I think we can all relate to wanting our kids to be more responsible, have more self control, and make good decisions. Today, I'm talking about teaching kids how to make good choices (and it’s not as complicated as you might think).

You’ll Learn:

• The link between connection and coaching
• Why lectures don't work (and what to do instead)
• The 3 steps of a coaching conversation
• How to use help kids make good choices and become more responsible with the STAR tool

The powerful difference in these conversations is that you're not just telling your kid what to do. You're walking beside them, helping them figure it out.

Read more in the full blog post.

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Related Episodes:

• Episode 2.16: The Connection Tool [New & Improved]
• Episode 2.20: Preventing Meltdowns in the Long Term

Free Resources:

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✨ A simple tool to stop yelling once you’ve started (This one thing will get you calm.)

✨ 40 things to do instead of yelling. (You only need to pick one!)

✨ Exactly why you yell. (And how to stop yourself from starting.)

✨A script to say to your kids when you yell. (So they don't follow you around!)

Download the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet here

Connect With Darlynn:

• Book a complimentary session with Darlynn
• Learn about the different parenting programs at www.calmmamacoaching.com
• Follow me on Instagram @darlynnchildress for daily tips
• Rate and review the podcast on Itunes

Welcome back to Become a Calm Mama. I'm your host. I'm Darlynn Childress,

and I'm a life and parenting coach. And today we're diving into something

that I really love to talk about, and it is coaching

your children towards more personal responsibility. I

think we can all relate to wanting our kids to have

more responsibility, to have more self control, all

of those things. Things, right. So we're talking about how to

do that. We all have that same value, but how to do it.

And it is through coaching your child through

connection and then having a coaching conversation. So

the last few episodes, I have talked about how to have these

coaching conversations. I've talked about how to coach your kids out of negative

self talk. I've talked about how to coach your kids to become

more emotionally regulated. And today we're going to talk about

how to coach your kids to become more responsible using

an acronym called star actually. So

it's teaching your kids how to stop, think,

act and reflect. So that's where we're going today.

But how are we going to get there? How do you actually get

to a point where you can teach your child this new skill and they

listen to you? How do you do that? That's what I want to teach you

today. So you might be thinking, darlin, I'm not

a coach. I'm a parent. I'm a mom, I'm a dad. I'm just someone trying

to get through the day, and I don't have time to teach all this stuff

to my kids all the time. I hear you, but you're teaching them

all the time anyways. You're always trying to teach your

kids how to become more responsible,

how to take care of their bodies, how to eat well. You're always teaching them

about your brain and why you have rules and you're already doing it.

So I want to make sure that you're doing it in a way that

actually gets the result that you want, which is teaching your kids how to be

more responsible. So by the end of this episode, I want you

to have a deeper understanding of the connection tool

and more awareness around the coaching conversations,

how to do these conversations in a way that really makes

a difference with your kids. So. So let's first talk about the

connection tool, because we cannot really coach

our kids into learning something new until

they feel seen and validated and are calm. Okay, before I

explain the framework, I want to paint a picture for you. I want you

to think about a moment recently when your child did something that

frustrated you. Maybe they hit Their sibling. Maybe they refused to put

their shoes on for the fourth time this week or today. Maybe

they're, they said something disrespectful or rude or impolite, or they

lied to you, or they completely fell apart over something that

seemed so small. And in that moment, maybe you weren't

able to take a calm break, maybe you weren't able to self regulate, maybe you

raised your voice, maybe you gave a consequence, maybe you launched into a

lecture about what they did, that, why it was wrong, and why they need to

do it differently. Or you ask them over and over again, like, why'd you do

that? Why'd you do that? What did you do that for? And here's probably

what happened when you showed up that way is that your child

shut down, they got defensive, they started blaming someone

else, or they just said, I don't know, and they like stared at the

floor. Now those conversations are frustrating

because you know that you want to do something differently,

but you just aren't sure what. So let's fix

that today. Let me help you understand that the reason that those

conversations go sideways is not because your

child doesn't care. Care. It's not because they're a bad kid.

It's because your approach to teaching them is

not creating an environment that is safe enough for them to feel

vulnerable, for them to admit mistake, for them to learn and show

up differently. If you go straight to correction, if you go

straight to consequence, straight to the lesson, and you skip

that connection piece, your child will not be as

receptive, will not be as open, open to learning. So the

connection tool is really important and it's a part of the connection

pillar, which is this connect then coach

concept. When you do these two things together, when you

connect first and coach second, then your child will

become more responsible, more self aware

and grow up to be emotionally healthy and you

become the kind of parent that your kid actually wants to talk to, which is

really cool. So, so let's start with the connection tool. I have taught it

before on the podcast, many, many times. So I just want to go over it

really quickly because I think it's really important to always be

reminded of how we need to connect first before we

try to do anything else in parenting. And

the connection tool is ultimately a tool to help your

child learn how to connect better with themselves,

how to understand what, what is going on within them

and why they are behaving the way they're behaving and then

learning to build that self awareness so that they can

stop and think about how they want to act.

And then if they act in a way that's not responsible, they can reflect

and take responsibility. So the connection tool is your

go to tool whenever you see your child having an off

track behavior or getting really dysregulated. So they could be

crying, they could be throwing a fit, they could be explosive, they could be withdrawn,

they could be melting down, or they could just be really off track behavior.

So what is the connection tool? It's noticing and

narrating what you see, naming the feeling and

validating it, and then helping your child regulate that emotion.

So the first step, notice, right? I want you to become a

parent who is not so quick to judge

behavior, but notice it somewhat neutrally.

Notice the behavior in a curiosity

way, in a way to be like, what's going on here?

But really trying to answer that question, what could be going on here?

What are the circumstances that my child is responding to?

What are the emotions that they are struggling with, coping with,

or what are they trying to communicate with this behavior? So having

that lens of noticing is going to be really helpful. And then I

want you to narrate the facts. Narrate what you

can see the behavior. So you could say, I see that you're

spitting, I see that you're screaming, I see that you're yelling, I hear

that you're complaining. And then you go to

naming. I wonder if you're feeling blank, whatever that

emotion is that you're guessed before, that could be going on. So

when you are narrating the circumstance and naming the

emotion, you're really helping your child feel seen and

heard and understood. And that creates

a softening within them. Their nervous system starts to calm down and

regulate because they don't need to work so hard in order

for their needs to get met. So when you are

narrating, you're really helping your child also

become aware of how they are behaving, what's going on on the

outside for them, and then maybe connecting to the inside.

So narrating is important because it helps your child feel seen

and safe. And then naming that feeling grows your

child's emotional literacy. Like Dan Siegel always

says, name it to tame it. Like, you can't regulate an

emotion unless you really know what your what it is. Naming

it helps your child become more and more aware of their own emotion.

And then we're going to validate that feeling. So validating

is a step that parents struggle with because they feel like if

I say, you know, your feeling makes sense and your behavior

makes sense, that the parent is then not able

to discipline the behavior, not able

to consequence that behavior, not able to coach that behavior.

It can feel like you're agreeing with the behavior, but it's not

the same as approval. Validation means you're acknowledging your

child's feeling and, and giving them a sense of their own experience

and helping them understand themselves and feel seen.

So you're saying like it makes sense that you're upset, you were looking forward to

that play date and it got canceled, or of course you're frustrated. You've been

working on that puzzle or building that set of blocks and the

pieces keep falling apart. You're not saying it's

okay to hit or throw or punch or complain or grumpy

or steal or sneak or lie or whatever. You're just

validating the emotion and, and validating that their

behavior makes sense because they are little and they don't have the

ability to control their big feelings. Yet when you validate,

it does help the nervous system start to regulate.

That is one of the main tools of regulation is having

someone see and validate your experience.

It is very soothing and it calms the nervous system.

But if your child is still very dysregulated and then you want to offer

a regulation tool or you want to help support

them as they move through those big feelings in a healthy way.

So that can mean taking a deep breath, that can mean jumping up and down,

that can mean going outside, that can mean taking a cool

bath, I was going to say, or go wash your hands or you know, draw

a picture of your feelings. There's so many different regulation tools

and grounding ideas that can help your child process their emotion.

So become like versed in ideas that

help your kid when they have big emotion. That was something I

taught a few weeks ago of how to prep your kid in a

way so that they know that they are in charge of regulating themselves,

that you're going to help them. But it's ultimately their job to

learn to self regulate. And you as a family practice these

tools and these grounding techniques as often as you can

so, so that they become accessible to your child in the moment when

they're frustrated. So your child remember they are

easily dysregulated because of their age. Your child is like

a live wire. There's always electricity and energy coursing

through them all the time and it does get overwhelming for them. And

they don't always know how to balance their nervous system and how to re

regulate themselves. So they do need help, especially

under six. Now the Goal is to get them to learn to

self regulate. And you do that through co regulation. You

participate a little bit. That's why

timeouts aren't that effective because they

really say to the child, go over there, come back when

you're calm. But the problem is that children have a lot of trouble getting

calm on their own. So the idea is really

to bring them in and help them calm their bodies

and calm their nervous system and make a different choice. And but with

your support. Now, obviously if you're dysregulated, you're not

going to be able to coach them very well. So you

might need a timeout. That's what a calm break is for. It's really

you giving yourself permission to regulate yourself

before you go and connect and coach your kid.

So the connection tool is something you use when your kid's dysregulated.

It's something you use when they have off track behavior. You don't always

need to say all of it out loud. You don't need to go through every

single step with them. It's useful when you're

learning the tool to practice it aloud with your child.

It helps them have an understanding of what

is going on and what you're helping them with.

But just having it in your own framework as a

lens that you view your child's behavior through this lens of

dysregulation and struggling with their behavior,

normalizing, that will help you not get so upset.

So some of you might be thinking like, oh, that sounds like a lot. And

I get it, it does take practice, but practice it

and it might feel awkward, it might feel slow, but over time this will

become second nature and the way that your child responds will

matter. They will eventually not be so

dysregulated. They'll learn the tools and you won't have so much

misbehavior to deal with. Okay, so let's talk about when to have these

coaching conversations. I see this a lot, that right when the

behavior happens, the child does something wrong, they lied, they hurt a sibling,

they had a major meltdown in the grocery store and the parent wants to have

a conversation about it, right? Then they want to address it. They want to teach

their child something. That's the right instinct, but it's

not the right timing. So if you sit down with

your child and they're not feeling seen or validated, they're going to shut

down and they might get defensive and start arguing right? Or blame

everyone else and they might start crying. And that means

that they did not feel Validated yet. They haven't

quite gotten to that point. And they're in a protective mode,

right? They're feeling worried that you're gonna

be mad at them, and their nervous system is reading that

situation as a threat. So if that's the case, that's

just evidence to you. Oh, I need to connect. They're not ready for this conversation

yet. So we want our kids to be in a good regulated

state and we wanna have connected with them before

we try to do a coaching conversation. If you've ever

had, like, tried to have a conversation with your kid about their

behavior and they lie and they shut down and all of those

things, you probably are like, what's wrong with my kid? What's wrong with

me? And I just wanna really normalize that that's their child's survival

strategy. When a child is lying or deflecting, they're

trying to protect themselves. They're scared that if you

see their mistake or you get mad at them that you might love them a

little less, you might not take care of them. And that's like this existential

fear that kids have. And that doesn't mean anything's gone

wrong. It doesn't mean they have bad attachment. It just means

that they're wired for attachment and they're constantly seeking to make

sure that. That they have it, and that's okay. So your

disappointment and your anger, it could trigger their survival brain and

it could shut them down. That's why we do the connection tool before

we do coaching or even correction when we give a consequence.

Wanna make sure everyone is regulated and calm and feel seen. So when

your child experiences you as this kind, calm and

compassionate witness, when you notice what's happening and

you narrate what you see and you validate them and they feel safe

and their thinking brain comes back online

and they become more willing to admit mistakes. Okay, so now that we've laid the

foundation, your kid feels sane, they feel safe, you've done the connected tool. Let's talk

about coaching conversation. A coaching conversation is

basically replacing a lecture. It's replacing the thing that you do

when you just mama log a little bit and tell your kid, blah, blah, blah,

don't do this because of this. And that's why it's bad, right? Lectures don't

work. And if they did, I would not have a podcast, I would not have

a job. Because parents are constantly lecturing their kids

and they are ineffective in moving the child towards

greater responsibility, greater understanding. Partly because we're not

doing the connection first. And also because in a coaching conversation,

it's an actual conversation. It's a give and take.

You're having a question and answer conversation. So

I don't want your kids to be tuning out and their eyes glazing over and

say, yes, yes, I know, sorry. Just, you know, whatever they can to make the

conversation stop. A coaching conversation, it's different.

It's a dialogue and it invites your child to participate

and it helps them actually learn what you want them to

learn. A coaching conversation always has these three.

Reflecting on the behavior, teaching why that

behavior doesn't work, and practicing the new behavior.

So I'm going to give you some ideas about how to

practice the new behavior and some ideas about how to

reflect and some ideas about how to teach your child. But I want you to

trust your intuition here. As long as you're hitting these main points of

reflecting on why your child's behaving that way,

teaching them a different way to behave and practicing that new

behavior, that's all that really matters. I want you to feel

free to coach your kid, to parent your child.

You're their parent. You know why you have rules and

what your values are and where your kid is at and their skills. And you

can be creative. I'm going to give you some ideas and I also want you

to trust your instinct. Okay, so let me talk about these three

parts of having a coaching conversation. Reflecting, teaching, and

practicing. So reflecting is where you're helping the,

the child see the pattern of their behavior. You're

helping them understand why it's happening. It's like, hey,

every time I ask you to put your shoes on, you end up

getting distracted and running upstairs or running to the playroom or running

to the toy bin and grabbing a toy. And it makes sense because

you don't want to stop playing and you want to have fun, right?

Isn't that what you want? So you're

reflecting on what is happening,

what you've noticed. You're calmly and neutrally,

without blaming or accusing them. You say something like, I noticed

that when I ask you to put your shoes away after school, it often doesn't

happen. Or I've noticed when it's time to get ready for bed, things

get really chaotic around here. Or I've noticed that when I

say no to something you want, it can be really hard for you to accept

that and you'll start crying or running away.

So you're reflecting on how they are acting

in general. Like, why are you even talking about this? Is this a pattern? Like,

you want to tell Them why you're talking about it and reflecting on it. So

you're normalizing it. You're saying, that makes sense. It's normal for kids

to struggle. Kids want to play. Kids don't want to do work.

Kids don't want to go to school on time. Like, you don't care about time.

You're little. And I understand that it's just genuinely hard for

you to stop doing something fun and switch to something you don't want to do.

I know it's hard for you to control your impulses. That's just how your

brain works. You're a kid. If you really

validate that they are still young, they're learning that it's

okay. They are more open to

learning and practicing the new

skills. So you're really taking the shame out of it. But by

saying this to them, by saying, I understand why you would

behave that way. You're a kid, and kids make

mistakes. Kids don't know about time. Kids don't know about money. Kids don't know about

velocity or gravity or really anything. And I want you

to feel that that's true. Like, your kid is still learning a lot.

They don't know everything yet. They're young, and they're

gonna make mistakes. And if you can just reflect on

that's okay. That makes sense. That will make

them feel more likely to then take the teaching.

So you would then ask a couple of questions. You might ask them, like, do

you find it hard to listen to me sometimes? Or is it hard to

stop doing something fun and switching to something you don't want to do?

Why do you think that is? And listen, really listen to their

answers and try to understand what they're

coming from. That will help you when you do the practicing to get

guide them better if you really listen to why they're doing those things

that they're doing. So it also builds insight for your kid

because you're teaching them to do that reflection themselves and to think and

build awareness about their own behavior. Why do I act this

way? Not because I'm a bad kid, but because I'm still learning

or because I don't like, stop playing now. The second part is teaching. This is

where you introduce the new skill or concept that you want them to develop.

And you always want to anchor this in your role

as a parent. So you want to say to them, like, when

I ask you to do something, or when I say no to something you want,

I have good reasons. As a parent, it's my job to

make sure we get places on time. It's my job to make sure we take

care of our bodies and take care of our things and be respectful of others,

manage our resource wells. You don't have to go through all of those. But you

might say, this is my job as a parent. That's why I'm giving you

directions. That's why I am telling

you it's time to go. Because I'm a grown up and I know how time

works. And you explain that part of growing up is

learning to become responsible. Your job, you tell them your job is

to learn to think before you act, to pause even when you have an

impulse or you have a desire to do something else. I want you to learn

to stop and think before you act.

So I want to teach you how to the STAR tool. And you can

actually then tell them what you're going to be teaching them, which is this

STAR tool. So here's a specific tool that I love to teach

kids and this called STAR tool. So it's S,

T A R. And it gives kids a concrete process to

follow in moments when they need to manage their behavior. So you just kind of

tell them like S stands for stop before you act, especially

if you're frustrated, especially if you are not listening. You

know, mommy tells you to do something. I want you to stop and

think before you act. So the S is stop, the T

is think and the A is act. So the, the the

T. I want you to be thinking about this situation. If I say

put your shoes on, I want you to be thinking, what did she just ask

me to do? Or if the teacher says line up or keep your hands to

yourself or put your backpacks away or you hear any

direction from a grown up, I want you to stop and think.

So stop, think and then act. What is

being asked of me? What am I supposed to do? And then you can also

ask yourself what will happen if I don't listen. So do

some thinking before you act. So I want you to teach your kids this

acronym of star. If you, if your kids don't know how to read or

spell yet, that's okay. You could say S stands for stop

and they will learn it. It's like they don't need to know

anything else. They don't need to know how to read in order to understand. S

stands for stop, T stands for think. A is

act. So you can say make a star choice. When they

are acting out, you can say if they're not

listening to you, you can pause and say listen, make a star choice

and that way you have a cue for your kids going forward that

when they're out of bounds or they're not listening, you can then go back

and say, make a star choice. So A is act. That's where they make

a choice. And then R is review. If your

child makes a mistake and you want to coach them

through that mistake, go ahead and ask them to go through

star. Let's stop and think about what I asked you to do.

And then what did you do? Okay, you, you did

that instead. What are the impacts of that? What could you do

differently next time? So this is how we want to build self awareness

with our kids and give our kids something to hold on to.

Star is really helpful because they want to be a star kid or

you know, make a star choice, right? So instead of just saying you need to

listen better, you need to control yourself. Giving them this process

will help your kids. And then you're able to reflect back

and say, was that a star choice? So you can use this if you like

it. If you don't like it, you can bag it. But I do think it's

helpful to give your kids frameworks of what you expect of them. And

then you create these like little cues within your family

so that as a parent you can look at them and be like, hey, I

said make a star choice. Right? So then you practice, right? You

reflect, you teach, and then you practice and you say, okay, let's practice star

together. So imagine tomorrow we get ready for camp or

we're getting ready for going to swim lesson or something like that.

And I say, get your swim trunks or I say finish up your

meal or put your plate on the counter. So what does stop

mean in that moment? What are you being asked to do? Let's think it through

together. You're being asked to take your

plate to the counter. What should you be thinking? What do you want to be

thinking when mommy says do this? You want to be thinking,

I should make a star choice. And then what do you actually do?

Listen. That's, that's the action piece. And then what happens

if you don't listen? What are the consequences? Right, we're late.

You don't get to do the warm up with your class. Whatever it is,

walk them through the negative consequences that can happen

if they don't make a star choice. So you're not

quizzing, you're just practicing. You're running through scenarios. You're helping them in

real life. If you have younger kids and you want to teach them the star

tool, you might do it really playfully. You might role play it. You might use

puppets or act it out. The sillier it is, the more it sticks for

little ones. And if you have teens or middle schoolers, you

know, you might do it a little bit more like a peer. You might acknowledge

they're getting older and you want to give them more input. What do you think

the consequence should be if you're not ready for school on time? What do you

think a fair expectation looks like? Trying to build in some

conversation about it in the context of the star tool.

So the key to all of this is that you are not just telling your

kids what to do. You're walking beside them and you're helping them

figure it out. You're a coach, you're not a dictator. And that

shift, that's what really changes how you interact as a family.

You want your children to know that you're the in charge, that you're a

leader, that you're the grown up, but that you're there to help them

become their own grownup. You're there to teach and guide them and

you're not there to criticize and scold them.

So let's recap real quick. We have talked about the connection pillar, which is

these two parts of connection and coaching. And, and that connection

tool is really all about, you know, looking at your child,

narrating what you see, naming that emotion, validating the feeling

and helping your child regulate their emotion. Before

you do that teaching conversation, that coaching conversation

where you help them learn how to think before they act,

how to make a good choice, how to make a star

choice. We talked about that framework, right? Is

reflecting first, teaching them and then practicing and

using the star framework. If you want, stop, think,

act and review. It's a fun tool. I think it's great if you

teach it to your kids. But the most important thing is that you always want

to do connection before coaching, connection before

teaching. So here's the challenge for you this week. I want you to pick

a situation in your house. You just one where your child struggles.

Maybe it's morning routine, maybe it's bedtime, maybe it's screen time

transitions. And I want you to try the connection tool the

next time it blows up. Don't jump straight to coaching

or teaching. Start with just noticing,

narrating, naming and validating and regulating them and

seeing what happens. And then if you, once your kid calms down,

you can do that coaching conversation and you can talk to them about, about,

hey, instead of screaming at mommy,

can you stop before you do that behavior and think

about your choice. So reflecting on that pattern with them,

reviewing star, reviewing that idea of

stopping before you act, thinking about

your action and then taking action and

helping them do that in that one

scenario that you're really wanting to practice this week. Now, you don't have

to be perfect at this, okay? It's going to be

something that you're learning. You've been learning the connection tool all along with me. If

you've been listening to podcasts and now we're adding coaching, we're adding a

new level of teaching your child a

skill or a value that you have using

that coaching framework of reflecting on the behavior and

teaching why that behavior doesn't work and then teaching them a

new way to behave and practicing that new behavior.

So if this episode is at all helpful for you, I

would love it if you shared it with another parent who needs support. Also,

if you could rate the podcast, if you haven't done that yet, it really helps

get this podcast out to reach more families. And of course,

don't forget that if you have not received the Stop Yelling toolkit, and

that's a really great tool. I teach you how to do a calm break, how

to get regulated, how to balance your own nervous system so that you

don't blow up on your kids. You can get that at my website,

calmmamacoaching.com or any of the resources that are in

the show notes. So I'm really glad you were here listening today,

and I hope you have a great week. Reach out if you have

any questions you can find me on social media, respond to my

email, and I'm here for you. So

thanks for being willing to listen to showing up as the parent that you

want to be and to continue to improve

how you are as a mom or as a dad, if that's who you are.

All right, so I'll see you next week on Become a Calm Mama. I hope

you have a great week.