Ep #50: Peaceful Parenting without Punishments or Rewards with Michelle Kenney

Is it possible to raise healthy, nice, well-adjusted children without using any punishments or rewards? Today I’m talking to the amazing Michelle Kenney who came on to talk to us about her peaceful parenting, we talked about parenting through connection. Michelle is a mother of two girls and was a former teacher and counselor turned certified parenting instructor. And after years of consequences and bribes and star charts, does that sound familiar to anyone? She finally reshaped the relationship she shares with her daughters and credits peaceful parenting for changing her life.

This interview was absolutely fascinating. It went a little longer than normal because I just had more questions. I just wanted to ask her everything. She gave some specific examples, some scripts. You’re going to love this episode. 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: Michelle, welcome to the show. We’re so happy to have you on today.

Michelle: Thank you, Amy, thanks for having me. Thanks for letting me wax poetic about connected parenting and all things parenting.

Amy: It’s such a big thing and I think it’s something that all of us need because most of us have kids. And I think connection, I heard a quote recently that connection always increases cooperation. And I loved that so much. I think it was Dr. Becky that I read that from. And so my goodness, connection is so important. So tell me before we get into all the goodness around connection, can you tell me just a little bit about your background and how you got into being this expert on connected parenting.

Michelle: Yeah. I’m a former high school teacher and a high school counselor and elementary school teacher and I’ve always loved kids. I was the neighborhood babysitter and I always loved kids. And I always wanted a career with kids and I always wanted to have kids. So I thought, very foolishly, that I would just be a good mom, that it would just come naturally to me because I’d taught for 13 years. My students loved me. I took them to India. I took them on all kinds of retreats. I was a track coach and it’s not the same.

And so when I had my kids, I realized just how hard it was and how triggering it was and how I didn’t really know what I was doing. And so at some point I asked for help. I didn’t really ask for help. I broke down at a school meeting for my daughter’s elementary school and I broke down because we were having such a hard time. And someone said, “Maybe you should try connected parenting through Hand in Hand.” And I said, “Sure, no problem.”

Of course I need to try something and I did and I fell in love with it so much that I became a certified instructor. And then I started begging people to come to my living room to take classes for free. I begged the local elementary school teachers. I begged all my friends. And then I started just grassroots and then I started a podcast and then it just kind of snowballed organically.

Amy: That’s so amazing. I love it. And it’s so personal and so I think, yeah, just it becomes like a mission when you’ve experienced the need for it yourself. That’s so good. Okay, so tell me, can you give me just the cliff notes for it, what is connected parenting if someone’s like, “What does that phrase mean”, what is connected parenting?

Michelle: Yeah. Connected parenting really just values and puts importance on, first of all, changing our own mindset around right and wrong and good and bad and punishments. And really diving into this idea that we don’t need punishments and consequences to have good, healthy, great kids. And to really, instead of focusing on behavior and punishments and consequences, we focus on relationship. And when we focus on relationship, everything else falls into place naturally. And so we don’t have to worry about the behavior because the behavior comes when you work deeply on the relationship.

Amy: Oh I love that. Okay, so focusing more on the relationship and then the other pieces come along. So again, that idea of connection increases cooperation and you don’t have to have all of the other stuff.

Michelle: You don’t need it because relationship is connection, that’s just another way of saying. But I think people have an easier time understanding the idea of relationship. Yeah, I cannot work on my relationship, but that is the connection piece. And then when you get that, you get cooperative kids, you get siblings who get along, you get happier people with more engaged brains. You’re just, you get it all. But it’s a hard shift because we come from this whole idea of [inaudible] conditioning and behaviorism, and a world steeped in rewards and punishments and we can’t sometimes see that there’s a different way.

Amy: Yeah, I love this idea. And I want to just play devil’s advocate because I’ve had some, I feel like I’m kind of, I haven’t taken a course on connected parenting, but I feel like that’s kind of my methodology, my where I go for parenting. But I have people sometimes question me and say, “But you’re spoiling your kids, you don’t have consequences.” So that’s naturally what happens. So what do you say back to that, that push back on you’re ruining your kids because you’re not giving them consequences?

Michelle: Yeah. There’s so much to say on that, but let’s start with this. Kids don’t choose to do the wrong thing. They don’t choose to hit their brother. They don’t choose to refuse to put their shoes on because they don’t know that it’s the wrong thing to do. It isn’t that they don’t understand morality or that they’re immoral people. It’s that they’re dysregulated and they’re making a poor choice because they have an immature prefrontal cortex. They are immature themselves.

They don’t have life experience, and they let their feelings get the best of them, and they make a poor decision just like us, make poor decisions all the time. I say mean things to people that I don’t want to, and it’s not because I don’t know that I’m not supposed to say the mean thing. It’s that I’m dysregulated. And so should I be punished for that? Should I have my phone taken away because I’m sassy to my own daughter? Should I have my privileges taken away because I was mean to my partner? What if your partner said, “You said something nasty to me, so give me your phone?”

Amy: That would not go very well.

Michelle: That’s ridiculous. But we treat our children, we have our children put in this category that is subservient. And so we treat them in ways that are less than human. And it’s not human to punish people for a mistake that they made. And additionally, the world is full of consequences. If you go to the sandbox and a mean kid throws, or a kid who’s having a hard time throws sand in your eye, you’re going to endure that harshness. You’re going to go to school and be reprimanded by someone. You’re going to go to a sports team and lose.

We endure consequences in our lives every single day. We don’t need to endure them in the most sacred relationship that we share with our parent. That’s one place where we don’t want to be punished.

Amy: This is so interesting. I am loving this conversation. All the things to ask you because I have gotten some pushback sometimes on some of these things. So I’m so curious.

Michelle: I wrote a book called Unpunished. So this is perfect for people who are like, “I can’t get my head around it, or I want to get there, but I’m not quite there yet.” That book is good. It’s called Unpunished. It’s brand new and it’s a good place to start if you’re kind of grappling with that idea.

Amy: Okay, so we’re going to include that in the show notes for everyone so you can go grab Unpunished, this sounds amazing. So I love this idea of, yeah, we wouldn’t do that for ourselves. So coming back to the regulation issue and this is a regulation issue, then is part of our goal to help them regulate instead of punishing to help them get better at regulating? Is that kind of the solution over punishment?

Michelle: Yeah, most definitely. But when you say that to a parent who might not have really dove into this work or dived into this work, is that the right word? They might go to this whole idea, well, I have to teach regulation. You should take deep breaths, step away, go to the calm down corner. Why are you mad? Explain to me what you’re feeling, which is not teaching self-regulation. Teaching self-regulation is being self-regulated because 90% of what kids learn is what’s modeled to them.

So the best teacher in regulation is for you to come to really hard situations, tantrums, upsets, fights with self-regulation, because now you’re modeling. This is what it looks like to be calm in the face of really hard moments, I’m showing you. And after you do that 700 times and then they have a prefrontal cortex that’s developed finally when they’re 28 because that’s when it matures. They’ll kind of know how to self-regulate most of the time, but how many of us adults still don’t know how?

Amy: Yeah. I feel like it’s a process that you get better and better at as you get lots of practice in lots of different situations.

Michelle: Yeah, and lots of experience.

Amy: So much experience in parenting, yes. And then they’re all different. So you get a different experience with each one and it just is so fun, sometimes. Okay, so let me ask you this then. You have a small child and they are clearly dysregulated and doing some difficult, challenging things, throwing a tantrum or hitting someone or whatever. What do you do instead of giving a consequence in that moment, you’re not going to teach them to regulate? So what is the proper response in that moment?

Michelle: Connection.

Amy: So what could that look like?

Michelle: It could look like for a little kid who’s throwing something, I would say, “Oh, little kids who throw X, Y or Z are going to get a lot of hugs and kisses.”

Amy: So some people might say then that you’re encouraging the bad behavior because you’re giving positive reinforcement to a negative behavior. What would you respond to that?

Michelle: I would say then your ideology has to change, because why do we believe that is true, who says so? Is that a truth or is that just a societal belief?

Amy: It’s such a hard one because it’s the thing we’ve been told so many times I think.

Michelle: I know, but it is actually a belief and it is not a true one, unfortunately. Well, actually fortunately, because it’s upper conditioning at its best it. It believes deeply that if you reward good behavior or punish bad behavior or vice versa that you are going to reinforce behavior. But we’re not dogs. Our kids have very complex and we are born with complete limbic systems. And so when you reinforce behavior or you punish behavior, you reward behavior, it actually causes resentment for people. And it isn’t something that we want to use and no child wants to be bad.

That kid who threw doesn’t want to throw and because you come with hugs and kisses, he’s not going to continue to throw. He wants connection. He’s craving connection. And you’re giving him the connection he needs so he doesn’t need to throw, because you’re satiating his unmet need.

Amy: Okay. So there’s so many things going on in my brain. This is so good. Okay, so one thing I think about, I feel like I’ve read that you can modify behavior with consequences, rewards, but it’s not necessarily teaching or helping someone. It’s a behavior modification based on if a child is worried about their secure connection or their secure attachment with you.

And they’re afraid that you’re going to be upset and you’re going to do something bad to them or whatever, then they might change their behavior. But it doesn’t necessarily help them understand what’s happening or whatever. So would you agree with that, that you can modify behavior, it’s just not necessarily a healthy modification.

Michelle: No, it’s fear. I’m doing it out of fear. I’m fearing that the connection is lost or I’m fearing the punishment or I’m fearing something. And so there’s a bunch of different kinds of kids. Those kids that will, they’ll fear it so badly, they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the relationship is fine. So they’ll adhere to their own demise and they’ll not listen to themselves. So then they end up being people pleasers because they haven’t listened to themselves and they end up when they’re 25 years old and they don’t know what they want for themselves because they’ve gone around adhering to everything and never having a voice.

Or there’s the other kid who’s so appalled that you tried to modify their behavior, that you tried to manipulate them is what I call it, that they find that an assault on their person. And they will fight you to the bitter end and they will not allow you to manipulate them. And then you keep escalating the manipulation and they escalate their behavior and then pretty soon really lose the relationship with that child.

And then there’s kids that fall everywhere in between too. But whatever it is, it’s not healthy for the kid, and it actually isn’t healthy for us because it doesn’t feel good to manipulate. It doesn’t feel good to have someone fear us or to try to get kids to behave out of fear, that feels icky.

Amy: Yeah, it does. This is so good. So instead, building a relationship where you have just really, really strong connection where I feel, as you said, that’s so often when we see behavior that maybe is not a desired behavior, that it’s coming from a place of an unmet need. And so maybe trying to focus on, like you said, figuring out what that need is and meeting that need instead of trying to modify a negative behavior that was a result of the unmet need. I feel like we’re missing the whole point. If we’re just trying to modify behavior, we’re missing the whole initiation, we’re missing the first part which is that unmet need, yes?

Michelle: Yes. And so but the problem is that the child probably doesn’t know what the unmet need is. And it’s going to be really hard for us to find out every single unmet need of our child. And many of them can be very innocuous. It could be, I don’t feel seen or it could be I had a fight with my friend and I’m feeling insecure but I’m getting mad three hours later. But the beautiful thing about connected parenting is that connection remedies every need.

So there’s no need to look for the reason, we can just go straight to connection because when you give a kid a hug when they’re having a hard time that fulfills their need, no matter what. Because now they’re getting their need from us even if we’re not the reason why they’re disconnected, they’re getting the need met by deepening the connection with us.

Amy: Yes, feels so good to me. Okay, so if there’s someone that’s concerned about maybe validating a bad behavior but sees the value in connection. Is there wordage that you would use that’s maybe not saying, kids who throw things, get hugs and kisses? You say, “It looks like you’re having a hard time. I don’t know if I can fix that for you, but what I feel like I could do is just love on you, it looks like you need a hug right now”, or something like that. Is that a way you could say without necessarily validating the behavior?

Michelle: Yeah, I mean or you just hold space. You can say nothing. You can say, “It looks like you’re having a hard time, I’m right here. I’m not going to leave you when you’re having a hard time. I’m never going to leave you when you’re having a hard time. I’m also not going to punish you and I’m going to be with you while you get through this.”

Amy: When you say that to me, that gives me chills because they are, they’re struggling. And so I went through some really difficult things with a daughter that just had really challenging behavior for a while with an illness that she had. And at first I was just so frustrated because I’m like, “I’m like such a nice mom. Why are you being mean to me?” And it was like she was being the meanest to me of everyone and I was like, “But why? I am so nice to you.” And it was hard for a minute.

I was talking to my sister one day and we were chatting and the words came out of my mouth. And I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you, but like, but that was like, I just said the thing.” And that made so much sense. Anyway, so I said, “I think she’s taking it out on me because she knows I’m her safe person and I’m the only person that she can take everything out on and I’m still going to love her no matter what.” And it just changed everything for me.

And then when I reacted, when she would do something that felt hurtful to me. And I would say, “I feel like you’re just having so many hard things inside of you right now and I’m your safe person. And you’re taking this out on me because you know I’ll love you no matter what. And so I’m here for you. And if you need to do this, whatever.” And I and I gave her that space and it changed everything about our relationship when I acknowledge that to her. And it just, it shifted everything and it was so beautiful. And we have just such a sweet relationship now. And so just giving them that, it’s OK, you’re safe. I’ve got you. I’ll sit here with you through this.

Michelle: Yeah, totally. And it can happen in adolescence. It can happen in toddlerhood. It can happen in any hard moment that our kid is having, all of a sudden we get all this extra hard behavior and we’re thinking, what’s going on? Why are you taking it out on me? This is not fair. But at the same time they have nowhere else to go. They really have nowhere else to go except for us and thank God they feel safe enough to be with us and do that to us.

Amy: That’s such a different view, and I think there’s a couple of things. There’s one that’s maybe we’re feeling like, hey, this isn’t fair. I’m the person who does everything for you, how can you treat me this way? And another piece, I think maybe is this parent guilt or something where we’re like, “This is my fault.” And we’re taking on the responsibility of their maybe dysregulated behavior.

Michelle: I think two things. I think you hit the nail on the head. I think the reason we feel that is because society has said if you have a kid who back talks, if you have a kid who’s sassy, if you have a kid who’s unkind, you have a bad kid and you’re a bad parent because it’s your fault. And then the other piece is we probably grew up in homes where we were never allowed to speak like that. And we see our kids speaking like that and we think this is wrong. This is not right. I’m doing something wrong. My kid is doing something wrong because that was never accepted.

And I think there’s a third piece where it’s like I wish I would have been able to do that. I’m almost jealous. I have no place to have that experience. Imagine if you had that experience as a kid, I can just remember my adolescence. If I had a safe space to be a jerk, to just get it out, could you imagine the difference? I don’t know if you had it, I didn’t, if you can imagine the difference of not having that.

Amy: It’s hard to imagine because I feel like I was taught that you couldn’t get mad, that getting mad was bad, that anger was a bad emotion and you shouldn’t feel it ever. And so now I’m like, “Wait, anger is an uncomfortable emotion. It takes a lot of energy, but it’s valuable, and it initiates change. We are supposed to be able to feel angry, if not, we’re missing part of our spectrum of human emotion.” But what’s the right way to get that out? So what I do with my kids is try to find ways to help them get it out, I think is what I’m trying to do. I’m like, “Let’s find a healthy way to get this out.”

Instead of saying, “Don’t have this emotion or why are you feeling that way.” I’ll try to be like, “I don’t have a way to fix it but I’ll sit here with you while you’re feeling this or you’re allowed to be upset.” I do encourage them to express that in a respectful way. I try to always operate from a space of mutual respect is kind of what I do with my kids. I respect you and I’m going to treat you that way. And I hope that you’ll treat me that way back. But we try to find ways to express emotion. Do you feel like that’s helpful in guiding them to find ways to let out their feelings maybe?

Michelle: I just model it, I just really model it. I model just respectfully responding to their disrespect. My daughter is going to be 18 in January. And she was on the podcast, which is good. You could listen to her. She speaks a lot about just parenting and what she thinks of it. She also came on my summit last weekend and was really eye opening for people. But I really just try to model being respectful when they’re not. And I try to see disrespect as dysregulation, not disrespect. But they don’t really, they can’t really be respectful in those moments. They can’t really get there. But I think sometimes talking about it too much might create some shame around it.

Amy: So maybe less talk and more just modeling how to be respectful back?

Michelle: You can be quiet and present and take it in without really doing much. Just witnessing it and leaving the correction or the remodification or the redirection or the thought. It’s not the time to have them think anyway. They can’t think. They’re totally out of their minds. So what happens is, is their prefrontal cortex goes offline because their limbic system’s firing so much. And it’s saying, I’m on alert. I’m having a hard time. And so all the blood goes to the limbic system to prepare this child for a fight, flight or freeze.

So it renders the prefrontal cortex, the reasoning center completely useless. But when we go into this place where we’re like, “Well, you should say this, or maybe you should say that”, it doesn’t bring the prefrontal online. And so they can’t really understand or contemplate that idea. And we actually want them to stay in the limbic system because we want them to get to those feelings and hopefully calm down on their own devices with our empathy.

Amy: I was going to say, do you have something to do to try to help them calm, say you have a kid that’s in the middle of a tantrum or is getting really upset at you or whatever. Other than hugs and kisses, is there something that you do to help encourage their calm down or do you just kind of wait it out or what does that look like?

Michelle: I think empathy is one of the biggest ones. When kids can feel empathized with and validated in their feelings, it helps them get through it faster.

Amy: And do you do some of that through talking?

Michelle: I’d say 80% is listening. But 20% is I’m right here. I know this is hard. I’m never going to leave you when you’re upset. We’re going to make it. This is normal. It’s okay to have these feelings. I say a lot of those things. And then I really just, I model and hold space because I don’t want them to artificially calm down because all these little hurts get stuck in their psyche. And then one thing happens, they don’t get the blue cup, they wanted the blue cup so badly. And then they didn’t get the blue cup. And then all of a sudden the whole world is exploding because they didn’t get the blue cup.

And you’re like, “Why are you exploding, that it’s not the blue cup?” It’s that I wasn’t line leader at school. I got into a fight with my sister. I didn’t get the breakfast I want. I got in trouble for this and X Y and Z. And finally the blue cup is the last straw. And so when we can just allow them to have their feelings in this, and [inaudible], my mentor, she says that kids between the ages of zero and five should have three to four tantrums a day because that’s the way they re-regulate their system. That’s the way they offload those icky feelings.

So if we tamp down the offloading with some sort of word or some sort of, you should think about this, take them out of their limbic system and into their thinking brain. Are we leaving hurts on the table here and stuffed? And so then when they go to their next experience with their brother or sister, are they getting in a fight because they still haven’t gotten it out? It isn’t our job to get them to calm down. It’s their job to decide when they’re ready to calm down.

Amy: Interesting. This is so good. And I see that in my kids. One of our favorite fights, I’ll just put this out there is over who gets to sit in which seat of the car.

Michelle: Why? Why? Why?

Amy: It’s such a thing. I’m like, “You guys, the seats are the same.” But it’s a big deal. And then if someone doesn’t get the seat and it’s been two turns and they didn’t get that seat and then nobody cares about them and everybody always is mean to them. But I mean it’s just this whole thing. And it just layers and layers. And you’re like, “Oh my goodness, it’s five minutes in the car on the way to school.” And then I have to stop. It’s obviously a big deal to them. So I can’t just say it’s not a big deal.

Michelle: The blue cup, yes, the blue cup, maybe this same child has gotten in a fight with somebody and they thought their parent took one side or whatever, and now it’s just an indicator, you like them better. Who knows? But it could be, but it is the blue cup thing.

Amy: So we want to let them get all of that emotion out so that it’s not stuck in there for later and saving for later.

Michelle: Because then you see the kid, they can’t function all day, all day everything’s wrong. And I say to parents who see that, Set the limit and get them to tantrum and get that crap out so that you don’t have to suffer the rest of the day with this poor kid who’s dysregulated.”

Amy: That’s so interesting. So sometimes getting them to have that release of emotion is actually going to be helpful?

Michelle: We push kids into tantrums in my ideal actually.

Amy: Really?

Michelle: Yes.

Amy: That is so interesting, but I can see what you’re saying as far as the value because it’s there already. And if you’re just not letting it out, it’s just building pressure I feel like.

Michelle: Yes, exactly. And then it’s the same with us. Just how does it feel after you have a big cry when you’re really upset? Or what if someone stopped in the middle and was like, “Oh my gosh, I had that same thing happen too”, and they just pull you right after you’re out of your cry. And then you’re like, “I wish they would have just empathized with me instead and said, “I can see you. I know you’re having a hard time.””

Amy: Oh, my goodness, this is so good. So you talk about parenting without rewards as well. So parenting without punishments, parenting without rewards. What does that look like on that other side?

Michelle: Yeah, so rewards, Alfie Kohn, my favorite guy, if you don’t know him, everyone should look him up. He wrote a book called “Punished Without Rewards.” It’s one of my favorite books. He’s an educator out of New York State. He works with the evidence from Dr. Dessi from the 50s who did a whole rewards based research. And what the research really says is that when you get rid of the reward, so goes the behavior. So the kid will do the thing as long as they’re getting iPad time or whatever it is, candy or whatever it is.

But as soon as you get rid of the iPad time or the candy, the kid doesn’t do the behavior anymore because the only reason they’re doing the behavior is to get the reward. Yeah, we want them intrinsically motivated to do the thing using connection as opposed to extrinsically motivated to do the thing because they’re getting a goody. And then when you don’t receive the goody or the reward, you feel punished.

So Esme said on my seminar this weekend, she said that her teacher used it in third grade and she said it was also really embarrassing when you didn’t get the reward. That you were almost publicly shamed when you didn’t get it, depending on the setting. But if you have multiple brothers and sisters and everyone’s getting the reward except for you. Well, that feels pretty crappy, so rewards are punishments with [crosstalk].

Amy: Interesting, I love it. That’s such a good expression. That’s so fascinating. Do you ever feel like there’s any scenario in which rewards are fun, prizes for reading goals or something where it’s not necessarily a parenting behavior? Is there any scenario in which you like rewards or not really?

Michelle: I mean they exist and we put up with them in our house because they’re out there in the world. But I don’t think so, I don’t want to use them. I don’t want that relationship with my child. I don’t want my relationship to be transactional. I want my relationship to be very earnest and deep and rooted and based in the idea of unconditional love. And I don’t think rewards exemplify unconditional love.

Amy: Okay, so let me ask you another question then about what this would look like. So if we’re trying to get them to do something, we want our kids to say love reading. And we get this question a lot because we help people teach their kids to read. So if you’re not using kind of a reward system and you’re trying to encourage your child to read. One of the things might be bringing them in and reading with them and sitting next to them.

Or my son will come and climb in bed with me and we’ll do a reading time on Sunday morning or something and snuggle in bed and read or something. What are some ways you would encourage a child to read without using reward or punishments if they don’t love reading yet?

Michelle: Yeah, I would say, would have to be modeling. If you really value, I say this too with sports or music instruments or whatever. If you want your kid to play the piano or read or learn to ski or whatever it is, you have to do it with them all the time. My kids snow ski because we do, that’s it. They don’t necessarily would have never just picked it up on their own. They went because we took them all the time and that became part of their ethos.

If you want your kid to really do something, then you have to do it with them and you have to love it just as much as they do, because you can’t say, “Go love reading, because it’s the thing you should do.” If you don’t love reading, they’re not going to either.

Amy: So is it really hard then to get your kids into anything that you don’t love using the connected parenting method?

Michelle: I think as they get older they find their passions if they want to. But I don’t really like this idea as how can you get your kid to do something. I don’t even like that phrase. I don’t think that should be a goal of ours to get our kids to do something. I had Esme reading in preschool because I was a crazy person and I was an educator and I thought, I’m going to teach her how to read sight words. This is easy. You can teach a monkey to read sight words.

But after a while it was she was doing it for me. And that’s not the reason anyone should do anything. Kids should be readers because they want to be, and we’re modeling and it makes sense to them. And if it doesn’t, then it doesn’t, then we don’t need to push it. Everyone ends up reading, it’s okay.

Amy: It’s so interesting, we were talking before we started the recording about play. And I would love to bring this in now because I feel like play is such a beautiful way to do some of these things. Because I have five kids and I kind of have tried a variety of things since I learned more. You know what I mean? So with my older ones, pushing the reading.

And I always did activities, I’ve always kind of used play, but I think it even shifted more as I got to some of my younger ones completely away from having we’re going to read out of this book and we’re going to do this and we’re going to do this and we’re going to do this. To just it becoming so organic and we’re just playing and my kids didn’t even realize they were learning to read. And then all of a sudden they knew how because we were just playing.

Michelle: Yeah. I mean, if you want to, you can turn anything into play, almost anything. I mean, I use it for behavior stuff because that’s my specialty. I’ll use it for brushing teeth, getting shoes on, getting dressed in the morning. I got up every morning for seven years and we just played. We played, can’t get past me and hide and seek and it creates connection. So if your kids are living in a connected experience in their life and play is part of that, they’re more likely to follow your lead.

So they’re more likely to do as you ask, or to do what you’re doing because they’re endeared to you. So I don’t think it’s so much about a tip or a trick or a script. It’s more like this is the ideology and the ethos of our home. And so anything that we kind of do in our home is going to be centered around this connection piece, and if it is then we have buy-in and when we don’t then we don’t.

Amy: So do you still feel like you can ask your kids to do things? You’re not just modeling things and hope they pick up on it, you can ask them to do things?

Michelle: We have limits and boundaries. So my kids have chores. They have a few chores that they have to do and they do them, but they do them because our connection is good. And when our connection is not doing so well, they’re not going to do anything I ask. And so it’s my job to get the connection back going because a house can’t function unless you have your kids at least do some things. They have to brush their teeth and get ready for school and unload the dishwasher and there’s things that have to get done, but they don’t need to be forced to.

Amy: Yeah. No, I love that. And I feel like that works so much better. There’s so much less tension and so much less work, I think for us. I think sometimes it seems like I don’t have time for that, I don’t have time to go play. I don’t have time to go do all these things to build that. And yet what I learned early on actually from my sister and it has just changed my world as a parent. But she said she’d be on the phone and her kids would be coming and you get on the phone and they immediately need you. Everyone needs you the second you get on the phone.

And she would pause whoever she was talking to because it felt kind of what we had learned to do as children, is you have to wait, your kids have to wait. And she said, “Actually, if I just pause my conversation for a minute and give them a moment of attention that they need and give them some time, something to do, whatever, just give them what they need, fulfill their need. Then they leave me alone and I can finish my conversation. It’s so much easier than just telling them they have to wait every second.”

Michelle: Well, that’s it. And I think if you’re, I try to say, tell people, “You should pre plan your parenting.” I have a conversation I know that’s coming up with my sister. I’m going to make sure I do special time with all of my kids before that conversation so they all feel filled up and connected. So that I have a less chance of them interrupting me. I want mornings to go well. I want them to brush their teeth and get ready for school and do it in a way that we’re not struggling. Then I put play before that, I put connection before that.

I really think about where do I want to put my connection pieces in so that I can get the ultimate use out of it. And then guess what? You end up getting more time because you have less fighting.

Amy: Isn’t that so interesting? Yeah. So I feel like it does. It saves you time. So planning that play or planning that connection time actually ends up saving you time. This is what you say?

Michelle: Yeah, because you don’t have as much fighting. You don’t have as much pushback. Things go smoothly. Bedtime takes 20 minutes instead of two hours. Clients who come to me are like, “I have a two hour bedtime.” And I’m like, “No, that’s not happening anymore.” That is exhausting. And that will kill you as a parent. And then at the end, everyone’s yelling and screaming to get people to bed because they’ve been so frustrated for this two hour bedtime. Because the kids are so disconnected, they don’t want to go to bed. And so when we get connection flowing, we can turn that bedtime into 20 minutes.

Amy: Oh my goodness, that sounds magical.

Michelle: It is. It is actually magical. I say it all the time. I’m like, “It is magical this stuff.”

Amy: That’s so good. So I just want to talk to you forever. Just wrapping it up, if you were going to give people just a couple of ideas, maybe two or three ideas of your top favorite things for connecting with kids under the age of 10 or something, what would that look like for younger children?

Michelle: Oh my gosh, so many things. I say the number one thing is don’t punish your kids. Because punishment is the number one connection corroder. All the hard work of these special dates and all the special time and all of the things that we’re trying to do, really get negated when we use punishments and consequences and rewards. So I’d say number one, if you can get rid of those, that’s a huge step in the right direction.

Amy: That’s a good one. Okay, do you have another one or just two?

Michelle: Yeah. And then the other one, special time is my favorite go to. And if you don’t know about special time, I’ll give you a link to my guide. I have a special time guide that people can download. But it’s all about 20 minutes one-on-one with each child every day when they get to choose. And it’s not bedtime. It’s not reading books to your kid. It’s not something you choose. It’s not something that’s in your schedule already. It’s extra, but what it will give you is the most insane amounts of cooperation and kindness and love and endearment. And it gives kids control, which they absolutely 100% need and want, especially kids 10 and under.

Amy: They do. I feel like they feel like everything is dictated to them and I think to some degree it is. They are, especially if they’re going to school and they’re in all these areas where they’re being told what to do all the time and they just want to be the boss of something.

Michelle: Yes. So let them be the boss for 20 minutes every day.

Amy: I love that. So good. They like it too, they like to be able to feel like they can boss you around for a minute and tell you what to do.

Michelle: Yeah, I mean they totally, yeah, I mean I have as [inaudible], my little one, she would boss me around constantly for months like, do this, don’t do that, go in the corner. You’re going to get your name on the board. She was playing out school and playing out all these things and they need that place to process.

Amy: I had the cutest, I have to tell you the cutest thing. So my nine year old it was her birthday and for her birthday, her big brother who’s 11 and they’re little besties. He told her that for her birthday, she got a whole day, his gift to her was a whole day of she got to tell him what to do. And so it was the cutest thing, after school, that’s what they did. She just got to boss him around and basically just tell him how to play, whatever. And he had to play whatever she wanted to play and she just got to boss him around. It was the sweetest thing ever, I thought it was.

Michelle: He’s so smart.

Amy: Isn’t that so sweet? He’s the best big brother, it was so adorable. Anyway, so that’s reminded me of that.

Michelle: That’s so cute, really cute.

Amy: But they do, they love that and it just feels more reciprocal, which gives them, I think more buy-in to when you’re asking them to do something too. Oh my gosh I feel like we could talk forever. And I want to be your best friend and come just hang out at your house.

Michelle: Come.

Amy: Thank you so much for coming on and just sharing with us today, this is so good. And where can I send our listeners who want to learn more from you and hear me of what you’re doing, how do we find you?

Michelle: Yeah, I’m Peace and Parenting, but it’s Michelle Kenny but Peace and Parenting everywhere on Instagram. And I have a podcast and I’m on Facebook and TikTok, and my website’s peaceandparentingla.com but I’m mostly on Instagram. That’s kind of my biggest home so you can find me mostly there.

Amy: Fabulous. And your book, Unpunished.

Michelle: Yes, Unpunished, unpunishedbook.com. And I’ll still give the special time guide for your notes. And anybody who’s interested in special time, you can download that guide and it gives you the rules.

Amy: I love it. So cool. This is so good. Thank you so much and hopefully we’ll get to hear more from you again soon and go find you on Instagram, I’m excited.

Michelle: Thank you, Amy.

Amy: Thank you. Don’t you just love all the fun things we’re learning on the show together? Well, we wanted to give you a chance to practice a little bit of it at home. And so we made you a special freebie just for being a listener here and you can grab it at planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. That is planningplaytime.com\special-freebie. So what this freebie is, I’ll tell you, is an amazing alphabet activity that you can start using with your kiddos and it is based in play and is so fun. You can use dot markers with it, you can use Q-tip painting, you could use circle cereal. There’s all kinds of options, but you can print it out today and get started. Just head over to planningplaytime.com\special-freebie and we’ll send that to you right away.

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.