The best way to improve your child's behavior on the outside is helping them understand how to cope and communicate with their big feelings on the inside.

You’ll Learn:

• The NEW 5-step Connection Tool and how to use it when your child is in their big feelings
• How to think about your child’s behavior so that you can see them through a neutral or compassionate lens
• LOTS of real-life examples and scripts for you to use
• The difference between delaying consequences and permissive parenting

I’m walking you through exactly how to use (new & improved!) The Connection Tool to coach your kids when they're having big feeling cycles or when they're dysregulated.

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The Connection Tool is one of my favorite tools I’ve ever created to help parents emotionally coach their kids when they're having big feeling cycles or when they're dysregulated. Today, I’ll walk you through exactly how to use it. And if you’ve been around a while, you may notice a few improvements.

The Connection Tool falls under the 2nd pillar of my Connected Parenting Process:

Calm >> Connect >> Limit Set >> Correct

This process is meant to simplify parenting for you as much as possible. When you’re seeing off-track behavior, it means that some parenting is probably needed. And by going through the 4 steps of the process, you can use your kid’s behavior as a clue to what they might be feeling or needing.

The best way to improve your child's behavior on the outside is helping them understand how to cope and communicate with their big feelings on the inside.

Kids don’t know what to do with disappointment, anger, jealousy, and those other hard emotions. So, they complain, ignore you, run away from you, call names, hit their brother, etc. The Connection Tool helps you teach them how to handle those emotions in an appropriate way.

What Do I Mean By Connection?

When you hear the term “connection” as it relates to parenting, your mind might automatically go to the connection between you and your child. Of course, I want you to have a good relationship with your kid, but that’s not exactly what we’re talking about here.

When I talk about “connection” in the Connected Parenting Process, I’m really talking about the connection between your child’s behavior and their emotions. You’re helping to connect what’s happening on the inside and how it’s showing up outside of them through their behavior.

In essence, it’s about connecting your child to themself. Giving them an understanding and awareness of how they're thinking, how they're feeling, and helping them learn to manage their feelings in healthy ways. Emotional health and wellbeing always starts with awareness.

This is also called “emotional literacy”, which essentially means that they can understand what they are feeling, describe it with words, and express those emotions in health and appropriate ways that work for them, your family, and their community.

From there, they can also learn how to shift their thinking so that they have a better mindset about whatever is going on in their life.

One thing I want to point out is that when your child is in a big feeling cycle or acting out, they don’t need limits or correction (yet). What they need first is connection. Threatening, accusing, minimizing, or insulting are not helpful in this situation. They will only make your child more dysregulated.

The Connection Tool

I’ve been teaching this tool to parents for a long time, but through the process of writing my book, I realized that it was incomplete.

The NEW Connection Tool has 5 parts.

1. Notice. This is just for you. You notice that something is going on. Your kid is dysregulated or acting out. They might be tired, hungry, overstimulated, facing frustration. They're having feelings of stress, Frustration, anger, disappointment, disappointment.

Often, you’ll notice this before they really lose it. You’ll see that something is a little off, something’s brewing. Your kid looks mostly fine, but inside their nervous system is working really hard.

This is a great time for you to take a CALM break. You know that your kid is starting to show big feelings, and they’re going to need your help. If a behavior shows up and you find yourself upset by it or you start showing up with some of those less-than-helpful responses, those are also signs to take a break, get calm, and re-align with your goals.

2. Narrate. When somebody is dysregulated, they have exceeded their capacity to cope with their emotional upset in a healthy way. They no longer have access to logic. You can help bring them back into the moment by narrating the behavior you see.

For example:

“I am giving each of you dessert, but I saw you hit your brother because I gave it to him first.”

“I said that it was time to turn off the video game, and I noticed that you haven't done it yet.”

“I said it was homework time, but now I see that you’re playing in the backyard instead of sitting down at the table.”

You are narrating the circumstances and the specific actions and behaviors that you’re seeing. This is what's going on on the outside. Stick to the facts.

3. Name. Now, you name the feeling that’s happening on the inside. I like to phrase this as a question or curiosity. Like this…

“I wonder if you are feeling angry that I gave your brother the dessert first.”

“I wonder if you are sad that you don’t get to play video games any more.”

“I wonder if you are feeling annoyed that it's time to do homework.”

The narrating and the naming go together to help neutralize the behavior. It’s like holding up a mirror and saying, “Hey, I'm seeing this behavior and I'm thinking it's because of this circumstance.”

4. Validate. Now that the feeling has a name, let your child know that however they’re feeling is valid. Of course they’re feeling angry, sad, annoyed, etc.

One of my favorite phrases for this is, “That makes sense.”

5. Regulate. This is where you help your child move through the feeling so that they can get back to a state of calm. Ask, ”What are you going to do with that anger (or whatever emotion you’ve named together)?”

You can give suggestions. “Do you want to run around? Do you want to jump up and down? Do you want to talk about it? Do you want to tell me more things? Do you need to take a break from the family?” Let them know that you can help them or they can do it on their own.

There are a ton of different ways to regulate the nervous system, but moving the body is almost always a great starting point. It helps to push those emotions through and out of the body. Imagine it like an electrical current that is all charge up and needs to be discharged.

Sometimes, you’ll need to set a boundary as part of regulation. For example, “You can stay here and eat this dessert with us as long as you're not name calling.” Remember that limit setting has to come from a very calm, grounded place. The message is, “This behavior isn't safe for everybody, and we want you to be around here.”

This process of regulation often only takes around 90 seconds (even though it might feel like an eternity).

Once your child is regulated and calm again, you’ll coach them through resetting their mind and thoughts (more on that in the next episode!).

The goal of the Connection Tool is not that your child will not have big feelings anymore. The goal is for there to be less and less damage when those feelings come up. All humans are going to have tough emotions. And kids will be immature.

We want to move away from violence, disrespect, and behaviors that cause problems for others, like time delays and energy drains.

We want our kids to understand that their feelings are valid and make sense. And to know healthy ways to move that emotion through their bodies and minds. We’re helping them to connect the dots between what's going on inside of them to what's going on on the outside of them. And holding them responsible for their behavior in a loving way.

Free Resources:

Get your copy of the Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet!

In this free guide you’ll discover:

✨ 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:

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

a life and parenting coach. And on the episode today, I

want to talk to you about the connection tool. The

connection tool is a tool that I created several

years ago to help parents emotionally coach their kids when

they're having big feeling cycles or when they're dysregulated.

And it's part of the connected parenting process under

the pillar of Connect. The connected

parenting process has four pillars. The first is calm.

And the primary tool under calm is the calm

break. And I talked about that in a couple episodes ago.

The second pillar is connect. And the primary tool for

connect is the connection tool, which we're going to talk about today. The next

pillar is limit set. That's how to set boundaries with kids.

And we use the limit setting formula. And then the last

pillar is correct and we do a correction conversation.

And the tool is restitution. So I've tried to

simplify parenting as much as possible by creating the

connected parenting process. Calm, connect, limit set,

correct. And when you are going through a parenting

situation with your children when something comes up,

a behavior that you don't like, or a dysregulation,

they're showing a bunch of big feelings or they're acting out

some emotion or they're complaining a lot or whatever, usually it's a

behavior that we look at and that means

parenting is probably necessary cause the behavior is off track.

I want you to be thinking of the connected parenting process.

Am I calm? That means like am I emotionally

regulated? While also am I in a place where

I can view this behavior from a compassionate lens or

at least neutral? Am I able to see this behavior as

a form of communication of my child's big feelings or

their needs or their wants or their frustrations?

Right. Seeing their behavior as an expression of what's going

on inside their behavior. Your children's

behavior is, is really a great window or a clue to what

they might be needing or feeling inside. So when you can look at

behavior as a window into your child's

emotional health, emotional well being, physical health, all of those

things, then you will be more neutral and even move into some

curiosity and compassion. That's what calm is all about.

Then you want to connect your child's

external behavior with their emotions. You want to

connect their. Their what's going on ins outside of

them, what you can see to what be could be going on inside of

them that they can't see, that they can't understand.

When we Think about connection. Yes. It has to do with

our own emotional connection with our kids. We want to have

a good relationship with them. We want them to have a good relationship with

their siblings and with their other. Anybody in their life, of course.

But really, connection in the connected parenting

process is a lot more about connecting your child to

themselves, giving them an understanding

and awareness of how they're thinking, how

they're feeling, and helping them learn to

manage their feelings in healthy ways and

learn how to shift their thinking so that they

have a better mindset about whatever's going on in their life.

So connection to me is really about connecting your child

with your child, the outside of them, what they can,

you know, their behavior with what's going on inside. For

every single person, emotional health and

emotional well being always starts with awareness.

Awareness of how we want to act in the world

compared to how we are actually acting, and then an

awareness of what could be going on inside that might be driving

our behavior. What you're doing as the parent is you're

really helping your child learn emotional

literacy, learn what they are

experiencing inside, giving them

words to describe that and then giving them tools to express

those emotions and those thoughts and those needs and those

desires in healthy and appropriate ways that work

for them, that work for the community, that work for your family. Giving them

just so many tools to help them be able to

manage their big feelings and their thoughts and feelings and wants.

Part of parenting in a connected parenting way is all

about teaching your kids how to know what they're feeling,

know how to talk about their feeling, know what to do with that feeling.

That's what emotional literacy is. And we do that through

connection, particularly through the connection tool.

Now, I have taught the connection tool on this podcast many

times because it is a primary tool in my

parenting process and in my parenting programs. As I've been

writing the book, the Emotionally Healthy kids book, I'm

realizing that the tool was

incomplete, to be honest, that it used to be

narrate. Narrate what you can see. Name,

name the feeling. And then I had this vague thing called now what

with a question mark. So the tool was narrate, Name now

what? And I realized that having a tool with a question mark

is probably not that helpful. Right. In

my mind, I would want you to be answering, you

know, okay, so I'm narrating what I can see, the behavior, the

circumstance, what's happening for my kid. I'm naming the emotion,

making a guess of what could be happening. And then now what is really

your open ended Question of now, what can they do with those

thoughts and feelings? And I realized that actually, when

you're in the moment with your kids, you kind of need to have that

answered for yourself. So I have

designed the connection tool. I've revamped it and

improved it quite a bit. So that's what I want to teach you today

on this podcast episode is this new connection tool.

You will notice, if you've already been listening for a long time, you'll

notice there's similar parts of it. The narrating

and naming is still there, but the now what is actually

defined. So the new connection tool has five

parts, which is, I know, complicated, but it's

not. It's just so you can kind of like walk through. When your

child is misbehaving or they're having a big feeling cycle,

what are you supposed to be doing? So the first part is notice.

You're just noticing, like, oh, I'm in it. Like, this kid is in it. There's

something going on, right? Notice that's your part, right? It's pretty simple. Just

take. Take a look at your kid, you know, okay, so you notice that

they're dysregulated, narrate, name,

regulate, coach, and correct. When you're in the

moment with your children, you're not going to go through all these parts at one

time, because coaching and correcting

come later once the person is regulated. So I want you to

think about with the connection Tool, the first thing you're doing is you're

noticing, right? Your child starts to feel overwhelmed. Maybe they're

tired, hungry, overstimulated, facing frustration.

They're having feelings of stress, Frustration, anger,

disappointment, disappointment. All those feelings, they start to stack in their

body. So your child will look mostly fine, but their

nervous system is all. Is working really hard, right?

So when you're paying attention to your kids, you might see that

something's brewing, something's going on with them. They're starting to

possibly lose it. I know you know

this whole phenomena with your children because

you're like, what is going on? Are they off? Like, what is happening?

Something? Sometimes there's nothing brewing. You just look and your

kid's like, you know, really upset about something. I see this all the

time with my own kids, with people I work with. When I'm at

the store, grocery store, whatever it is, restaurants

that you know, kids will just show up and they're like, boom,

right? They're, like, upset. So your brain might see this

behavior as a threat, but I want you to remember to stay Calm.

Practice your calm break. Recognize that your child is starting

to show a big feeling cycle and that you are wanting to

align. So the calm break is like checking in with

yourself, aligning with your value of connected

parenting, and then labeling what's happening for you

and for your child. And then if you have to like move your body or

move your mind, you can. The goal here is that you

get used to these big feeling cycles and when they come,

they don't really bother you that much. You're like, oh, here's what. Like you notice

it. Okay, so being comfortable with your

child's discomfort, being comfortable when your kids are

complaining, overwhelmed, anxious, when their

behavior shows up. They're hitting, they're punching, they're kicking, they're

throwing, they're refusing to listen. Any of those behaviors

that you see when you notice those

behaviors and you kind of like, one of the things that

you notice is that you're upset by it. That's your

clue that you are about to use the connection tool

that you want to regulate as quickly as possible and show

up with your children. Because your child in

that moment isn't needing correction,

they're needing connection. So when you notice

an off track behavior, or a

complaining or a behavior that bothers you,

that isn't the time to set a

limit. Now you can set a limit. You can

say, honey, I want to listen to you,

but I can't hear you when you're crying. Can you say that in a big

girl voice? Or I will help you with your problem, but

not when you're being unkind to me. Can you try again? Speak kindly.

You can test in that moment when you

notice that something's going on, you can test a limit.

You can see whether your child can

regulate themselves. It's almost like you're testing

whether they're in their big feelings or whether they have access to some

logic. So whatever that behavior, that off track behavior

is, if you want to set a limit around it, that's great for you to

notice the behavior, set a limit. And then if they're able to

correct themselves, awesome. But what parents often do

in that moment is they threaten or they accuse their child.

Why are you being so nervous about this? This is not a big deal. Or

they'll minimize, or they'll go in and they'll insult on a

subconscious level. Like, you know, I've already told you, I've already answered the question

four times. Do not ask me again.

Right? Or you did not tell me that you had to be there at seven

o'. Clock. And now you're mad at me. Like, we get defensive, we

attack back, we, you know, get annoyed, we

try to threaten. You know, if you don't stop what you're doing right now, I

am not taking you. I am not taking you. You better stop it,

right? I have been there. Everyone listening to this podcast has

been there. You are not alone. We tend to, in the

beginning of a misbehavior or an off track behavior, or a moment

of frustration or stress or conflict between our kids,

we tend to not be calm. So when you

show up in a way that isn't in a connection, not using the

connection tool, that's your invitation to yourself, oh, I better

check myself, right? Check in and check myself and align

back to my goals. So the first part of the connection tool is just noticing

where you're at. You can set a limit if you can and just see if

your child can re regulate and like reset. A lot of times

they can't because they aren't used to

your limit setting formula yet or they are too young

to emotionally regulate and access that logical part of their brain.

Or you say it in a way that's so threatening that it

continues to activate their nervous system. In general, I

would love for you to be able to look at your child's behavior

from a neutral lens or even a compassionate lens. Just be

like, this kid is having a hard time. I love when,

you know, parent educators say, the kid isn't giving

me a hard time, instead they're having a hard

time. I think that's a wonderful way to look at their behavior.

So you're just noticing what's happening. Okay? Then

you narrate what's happening. So you're narrating

the dysregulation. So when somebody is

dysregulated, they have exceeded their

capacity to cope with their emotional upset in a

healthy way. So the nervous system is always kind of

trying to, it's working on being in balance. It's working on

keeping itself aligned and in check and

not, you know, going into a stress cycle, the body

doesn't like to be in stress, it doesn't love cortisol pumps.

But there is a moment when that nervous system tips. And

if your child is young or they're going through puberty, either

way. So basically, the whole time you're raising kids, they

are easily dysregulated. Their nervous system misfires,

it has trouble regulating, it doesn't have access to

logic. In the same way executive functioning isn't developed.

Time consequences, you know, cause and effect all of

those things that help you as an adult stay emotionally

regulated most of the time aren't really

accessible for your kids at that time.

So I want you to have a lot of compassion for them. Like I said,

they're not giving you a hard time. They're having a hard time.

Or when we think, oh, my kid is acting out, it's like, yes,

they're acting out the big feelings inside, and they're using their

body to emotionally regulate narrating what

happens. What's happening is you kind of being

able to say, hey, I noticed you're asking me

four times where we're going. Or I hear you

wondering if, you know, I hear you saying that they didn't

bring your pizza, or, I saw you hit your brother,

or I'm watching you, like, you know, touching the dog

after I've told you not to. You are narrating the behavior

that you see, and you are narrating

the circumstances that are happening with your kids.

So what you're narrating is what is going on and what you

can see. Try to keep it to the facts, like narrating the

behavior and narrating the circumstances that may have triggered

their feelings and their behavior. Let me give you some

examples of narration, just the narrating part.

You tell your child that they have to turn off their video game or turn

off the television, and then they slam the door or

they refuse to do it. And so you would say to them,

hey, I said that it was time to turn off the video game, and I

noticed that you haven't done it yet. Or imagine you're

serving dessert and you serve one child

first, and then the other one gets mad and hits their brother.

You would narrate the circumstance. I am giving

dessert to each of you, but you're hitting your brother because I gave it

to him first. Or it's homework time, and

your child is starting to play and you've said, come do their homework, and they

haven't done it yet. So you would say, hey, I

said it was homework time. But now I see that you're playing in the

backyard and not coming and sitting at the table.

What you're doing is you are narrating the circumstance,

and then you're narrating their behavior. Now imagine that your

child keeps complaining and complaining and complaining because

you had told them that you were going to go to the park and you're

not going to the park. You would say, I'm noticing that you

are really upset. You're crying a lot because I said we

Wouldn't go to the park. But now you keep saying, I want to go to

the park. I want to go to the park. I want to go to the

park. You are narrating what is

happening, what is on the outside. Okay,

now then, we name the feeling. So it's really kind of quick together.

You would say to your child, I wonder if

you are feeling angry that it gave your brother the cocoa first

or dessert first. I wonder if you are feeling annoyed that

it's time to do homework. I wonder if you are feeling

frustrated that or disappointed that we're not

going to the park anymore. I wonder if you are

feeling sad that it's bedtime. So narrating

and naming go kind of together. You're narrating the behavior and circumstance. So

that kind of helps neutralize what they are doing. And it

puts it out like a mirror. Like you're putting up a mirror and you're saying,

hey, I'm seeing this behavior and I'm thinking it's because of this

circumstance. And then you connect the outside to the

inside and you make a guess of what they might be feeling.

The best way to improve your child's behavior on the

outside is helping them understand how to cope and

communicate with their big feelings on the inside. They don't

know what to do with disappointment. They don't know what to do

with anger. They don't know what to do with jealousy. That's your job

with the connection tool is to teach them how

to handle that behavior in an appropriate way.

I mean, how to handle that emotion in an appropriate way. And

not hit their brother. Not complain over and over again,

not ignore you, not run away from you.

So you're kind of narrating, hey, you're running away from me after I said it

was bedtime. I wonder if you're feeling sad that it's bedtime. Or I

noticed that you're, you know, outside in the backyard even though I said

homework time started. I wonder if you're feeling frustrated that it's homework

time right now. I noticed you're hitting your brother or you pushed him

or you said he was a stupid head after I gave him dessert first.

I wonder if you're feeling jealous that I served your brother first.

So this is really an important tool to helping

your child become emotionally literate

and learn them to self regulate what you

do after you notice narrate. A name is

regulate. Now with little kids, well, really

with everybody, they don't know how to

self regulate or it's hard for them. Sometimes they can. And

sometimes they can't. It's a challenge. And so your job as the

parent is to co regulate. Co regulate means

staying grounded and connected while your child moves through

their big feeling. Now, sometimes part of regulation

is setting a boundary of, listen, you can stay here and

eat this dessert with us as long as you're not name calling.

And then they might have their big feeling cycle. They might stomp their feet

or, you know, complain or, you know, make a face to you.

And that is them working through the emotion. The

emotion is pouring out of their body. And what you're

working towards is getting it to do less and less

damage. They're not going to be perfect. They're still going to

have the emotion and they're still going to have an immature way of handling

it. But what you want to be doing is moving them away from a

violent way of handling it or a disrespectful way of

handling it, or a way that causes time and energy

delays for you or makes a problem. We

want to teach our kids that your feelings are validated. They make

perfect sense. Of course. So in that regulation process,

you're really saying, yeah, of course you're feeling frustrated. That makes sense.

What are you going to do with that frustration? Do you want to go run

around? Do you want to jump up and down? Do you want to talk about

it? Do you want to tell me more things? Do you need to, you know,

take a break from the family? What are you going to do with your big

feeling? I've got ideas. I'll help you. Or

you can go do it on your own. This is that process of regulation.

So we're noticing the behavior, we're narrating it, we're

naming the feeling and then we're regulating. Either co

regulation or giving our kids a chance to go self regulate.

There are so many ways to regulate

a nervous system. Primarily, it always

is move the body, move the mind. So moving your body, especially

when you're a little kid, is how you're going to discharge those

emotions. The emotion gets charged up inside of you. It's like

a electrical current and then it needs to

be pushed out through your body. That's how you regulate.

It has to go through a process. The feeling gets charged up and it needs

to get discharged, if that makes sense. Your child

already probably has some pretty good, healthy tools

that, you know, work for them. Maybe it's a hug, maybe it's not a

hug. Maybe it's a kid who needs to go spend time by themselves. Maybe it's

A kid who needs to be close to you but not touch you. Maybe it's

a kid who needs a strong boundary who you have to really be clear about.

You can be in this kitchen as long as you are not hitting. So limit

setting can be helpful in terms of regulation

as long as you do it from a very calm, grounded place

where you're saying this behavior isn't safe for everybody

and we want you to be around here. What do you need in order to

get your body back online so it takes the emotion out of it?

Remember last week I talked about those three essential beliefs that your kids need

and that is I am safe, I am lovable and I'm

capable. Your regulation and

coaching strategies need to be grounded in this belief

that your child is absolutely wonderful. They're just having

a hard time and they need support within the boundary that

you are giving them. So regulation

is, you know, different for everybody. But

everybody has a cycle

and the body can regulate itself. It

only takes about 90 seconds to be honest. And I've

watched little kids, it feels like an eternity. But if

you give them this connection tool, if you narrate

what's happening even to like a 2 year old, an 18 month old

who you've told no or they can't get down out of the cart and you

say you want to get down out of the

cart and I am saying no. And I think

you're, are you really mad at mommy? Because I'm saying

no. And then they say whatever, they don't even talk. But then

you're like, yeah, it's okay to be mad at mommy. I know, but you're going

to be able to get out of the cart once we get to the car.

Whatever. You can kind of soothe them and calm them by

giving them mindset and giving them some support, you are

going to be the person who regulates your children for a lot of

years, especially those young years. Then they kind of can do

it a lot more like from 6 years old to 11 or

12. It kind of, they have some ability. The limit setting is really

helpful. They kind of recognize, oh, I'm out of bounds, let me check myself.

And they can start to self regulate. That's what limits are good for. They

can help kids self regulate kind of within the boundary.

And then in early adolescence the nervous system

misfires as much as it did when they were like 18 months to three.

It's like really, really charged up. And so they are going to probably

need a lot more compassion again, which you're like frustrated because you're like

you're already 13. Why do you act this. Why are you acting like a baby?

I want you to know that their nervous system through puberty is going through

a dysregulation process. Actually, just like what happens in menopause,

in perimenopause, your body is. It has a hard time

regulating because the hormones are imbalanced. And that's

just kind of these developmental stages that are more nervous

system activation than others. I want you to think about

noticing, narrating, naming,

regulating, then coaching, which next week I'm going

to talk a lot more about coaching itself. What coaching really is,

is like regulation is about managing the body,

right? Discharging that emotion, the nervous system, getting it back online.

Coaching is about helping the

child's mind get back online.

So when we talk about jealousy, anxiety,

disappointment, frustration, overwhelm,

your child is going to need your help

teaching them how to manage

those feelings with perspective, with

gratitude, with maybe they don't have enough information.

There's something that they don't understand. So they might need some information.

Not too much, but just enough. Coaching is the part of

parenting that happens once everybody is regulated,

you and your child and you do perspective

taking, you give them the opportunity to

share some of their negative thoughts that they have. Like you think I'm a

bad kid or you like my brother more, or my teacher hates

me or I'm stupid, or you never let us go to the park

or you're always working or whatever that kind of

frustration or negative thought that they have.

Coaching is the time when you help

dispel the myth or give them the data that they need

or help them to have perspective, give them the future. Tell

them what will happen later, that this is temporary, that they're

going to get bigger and stronger. You know that the weekend is going to be

really fun and or math is hard, but that's okay.

And all of those really wonderful parenting

soothing conversations that you have happen with coaching.

So I want to talk more about that next week in specifics. But

this week I wanted to give you the connection tool as a complete

model. So it's noticing that your child is

having a hard time narrating the hard time

and what they're doing to cope, naming the feeling

that's underneath, maybe even some of those thoughts,

regulating, helping that body get back online, regulating the

nervous system and then coaching the. The mindset.

Notice narrate name. Regulate coach. The

last part is correct. This is when we deal with the behavior

that happened in the middle of the big feeling cycle. If your Child hit

their brother. If they spilled all of the jelly beans,

if they didn't clean up the toys, if they

didn't sit down to do their homework, if they made bedtime go 20 minutes

longer, if they didn't brush their teeth, you

might not win win

the behavioral battle in the middle

of a big feeling cycle. You might not be able to get

that limit set and get them to hear you and then

comply. That's okay. Short term

compliance isn't our goal. Our goal is long term

self regulation and long term resilience. So the

correct piece is all about that restitution, that

following up later, that last pillar of the

connected parenting process where you go through and you say, hey,

that behavior did not work and now you need to make that right. That was

a mistake. Mistakes are normal, but we have to fix our mistakes.

That's the correct piece, the correction piece. In the

big feeling cycle or when your child is in the middle of a

misbehavior, what you're working on is narrating

what's happening, narrating and naming the feelings that are

going on. Talking through, regulating the body,

coaching the mindset and then correcting the

behavior. It will feel like your kid is getting away with stuff.

Like what? How can they just like say I hate you and

spit and then like that's it? Well, sure, if

that's it. That's a permissive parenting model. That's not what this is. That's not the

connected parenting process. The connected parenting process is

calm, connect, limit set, correct in

the regulating the nervous system. You're setting limits in the coaching, you might

be setting limits. You're allowing your kid to reset

their behavior once their body is regulated and

see if they can or can't. If they can't, then they have to

fix that mistake. If any behavior happens, your

child is responsible for making the the impact of that behavior.

Right? They're responsible for correcting the behavior. So this

parenting model isn't a feelings only model.

It's feelings first, behavior second.

So a lot of times the gentle parenting models and things that

you've talked about validating your kids feelings, why it feels so

permissive and kind of gross because you're like, how is my kid getting

away with this? I would never get away with this when I was a kid.

It's because you're not following up with it because you've got

in your head that like, that's mean. Consequences are not

mean. Consequences are important to teaching

boundaries. That's what limit, set and correct are all about.

But you don't want to rush to correction. You don't want to

rush to threats. You don't want to rush to taking away privileges

until you have coached the inside from the

inside out. Coach what's going on inside of them and

helping them make their own connection. Connecting the dots between what's going

on inside of them to what's going on on the outside of them. And

then whatever behavior they have, they are responsible for that behavior.

Whatever impact their behavior had on their brother, their sister,

you, time, money, energy, whatever they have

drained from the family or the resources or from

you, they need to make that right. That's what

correction is all about. Okay, so next week I'll talk about coaching,

and then over the next few weeks, we'll get more into limit setting and

get back into correction as I kind of

dole out all these new tools. They're not new, they're just

improved. All these improved tools. So this was the connection tool.

If you have any questions about it, please reach out to me on Instagram

or you can reply to the email. If you're on my email list, you just

ask me a question. If you're like, can you clarify that? That would actually be

really helpful for me as I write the book in case that

there's parts that are not working out or confusing. All right,

mama and daddies who are listening and

grandparents and nannies and anybody, teachers

and anybody else. I hope you have a great, great week and let

me know how it goes. Practicing the connection tool.