first time, say, “Come on. I’ve just asked you a couple of minutes ago. Let’s do it now. Let’s make this a fun game. Can you find the big pieces or this piece or the colorful brick, the blue brick?” And it’s much easier because children want to please, they want to please their mom and dad. So it’s how you ask and it’s the praise and encouragement you offer at the same time, saying, “You’re being really helpful. I really appreciate you helping me.” Just like if you want them to tidy up their room.

The common goal with parents, if they go in and see a ransacked room of toys and clothes on the floor and everything, for children up to say nine or ten, it can be a mess. You can get into real fights and you get stuck because you’re saying, “I told you to do this.”

It’s far easier going in and saying, “Whoa, this room looks a bit of a jungle. Tell you what, let’s work together, I’ll help you. What do you want? What can I do to help you tidy the room? Which corner do you want to start in and which corner do you want mom or dad to start in?” And that way you’re not pointing the finger and they do it and eventually it gets easier and eventually they start doing it on their own.

Amy: Interesting. Okay, so I liked several things you brought up here, one was I liked the getting on their eye level and just communicating with them, it’s almost like a respect thing, it feels like. But then giving them warning, saying, “Hey, can you finish up what you’re doing?” I feel like that’s a really helpful thing for my kids. And yeah, you were talking about how when you say, “Hey, I need you to do something.” And we’re like, “Wait, I said do this.” And we’re expecting them to just get up and go and that’s not necessarily how I work so, yeah, I love that.

And making it fun, which is, of course, a huge thing we talk about at our company Planning Playtime. I liked the showing gratitude and I heard someone word it once that we ask them to do it as their contribution. Helping them see it as a contribution so they feel like they have ownership in the family and ownership in the house and that they’re contributing and that they get to see that and that we’re grateful for them and the parts that they play. So I really liked all of those pieces.

But I also think this idea of saying, “What can I do to help you?” And having them almost be in charge of the project but then you being their assistant and letting them plan it out and giving you a task within their task that they’re supposed to do, to let them have ownership of it. But that you’re there to back them up and help with them that, I think, seems really valuable.

Kathy: And it’s also good because it teaches a dialogue and the communication with you, because they start telling you what they want you to do. So you’re listening to them, but they’re learning their vocabulary as well. And it’s lovely hearing the children talking to you and how they see it in their words. I mean, they are so innocent and you learn so much from hearing them. And when they’re saying, it’s like when you’re playing with them, playing on the floor with their toys and you get engaged and they’re moving a horse, a tiny horse or farm animal around.

They’re going this way and you say, “Well, where do you want me to go?” And they’ll say, they stop you sometimes, “No, you can’t go there. You have to go this way.” And what develops in the game is really funny because their language, you haven’t got a clue on how they’re saying it in their eyes so you’re following their direction. But it can be an absolutely wonderful and enjoyable experience. And I think all parents, we forget, sometimes as we get older, we forget what we were like as a child or maybe we never did play like that. So it’s getting to be a child through your children’s eyes as well, which is wonderful to do.

Amy: Yes, absolutely. So good. So timing wise, if you have a child that’s really maybe things haven’t gone quite as to plan when we’re not perfect and we’re having our human moments. And there’s already tension going on and there’s already upset and it’s already kind of yucky. Is there a strategy timing wise of when to communicate and how to do that? Should we take breaks and come back later? What do you recommend around that?

Kathy: If it’s gone beyond and there’s a boiling point and they’ve been lost and things, step back because the last thing you want is you to put over animosity or irritation from you because that just adds fuel to the fire and they pick up on your body language. So you can say, “I can feel, I can hear you’re having a difficult moment, let’s step back. Do you want to do something for yourself and I’ll go make a coffee or do something and we’ll come back to it?” You give them time.

I mean, this is the most important thing is having routines and boundaries set within the house, which you do as a family again, because that gives them the opportunity that if they need to cool down, they can take themselves not as a punishment, but they might go to a corner in the room. Or they might go to their bedroom, knowing that that’s a place they can go calm down a bit, play with a favorite toy, look at a book, do whatever, do some coloring, whatever they fancy. And then they’ll, once they calm down, they will instinctively know, I feel a bit better now and then come out and approach you again.

You always must say to them, “Thanks for doing that. I can really appreciate it was difficult for you, well done.” And you don’t necessarily have to talk then about what had happened because it’s too raw, you can go back into the moment. But say the next day if you’re doing something with them, you can say, “Well, what happened there with you yesterday afternoon? What were you having difficulty with? Is there anything I can help you with because it seemed you were having a moment, you were struggling a little bit?”

And it could be anything. It could be something that had gone on in school. I mean I don’t know about you, but in England there’s lots of bullying going on in schools. My kids got it from the junior school and again through the secondary school and children are frightened. Sometimes they don’t tell their parents what’s happening in the school, especially if they haven’t really got a good relationship and a communication going on with mom and dad if they’re too busy.

If they maybe try to tell you something and you’re so busy that you haven’t really realized they’re trying to tell you something. Then if they’ve tried it a few times they might think, well, what’s the point, I’m not being heard. So they keep that bit back. And then you’ll ask them how are they? And they go, “Alright.” “How’s everything going?” “Okay.” And it’s just like that. And it’s a brick wall. I mean, my children, it was quite funny, when I used to walk back with another parent and it was like we were a big family because the kids had grown up as babies. So they were like adopted brothers and sisters.

And we used to laugh because I’d say to my lot, “How was your school, what happened? What was so good about your school?” And they didn’t say anything. Yet when she asked, they would tell her. And the same thing with her children. She’d ask her boys and they’d go, “Nothing. It’s alright.” And then I said, “Well, Anthony, what did you do at school?” “We did this, this and this.” And we used to think it was hilarious because you’re walking along in a line and then we’d just sort of swap over the information when we got to our doors.

Amy: Wow, that’s too funny. I’m curious to go back to what you were saying about routines and boundaries. Do you feel like having routines kind of eliminates some of the tension points? I think I’ve noticed with my own children and some of the children that I work with that when there’s a routine, the things that they’re supposed to do are expected. And so it’s not as much of a battle, they know it’s coming, it’s just part of their routine.

So if my kids come in the door and they’re like, “I really want to go play video games”, and I’m like, “Well, you need to go do this list of things first.” If that’s not normal, I might get some pushback. But often my kids know that this is their routine and they have to do all these things and so I don’t get that pushback.

Kathy: Yeah, because routines are a form of structure, and routines offer security. And they have routine in school, they know that assembly, this is when it comes and what’s expected in their classroom. They can’t run around when the teacher comes, they have to sit quietly and hear what’s going on and put their hands up. So they know all these things and it works well. And routines you don’t have to have lots, you just maybe have to have four or five that everyone knows, for example, the bedtime routine, what’s happening at bedtime beforehand, your routine.

Your homework, when should homework be done? Again, that’s another form of routine. And getting your school bag, if you can get your school bag sorted out with the help of your parents the night before, then you’re not looking for books, you’re not looking. Say your school uniform, you know where your school uniform is. You’re not looking, where’s that shoe I had? I can’t find a shoe. I’ve lost my sock, and everything like that sort of just causes friction.

The use of the bathroom, if you bathe the children in the evening before they go to bed then it’s quick because they need to just do their face, hands and clean their teeth so it’s much easier to get that. And the school routine, knowing that breakfast is at such and such a time. But you get them up, you get them to bed at a time so they sleep and you get them up at a reasonable time so there’s no mad rush for school. Everything is done, it’s manageable. They can get themselves dressed.

If you want them to have their breakfast before they get their school clothes on, do it that way, it doesn’t matter, but you’ve got it so everyone knows where everything is. And they know the time you’re going to have to leave and again, you give them warning. You give them 10 minutes warning first, then five minutes and say, “Right, kids, we have to go, in the car in two or three minutes, we have to be in the car.” So everyone’s warned.

And same with your older children. If they’re going by bus, you say, “Right, you know this is the time you need to have your breakfast, you know this. I’ll remind you 15 minutes before just in case you’re doing something, that you’re daydreaming a bit, that you’ve got to be out the door to catch a bus.” So it’s much easier and it helps because you look at it. And if things are going automatically, you find there’s another routine you want to put in and you know the other things are working, well, replace that with something else that’s been a bit of a challenge.

But the important thing is, you talk about the routines and the boundaries and the house rules with everybody. And you get everyone’s opinion on what do you think we should put in? What do you think mom and dad should be doing? What’s our routine? So it’s all sorts of give and take. And then you talk about consequences and that’s hilarious because when you ask kids what the consequences are of certain things.

You’ll obviously have one, no hitting and the respect and things. They’re biggies, that you go really, you can go into your room. You can have no television. You can maybe be grounded. So those are the ones that they know. An older teenager said this, recently said, “Oh, well yeah, if I’m doing that, well, my mobile phone should be taken away for at least six months.” And I said, “Is that possible?” And I said, “What do you really think you would be in a good mood if it was like that? And how do you think your parents would manage?” And they said, “That’s crazy.” And I said, “No, it has to be manageable. It has to be acceptable. So you do that within the week.”

It’s really funny, but it’s also not looking at it as a negative, more of the positive, so okay, you’re doing really well and we’ve had a really good week. So at the end of the week, we can review how everyone’s going and what reward should we get if you’re being really good? It’s not necessarily money. Children like eating, it could, I want my favorite meal cooked for me or I want to pick the movie, the DVD, or whatever we’re going to watch for that week.

And if you do things on a Friday night or a Saturday, make that a movie night for all the family to come together so one can choose the food. The other one can choose the movie and sit down and have popcorn. And it is really good because they like it. And sometimes you can do things like, right, we’re going out. So we’ll pretend we’re going to the theater or whatever. So we’ll dress up. So they get all dressed up so they love it. And then the same with if you want to have a girl’s night. You say, “Let’s have a girls night. We’ll do our nails. We’ll put some face packs on, we’ll chill out.” So there’s so many different things you can do for different age groups, yeah.

Amy: This has been so good and I think there’s so many valuable pieces in here. I did want to just ask you because our time is up. Do you have any last little piece of wisdom or advice that you would give to parents, particularly parents of young children, because that’s a lot of who we have listening to our show here, our podcast, just to help them work with communication with their children and building that relationship with them?

Kathy: Right. First of all, don’t beat yourself up. We’ve all been there and parenting is beautiful and wonderful when it works. But we’re going to have times when they get really stressed out. So you’ve got to, first of all, make sure that you’re looking after you. You have to give yourself quality time so that you have breathing space and you can relax. You’ve got to treat yourself to something. Then with children, you put in boundaries, but they don’t always work. So try another one and what you might find is a couple of weeks this boundary works and then you can have another one that takes over so you can bounce it around.

But everyone goes through it, it is part of being a parent, it’s part of life. And just be available for your child. When you’re feeling all pent up, that aggression, they feel it and you show it on your face and your body language and your tone of voice. And children look at you all the time even though you don’t think they’re watching you, because you’re teaching them, you’re guiding them. So you have to show them that you control your emotions in the right way, and that you’re approachable and kind and loving to them.

And that’s the best thing you can do to a child is to just be available for them and be really wanting to listen and help them. If you criticize your child, if you bad mouth them, if you treat them like mini adults, that’s the worst thing. And also they’re not your friends, they’re your child and you are the parent. And there are going to be times when you have to put things in place. And you might think they won’t like me for this because I had so many [inaudible], they won’t like me. No, they will like you, you’re mom and dad. They love you.

But you’re not their friend. They’re going to make friends as it goes along. You’ll have a different relationship when they’re adults, yeah, but you’ll still be mom and dad to them first and foremost. And just enjoy being a parent and share, if you’re struggling, don’t keep it to yourself, because everyone’s like that. Share your thoughts. Share what you’re going through.

I mean, I offer a free 30 minute exploratory session, which they can get on my website just to chat and tell me what’s going on for them. And I’ll tell them about how I work and what I do. And if they think coaching is right for them, fine, if not, they’ve had a chat with me and hopefully I’ve been able to give them some pointers.

Amy: Yeah, I love that. And we will definitely include your website down in our show notes so people can find you and set up a free session if they want to do that and have a chat. Thank you so much for coming on today, it’s been such a pleasure to talk with you and I’ve appreciated what you’ve shared with me so far.

Kathy: Thank you, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, Amy. Thank you.

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Thank you for hanging out with me today for this fun chat on Raising Healthy Kid Brains. If you want to see more of what we’re doing to support kiddos and their amazing brains, come visit us on our website planningplaytime.com. See you next week.