By now, we’ve all heard that Step One for effectively addressing our kids’ behaviors and emotional storms is to first calm ourselves. Sounds simple, but as Janet has often shared, she believes this to be the biggest challenge we as parents face. Here’s good news: Janet’s guest this week is dynamic and passionate educator Mr. Chazz, and he has learned a self-calming process that he believes in 100%. Happily, he shares it in detail in this episode and who knows? It may very well come in handy this holiday season!
Transcript of “How to Calm Ourselves (with Mr. Chazz)”
Hi, this is Janet Lansbury. Welcome to Unruffled.
For most of you listening, I imagine my guest today needs no introduction. Mr. Chazz is a conscious discipline expert with years of hands-on experience in early childhood classrooms. He’s an educator who’s become a prolific and powerfully effective presence on social media, helping parents and professionals alike. He shares so generously and always with warmth and humor. I see him as the most valuable, truest kind of educator because he’s learned from the kids themselves how to understand their needs and how we as adults can better serve them and, maybe even more importantly, relate to and empathize with them.
I feel especially blessed to be able to call Mr. Chazz my dear friend. And wow, it feels like a big gift to all of us to have him return to Unruffled to share with you today.
Hi, Mr. Chazz.
Mr. Chazz: Hey, Janet.
Janet Lansbury: Thank you so much for being here.
Mr. Chazz: I’m happy to be here. I hope that I can help some people out there.
Janet Lansbury: Yes, well, I’m sure you will, you always do. I love the topic that actually you thought of for us to talk about today because it affects every one of us, but I think especially when we’re parents, it can feel so high-stakes sometimes. In terms of our own personalities, our own temperaments, and how that meets with what’s going on with our child. Even the title of this podcast, Unruffled, is not as easy as it sounds for any of us.
I can’t wait to hear how you, both personally and as a professional who’s been working with children for years and years now, what you do. And I’ll talk a little about what I do. I would love to explore this topic so parents can find the way for them that works, or at least works some of the time.
I think the main thing is, well, for me at least, practice. Just all the times that you do it. So if you have a child that’s kind of creating the situation where you have to try to calm yourself a lot, it’ll be easier because you get a lot of tries at it. It really is, for me at least, about repetition and seeing the result every time and how things that I worried about, I didn’t need to worry about.
Mr. Chazz: Yeah. So I used to talk about this and really focus on just how we see things. How we see behavior and how we see children, how we see the moment. And that’s really important. If we would’ve done this podcast episode maybe five years ago, that is where I would put a bulk of my focus, is just helping people see moments differently. Because I know that my patience comes from not so much me stopping myself from being angry or frustrated or whatever it is, but it comes from really actually seeing the moment differently.
Now since then, I have found this framework that I practice and absolutely love and talk about on social media called Conscious Discipline, which is a framework created by Dr. Becky Bailey. And that introduced me to the five steps of self-regulation. And the fourth step is choosing to see it differently, so that’s a part of it. But she has these other three steps that come before it that I see as helping us get to that point where we can see it differently.
Because it can be really hard when it’s the 86th time that you’ve repeated yourself, or this is a moment where you’re really concerned for their safety. Or a bunch of our trigger stories start coming up, and we think that if we don’t nip this moment in the bud where they hit their sister, they’re going to become a serial killer, a woman beater. So seeing it differently is important, but there’s these other steps that I found through conscious discipline that are really helpful to help us see it differently and move forward in a way that helps everyone.
Janet Lansbury: Oh, I would love to hear those because, like you, I focus very much and I still very much believe in the perception part of things. And in my course there’s a whole section on how we’re seeing children and practicing seeing. And you’re right, you can’t just pop it into your head at the last minute, though, so I really want to hear how you do that.
For me it’s been something to practice, kind of like homework. Just imagining those situations that come up and seeing my child for what’s really going on there, which is seeing the vulnerability, seeing the I wish I wasn’t doing this right now and This is scaring me as much as it’s bothering you, mom, and all of those things. I can also see the dark side. I can see the brat, the bully, the horrible person that’s going to be in prison someday. I can see all of that too. And yeah, I feel like there is a choice there, so I really want to hear how you recommend even being in the position to be able to make that choice in the moment.
Mr. Chazz: I will take you through the steps and I’ll also share a little bit about my experience with these steps and where we tend to struggle here.
The first step is to just recognize that you’re even triggered. We can’t even do anything until we actually recognize that this is a moment where we’re triggered or we’re kind of in a state. And I can vividly remember moments where I’ve been in somewhat of an emotional state, things didn’t go my way, and I’m maybe giving a lecture to a child. Maybe I’m not even physically wagging my finger, but I’m giving them a lecture, saying something to them that’s coming from my own emotional state. And recognizing in that moment, Oh, snap, I’m triggered and I’m doing this lecturing thing because I’m triggered. This is me putting my emotions on this child. This is a signal to me.
And in those moments, you have a choice all of a sudden. To keep wagging your finger and be like, Well, I mean I’m already here, I’ve already started the lecture. I might as well finish it and let ’em have it. Which, I’ll be honest, I’ve done before too. So if you’ve been there, then no need to beat yourself up or shame yourself. We’re all on different parts of our journey. Or you could say, Alright, I’ve just recognized that I’m triggered. Let me do something about it. Let me take care of myself and my own emotions before I try to respond and help this child through whatever challenge that we’re experiencing or he’s experiencing or she’s experiencing. So that’s the first step, just becoming aware.
Some work that we can do ahead of time to help us with this awareness piece is to write down what our triggers are, reflect on what are those things that have triggered us. There were moments where you blew up and let your emotions get the best of you, and you did things that are not aligned with your values, and so you’re feeling guilty. That is a signal to reflect and be like, hmm, what about that moment was triggering for me?
And I would even encourage you to go even deeper. What is that story that you were telling yourself? Because there’s a story there. It wasn’t just that he hit his sister or sibling, whatever. It’s whatever story we told ourselves about that that really triggered us. Was it that we think that this is going to become a woman beater? Or do we think that because our child is hitting it means that I’m a bad parent and there’s unworthiness coming up? Is it if this child hits here, then they’re going to be hitting at school, then they’re going to be kicked out of school, then they’re not going to get into the high school or college of their choice, and then their life is going to be ruined? What is that trigger story that is coming up for you?
Janet Lansbury: Do you explore why? Or you just explore the what first?
Mr. Chazz: Yeah, when you explore what the trigger story is, go deep into understanding and becoming aware of where that came from. For example, a lot of us, our trigger story has to do with unworthiness. If they don’t get it right or if I don’t get to this appointment on time or if we don’t do this thing right or if they don’t do this thing right, then I’m going to be rejected. I’m going to be rejected as a parent. Or maybe that fear of rejection is extending to the child. You need to do your homework perfectly so that when you go to school, you don’t experience rejection from your teacher or your peer. You need to wear something certain or have your hair a certain way so you can be accepted by your peers.
Janet Lansbury: Right. Or it feels like you’re rejecting me right now. Maybe it’s that I need my child to like me. My child is my attachment relationship in a way, and when they’re not validating me, then I’m rejected by them.
Mr. Chazz: Yes. And that is kind of reinforcing this story of unworthiness that we have or the story of if I’m not perfect, then I will not be accepted and I will be rejected. That often comes from the way that we experienced mistakes when we were a child, how the adults in our life responded to us when we made a mistake or we made an oops. You were a child and you made a mistake. Were you punished? Were you shamed? Were you forced into isolation? Were you yelled at? Or when you made a mistake, did your adults come at it from a place of understanding and hear you out and see it from your perspective and try to teach you a skill for you to be successful next time? It’s likely that you probably received the first example, the punishments and trying to make you feel bad for your mistakes. And that feeling of I can’t make mistakes and if I make a mistake, I’m going to be ostracized or shamed or rejected is something that we carry with us into adulthood and often project onto our children. Exactly right.
Janet Lansbury: I just want to ask. So when you said you go into the “lecture man” kind of thing. It’s not just knowing your trigger, it’s also knowing how you respond with triggers. Everybody has a personal way of doing that. I wouldn’t be the lecture person. I would probably withdraw, be scared and be really uncomfortable and doubt myself like crazy and all that. So it’s also knowing how we react to those triggers so that we can say, Oh, I’m doing that thing again. That has to be part of it too, right?
Mr. Chazz: Yes, yes. Recognize what your own signals are, and I talk about them like signals. There’s many signals. For me it’s the lecturing, for you it might be shutting down. And there’s even more subtle signals that our body gives us. Do your fists go into a ball? Do you clench your teeth? Does your face get tight? What does your body do? And the more familiar we can get with what our body does when we’re triggered and what actually triggers us, the more awareness we can create around when we’re triggered. And instead of just projecting our triggers and our emotions on children, we can manage them and do something about them so that we can respond and support children without putting all of our stuff onto them. And stop distracting them from a probably profound lesson that they could be learning in this moment.
Janet Lansbury: And some messages that we could be giving them: that even in the roughest times, that we’re with them in some way. We’re not going to disappear from them emotionally or otherwise. Which is sort of what happened to me as a child, I got disappeared from emotionally if I did something that didn’t seem acceptable or likable.
Mr. Chazz: Now that’s what you tend to do when you’re triggered, you tend to have that same kind of response. And not to say that everyone’s triggers line up exactly like that, but it is really interesting when we start to become more aware of where they come from. And knowing that that inner voice that is beating yourself up and saying, What’s wrong with you? You’re a bad parent, that is not a voice that you put in your head. That is a voice that was passed down to you, that is a voice that you heard when you were young. Those are perspectives and mental models that you’ve received and could do nothing but absorb when you were young.
Now, as an adult, you have an opportunity—and in conscious discipline, we talk about rewriting your CD-ROM. We’ve actually changed the analogy because who uses a CD-ROM anymore? So we talk about playlists now. And we all have things that have been already put on our playlist from the time that we were very young. When you’re four and you’re five, you can’t really filter out what are good or helpful or hurtful mental models. You just absorb things that you see and experience from the adults around you that care for you. And recognizing that, although you may have the songs that I’m unworthy on your playlist and I’m not enough, and fear of rejection, all that on your playlist, as an adult, what we can start to do is put different songs on the playlist. Songs that say that you are worthy. That they’re not trying to give you a hard time, they’re having a hard time. Everyone is trying their best. That conflict is an opportunity for learning. All of these more helpful messages, we can put on our playlist.
Now the unfortunate news is that the songs that were put on our playlist from the time we were very young often don’t go away. They stay on your playlist throughout your life. But the optimistic news is that as you put more and more new songs on your playlist—when a moment happens, you make a mistake or something happens and I’m unworthy. What’s wrong with you? You’re a bad parent. When that song plays on your playlist, you can recognize it and then just push skip. And the more helpful, healthy messages you have that you built on your playlist, that you have intentionally chosen to put on your playlist, the more that you have there, the more likely that the next song that comes on your playlist is something that’s going to be helpful. As opposed to something that’s going to be hurtful to you and end up being hurtful to the child that you’re trying to care for because you can’t manage that emotion.
Janet Lansbury: Yeah, so you sort of crowded it out, you disempowered it by populating your playlist with other things. I think that the way you described that is really important too. You hear the song, at least you hear the first few bars of it, and you don’t just say, I’m not going to listen to that. You recognize it, Okay, old playlist, and you move on. I really think there’s something for me to kind of welcoming those thoughts, those triggering thoughts, those stories, so that they can become almost like friends that we just kind of want to break up with. But you’re not like, That’s not happening! I don’t see that! Because that makes them stronger when we’re trying to just push them away.
Mr. Chazz: Yes. So I remixed a very popular quote, I think the original is by Carl Jung, but I’ll just share my remixed version of it. When it comes to emotions: What you resist persists. What you accept can rest. And that’s just saying that when you resist against your own emotions or even the emotions of children, they’re going to be more likely to stay stuck there and you’re going to be more likely to stay stuck there. But when you can accept those emotions and feelings of yourself, of your child, then it’s easier for that emotion to just rest and dissipate and be able to be processed when we can accept it. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go to step two.
Janet Lansbury: Of course! There was a lot to that first step.
Mr. Chazz: Step two is doing something to calm your body. And the number one thing that is recommended is taking a breath, because breathing works for every body. Now it’s important to note that that is also something to practice, it’s a skill to practice. Because most of us, if we haven’t practiced breathing, don’t breathe the right way, don’t know how to breathe. We will breathe like ugh when something doesn’t go our way and we get frustrated. And if anything, that’s going to send you into the lower centers of your brain, that’s going to keep you kind of stuck and not help you start to regulate so you can respond as opposed to react.
Janet Lansbury: Yes. I also feel like that kind of breathing happens when I tell myself I’m supposed to breathe. I mean, as soon as I think, Okay, you have to breathe now, I actually can’t breathe. I can’t breathe deeply, I can’t breathe, I start to feel like I’m suffocating. So that’s why I feel, at least for me, I don’t even want to approach any of this as a doing thing. I want to approach it as an allowing thing. And I am guilty of telling people to just breathe. I realize it doesn’t work for me, and for me it has to be just allow yourself to breathe or notice your breathing and allow those stories to come in, like you said with the first one. We often think in doing mode. What can I do here to calm myself down? And so much of this, in my opinion and experience, is about letting go of and not doing.
Mr. Chazz: Yeah. Another thing that the breath allows you to do is to really take a moment to pause, too. It’s kind of a two-part thing where one, when you breathe in through your nose and your diaphragm is expanding and you breathe out through your mouth and your outbreath is longer than inbreath, it helps to regulate your body. It gives you benefits that help you really just think. And the other piece is that it also slows you down to give you time to think, because you want to respond as opposed to react. Our brain can react in less than a second to something that we perceive as a threat, and that is not enough time for us to really give a thoughtful, helpful response.
When you first start to do this, it might take a little while, but as I’ve practiced this, recognizing I’m triggered and breathing have come almost simultaneously. As soon as I recognize I’m triggered, because I’ve practiced the breathing so much, it’s almost automatic for my body to just take a deep breath. You’re just like, Okay, I need a moment, I need to think. I’m going to breathe while I’m thinking about exactly how I’m going to respond and what I’m going to do. And so that is how it’s worked for me as I’ve practiced and I’ve gotten better at it. The recognizing your trigger and breathing happen simultaneously.
Janet Lansbury: Do you think it’s also kind of a mindful moment thing of, I’m okay. In this actual moment right here, I’m okay. Just having that centering piece of, alright, here I am in the moment, not in that story that’s getting me nowhere.
Mr. Chazz: Yes, yes. It very much helps you become present in the moment and gets you ready for this third step. So the first step is “I am,” recognizing I’m triggered. Second step is “I calm,” do something to calm yourself. The third step is “I feel,” and this is the step where you’re recognizing what you’re feeling. Just acknowledging it, you’re not judging it.
A lot of times something doesn’t go our way and we get triggered, our inner voice, that playlist, that CD-ROM that comes up for us is like, What’s wrong with me? This person is so annoying and they’re getting on my nerves. And that story comes up. Instead, we can replace that story. And this is connected to Dan and Tina’s concept of “name it to tame it,” but also they’re not the only people who have talked about this. They’ve coined the term “name it to tame it,” but Brené Brown talks about the importance of being able to recognize what we’re feeling and how recognizing what we’re feeling without judging it can help us regulate what we’re feeling.
And so just acknowledging that I’m feeling overwhelmed in this moment. I’m feeling frustrated in this moment. I’m feeling disappointed in this moment. I’m feeling anxious. Whatever it is, being able to name that emotion. Now this is something that can be extra-difficult for us. Most of us, we’ve been conditioned in our CD-ROM, on our playlist, to push down our emotions, to ignore our emotions, to say we’re fine, I’m fine, I’m fine. Because we heard things growing up like, You’re being too dramatic. You’re too much. Get over it. It’s no big deal. And those are phrases that encourage us to ignore what we’re feeling and push it all down. And although it came with all the best intentions from our adults who were raising us and just trying to do their best, unfortunately the you’re too dramatic, too much, get over it, it’s no big deal actually stops us from learning how to regulate and actually going through that regulation process, because recognizing what we’re feeling is a part of it.
Janet Lansbury: Yeah. It’s just suppressed and so we don’t even know what we’re feeling. It takes us a minute, more than a minute in my case, to figure out what I’m feeling, because I’m so used to the idea that those feelings are not to be felt.
Mr. Chazz: And recognizing that you’re having an emotional experience is also helpful because it creates a little bit of a separation from becoming the feeling. I feel frustrated as opposed to I am frustrated is an important distinction to practice. To just recognize that, alright, yeah, I might have all these thoughts just trying to get on my nerves and they’re a bad kid who just wants to destroy the world. And maybe these thoughts are running through my mind. It’s not because I’m a bad parent or they’re a bad kid, but it’s because I’m feeling overwhelmed in this moment. And so acknowledging that is important, and a little bit of distance between you and the feeling to just recognize that you are not your feeling, you are experiencing that feeling and that’s okay.
Janet Lansbury: Yes. It feels like it’s also taking ownership of the experience a little more, which I think is very challenging. When we want to blame the other person, it’s hard not to say, Well, okay, I’m going to breathe, but you’re doing this stuff to me! And instead saying, Oh, this is about me right now. That’s a really hard one I think, but these steps, I could see how they would help with that. But I still think that’s a huge challenge.
Mr. Chazz: It is a huge challenge. And I think for me, in my experience going through these steps, I’d say the first three steps are the easiest part. The fourth step is choosing to see it differently. “I choose.”
The choosing to see it differently, I see that as the most difficult piece of all of this. Because I can sometimes recognize I’m triggered, take a breath and try to calm myself, and recognize what I’m feeling in this moment without any judgment. Maybe that “without any judgment” is the harder piece, but recognize what I’m feeling in the moment and still go towards judgment. And that’s a signal for me that I might need to restart the steps, do a little bit more breathing, and just really start to recognize what I’m feeling and kind of getting into that.
And also another piece of the “I feel” part is connected to what we were talking about earlier, just recognizing the sensations in your body and becoming aware and present of your hands and fist and your gut and your heart and all. Just becoming aware and sitting with that for a moment is a part of that I feel frustrated or I feel overwhelmed moment.
Janet Lansbury: Am I really in the space right now to make a good decision or to respond in a way that I want to respond, or am I not there yet? Yeah.
Mr. Chazz: And you can tell you’re there just by listening to your own thoughts. If you listen to Janet Lansbury’s podcast, Miss No Bad Kids, and you are in a moment and you’re seeing your child as a bad child, that is a signal that you are in a state that you’re triggered, you’re in that emotional state. And that is information for you to be aware of so that you don’t just react with your emotions. So I wanted to kind of key in to that piece before diving deeper into the choosing to see it differently piece.
Janet Lansbury: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. I still think that your old way and my way of putting so much priority on the practicing what we see with kids, showing movies of kids that are just being kind of vulnerable, when you look at it that way, and helping parents see that they aren’t bad, that they are actually needing help and some understanding and that they are dysregulated and they’re not consciously doing these things and intentionally being like that. And just that going in, I think, can help us to smooth the way through these steps. But we’re not going to be able to switch to it probably in the moment if we’re not in the practice of that. I think that it sounds like these steps really kind of help you to get there, but I would still recommend the homework.
Mr. Chazz: Janet, I a hundred percent agree. All of these steps, there’s homework to do so that you can do these steps in the moment. And that’s true when we’re learning pretty much everything. When we’re in an emotional, heightened state, it’s going to be hard for us to practice something new, it’s going to be hard for us to learn something new. Those first three steps, I really see it as preparing to actually use the practice of seeing it differently.
Because I know from my experience that this is like I’m here preaching this information and talking about it and believing fully with my full heart that there are no bad kids and all that stuff. And there are moments of frustration or anxiousness or whatever it is where I can lose that, where those old CD-ROMs, those old mental models and the songs that I grew up with, those songs come on my playlist. And then it’s hard to see that behavior differently, to keep that view. Do the work ahead of time.
And a couple of different phrases for me that have been really helpful that I use is: It happened, can’t change it. It’s something I used to always say to myself, because when something would happen, why would you do that? Ah, you spilled or you hurt your friend and such. But I’m reacting to something that already happened and it’s not actually helping us move forward towards, How do we repair the relationship? What can we do differently? Seeing what that child was actually trying to do with their behavior. Like they weren’t trying to hurt their friend, they were just trying to keep their toy. Or maybe they just really wanted the toy and they let their impulses get the best of them. And so I get to a place where I can actually be helpful for them rather than seeing it as, Oh, if I don’t nip this in the bud, then whatever trigger story happens to come up in that moment, they’re going to ruin the classroom or they’re going to turn out to be an insensitive person who doesn’t have the capacity for empathy. I’m kind of jumping all over the place here.
I’d just add, to wrap this choosing piece up, another mantra that I use all the time for myself is: Your child’s not trying to give you a hard time, they’re having a hard time. OOPS is an acronym that stands for “our opportunity to problem solve.”
Janet Lansbury: That’s great.
Mr. Chazz: Or OOPS can stand for “our opportunity to practice skills.”
Janet Lansbury: What I love about your work is that you show how as adults we can relate to children. Because I think what you’re describing too here is when we see the child doing something and it’s, well, that happened, we can’t change it. Sometimes it’s just a pure accident, but other times it’s like the early stages of us as adults being triggered, but with much less ability to manage that and regulate that. If we have to do all these steps, imagine you’re a little kid and you’ve gotten triggered because every time you do something like this, your parent explodes and so you find yourself going there again and again because you’re just kind of stuck there. And so if we’re seeing our children as mini-adults in that way—they’re not adults, but mini-adults with much less maturity, much less self-regulation. I mean, you can’t even compare how hard it is for them compared to us. And yeah, maybe there’s some compassion we can feel there. It’s like, oh gosh, how do I feel when I make a mistake and people want to jump on me? And imagine I’m a little child and I make a mistake.
Mr. Chazz: And also how helpful is it when you make a mistake and people just berate you for the mistake you made and talk about why it was bad or say don’t do that and the no, stop or the don’t. As opposed to really seeing when your son hits your daughter, as opposed to seeing it as an adult hitting another adult, seeing it as like there’s something underneath that.
Janet Lansbury: Right.
Mr. Chazz: I wonder what that was. Maybe they were hitting because they wanted to set a boundary and they didn’t know how to do that in an appropriate way in this moment. Maybe they hit because they really wanted a toy and they didn’t know how to ask for it in this moment with all the emotions rushing through them. Maybe they hit because they were overcrowded and they didn’t have enough space and that was their way of trying to communicate space. Maybe that was their way of entering play. There are so many different reasons why children do the things that they do.
Now, they may not always make sense to us adults, from our perspective. That’s why we have to really do a lot of that work of learning about children and seeing it from their perspective. And it’s helpful to learn about their brain and that the impulse control isn’t fully developed until at least 25, 26. And that’s just the capacity; even as full-grown people, we struggle for emotional regulation and parenting is proof of that, right? There are times where things don’t go your way, so you get triggered into an emotional state and you lecture or yell or whatever.
Janet Lansbury: Or you’re just tired. You’re having a bad day because you’re tired, and everything looks different when you’re tired.
Mr. Chazz: You’re tired, and so maybe you’re a little bit more yelly than what you would typically be or just get triggered a little bit more easily. And the kid’s probably also like, Man, she’s just yelling at me for no reason. There is no reason that she should be yelling. If there is a reason, they may not be able to see it. Just like we may not be able to see their reasons, but there is a reason.
Janet Lansbury: And they’re just feeling like they’re bad and shameful and that we don’t like them. So all the things that we maybe think about them when we’re triggered, this is where they’re getting it. Not to put blame anywhere, but just to know that these are the cycles that we’re talking about and trying to break. This is your work and I love this about you. So is there another step?
Mr. Chazz: Yes, the last step. And I think this last step is the easiest step, in my opinion, when you’re doing your homework and you’re learning about different strategies. So first recognize you’re triggered, do something to calm your body, then recognize what you’re feeling, then choose to see it differently. And once you choose to see it differently, come up with a win-win solution that meets everyone’s needs that is helpful for you and also helpful for the child.
So an example of that, now that we have all the five steps, and I’ve kind of been teasing the example, an example of that is let’s say brother hit sister. And we’re triggered because this is not what we want to happen, and so that’s normal for us to get triggered. Recognize that we are triggered instead of shoving it all down. I’ve got to figure out what to do. I’m feeling frustrated, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I know that he’s not trying to give me a hard time or he’s not trying to hurt the child. He’s having a hard time with something. I wonder what he could be having a hard time with. Looks like he wanted the toy. He didn’t have the skills to ask for a turn or the impulse control to wait for a turn.
And when I see it like that, as opposed to this is a bad kid who’s trying to just destroy our family, solutions open up. Oh, he just didn’t know how to ask for a turn. Now I have an idea, I can teach them how to ask for a turn. Or maybe they were having a hard time dealing with the disappointment of the no when their siblings said no, I’m playing with it still. Maybe I can help them with that and support them in that in the moment. And maybe it’s something I can support them in outside of the moment, when they’re regulated and their emotions aren’t super heightened, there’s something I can work on with them.
Maybe it’s a situation where their sibling was trying to take their toy. Instead of saying, “You know you don’t hit in this family. What’s wrong with you?” Instead of going there, “You wanted to keep your toy and you didn’t know how to make sure that your brother respected your boundary.” Or whatever it is that they were struggling with. And then show them how to do it, teach them how to do it.
But first, before you show them or teach them anything, it’s really important that the children feel seen and understood. That they have a felt sense of safety, they feel understood, and then they’ll be more willing to practice asking for a turn or willing to practice taking a breath. Maybe not at that moment, maybe at another time. But a felt sense of safety and connection prime the brain or the willingness of all the things that we can have the potential to model and teach our children. But if that felt sense of safety isn’t there and that understanding isn’t there, then they will a hundred percent not be willing. They’ll be resistant and not be able to learn what to do differently next time.
Janet Lansbury: Yeah. I also feel, and especially with siblings, as you’re bringing up that example, as a parent of siblings, but this is often the case with any kind of behavior children are doing, the surface is just the surface and it’s usually something below that that’s going on that’s making it hard for them to do these things like ask for a turn or whatever it is. With siblings, it’s oftentimes I don’t feel seen in my pain in this transition of now I’m a big sister and I feel like suddenly I’m getting blamed for everything because I’m acting out of my feelings. I’m not comfortable. I feel like you’ve rejected me and the baby is so cuddly and cute and you love the little one, and I need you to be on my side too. So that’s where it’s always really important.
Like you were just expressing, we’re not making villains or victims out of either child. Because that doesn’t help the victim child, that helps them almost less than it does the “villain” child. That we’re saying you can’t handle your sibling at all. Because oftentimes the younger one is doing stuff to wind up the older one. They can get hooked into that kind of attention from the older one. And they get hooked in especially if we’re coming to the rescue and Oh, you poor thing! And the instigator is often the younger one that ends up getting hit because they were doing something that wasn’t as apparent to us. I’m not saying that either child is in any way bad for this, but it’s just a dynamic that really commonly happens.
And at the root of it for the older child is the feeling that they’ve lost the parent’s good feelings about them. So sometimes it’s like, I need to make more time for this child, or in these moments I need to just do exactly what you said, be neutral about points of view here and see that each person’s point of view is valid, not just the one that goes to my heartstrings because they seem more vulnerable or whatever. But the older child is usually the more vulnerable one in these situations. Although they may not be acting like it, they may be acting like a mean villain. That always stems from vulnerability, as we all know. With adults, too.
Mr. Chazz: I have been lucky enough to coach around the country and go to different schools and work with different children. And no matter where I go, no matter economically, race or gender or anything, all children need a felt sense of safety and a sense of belongingness, connection, and understanding. They all need that.
Janet Lansbury: At least that you want to understand. You don’t have to understand them completely, but you want to try to. That’s all they need. We are not going to understand a lot of what they do, but just, You have a valid point of view, I know it. I don’t know what it is, but I know you have a valid point of view. That’s all they need.
Mr. Chazz: Yeah. There was this time I was working with a teacher in Compton and she sat a child out and I asked the teacher about what happened and she was getting a little bit of the story, and I got enough of the story. I know that this child hit and someone got hurt. And I brought the teacher over there with me because I wanted the teacher to see a different way of doing things, a different way of approaching this. And at first I was trying to talk to the child about, Hey, something happened. And the child was just kind of shut down because the child had been shamed and kind of sent away and the child wasn’t saying anything. And so I was kind of thinking, okay, I need to open up the lines of communication here if we’re going to move forward.
I want this child to feel understood, feel like we’re on the same team. And so what I said was, and I guessed, “So-and-so got hurt and you didn’t want that to happen. You were probably trying to play. And so-and-so got hurt and you didn’t want that to happen. That’s not what you wanted to happen.” And it was amazing how he went from his shut down, head down, avoiding eye contact, and when the shoulders are almost attached to the ear kind of thing. And when I said that, it was clear that I wasn’t blaming him or there to shame him, his body relaxed, his shoulders dropped. He turned to me and he looked at me and he said, “Yeah, I just wanted to play.” Our lines of communication were open. When he felt like, Hey, we’re on the same team. I’m not here to make you feel bad about what happened. I’m here to help you understand and to be on your team and support you. I’m here to help you, he was open to it.
Then that’s when I was like, oh, if you want to play, you can play by tapping on the shoulder or whatever it was, I don’t even remember exactly what we came up with because I kind of worked with the teacher. But that made all the difference for him to be able to know what to do differently next time. And I followed up with the teacher and I’m still in connection with the teacher. And the teacher had said that that moment was really impactful for her to see actually how you can kind of transform that teachable moment into a learning experience. They were on the brink of disenrolling this child, and they were able to actually keep the child in the community and in connection with the classroom. And I think that was the main thing that she really needed, that non-judgment. This happened. I’m still on your team. I’m still here to help you.
Janet Lansbury: And the courage to do that, because really it feels scary when we think we’re supposed to keep them in line and we’ve got to make sure they know they did something wrong. And like you know and observed there, they feel worse than anyone in the room. They totally know they did something wrong, and they don’t need any of that reminding and being told how wrong and bad they were. They already feel that, they felt that while they were doing it probably. And maybe before, and that’s what caused them to do that in a way. It’s knowing that every child has a story and every behavior has a little story behind it, and we’re not going to always figure it all out, but at least want to know the story. That’s the way to heal and make actual change. I love that you were able to do that for that teacher and that child.
You are such a gift to the world. Thank you so much, Mr. Chazz, for talking with me today and anytime. You know I love you.
Mr. Chazz: Love you right back.
Janet Lansbury: And I am one of your biggest fans.
Mr. Chazz: Oh, that means so much.
Janet Lansbury: I was one of your first huge fans.
Mr. Chazz: No denying that, you were day one. I remember doing that first podcast together, being on your podcast and you being on my podcast. And this feels like a full circle moment that we could get to connect together. And I just love connecting with you and hearing what you have to say and bouncing off of your ideas. And so I appreciate you inviting me into your space, into your world, and into your community.
Janet Lansbury: Well, your projects come from passion and your work, and that’s what I admire most. So keep it up and we’ll do this again soon.
Mr. Chazz : Yeah. And next time you’re going to be on my podcast.
Janet Lansbury: Great, I’m excited. I would love that. Bye, Mr. Chazz.
Mr. Chazz: Bye.
