Ep 147: Navigating Neurodivergent Kids, Marriage Stress & Bedtime Battles with Melissa Schulz

In this episode, Board Certified Behavior Analyst Melissa Schultz, we confront the heavy reality of how raising strong-willed or neurodivergent children can impact a marriage. With research showing higher divorce rates for parents navigating behavioral diagnoses, Melissa explains why getting on the same parenting page is one of the most effective ways to reduce marital tension and support your child through challenging seasons.

We also dive into the daily trenches of parenting: managing those notoriously difficult transition times like mornings and bedtimes. Melissa shares her top strategies for removing the power struggle from routines that kids typically try to avoid.

Key takeaways from this episode include:

• Stop the bedtime debate: How to transition away from nagging your kids to brush their teeth and instead use natural motivators—like a promised game of UNO or a favorite book—to keep them on track.
• The "Sky is Green" rule: Why you should only give your child the correct information once during an argument and learn to let the rest go.
• Creating "Magical Time": Melissa’s top tip for cultivating positive behavior through 5 to 10 minutes of daily, uninterrupted, one-on-one time where you simply enter your child's world without teaching, lecturing, or correcting.

Whether you are navigating the early years or raising teenagers, this episode is packed with practical wisdom to help you build connection, reduce household stress, and foster a more peaceful marriage.

Work with Melissa Schultz

Melissa Schultz is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, entrepreneur, and mother of three who specializes in supporting parents of strong-willed, highly sensitive, and neurodiverse children. Through her customized GUIDE framework, she helps parents move past daily overwhelm and implement practical, tailored strategies for their unique family dynamics.

Melissa offers personalized 1-on-1 coaching (typically spanning 6 to 12 months for maximum benefit) as well as a 3-month group coaching program that connects moms who are experiencing similar struggles so they no longer feel alone in their parenting journey.

• Free Guide:

https://www.melissaschulz.com/free-guide 

• Socials:

https://www.facebook.com/confidentlymommin
https://www.instagram.com/confidentlymommin/

• Website:

www.melissaschulz.com 

Work with Kameran Alareqi

As a certified relationship and marriage coach, I provide practical, evidence-based tools and direct communication to help you navigate partnership and individual growth. My coaching practice focuses on actionable relationship education and personal development (please note: services are coaching-based, not traditional therapy, and do not accept insurance).

Here are a few ways we can work together to build stronger foundations in your home and relationships:

• Connected to Me: The Blueprint: A comprehensive self-reflection workbook featuring over 250 prompts designed for intentional personal growth.
• Join the Skool Community for free workshops, resources and ways to better your marriage immediately 
• IG
• "Verafy" your relationship. It's the best way to "cheat proof" your relationship!

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

What are you feeding your mind right now? If it's social media, are you tired of doom scrolling through the angry comment sections and political rants yet? What if you use that time to actually fix your marriage? Welcome to the free married and connected school community. It's like social media, but without the ads, without the judgment, and without the noise. Just real self-paced tools that get you out of that roommate phase starting today. Inside, you get an exact blueprint for a weekly State of the Union meeting with your spouse. We're cutting mental load, we're stopping miscommunications, and we're breaking that exhausting loop of doom argument once and for all. Plus, you get instant access to workshops on overcoming resentment and bringing the actual fun back into your marriage. We have a dedicated space just for guys jumping into forging fortitude. It's a 10-week intensive to help you step into your masculine leadership and become the husband and man that God called you to be. And for ladies joining Edifying Eden, we're stepping out of that controlling, nagging era into our soft, nurturing feminine era. Even if your husband hasn't taken the reins yet. Either way, you can take responsibility for your side of the street. Stop scrolling the internet and start investing in your home. The community is 100% free with options to purchase certain courses. Click the link in the show notes and join the Married and Connected school community today. I'll see you inside. Marriage isn't supposed to feel like roommates, but it doesn't have to feel like a war either. Hi, I'm Cameron Alaricki, certified marriage coach and a relationship expert. Every week on Married and Connected, I bring you real talk, hard truths, and practical tools you can start using right away. Whether you've been married two years or 42, this is where you'll find hope, encouragement, and steps that actually work. So let's make your marriage feel good again, starting right now. Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of the Married and Connected podcast. I'm your host, Cameron Alaricki. If you have ever felt like you are about to lose your marbles in the middle of a child's meltdown, you're gonna want to turn the volume up for this one and maybe pause it and come back when you can actually take notes. I am thrilled to be sitting down with Melissa Schultz. She is a board-certified behavior analyst who has spent over two decades, starting at just 18 years old, in specialized schools and residential centers, mastering the art of staying grounded. We talk a lot on this podcast about emotional sobriety. This is going to be another way of thinking about that and adding that to your life. She is a powerhouse entrepreneur who built an in-home behavioral health company from the ground up, leading a team of 75. But most importantly to this, she is a mom of three, raising two neurodiverse kiddos of her own. She's taken her master's in psychology and her years of professional experience and turned it into a proven five-step framework designed to help you go from feeling overwhelmed to feeling truly capable. And I think as mothers and fathers, we can all relate to this. So she is here to show us that we can handle whatever our children throw our way on any given day without losing our minds.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

So, Melissa, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here and for our conversation.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Definitely. So just right off the bat, let's jump into this. You know, I I spent, gosh, almost 15 years in and in the educational sector. I taught kindergarten through second grade, saw a lot of different personalities, a lot of different learning, you know, obstacles and things. And honestly, it wasn't until I had my own kids that I was like, whoa, okay, something, these two children came from the from my DNA, but they are very wildly different. So kind of talk about what neurodivergence is. We hear a lot about it, but like, what does this mean? And is neurodivergent, neurospicy, is all of that the same?

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. Okay. So neurodivergent is like a term that people are more commonly using. And basically it is to describe a category of people that have diagnoses that make the person's brain just process the world differently than like a typical person. And if you're listening to this, I have to do air quotes whenever I say like normal or typical, because like, yeah, I don't know a lot of those people, but I hear they're out there, right? And so there are just some kids that the way they're born, their brain just works differently than maybe ours do or a neuro a neurotypical person's brain works. And it's not their fault, it's not their parents' fault. Like no one picked that. And there's like so many amazing superpowers that come along with it, but they the way they work is just different than like a typical kid. And so that like the typical parenting strategies uh or even expectations don't always work for those kids. So the diagnoses that most people are familiar with that kind of fall in this into this category would be ADHD, autism, dyslexia. There's a whole bunch more, like maybe what what uh less known terms that also kind of fall under this umbrella, but it's just people that process different parts of the world a little differently.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

Yeah, that's good to know. That's good to know. I didn't realize that like dyslexia and dysgraphia would be part of that as well. Yeah. So if that's the case, I have two neurodivergent children. Me too. Yeah. Both of my children are neurodivergent. Um, which makes a lot of sense in terms of parenting and why what I did with Mason at, you know, he's 16 now, but what I did with him doesn't at all work for Zane, who is five. And um, you know, what's interesting about that, we didn't get Mason's diagnosis for dysgraphia until he was a fifth grader. But I knew, like as a mom, you just know. You know, you just know that something's not clicking here. Yeah. And unfortunately, this is another reason, you know, I I was a teacher, but the public school system absolutely failed us in that I pushed from kindergarten knowing that something was not right with Mason's handwriting. And they kept telling me, that's normal, that's normal. I'm a teacher too. I know what's normal. But when you have these kids that you just know as their parents, where do you even start? Where do you even start trying to get them help? Where do you even start like trying to figure out what strategies work best for them? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

I think like sometimes the hardest part for a lot of parents is starting. Yeah. So not even necessarily even knowing, but getting to the point where they're willing to start. I have a lot of conversations with parents who are like maybe doing a consultation with me, like interest, like like deep in their heart, they know that something's going on and they need more support. But in the same conversation, they're also like talking themselves out of it and gaslighting themselves. Yeah. So, like, oh my gosh, he's hitting me and he's nine. I know that's not normal, and I don't know what to do, and I'm yelling more than I want, but also he's a good kid, he's doing good in school, he'll probably grow out of it, it'll be fine. And so I think like that's like a really big barrier is like sometimes we will ignore that, and sometimes it's it's a lot to process and it's hard and we don't want it to be true. And that's okay, but like don't gaslight yourself if you do feel like there's something wrong. And yeah, the best doctors and the best teachers don't know your kid as well as you do. And they are going to usually the default is, oh, it's fine, right? That is just kind of the default. So you have to know and like trust your gut and like keep asking, keep advocating. I've had to do tons of advocating for myself. And even with my background, like I joke, like I've sat in like most of the seats at the IEP table. Like, because I was a school psychologist, I was, you know, the administrator. I've been in all the seats, never really expecting that later on I would be sitting in the parent seat, but I've been there now. And even knowing all the other seats, it's hard to be in those meetings with all these people looking at me, right? Where I know what's going on, and everyone's like, oh, it's fine, it's not that big a deal. I mean, we've actually had a great experience with our public schools for my neurodiverse kids, and I'm really thankful for that. But it has taken a lot of work and advocacy and a lot of trusting my gut and not listening to the, oh, it's fine. It's fine. Yeah. And so I think like that's where I would start. If you have that feeling in your gut that there's just something going on more and more support is needed for you as a parent for your kid in school, at home, wherever, like, trust your gut. And so I the next step question is so valid. And honestly, that's a hard question to answer because it really depends. I mean, if your it depends on the concerns, right? If it is like more of an academic concern, I would really work with your teachers to get that assessment done. And sometimes, I mean, there's a lot of kids, like a lot of my work too is like kind of coming in the gap. Because there are a lot of kids that like don't need support at school, like behaviorally or maybe academically, but also they're not killing it at school. They're not really successful at school. Or, you know, even at home, maybe they don't have a diagnosis yet or they don't qualify if the parents have tried, the doctors are usually like, eh, but like 100% they need that extra support. And so it's like finding that extra support, whatever it is for your kid. Um, where I come in for a lot of families is I I don't need a diagnosis to support your kid. Like, I don't care. Uh, I'm just you tell me like what the behaviors are and we're gonna work it out. And if I do think a diagnosis would be beneficial, I'll tell you. And you you can pursue that or not, I'll walk with you every step and I'll help you figure out the next steps for your kid. Um, but also if you don't want to, that's fine. Because, like, from my perspective, we're just talking about behaviors and skills. Like, what is your kid doing and what skills are missing? Right. And so that's what I really support parents on knowing how to teach their kids. Um, because all these types of kids, so my specialty is like the strong-willed, highly sensitive, and neurodiverse kids supporting their parents. And the reason why I've kind of grouped those kids together is like a very common thread is really big feelings and a lot of behavior challenges. So uh it's like a lot of good parents that have, you know, read the books and listened to the podcast and they're doing their best to figure this out, but everything that they're trying doesn't quite seem to work for their unique kid. And so that's where I come in, where I'm like, oh yeah, I got you, I got your kid. Here's the skills your child's missing. And it's different for everyone, right? This is not a cookie cutter thing. If it was a cookie cutter thing, the books would would work, but it's not. It's like very custom for how your child learns, for your style. And also, I do a lot of work with parents on how to like release their own triggers about it, right? Because we're so nervous and worried and we get so frustrated and we're so angry. And as long as we have all those stuck emotions, we're not going to be able to be calm and grounded and like present for what our kids need in those moments. And so these parents need a lot more support as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:50

Okay, so you mentioned the strong-willed, highly sensitive, and what was the third one that you mentioned? No diverse. Okay, so for these children, um, because as I'm as I'm thinking, like either one of my kids, I'm like, check, check, check, yep, yep. Yeah. So how how do you how do you parent those children versus a child who's not strong-willed or doesn't argue or doesn't fight you to the death on the one word out of the sentence that you used that he's like, but but it's not 100% cruel. I'm not devastated on this. I'm just disappointed. And I'm like, for the love of God, it doesn't, why does it matter? Like, yep. It wasn't right now. Okay. I know, I know. That's and this is my five-year-old we're talking about. He's thinking when I'm like kids. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

We all kind of have like this default parenting style, right? And it's usually exactly how our parents raised us because that's what was modeled to us for 18 years, so that makes sense. So I think like with most typical kids, if you have a relatively healthy, you know, parenting style, you can use that with a typical kid, and it should it usually works most of the time. You don't have to do like a lot of work, or maybe you will read a parenting book or two, and like that will give you the like the little lift up you need to be able to figure out your kid. What I have found for neurodiverse kids though is like usually your default parenting style will not work for the kids, and they each need a very specific parenting style. So I have three kids and I paint them all totally different. They all, each of them I respond, I could respond to the same behavior, the same words very differently for each of my three kids because it's based on how they learn, right? Their coping skills and also their age, like where they are at and their development. And like none of those three styles are like the way that I like had wanted to be a parent necessarily, right? None of it's like this is how I want to parent, but it's like working on exactly what each one needs and giving to that to them. And then with three kids, that's like a lot, you know, that's a lot, but it it works. And once you figure it out, it makes it easy. Cause I'm like, yeah, you can have that big meltdown, and that's okay. I know exactly why you're having that meltdown, right? I know exactly how to respond. I know I'm doing the right thing. I'm not even that stressed out by it. I know how to handle it. Now we just move on with our day. And with two neurodiverse kids, right? Just because I know the right response doesn't mean there's no meltdown. This is we're not trying to go for perfection, right? I have normal kids that are not like perfect little robots. So they have the feelings and the behaviors. But what I find is like I am able to still have lots of joy, even with the behaviors. I'm not surprised by them. I know how to handle them, and we very quickly can recover and move on. And I think like that's like the piece that I think is missing for so many families who are raising these kids, and why I'm so passionate is like when our kids, when we're feeling overwhelmed by behaviors all the time, we're so stressed out, we're walking on eggshells on our own house. So much joy is lost. Like all we wanted to have these kids and we love them with our all of our heart, but we dread each day, right? Yeah. We're, you know, right now, I don't know when this is coming out, but in May, right? So many people I'm talking to are dreading this summer or dreading, you know, the holiday breaks and then feeling guilty because I feel like they should be looking forward to it. But that's what I love to do is like when you know how to handle your kids, you understand them, you know why they're doing that, you know what to do, all that joy comes back and you can just enjoy them, even with the the meltdowns and the behaviors.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

Okay, so what's easiest for you? Like if I were to give you examples of a behavior and you tell us how to handle it, or like how what's the easiest way for you to convey this information?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Okay, I do have a five-step process that I use. Um so I can kind of highlight that. This is for any child for any behavior. Okay. Okay. And so maybe you give me an example and I can kind of walk you through all the five steps. You can be a made-up example, a real example, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

Oh no, I will give you, I will we're all about vulnerability and authenticity on this podcast. So I will give you the straight one. Okay. Uh, both of my children, so I have a 16-year-old and a five-year-old, which I have realized are the exact same emotions, just on different levels. A hundred percent. Um, I will my 16-year-old will come in and be like, oh my God, why are you throwing a fit about that? And I'm like, I'm sorry, sir. Do you do do you not remember seven minutes ago when you were throwing a fit that looked exactly like this? Like, come on, man. Um, arguing. Gosh, I there's so many examples, but I would say, like, I would tell Zayn, um, we're not going anywhere today. And that's one of his things is like he wants to go somewhere every single day. And it does, and if we go, like he doesn't like being at home. And it's it's not he loves home, like home is safe and all of that. It's just he just likes to be on the go. Whereas my oldest is like, I don't want to go anywhere ever and I don't want to see people. So you see what I'm saying? Um we have a rule in our house that no one is allowed to like this same meal on the same night.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Oh, uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Because that's just not going to happen. Yeah. Right. I made meatball lasagna last night, and one of them was like, this is just fasting. And the other one was like, this is the most delicious thing I've ever had in my life. All right.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

So that was like such a perfect example of what usually people come to me with, right? It's like kind of a lot of things are going on for multiple kids. Like that's so typical. So the first step in my process, because there are a lot of things with these kids, right? It's not just one thing.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Every kid's different.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

The first step is I actually have you pick one behavior for one kid. And here's why. If I were to give you ways to solve all of those things, and I could, but then you would leave this call with so much to work on. Yeah. Really overwhelming. And you maybe you would try to fix all of it at once and then get way too overwhelmed, and all the kids would be upset, and then you just go back to where you were. And that's kind of thing most parents do is they're like, okay, I'm gonna read this book and I'm gonna try all of it at once. And like, okay, we're like, you know, throwing away the TV and we're throwing away all, you know, no more sugar, and like we just make these huge changes, right? And then get super overwhelmed. And then we have questions, and the book can't answer your questions. Right. And then we find it's easier just to go back to where we started, but then we got we did all of that work and we're so exhausted for no progress. So I help you instead. We learn to like pick one thing, and then I the plan takes you through exactly what to do, but then we're gonna have to troubleshoot it a little bit. But at least then you're trying a really good guess for your family, and then we evaluate how it went, and now you're at least c taking steps in the same direction instead of going over here and then going back and then going over here and going back and then going over here and going back. And so it's like all that effort is actually making progress. So if you had to pick one of these behaviors for one kid, tell me.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

I think I'm gonna go with arguing because I think a lot of parents deal with that. Yeah. So let's go with arguing.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Okay, and that is for your 16-year-old? Either one of them. Okay, pick one of them.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

Uh, yeah, let's go with the 16-year-old. Okay, and what was his name again?

SPEAKER_01 18:00

Mason.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Misa. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Okay, can you give me like an example of a time he argued? Is he the one where you say one word is different and he'll start arguing with you? Oh no, that's my five-year-old. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Um, my yeah. Well, Mason kind of does it too. He he has this more he's 16, and and a lot of this is does kind of fall under the neurotypical as well, just because like he's 16 and I'm an adult, and so like automatically you're a moron because you're an adult. You have everything, yeah. And you can't tell him anything. So that yeah, that would kind of be that thing. Um I don't I don't really have an example of what he would argue about other than like okay, here's one, here's one. Uh if I say, Hey, you need to clean your room, okay, and his room smells like a garbage dump. Okay, and it's got dishes everywhere, and he's like, What? It is clean, what it's fine. Okay. I feel like that's pretty typical of a teenager too, but like Okay, no, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Okay. So is it usually he's arguing when you give him an instruction? Do you find?

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Yeah, I think, yeah. If yeah, if I'm asking him to do something, there's always a or if I'm asking him to take accountability for something, like his grades, or did you do this, did you do this assignment or something like that?

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Okay. Um, he'll just argue with you about it a lot.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

Yeah, and it's not even I I can't even say that it's like like what we would consider like fighting about it. Yeah. It's just like a he's fighting to have a different perspective. He wants you just to accept his perspective and move on instead of being like, no, there's a lesson here, let's learn the lesson, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Okay. Okay. I think the accountability thing might be a little bit different. So for the purpose, so I would focus in on when I ask him to do an instruction, like he argu he gives me he's arguing with me a lot. Does he eventually clean his room? Like, does he just make a few comments that are like it's fine?

SPEAKER_03 20:14

I feel like if I didn't ever say any, which okay, so here's the other thing is this this may lead us into a completely different topic, but I just did a podcast episode, I don't know, like four or five back on um executive functioning. Uh-huh. And I feel like this is what's missing, not only with our kids, but then a lot of us that grew up in the 80s and 90s, I feel like the neurodivergence is there almost for everyone on some scale. But it it was missed. And so then it was like, I feel like that's what's also led to us as adults having these filters of like, I'm stupid, I'm not good enough, all of these things.

SPEAKER_00 20:54

And it's like something's wrong with me when I thought that's just how your brain works.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Exactly, exactly. And so then we're married to these people, and we're like, oh, you're 40 years old and just now getting diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. How do we, you know, how do we even navigate this? But at the same time, that executive functioning piece, I'm trying, you know, as a parent, we're trying to teach our children these executive functioning skills, and they're just not there.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Yeah. And so Mason is neurodiverse. Yeah, he has dyslexia and dysgraphia. That would be kind of step one is like really figuring out specifically what we're looking at. And I love like it's uh, if you like are listening to this conversation, I want everyone, all your listeners to notice how like it started out with like a lot of broad things, right? Right. And then we focus on arguing, and then we actually broke down the argument kind of into different categories. Right. And now we're gonna focus on following instructions, which does have a lot of executive functioning, especially cleaning your room, which I can talk about. Okay. So that's that's step one is we're just gonna get really clear on what it is. All right. Sometimes behaviors are like kids. Not listening or arguing is so broad and vague that can look really different for different kids, right? I can talk to a hundred moms in one day and you could all say that your kids don't listen or don't argue, and you're all gonna like, but it's like it's gonna be different for every single kid. So never am I like, oh, if your kid doesn't listen, this is exactly how you respond. Because it's it really depends on all the other factors I'm gonna tell you about. Okay. Yeah. So what I would have you do though is I would have you actually start writing down whenever this happens, when you give him an instruction, I would have you start right just noticing what's happening. All right. Yeah, I wouldn't have you change anything, but that would be the first step. I have people write down like it's like the ABCs, the antecedent behavior consequence. So you would write down the maybe the instruction you gave him, whatever you whatever was happening before him, before he started the arguing. You write that down. Then you'd write down kind of what he said, and then you would write down whatever you normally do after without really changing it, without judging what you're doing. And I usually ask my clients for like three to five days of that data. Okay. And even just taking that data, you can try it, have your listeners try it, it's gonna give you a lot more insight on that specific behavior. You're gonna understand it a lot more when you just start like getting really curious about the patterns because so often we just go around putting out fires all the time that never are we like taking a step back and trying to look for those patterns. So this makes you get intentional and look for. Okay. So that's my step one. Step two is we are going to talk about your triggers. So tell me, like, what is the worst thing about this when you are like your room is disgusting and he's like, no, it's great. What comes up for you?

SPEAKER_03 23:33

Well, okay, so this is the thing. I I mentioned in your intro that we talk a lot about emotional sobriety. Um before I went through emotional sobriety training, like now it doesn't bother me. Like, you don't you want to live in a trash pit? Like, cool. Absolutely. You're gonna figure it out eventually. Yeah. Um before I think the trigger was that it looked bad. And so I judged myself and I was embarrassed on the fact that my house wasn't perfectly clean. So if someone nobody ever comes over, but yeah, if they did, they would judge me on the way that my house looked basically.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yes. That's like on the mom report card, and you're getting an F if everything is not perfect. Yeah. Okay. So that makes perfect sense. That's awesome that you're aware of that. That's so common for a lot of people. So I love that you like shared that because I'm sure a lot of your listeners are like, me too. Right. We all have different things on our parenting report card, but whatever we put on there, we usually give ourselves F for and then we feel terrible, right? Perfectionism is a very common filter that we all share. So yeah, I would agree. Okay, but like for you to if it genuinely didn't bother you anymore, you wouldn't have mentioned it as a behavior problem. So tell me, there's something about it that is still bothering me.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Arguing still bothers me in that so the the the thought process in my head is tell me if you're arguing with me, okay, eventually you're going to argue with your boss or your you know, your wife or whomever. And you're never going to take accountability for the fact that yes, this does need taken care of. And you're either gonna lose your job, lose your marriage, you know, etc.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

You're not gonna be as successful as you need to be. Okay. That was so good. Okay, so here's what's happening for you in the moment.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

When he is arguing with you, your brain is not really present in the moment with him. Part of your brain is going to mean that this argument equals later he's going to be jobless and divorced. Right. Your brain is doing all of those things in this moment. So your reaction is not just to the moment. It's actually like that's very activating to our nervous system. If we imagine our kids like homeless on the street, right? Because they can't hold down a job and they've got fired and they lost, you know, they got left. So you're kind of going into fight or flight in these moments because your brain is perceiving danger to survival in this argument. Which it makes sense. Of course, I want him to learn how to take a con, like I want all those things for him, right? We don't want him to be jobless. But if in these moments when he is having this behavior, if you get super triggered, you can't stay calm and respond in the best way because your brain isn't fully here. Part of your brain is like freaking out. You know, when we're in fight or flight, that are there's no blood in our brain, right? We can't really think, we can't really access our rational thought. We're like ready to run or fight. All the blood goes to our limbs, which is not super helpful if you're trying to get your team to like clean their room, right? Right. You you want the brain to be working more. And then he might be co-regulating with you. So now he's going into fight or flight and he's freaking out about cleaning his room too. So then any logic that he has is also maybe leaving the building. Right. So that's a really important thing that we want to just kind of release for you. All right. So I have a lot of things that I take my clients through to just release. Sometimes even just hearing this is what my brain and body is doing. Oh, I don't have to really do that. Right. Like I can be confident that I'm gonna be teaching him all of these skills and like all this is about the room right now, and I'm just gonna stay here. I'm not gonna make my mind is just making this equal this terrible future. And I th those do not actually that's that's not a fact. Okay. I can teach him accountability separately, but I can still have that be a really big priority. That's what we want for him. But in this moment, focusing on that is taking me out of this moment. I want to be present in this moment to handle this argument. Okay. So step two is being present in the moment. It's understanding our triggers so we can be present in the moment. Only yeah. So the five steps are actually guide. So G is gathering data, U is understanding your tri understanding and releasing your triggers. All right. Then we move on to I, which is investigating the cause. That's step three. This is when we really want to figure out why he is doing this. Okay. So if you had because like everything our kids are doing, there's something they're getting out of it. It's something, it's working for them. Right. And if I had to guess, right, when he is arguing with you about doing tasks, he is like the task is getting put off for a while. Yeah. Right. It might be getting him a lot of attention and a big reaction from you. Is that fair?

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Yeah, it doesn't really get a big reaction anymore. Okay. Okay. Um I can definitely see the procrastination though. That like if he's arguing about it, he doesn't have to do it. Exactly. And so, okay, yeah, that that makes a big that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Okay. So I mean, this is again, I have a whole thing that I would take you through to confirm that, but that's a very common for that. If we're like it's like task avoidance, right? Yeah. At least if I'm arguing with you, I don't have to start cleaning. Maybe I don't have to clean eventually. Maybe I get out of it altogether, but it's still enough. I don't have to start right now because now we're arguing. And if he likes to argue, which a lot of teens just enjoy arguing, right? Now he's just getting the fun of this like mental battle with you, this power struggle, and he doesn't have to clean. So it's like a win-win for him. Yeah. So there's really no reason he's gonna change his behavior unless you change what you're doing. Okay. Because right now it's working for him.

unknown 29:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:19

It's a win-win for him. He hasn't been able to do that. That totally makes sense. I never thought about the task avoidance. So yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Uh, and a lot of our arguers or negotiators, they love that. Like they they're like, hey, it's worth it. I'm gonna engage in this with you, right? Absolutely. That like applies to all kids. Like anytime you are in a power struggle with them, right? You're arguing with them, like you've lost already. Period. Because yeah, now you've engaged them in this like battle over it, and instead we want to just be like the calm, sturdy person that you can't argue. It takes two to argue, it takes two to get in a power struggle.

SPEAKER_03 29:54

Absolutely, absolutely. So much of this, by the way, if if listeners aren't catching this, so much of this applies to marriage too. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Love it. Okay, keep going. Okay. I don't want to like tell everyone about and analyze your spouse, but a hundred percent this could also work for all of that.

SPEAKER_03 30:13

Um, even just like the arguing, like it takes two to argue. And there's a reason why they're arguing. Are they arguing to be right or are they arguing to get attention? Are they arguing for a cause that maybe is important to them but not important to you? The getting getting curious instead of just being like, no, this is what it is, getting curious and and understanding the triggers, yours and theirs. Yeah, it's all it all makes sense. Yeah, yeah, it all comes together.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

So that it would be step three is like, what is like the more technical term is like the function or like what is he getting out of the behavior, right? So we know, like for him, this is like a powerful reward or like payout. And I want you to even imagine now, like when you're arguing with him about this, you're like throwing money at him. Yeah, okay. He's getting paid, like you don't mean to, you're a great mom, but like accidentally, he's getting all this money during an argument. So of course he's still gonna do it. All right. So now we move on to step four. And step four, we're gonna look at like everything we can do before the behavior even happens so that your kid doesn't even need to use it anymore. All right. So high level, there's a lot of different things we can pick for this step, but like high level for you, what I might like consider is like first maybe having something set up for chores where there's something else in it for him for cleaning his room that's more powerful than the argument. Okay. So like we need to have a motivation to do the chores because he's not motivated to do it right now.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

And I think that's what the missing key. I don't know. I'll have to figure out what that is.

SPEAKER_00 31:47

Yeah, what's the feature for number four? What is what is the D word? Deterring, deter the behavior. I uh you know, I tried to make it fit into the guide acronym, so it's a little weird. But basically, we're just trying to set things up so that the child doesn't even need to use that behavior. So another thing that I might do if we're like cleaning your room or other tasks that he's arguing about a lot, uh, and this helps with that executive function piece, is I would make it really clear what clean means. I would have a really good definition. Sometimes, like when I've been teaching my kids as they're, you know, when they're more like your younger's age, like I'll literally I'll go through and put everything where it goes. So, and everything is pretty well labeled, so they know, right? You'd want to make this a little bit more. You're uh my oldest is 12 right now, so I'm not quite there. But as they were growing up, it was like this is everything has a home. You know exactly where it goes. Sometimes that's the confusion. Like sometimes we're even like, we don't even know. I've talked to some parents, I'm like, how do you feel when you clean their room? Like, oh, I feel stressed out when I clean their room because I don't know how where to put everything. There's too much stuff. And I'm like, well, if you as the adult feel overwhelmed cleaning up their mess, then of course they can't, right? So I maybe would whatever, go through, organize it if needed, and then I'll even take pictures for my more visual kids. Like, this is how it should look like. And that really helps because then I'm not like nitpicking little things. It doesn't depend on my mood, it doesn't depend on the day. Uh, this helps for our neurodiverse kids that want it to be more concrete. I'm like, hey, go look at the picture and does your room match the picture? That's all right. Or I'll I'll even list out like, okay, that means you know, checking under your bed, because they'll throw everything under the bed, right? Yeah, it actually be in the laundry basket, not just near it or on top of it. So I try to get a specific, and you don't have to do that forever, but like you can think of like the cleaning the room is probably just a skill that he's not really great at yet. Right. It's not fun. He doesn't care. There's no motivation. And it's always like a lot of effort to do it, and so many opportunities for arguing, which he's really good at and is much more fun. Yeah. So what we want to do is be super clear about our expectations, right? So then we're just taking out all the arguing. Right. Then if you do check it and you're like, oh look, like I this is in the picture, like this looks different. What do you think? Yeah, okay. It's like and I'm like, not even now. I'm just like, huh. Like interesting. I mean, this looks the same. I love all of that, but like I'm noticing a difference right here. What do you think about that? Yeah. Okay. So that would be like some ways we could like things we can do ahead of time that like might just solve that not, it doesn't solve it perfectly ever, but it's gonna take a lot of the pressure off of it just by like relieving those things. Okay. Also, and and a lot of step four is looking at what skills he's missing.

unknown 34:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

So that's where the executive functioning comes in. Exactly. That's where the pictures will help. Also, sometimes kids are really overwhelmed by it a lot. So if we um I mean for 16-year-olds, if once they know this, I'll let them more do it maybe once a week. But what I'll tell kids that are starting out, and maybe you need to start with this, is we do it every day for a while because otherwise it can just get so overwhelming, right?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:47

Whereas if we do it every day, they only have one day's worth of dishes and clothes to put away, right? Only one day of spoons that are we in weird spots. Whereas if it gets to go too long, it's like almost longer than they can handle. So I would notice that as well. Like, what is the best frequency for him with his current skills where it's not like exceeding his overwhelm limit, where it does feel pretty quick to go through and like swoop it all out.

unknown 35:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

And that might have to be once a day for a little bit. Okay. Okay. And so then we're gonna move on to step five. And step five is like it basically encouraging appropriate behaviors. And so this is what everyone wants to know. Like, what do I do? Like, right? Like your first question is more like, how do I make them stop arguing? Right. And I take you through all these other steps until I answer that question for a reason. Because you might have been doing the right things. A lot of parents are have actually tried a lot of the things that I've said, but they've tried it while they're triggered. They've tried it while they're they tried it without understanding why the kid's doing it. So maybe they're accidentally reinforcing it, right? They so like this order is very intentional. But what I love to do, yeah, two things for chores specifically. And that is one, for at least in my house, what has worked really well and works with a lot a lot of neurodiverse kids, is like there's a a privilege attached to doing your chores and taking care of yourself. So in our house, screens are very powerful. Uh, so my kids have to, you know, do everything they're supposed to do at school, do all their homework and do all their chores, and then they get access, they get to do one hour of screens a day. And so that's just all built in, right? And if they choose not to do the homework, they choose not to do their chores, they can choose that. But then also they don't get screens, and then they're gonna, if they want screens tomorrow, they're gonna have to do cleanup even more. So there's like one natural consequence that you could consider like what's the priority that we're earning, like baseline to be able to participate in any privileges, which might be sports and friends and screens, all of that. You have to take care of your basics at home, right? And chores might be your basics. That makes sense. And I also um, my kids earn allowance for doing their chores because I want to teach them how to use money, right? So they get allowance, they save some of it, they give some of it, they get to spend some of it on whatever junk they want to spend it on, like so much Robux, uh, whatever, whatever they're into, right? Yeah. Um, but that's another motivation is I'm paying them to do their chores. Okay. And they have more chores than just their room. But now I'm like reinforcing it, right? Like you're getting money. And like I don't often buy them toys. If they want toys, they can choose to use their allowance, right? So you can think about that with your 16-year-old, right? They probably probably wants money for gas and the movies and activities, right? And so it he won't be motivated by allowance if you always just give him the money. But if you give him opportunity, like, hey, like if you want this extra thing, you need to earn money for it, or if you want cash in your pocket to go out with your friends, you gotta have done your chores at home. Otherwise, you're gonna be sad and you can go with them, but like you're not gonna have any money. Makes sense. And so if he always has the money he wants, he's not gonna be motivated by that. But like, especially at 16, we want him to be earning money at least at home for to doing stuff around the house, and then maybe even, you know, with a job and whatever.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Yeah, yeah. Okay, I want to go back. Okay. Um, you were saying that you parent your three kids differently. So, what what does that look like? Because we hear a lot about like authoritarian, authoritative, gentle parenting, permissive parenting, all of that. So kind of talk about how you parent each of your three differently and what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

Okay. So there are three main types of parenting. It's authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive, right? And so all the research shows that the most effective way is the authoritative, I think. Right. Authoritarian and authoritative are very similar words, and I do get them confused, which is kind of silly. It's a parenting.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Authoritarian is the like no parent.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Very high standards, very little parenting compassion.

SPEAKER_03 38:42

Yes, 80s and 90s.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Authoritative is the balance where I have very clear, very high standards for you, very clear boundaries, and also like so much love and compassion and understanding.

unknown 38:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

And so there's a lot of different parenting styles that fall under that umbrella. Um some I just find work differently for different kids. So I'm not, I wouldn't say I ascribe to like everything in gentle parenting, although I like some of like I like some of a lot of the authoritative styles. Um, my approach is like more on behavioral science and neuroscience and like kind of combined, like using those approaches for what works best for your kid. And so when I say I parent my kids differently, it's not necessarily like a different style or a different book, but like I'll give you an example. I have three kids who have all had meltdowns in their life, right? Lots of them. Okay. Well, not calm down if I'm in the room. And actually, that was really hard for me because I might I want to be, I want to help. Like if you're I've said I'm a few. But I was noticing that like that would just it would continue to rev this child up. So from a young age, I realized, okay, this child, when they're at a certain point, needs time alone. Cool. I will do that. And I'm right outside, usually, right? Like I'm there. They know I'm there when they're ready, but they need that time. I have another kid that will more have the meltdown and like kind of totally shut down. So I can no longer talk, cannot ask questions, like just like completely shut down. That child needs me there and needs me doing more sensory things, not talking, maybe just being there, what like kind of next to them, giving them time to come out of it. Like that's a different thing, right? So very different. And then the third kid, of course, like during his meltdowns, he likes to yell and scream as loud as possible, which then is very triggering for some of my sound-sensitive kids. So, what I found for my third one is we actually go, I hope if I let and if I let him go, he runs around in crazy circles and works himself up. So this one actually carried and kind of like that little pressure of a little squeezy.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

And then we go outside more for the other kids' benefit, and we walk up and down the street until he's done getting all his mad out. And I don't think CPS has been called on me yet, but you will often see me. We're I think we're growing out of it a little bit, but that's what calms this one down the fastest. So much of it is like they have big emotions inside, right? All three of my kids have very big feelings, and so those feelings are hard to process. I like, yeah, I use the example, like a typical kid, their feelings are like a little match, and so they just go, you know, and the feelings gone. They're like, Oh, I feel mad. Okay, now I'm better, right? Our kids, they have a campfire.

unknown 41:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

So when they just blow on it, nothing happens. So they just need a lot more support and knowing how to handle those big feelings. And often it is like movement or yelling or do, you know, something sensory or deep pressure. Yeah. I mean, and I do this for myself. I do a lot of nervous system regulation with moms because all of us are under chronic stress and just go into fight or flight with like the sock on the floor. Right. And so we we have to get ourselves regulated first. So yeah, sometimes if I'm mad, I'll like go and I'll actually like stomp my feet like on a walk. I think my neighbors think I'm crazy and I kind of am. So it's okay. But then I even imagine like the mad is like my footprints of like mad footprints and like you know, stomping all the mad out, and then that helps relieve it, right? It's okay that it's there, and I'm gonna go process it because I don't want to, I don't need to keep carrying it, right? We just acknowledge it and release it.

SPEAKER_03 42:13

I think that's the difference though, because for you, you're saying I stomped the mad out, and so many of us have been taught, no, you're fine. And so we just we don't think that that's okay for us to do or to feel or to have. And so we just keep it in. And this is why we have all the diseases.

SPEAKER_00 42:36

Yes. Well, that's what I say so much is like a lot of us, like I was raised more, you know, great parents are trying their very best, but it was more like the toxic positivity culture, right? So if I was upset about something, it was more just like be grateful, just be happy. It was like with the best of intentions, but that taught this generation or and definitely taught me just to like if there was a negative emotion, like that was bad or wrong. I shouldn't have negative emotions. So I learned to shove them down and completely ignore them and then just look at the sense. And that was not the intent, but that and the part of that was just my personality as the oldest daughter, but like, yeah, yep, I'm just gonna look strong for everyone and ignore, right? And that hit me really hard with like, you know, anxiety and some chronic health issues, like in my 30s, where I'm like, oh, I can't actually ignore my emotions. So that's a part of my really big journey too, and like how my passion is helping other moms with that history where we're so disconnected with our emotions. And and then we're trying to teach our kids with big feelings how to manage their emotions and we don't know how.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

Yeah. Yeah, we talk about that a lot on this podcast. I'm I'm the oldest daughter, the only daughter, the oldest. And so, yeah, no, and and I grew up with very again, parents that did the best that they could with what they had, but also there was a lot of trauma as in our family growing up, a lot of death. And um, I had a brother that needed a lot more emotional support than what the the the rest of us did. And so Um that took away from our uh attention and all of that. Yeah. But um, but yeah, like I was the if you stop uh stop crying or I'm gonna give you something to cry about. Uh-huh. Fairy team. So yeah, that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

It's I'm the oldest of of three girls, have two younger sisters. And I remember one of my parents saying that to me regularly.

unknown 44:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:24

My sisters don't have that memory. Really? Yes. That's interesting. It's fascinating. I was like, wait, what? And they're like, no, we don't remember dad ever saying that.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

I should ask my brothers if I'm like, I don't know if that I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Like all our memories are different, right? Maybe I took it more seriously than they did. Maybe it was more to me because I'm the oldest. Maybe I was crying more than they were. I have no idea.

SPEAKER_03 44:47

That's really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

They have no memory of that, where I remember that as like a key phrase.

SPEAKER_03 44:52

My mom has two sisters. My mom's the oldest, and the middle sister remembers my grandmother as being a yeller. But my young, my aunt and my mom, so baby and oldest, are like, no, she was not a yeller at all.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

Yeah. That's what's interesting. That's fascinating too, because uh something that comes up commonly with neurodiverse kids also is like interpretation of yelling or volume or tone. Okay. And so I don't know if this is in your house, but I have one child who, if I get so normally both my husband and I, we both worked in this field with kids, like in very severe behavior. So like we're both really good professionally and like have transferred it to home to stay calm. It takes a lot. It is God gave them to us for a reason. But um, it takes I don't yell. I'm just that's really not what I go to. Like, I'll I kind of get overwhelmed and shut down. It that's more what I'll do, but I really don't yell. But if I am feeling the slightest bit irritated and my tone changes, like you wouldn't be able to hear it in my tone. You'd have to know me really well to hear it in my tone. And if one child hears that, they genuinely interpret it as yelling. Yeah. Okay. So that can also be like part of that processing the world differently. But then that I talked to a lot of parents about that. They're like, my kids say I'm yelling and I'm not yelling. Yeah. Um, now I remember my dad saying that he's not yelling while yelling. So I'm like, sometimes it could be us like we are yelling, right? And it was more that he has a really loud voice, so maybe he didn't mean to be yelling, but it, yeah. But also some, so so we could not be aware of our own volume or tone, or like our kids could just be perceiving it differently than how we're intending it. And regardless, that's their experience and they're experiencing yelling. They're experiencing all the things that happen in you know to their brain when a parent yells at them. And so that's really important too. There's also some social aspects of it. So there are times where I actually am genuinely calm and I'm not even irritated. And this same child, if they are more heightened, will say I'm yelling. And I'll and it's more like misinterpreting facial expressions or even some of the like some kids, like when they're really triggered and more in there, like they kind of regress to an earlier develop developmental phase where everyone feels the way they do. You know what I mean? Like people all right, babies think everyone feels what they feel, and it's like a while before they can learn that different people have different emotions at the different different times. And so this child kind of regresses back to that where if they're mad, then I must be mad. And so it's like even educating that, like, wait, look at my face, right? Like, look at the signs, right? Or if they're that upset, I don't argue with them in the moment because that's ridiculous. That doesn't work, right? But I'm like, that is their perception when I'm genuinely not.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

Okay, this is a super wild and random question, but is it possible for everything that you know about neuro uh about um neuroscience and and behavioral analysis or analysts and everything else? Um is it possible that someone never gets out of that stage where they believe that whatever they're feeling, everybody else should be feeling as well?

unknown 47:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

I don't think that's super common. And I'm not, I think that would be more like a therapy as an adult, though. But I mean, I there are definitely adults that could think that there might be other um other delays also along with that, I think, to like be fully in that stage all the time. Um that's a little bit out of my expertise, so I'm not 100% sure. But based on what I know, that would be my best guess. Uh, what I do know about neurodiverse people though is they have a lot of like um like their skills are developed differently. So they'll have like this skill is like advanced, and then this skill is like down here. Right. So it's like a lot of splinter skills where most people that have developed more typically, everything kind of develops together. And so that can that makes every neurodiverse kid hard to know. Like you can't assume you know anything about a person just because they have a diagnosis of autism. Or you can be like, you know nothing about them except maybe be more curious.

SPEAKER_03 48:44

Because like I've heard the new I've heard that people say if you if you've met an ad uh if you've met someone with autism, you've literally just met one person.

SPEAKER_00 48:56

One person with yeah, you cannot generalize that at all. Yeah. For my last business, uh, I used to go out and do assessments for new families. And so it was all kids that had been diagnosed with autism, but I would get like a packet from medical insurance that would have like basically just their name and their address. And I wouldn't even often know the gender of the child. And so I'm gonna show up at a house, and it was just like a wild, like really cool experience because I would show up at a house. I don't know if it's a girl, I know the age, right? I don't know if it's a I I wouldn't know if it was a girl or a boy. So I would like try to set up the call with the parent by saying they sometimes even until they like volunteered the gender because I didn't want to be wrong. Yeah. But I would show up and sometimes I would meet, you know, some kids would just be like total presenting completely typical, like a very normal reaction, totally fine. Some kids would come and I would greet them, and then they would be nonverbal and wouldn't be able to respond at all to me. Yeah, right. Some kids would not even care that there was a new person at the door. I have one of my favorite kids, like uh just open, like open the door before the mom was like running up to try to like stop him. And he'd open the door and he's like, Tell me how many fan blades you have at your house. And I was like, Okay, it's gonna be like this. And we had like a great conversation about fans, where I realized I know very little about how the fan blades in my own home. But like I would never know what I was gonna get. That's a lot how my five-year-old is.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

He um his big thing is and he's never I've had him tested for autism, and they're like, I mean, he has some quirks, but like we don't really know. His big thing is he wants to know everyone's name. Oh, okay. When we when we drive up, like if we get uh if we go through a drive-thru, he'll be like, Hey, what's your name? And they're like, they can't even hear him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um yeah, like neighbors as we're walking along. And he may have met them six other times. Yeah, every time. What's your name? And they're like, Tasha.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Sometimes neurodiverse kids do that because they want to have the interaction.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

And that's like an easy question. Like they can't think of other things to say. It's like a way to initiate conversations. Um, so there's like often like little, if you notice like those patterns with your kid, that's just a common neurodiverse way, like when there's like maybe some social challenges where it's like, I really want attention from this person. And then usually find one phrase or something that like works to get a response. And then they say that to everyone all the time indiscriminately. And so then the next step is like just like, here's different. Like maybe when we go to our neighbor, you could ask, How are you today? Okay. You could say, Oh, what your lawn looks nice. Like you could even do like a little bit of like prepping before those encounters to give him different, like more of a variety of ways to like start those conversations.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

Not too long ago, I told him, I said, Hey, um, because his thing is, what's your name? And then they tell him, and he's like, Okay, my name is Zayn Alaricki, and this is mama, and this is Mason, and this is Baba. And like, so he so he doesn't realize that mama and Baba are also Cameron and Muhammad. No. But so you know what I mean? So, like, and so I told him, I said, Um, you don't have to tell everybody that your name is Zane Alaricki. And he goes, I said, you can just say my name is Zane. And he goes, Okay, but then how are they gonna know that I'm an Alaricki? Like, that's so important to me. It's like that black and white with like with my name. Yeah, that's a my name. Yeah, it's it's it's wild how I love how each kid I know he's he is hilarious, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:20

So it sounds like it. But those hilarious kids are often a handful, but like so much life and joy and brightness and then yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:28

Um, okay, so since this is a marriage podcast, um several couples, I mean, many of the the the listeners that listen are also listening because they're considering divorce. So what do you see as a behavior analyst for you know, children who have gone through divorce? Kind of talk about the effects of kids on that.

SPEAKER_00 52:56

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm gonna answer this in a slightly different way, but if it's not what you want, you can I'll I'll answer that one too. But I think, like in general, when you have a child like this, so if you have a strong-willed, highly sensitive, or neuroverse, I mean, there's lots of research on it. If you have a child with a behavioral diagnosis, your divorce rate increases. I think it goes up to 70 or 80% from 50% because of the stress that these behaviors put on the relationship. So many people come to me and they're like, hey, I had a really happy marriage and then we had kids, right? And now we're fighting all the time about how to respond, and we have different parenting approaches and not neither one's working, but we're not on the same page. And so it can just be like such a source of stress in a marriage, right? And then um, if it does result in divorce, then we are adding, I mean, sometimes that is definitely the best, if that's what you need to do, especially if it's you know unsafe where there's any harm, like definitely. But it is going to introduce more trauma, right, for the child and more adjustment for the child. So then usually in the divorce process, now there's even more behaviors, right? And now the child's being parented very differently by two people that still maybe don't know the right way. Right. So it doesn't necessarily solve the problem, right? If that is the behavior is one of the main marital stresses. And so what I have found is when we work on just like everyone understanding what is happening for this kid, and we get on the same page with how to respond, like that can make your marriage much happier. That can reduce a lot of the strain, right? That can take out so much of the tension. And then now maybe we can work on the other things, right? On communication and the other things that make a marriage great. Um, but that will help your child's behaviors if the family, if there's like a healthy marriage that stays together, that does have a positive impact on your child's behavior now and in the future. Now that's not always possible. So there's no, I don't want to say anything, you know, to make anyone feel bad if that is the choice that they they they've made, then you can always like my thing is like let's just figure it out. Let's figure out why your child's doing this, let's figure out the best way to help. And then if you stay together, if you divorce, then at least one or maybe both of you will know what your kid needs. And then you'll have the skill to support your kid when they are acting up more because of this big change. We can't prevent big change or traumatic things happening in our child's life. So that's not like a, you know, it's not possible to avoid all of that. And kids are very resilient and they can learn a lot through that experience if the parent is equipped to know how to support their brain and going through all of that.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

So for you, do people like they can call you and they and you do everything through Zoom, or you like how do you work with people?

SPEAKER_00 55:38

I work with people, everything is through Zoom. I work with people one-on-one, or I have a group coaching program, for mom's that lasts for three months, opens up every three months. Uh and so it, yeah. And that one is really fun because so many moms get on these calls and they feel like they're the only one, and then they get on the call and everyone's like, My bed times are hard too. My kid won't clean their own either. Like there's so many like me too moments where so many of us just are like suffering in silence. Maybe our friends' kids or our family's kids aren't having these same issues. So we think we're the only one. Yeah. But then I talk to these moms back to back to back all day. And so I love like putting them together, and there's they can learn from each other and just like feel like they're not alone, which is so important.

SPEAKER_03 56:18

Dig into bedtime because I do feel like that is a absolute like um, I was on threads this morning and I was like, what's the one phrase that you say the most in your house or something like that? And it was like, it's time for bed, or it's time for a bath or something. Yeah. And in in arguing, that is the one my my five-year-old, I don't need a bath. I don't need a bath today. And I'm like, bro, it was 95 degrees and you are sweaty big. Like, no, you do need a bath. And look at your feet. Well, if you just don't argue. And what if you're like, that's okay that you'll need one. We're gonna take it. With him, that works. With him, yeah, he is one that he will argue to the death. Yeah. But if you look at him and say, Zane, this is not how this is happening, or this is not negotiable, he'll he doesn't like it, but he'll be like, fine, and then it'll go do it.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Yeah. That's what I agree with now.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

No, that's not gonna work when he's like 16. Yeah, I mean, that's if you start young, it might. Okay. If your kids learn that like once you say something, it's happening no matter what. Yeah. And like you're not gonna yell, you're not gonna argue, like it's just like a calm fact. Yeah. And it makes it much easier later. It just takes them a little bit to learn that. Okay. Well, here's to hoping. Yeah, yeah. It's funny though. Uh, my one thing that happens, of course, is like, you know, we'll, you know, say something. I don't know, one of my kids will say something that's absolutely wrong. You know, like the sky is is green. Let's say it's an example. Yeah. Uh, and so my policy is because I have a lot of negotiators that want everything to be exact, you know, I'll give you the correct information one time, right? I'll be like, oh, actually the sky is blue, right? Yeah. And then if they're like, no, it's green, I'm just like, okay. Like, I don't care, I'm gonna give you the right information once. And if you want to believe it's green, I am not gonna sweat about it. You go ahead and believe that. Yeah, it's it's happened in the car sometimes though, where my husband gets sucked into it a little bit more, where he's like, No, look at it, right? Like it's a blue. This is not really what happens, but like it's stinked like this, right? It's blue, right? Like, look out the window. And I'm like, why are you arguing? Like, you're because you never change their minds in those moments. So I'm like, I will always and now my older one is starting to like want to correct the younger one, like yeah, like and then gets frustrated when the younger one won't agree. And I'm like, hey, give them the right information once, and then just let them think that. Like, there's no let it go. That's okay, they'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

So that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Uh okay, so bathtime. What are your what are your tips and tricks for bath time?

SPEAKER_00 58:47

Bath time, I um like bedtime, bedtime routines. Oh, bedtime, bedtime, okay. So bedtime routines in general, uh, it's gonna depend on the kid, right? It's gonna depend on a lot of things. But in general, bedtime and getting ready to go out of the house in the morning, right, tend to be challenging times because the kid has to do a lot of things that they could care less about, are not important to them. Sometimes they're like sensory, uncomfortable, right? Maybe a newer skill they're learning. And it's usually to go to a place they don't want to go, right? Kids would probably rather just stay home with mom than go to school. They and little kids don't want to go to sleep. So, like they have zero motivation to do all of these non-preferred things. And so you what we'll look at is like, you know, a lot of different things, but for your listeners in general, it works for most, most of these kind of kids is there just needs to be something in it for them. They're okay. Because if I'm saying go to bed, go to bed, go to bed, now we're arguing, they're getting a lot of attention from me because I'm cheating so many times, and then we're arguing about it. So now they're getting to escape brushing their teeth because they can't brush their teeth while they're arguing with me, right? So, like instead, what I like to do in general is we have something that they are working for. So at bedtime, I like to have it be maybe reading the book time, maybe we play a calm game together, maybe we snuggle. There's something that they really, and maybe it changes every night and they pick because they change their mind a lot. That's fine. Five or ten minutes of something they like to do, that if they get ready in time, we have time for that. And if they don't get ready in time, then we don't do that because we don't. Okay. And then when they're brushing their teeth and everything, I'm not saying, come on, let's go, brush your teeth, look what time it is, right? Which they don't even care about. I'm saying, hey, remember, like, I can't wait to beat you with Uno. I'm feeling lucky today, right? Like, I so now I'm not engaging in a power struggle with them. I'm like reminding them of something that they want. Right. That makes sense. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:36

That will probably work for your kids that can make everything much easier. Okay. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:45

That's good. What would you say are like your top three tips for creating positive behaviors in kids?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

The top three, I would say, so I actually have a free guide called How to Get Your Kids to Listen that has three simple strategies. Um, I can't remember which ones are on it, but it's fine. Can you send that to me and I'll put it in the show notes. 100%. Okay. I'll give you guys one right now though, but then get the e-guide to get more. I think like one of the best things that we can do for our kids is spend like five to ten minutes one-on-one with them. I call it like the magical time, where we are just engaging in their world. We're not lecturing, we're not teaching, we're not correcting unless it's like really serious. We're just doing what they want to do. So maybe that's a princess party, maybe that's listening to them talk about roadblocks for, you know, the whole time, whatever. You're getting in their world on their level, you're not giving any negative feedback, you're just enjoying them. You're maybe finding things that you like about them to praise them for, and you're just entering in their world world one-on-one.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:50

And this is five to ten minutes every day.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

As much as you can. Okay. Okay. It it's not perfect. It's not like if you miss one day, then your child's messed up forever, right? But the more you can do it and make it a habit, that connection, you're gonna see a lot more of those positive behaviors, and you're gonna have more of a bank of connection to draw from to get you through the hard.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

That makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. I love that. That's good.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:16

And I think as much as teenagers kind of like like to hole up in the cave and you know, not come out, they they still need that. They still need to be hugged, they still need to um have that one-on-one time.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

We just the older they get, the more we have to, well, I think always we have to just enter into their world, right? Yeah, but like never like can you you can't take your five-year-old like out to coffee and have a serious conversation, right? That's not how it happens. But maybe when you're playing a game with them, or maybe if you're shooting hoops with your older kid, right? Like it's like, or maybe going on a walk. Kids like to talk on walks, or sometimes in the car rides, you have the most magical things, right? Because you're not like directly looking at each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

But car rides are a big time.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:53

Car rides, yeah. Yeah, yeah, or walk. So it's like just really intentional, like, no, I'm gonna drive, you know, to that one because I want that time, right? So just the more you can create those moments where it's like low pressure um and kind of whatever they're into.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

Fantastic. Okay, so what I'm gathering from everything you've said, everything comes back to your child, that it's just you're every every child is different. And in order to know how to parent them, you've got to figure out what works for that kid. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:23

And when you figure out your kid, you have figured out your kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:27

And you're gonna have to figure out the next kid.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:29

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

So what I love about the guide process though, is it's it's enough that once you figure that out, it works for every single, it's like customizable enough that it works for every single kid for every single behavior. So when you get really good about going through it, then you can use that for your kids for their whole life, for all the things that come up. And so that's what I really love about that, is where it's specific enough that you can learn how to do it and apply it, but it's also customized, highly custom to your kid, where it will actually work for these kids that are just learn a little bit differently and are a little bit trickier.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:04

How long does it usually take for a family to work with you and to get through the the five steps? Um, I think like it depends.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

That's how I answered most of my questions. Sorry. Um, I I would say most parents work with me for six to 12 months to get like max benefits. Some parents keep working with me and we just kind of do mindset. Like personally, I will always have a coach because I love to clear out my brain and figure out all the thoughts. So some pay some parents work with have worked with me for five or six years because they want to keep that work, but then it stops being just about parenting because we figured out a lot of that. Parenting comes up sometimes with because it always comes up with more high needs kids, but we also talk about work and marriage, you know, anything that is like on their mind, and we sort it out. Um, my programs are three months for the group, and then I work with parents one-on-one for six months, is how I like sell those programs, is like a really good entry point. And so they get really good results in either one of those. Um, but I find that like it kind of maximizes at the six to 12 month mark.

unknown 1:05:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

But it depends, like if you you know, if you just have one strong-willed kid, maybe that's gonna be just the six months, right? I have a client who has three neurodiverse kids, and so that's taken longer to figure all of them, right? That figure them all of them out, and then it also depends on us like how much, how connected are we to our emotions? How hard is that, right? How easily can we release our triggers? And that just takes some people longer than others, which is totally fine, but we just we get there.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:31

Okay. How can people find you? Are you on socials? Do you are you on Substack?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:35

I'm on socials uh at confidently momin on Facebook and Instagram, and then our website is www.melissa schultz-s-c-h-ul-l-z dot com. And that's also where they can find the free guide, but I'll send you the link directly to it. Yeah, yeah. You get that free guide, then you are on my email list. And so then you're the first one to know about all my events. I usually do at least one event a month that is just helping parents. Um, so like I just did a free webinar last week. I have some really cool stuff for summer coming up. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:08

Melissa, thank you so much for all of your expertise today. This has been incredible. Um, I feel like I have it was nice because usually I'm the one coaching and now the one being coached. So like this makes a lot more sense. So I love this. I also love that, you know, you you've never all you've never got everything figured out. So you know, you can always always learn. So that's what's so much fun. So that's what life's about, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:36

It's like always learning.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:45

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