The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

Hurry. Welcome to the show.

Hi, thank you.

Oh, and you're having some difficulty with your five-year-old?

Yeah.

Tell me, is your five-year-old the only one in the house? You got other kids?

Nope.

Okay. He's the only child?

Okay.

And you live alone, or you live with your home?

I did—recently divorced for about a year, for about a year and a half, and just around that time, I moved back in with my parents so I could go to college.

Oh, good for you.

Yeah, to get my degree.

Yeah. And my son—he’s a very hands-on child.

Okay. When you say hands-on, you've got this big laughter with it. Tell me about it.

He loves to be around other children, and he likes having friends. And I noticed when I dropped him off at his—it’s like a daycare Learning Center, because he just turned five—but it’s like a preschool type thing, and I noticed when I drop him off, they’re happy to see him and they say goodbye to him, but they're also very leery of him because he’s not gentle. He’s rough. He doesn’t know how to keep his hands to himself. I had problems with him hitting, like he was trying to wrestle too much with kids.

Yeah.

So I thought to myself, you know, maybe because I let him watch—because I let him watch Spider-Man and Iron Man and Transformers. So I thought, well, maybe, you know, I made a mistake in letting him watch those things. So I took those away from him about a month ago—no, actually, I lie—yeah, three months ago.

Okay.

And it hasn’t really been getting that much better. I even got him into soccer because it’s a non-contact sport.

Yeah.

And after a while, he'll get bored running back and forth, and he wants to, like, shove other kids.

Yeah. Where does he think it came from? Spider-Man, Iron Man, and Transformer—TV or games or what?

I don’t know, because I know sometimes he likes to pretend like he's them, and I don't know. Actually, this past week, he got worse because he actually tried to hit his daycare teacher.

So what triggers it?

I'm sorry?

What triggers his hitting?

I don’t know.

Okay. That's what, you know, as a mom, you want to study—look for patterns. Like, when I picture him hitting, I don’t know whether he’s playing around with a big smile on his face and he's just tousling. Like my kids—we had dogs in our family. We had dogs when my kids were young, and they would just, you know, be petting the dog and jumping around with the dog and kind of—not wrestling—but just playing with the dog. And it was joyous. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t hurtful. And, you know, so I can picture him doing something like that—playing or pretending he’s the hero, which—that’s wonderful, you know, to have your kid want to assume the role of the hero rather than the villain. That’s wonderful.

Well, this is what concerns me—because when I was at school, my mom was watching him, and he got into an argument with his neighborhood friend, and he had a small—he had like a block of wood, and he was holding it over the fence. And my mom says, “What are you doing?” And he was getting ready to drop it on his friend’s head. And she's like, “What are you doing?” And he’s like, “He called me a crybaby. I’m not a crybaby!” He said, “I’m so angry right now.” And she corrected him. She's like, “Put that down. That is not how you solve, you know, your issues.” And she did—she talked to him. She had eight kids. My mom knew how to be calm and talk to him and be firm. But that just worried me a little bit. And then—so that’s when I started getting more strict on the movies.

And then, like now, it’s really upset me that he, you know—he was upset and he hit his teacher. And he’s been in his room because I told him, you know, as soon as you come home from school, you go straight to your room.

Yeah.

Because you don’t touch adults. And that was on Tuesday, and today, every time I go pick him up, I’m like, “How did he do today?” He tried to do it again.

Okay, here’s what happens when you send a kid to the room—what do you think that they’re thinking? Hey, I’ve got to interrupt this because we’ve got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that’s it—a very quick ad—and then Allen will be back.

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Here’s what happens when you send a kid to the room—what do you think that they’re thinking, as a parent?

I think that—to me—he’s probably going out of his mind. He’s very active.

Yeah.

And I think that he’s probably going out of his mind because he’s used to being able to run and play. He’s—he’s 110 [misstatement, possibly meant to be “he’s 100%” or “he’s ten out of ten” active]—and so he goes to sleep—he’s a very active child.

Very active. Okay, let me just slow this down a little bit. One of the things—your mother did something nice, or she did something that I like, which is: when he’s going to become aggressive, to initiate force, to drop a hit with the other child with wood, she stops him right away with a firm, confident voice saying, “No. Kids are not for hitting,” or, “No, that’s not how you solve the issue.” Those are fabulous words, right?

And what he needs—he needs other methods to solve his issue of anger. How does this child know—how does he know how to cope with anger? Most adults don’t. They don’t. They either become sullen and quiet or passive-aggressive, you know—doing things underhanded, they're late, or they’ll get you back somehow. Or they become overtly angry, or it escalates into, you know, hitting people with blocks or, whether it’s calling them a crybaby or other things.

No—he like—and I try to have an open communication with him.

Yeah.

He lets me know. He’ll say, “Mom, I’m just so angry.” He’ll tell me when he’s angry.

Yeah.

And we’ll talk about it. But he just—I guess I see, what do you do—on both sides. Like, when he gets upset, or even when he’s happy—both ways, he’s very hands-on.

Okay, so you have—some of the things that—those are two separate issues. The one where he’s angry: if you know how to teach him how to deal with his own feelings—and I want to give you the name of what I think is the gold standard in parenting—the book. It’s at my website, DrKenner.com. It’s How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk. Just go to my website, DrKenner.com. And they will give you skills such as—if he needs a way to express his anger—you can say, “How old is your son, by the way?”

He is five years old.

Five years old. You can say, “When you’re really angry, draw me a picture of how angry you are,” and give him red and black crayons, you know, and teach him he can express it that way. Or you can express it in words. “You need to tell your friend in words: ‘I am really hurt. I don’t like to be called a crybaby. I expect it to stop.’” You help give him other skills. But most parents don’t have those skills, which is why the books by these particular authors—Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish—are so fabulous.

When he’s playing with kids and being aggressive, maybe you can teach him how to be gentle by, oh, going to a petting zoo and learning how to pet gently, because animals respond if you’re too rough, you know? So teaching him—even with a stuffed animal—you could play around as being gentle with them so he gets a softer side too. And maybe some role models—if you see some people at the zoo handling an animal gently, you know, he can just learn the skill of being—you know, “You want to be gentle with your friends, like at the zoo, honey.”

Listen, thank you so much for your call. I wish we had more time.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com. And please listen to this:

Here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke:

Since you and your partner, despite differences, have values and ideas in common, there is often a natural assumption that your partner should be able to read your mind and thus always know what you are feeling, thinking, or wanting. Rather than expecting your partner to be a mind reader, communicate what is on your mind directly and assertively, while avoiding an attack on your partner’s character. Actively seek more information to better understand each other. Anytime you feel frustration or resentment toward your partner over an issue, don’t let the feeling fester—bring the issue up tactfully and discuss it. If you’ve had a lifetime fear of openly expressing your feelings, wants, and desires, consider professional help.