If it’s Wet and Not Yours, Don’t Touch It: A Self Control Toolbox for Parents and Kids | Parenting Mantras

0:00 What's your mantra? Practical parenting wisdom, humor, and purpose for an extraordinary family life. Welcome to Living by the Mantras, the parenting podcast where short, sticky sayings help values actually land at home. Hosted by Colleen Souza, mom of three, former teacher and author of Living By the Mantras: Common Sense Wisdom for an Extraordinary Life. When we have the right tools, it's a lot easier to get the job done. Today, we're gonna talk about a self-control toolkit. Welcome to the podcast, Living By the Mantras: Common Sense Wisdom for an Extraordinary Life. I'm Colleen Souza, your host, and today you got just me here, and we're gonna chat about, um, self-control. If it's wet and it's not yours, don't touch it. That's the mantra that our family lived by, an easy one for kids to remember, and it meant have self-control. Think about what you're going to do.

0:58 Five things today. We're gonna take a look at five specific things that are gonna help us create a toolkit to give to ourselves, yes, and to our children to, to have, be prepared. Tools, tools are there to fix, right? So when we come across a situation, we have the tools to, to take care of our business, and that's what we're gonna talk about. Those five tools are being able to name the, the, our weak spots, name our weaknesses, the things that we know lead to, uh, to a lack of self-control. We need to remove those things that feed that weakness. We need to track and measure our improvement. We need to have positive self-talk, and we need to get sleep. So those are the five things we're gonna talk about. Let's dig in.

1:39 Self-control fails less often because of our desire to have control as it does to our lack of a plan to have control. And so we need to remember that having self-control is a trained behavior, and that's why we need to have the tools to fix it. So as parents, we're gonna start with our rule number or our, our tool number one, not our rule number one, our tool number one, and that is admitting our weaknesses. Now, um, this isn't to not be positive. You know, I'm a very positive thinker, and I like to have a positive mindset, and admitting our weaknesses isn't about, um, something that is a, a, a label of inability or a moral, you know, imperative problem. It's just about the fact that we all have those things we're better at, and we have those things we're weaker at.

2:26 And I'm gonna use my own self as an example 'cause I'm the first to throw myself under the bus. Um, I am a very creative soul and spirit, and I love to always be thinking about what could be done and create and do. If I'm not careful, my wi- my weakness and my self-control when it comes to getting things accomplished is that I will get very excited about different projects, and I will run myself out of time. And so one of my weaknesses is th- that I don't have an, an internal structure. Um, my husband, my fabulous Bryan, who is of- often here on this podcast with me, a guy with absolute photographic memory, sees something, processes it, never forgets it, and has this beautiful internal organization that he can do right away. It's different for me.

3:15 If I have a project I want to accomplish, if I have something I want to achieve, I have to very, very carefully plan out my time and structure myself in such a way, um, that I can't lose control of the situation. I know my weakness. My weakness is to get so wrapped up in something that I don't pay attention to the time, to go... get so excited about the details that I don't f- don't always, uh, stay focused on the, the, the s- the small things that need to get done to make it all come together. And so I have to be very disciplined with my schedule so that things get accomplished, and I accomplish a lot. Anybody that's listening or watching this that knows me personally would laugh and go, "Colleen, you do a lot." I do a lot. I accomplish a lot. I have in my entire life. But that's because I have identified my weakness, and that is that I'm not a good time manager, and that if I don't block my time carefully, I won't get things done. So admitting your weakness isn't talking about the fact that there's something wrong with you or you have a problem. It's just knowing where your, um- Self-control can slip, and then you try to do your very best to counter that because you're aware of it. Um, for kids, it's really important.

4:32 Like you-- We all know our children, and we can identify... I've got three of them. Some of you might have multiple children, too. You know when you take a look at them how, like, you know, if you've got a project, you've got an announcement to make, you have something going down, you can immediately kinda gauge how each one's gonna react to it, right? Because you know their personalities, you know their strengths, you know their weaknesses. And in knowing that, you can help them identify where they're better, where they're not, okay? Uh, you have a child that's very like my, my Gracie, my youngest, just incompor- incredible, uh, scientific and mathematical mind, okay? But when she was younger, getting her to do her English homework or her history homework or something like that, ugh, it's like pulling teeth. She would rather work out a math problem or work on a science project all day long. Opposite of her mother, much more like her father. Where my older two were very much interested in, in the reading and the writing and, and they loved art history and all of those things, and getting my Juliana to sit down and do her math was a huge, you know, a, a, a bigger, a bigger mountain to scale. So knowing her strength and weaknesses, we played with that. You have to do that with your children.

5:41 Um, and you don't wanna do it by shame. There's no shame involved in having a weakness. It's just a matter of identifying where we're better. So I'm talking about getting tasks done, but it could be a- anything under the sun. Like if you're on a diet, okay, and you know that you're gonna lose control at a certain time of day if there are certain snacks around, and you know that's gonna be your weakness, don't have those snacks around, right? Um, you have to be aware that that could possibly be one of your weaknesses. Well, I can never lose the ten pounds 'cause I'm a snacker, okay? So it's just understanding where that struggle lies, and we need to identify that in our children. If we notice that if there's a video game that can be played, they'd rather play that, then we need to put away the video equipment until certain responsibilities and tasks are done. If we notice they have a very short fuse in there, likely to pop off at somebody when they're angry, then obviously we first identify with them. We help them identify that they have a very short fuse.

6:41 Because by identifying it, they become aware of it, and they can start that training. So number one, it's admitting our weaknesses, figuring out where our children, and always modeling where we have some weaknesses and where we can, uh, begin to put into play the mindset that we need to improve in these areas. So number two is taking out the enemy is what I'm calling it. But it's, it's what do you do now? You, you discovered you have this weakness, okay? Um, willpower is a weak plan if a trigger comes in front of you, okay? So I'm gonna have the willpower not to snap back when someone says something to me. If you're short-tempered, willpower is not gonna do anything. You have to have a plan in place. You have to be prepared. If being distracted and, um, not liking to do homework is a problem, then all distractions need to be removed. Remove the enemy. Take the enemy out of the situation. So create a location for your child to do their homework that is as distraction-free as possible.

7:43 Um, also, if you have to, put an older sibling that kindly works with or keeps them on track. Um, put yourself, if it's possible, next to them. Create a place where they have no other choice but to get the homework done and to not be distracted, okay? Um, take out the distractions, and that's back to the snacking. If you're on a diet or you want your child to eat healthier and you get frustrated that they're snacking between meals, don't have snacks available. It's amazing. They'll chew on an apple if they're hungry enough, or they just won't snack. And it's because you have to create an environment that brings that success. Yeah, I know when I'm on a diet, I make sure there are no snacks in the house that are going to make me lose my self-control. Because if I open the cabinet and I don't see anything there, and I look over and I see that there's a, a, you know, an apple or possibly a, a handful of raisins, I, I'm either gonna choose to have those 'cause I am hungry or I'm not gonna snack at all. You get the idea behind that. It's understanding that the distractions need to go. There's so many distractions for kids today, and so that's really important as a parent, too. Take a look at what is distracting them in general so that you can help them have self-control.

9:05 Um, phones, you know, your screens, you're gonna hear this over and over and over and over again. It's super powerfully important. And that is maybe when they come home, they may not like it, but the first two hours they're home, their phone goes in a particular box. Their phone gets handed to you when they get dropped off. Um, if you work, you're a working parent. I was a working parent, so I wasn't gonna get home until my kids have been home for a couple of hours, potentially. So when I got home, I needed to make sure homework was done. And if homework wasn't done, if homework isn't done yet, okay, then those phones become mine until it is. That's gonna make 'em mad, but that distraction leaves them, right? That ability to, um, find an excuse or scroll down the scrolling hole goes away.

9:55 You kinda get the idea. So we have to identify what those weaknesses are, and then we have to, um, take out the enemy. We have to get rid of those things that are gonna cause the most distraction or the most, um, uh, weakness so that they can be strong. Those are two really valuable tools. And the third is tracking and measuring. And bottom line, we have to celebrate the victories, okay? When I talk about it being training, it's teaching If you're trying to teach your child self- control, they need to understand when they've done a good job as well as when they've blown it. And it's really super important that you give them a way to track and measure. Bryan's always said, it's h-his repetitive phrase, and, um, I told him, "You gotta be in the podcast just to talk about this one." He always says, "What we track and measure, we improve." That's been a line that he's used over and over again in our business, with our children. If we track and measure it, we really do have an idea. 'Cause sometimes in our heads we go, "Oh, I'm doing really good at that. Things are going great." But when you start to track and measure, you're like, "Eh, maybe not. Maybe I haven't been doing as well as I thought." Or, "Oh my gosh, pat myself on the back, I have been doing phenomenally." So it's really important to track and measure so we can improve. How do you do that with your kids? Well, there's a number of different ways. It can be as simple as w- the good old-fashioned sticker chart. And I talk about that in my book. We use sticker charts for everything in our household. When we wanted to, um, reshape a behavior and modify good or bad what we were seeing going on with our kids, a sticker chart went up, and we measured what they were doing by putting

11:29 a sticker on if a task was accomplished. And when it comes to self-control, if it is, "I have not argued with my little brother all week," at the end of the day, you, you have them, by the way, put a sticker on that little chart. No arguing all day. There was not a single argument. Give a short time period, like if you can do that for one week, or maybe if it's really bad and you start with if you can do that for three days, then there's a reward that comes with having accomplished that. Um, we would have multiple things. When they were little, sometimes it's easy, like we potty trained Tim. That's a self- control thing, you know, to, to stop what you're doing when you knew you had to go to the bathroom and go and use the toilet instead of a diaper. And when we were about two or three years old, it-- for him, it was a Hot Wheel pinned just out of his reach above the toilet. And if he went to the bathroom, then he got these... You know, I went and found, uh, back in the day when Toys R Us was still around, I, I went and got a whole bunch of, of little Hot Wheels on sale, and he would earn a Hot Wheel car every time he used the potty. That didn't have to go on forever. Um, you could use a sticker chart. We did that for lots of different behaviors and lots of different, um, chores we wanted to teach them, the disciplines we wanted to teach them. And when they got older, sometimes there were three or four categories they were working on. And it was at their eye level.

12:54 It could be on the, in the hallway on a little corkboard. It could be on the refrigerator. And then there was a roll of stickers, and we would hand them the stickers. Obviously, they'll put stickers on all over the place if you give them the chance. They're kids. But you say, "Oh, it's time you check the st-" And you have a time you check that sticker chart. You do it in the evening right before bedtime, or you do it in the morning. "Let's talk about yesterday." But having a review time period, "Hey, you did not argue all day." Or if it's the self-control of putting your toys away or getting your homework done, uh, maybe right after homework time. If your homework is done before dinner, you get to put a sticker on the chart. Their homework is done, the sticker, they... Right before dinner, they stick that sticker on the chart. They come to you and say, "Look, Mom, it's done." It goes on the chart. At the end of whatever the agreed-upon time period is, you come up with the reward. It's gonna change based on families. Um, for us, it was, you know, when they were young, it could be a trip to the Dollar Tree for a toy. It didn't have to be anything extravagant.

13:51 But over time, they began to earn bigger things because maybe they had a goal, and that was one of the ways we used that self-control sticker chart was, uh, "I would really like to have, um, you know, a, a, a..." And now a message from our sponsor. Wouldn't it be wonderful if your kids actually remembered what you taught them? Not the lecture, but the lesson. That's the power of a mantra, short, sticky sayings like leave it better than you found it, or we're about solutions, not problems. It gives kids a simple way to carry your family's values with them, whether they're at the dinner table, on the soccer field, or long after they leave home. In my book, Living by the Mantras: Common Sense Wisdom for an Extraordinary Life, I share the mantras that raised our three kids, the real stories, a lot of humor, and common sense tools that you can use tonight. Less yelling, more intention, and kids who remember what matters. Pick up your copy at amazon.com or wherever books are sold.

14:57 What do you call it? "... Xbox card to buy this new game." Great. You complete this sticker chart, and it might have been four or five deep, and it might have been a month long, but at the end of the month or the end of the two weeks or whatever it is, when this is all filled, you can have that card to buy a new Xbox game. It can vary. "I, I would like a new bicycle. I would like a new helmet. I would like a d-" Whatever it is, okay? And self-control is a, can be trained and can be taught. And when they overcome one thing, they move to the next and move to the next because that's gonna happen in life, by the way. Those things they need to learn to control are only gonna get bigger. And when we track and measure them, we learn. Other than the sticker chart, I do also wanna throw out there that we-- uh, I would use this rubric now. Um, m-my kids look back and laugh now, and I have other friends that would laugh at me. But being a teacher, when my students had to do an assignment, I would create a rubric for the grade, meaning if you have done these things on the far left, they're not as, you know, barely passable. At least you could get a this many points if you...

16:00 or this grade if you, if you accomplish this. If you're able to do a little bit more, here's your grade. If you reach the excellent category, here's your grade. Maybe it's like A, B, C, or, you know, ten points, fifteen points, twenty points. I did that sort of thing with a rubric in the hallway. We had a big corkboard between my kids' two rooms and the older kids. And when it came to their rooms being clean, there was a rubric on the wall. And there was the barely passable, acceptable clean room, like your bed, um, has the pillow where the pillow belongs, and the blanket is at least not bunched up at the end, and there are no dirty clothes on the floor, and there's a path to the bed. That might be the, the lowest level of rubric.

16:42 And then it went all the way to your bed is made, all your clothes are folded, every toy is put away. Oh my goodness, your room sings. That would be the highest level of the rubric. And we would check that daily, and we would mark how they were doing, and then there would be rewards based on whether they made that A, B, or C, if you will, um, l-level of the rubric. That also teaches them self-control and discipline because they learn quality versus a lack of quality. There's getting the job done, and then there's doing it right. So there's lots of ways to track and measure, but all of these things are going to help our child improve, and it's not us yelling at them It's not us saying, "I can't believe that you started an argument again." It's, "Well, we don't have very many stickers on the chart. It doesn't look like it's been a very successful week." There's a difference in that tone, and it forces the child to make decisions, and it forces our child to think about their decisions, okay? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw this out there. If you're an adult watching this and you're hearing this, it's obviously maybe you don't do a sticker chart in the break room at work.

17:44 But if you are a manager, there is a way to offer these rewards and benefits to seeing, um, behaviors improve, 'cause that's really what this is about. This is about consistent, constant improvement and self- control. So we identify the weakness, and we remove the enemy, and then we track and measure so that we can improve. Then there's the positive self-talk part. We have to teach ourselves how to talk nicely to ourselves when we do have bad moments or to keep ourselves from having bad moments. That's the bottom line. Um, and really, where does this start? This starts with us as a parent because, uh, once again, this is not something they're gonna be, um, seeing in the world around them. This isn't something, unfortunately, with all of them having some form of media, be it social, be it the TV, be it whatever, um, even on Disney, you're not gonna see lots of positive self-talk happen, um, on the cartoon characters. Positive self-talk has to be taught at home, and it has to be a concentrated effort. So, uh, when you want something but you need to finish something, you can say, "Oh, I really need to, um, you know... I'm, I'm so thirsty, I need to get something to drink, but I gotta finish this first. I need to wait two more minutes and get this done." You say that out loud, what your kids hear is, "Mom's gonna get her work done before she gets distracted," okay? Um, you can name the different ways you can do this. If y- they hear

19:14 you making these comments, they're gonna start thinking about making those comments. They watch you. I tell you this all the time, if you pay attention to me. Anyone that listens to me, follows my blog, listens to my different, um, posts, kids are always watching you. And so you can teach them what you're thinking in your head, because maybe you wouldn't say that out loud typically, but if your kid's around, say it, because they're gonna hear that positive self-talk. Um, "I want this. I want, I want a cookie so bad, but I really know it's only an hour till dinner, and it'll make me less hungry at dinner," or, "It's not the healthy choice for me to make right before dinner." Or even after dinner, "Ugh, I really want another, another piece of dessert, but I know it's already eight o'clock, and I really shouldn't eat after eight at night." Whatever it is, those are the things they're hearing. They're hearing your thought process that might silently usually go on in your head, and by saying it aloud, you're teaching them that it's okay to process. It's okay to have a conversation, both positive or argue with yourself every once in a while, to bring about that self-control.

20:18 So it's super important to do that. And, um, I have a question for you. What sentence do we want in our child's mouth the next time a trigger hits? What sentence do we want them thinking the next time we know they're being triggered to maybe make a less than self- controlled decision? And so that's a really great question or sentence to put in their head. Think aloud, okay? Say to yourself, "Hmm, maybe there's..." I always like to say there's about three things. Ready? One, what is it that I really want? What is the, what, what is it that I'm really hoping for if I make this con- decision right now and it's not controlled?

21:02 Okay, are my emotions too attached to this? And number three, what are three choices I could make right now in this circumstance? And somebody pushed me, somebody yelled at me, I didn't get my homework done, whatever it is, or I gotta get my homework and I'd rather play a video game. What are three choices I could make right now? Because if they don't make three choices, they're gonna have to come up with three ways to solve their problem later. That's another rule I always had. So it's, it's, it's what's the sentence that you want them to come up with when they, when they're thinking about making an impulsive, emotional, not controlled decision that might lead to a lack of self-control? So having those talks in their head. And then number five is the rest and sleep piece.

21:46 Let's face it, when we're tired, that's when we're the most vulnerable. It's harder to, uh, have our stuff together in life when we're exhausted. Anyone agree? Now, if you are a working parent, you're exhausted. You're exhausted. That's just a part of the package, right? But you're, um, I, I like to call it a life exhaustion, okay? Um, you know, my husband and I are just in a transition right now, and we're not gonna call it retirement. We're not retiring. We're very excited about, uh, the book and the parent coaching that I'm, that always dreamed of doing and the things that I'm able to do without leaving the world of real estate that we've been in for the last over twenty years. Um, but there is a bit of a transition going on because the, the type of work, the type of schedule has allowed me to get a little rest, and I found out that I'm exhausted. And one of the exhaustions isn't that I didn't get a good night's sleep. It's kind of a life exhaustion, and that's really where a parent does kinda fall for a while, okay? All that being said, if you've had a good night's sleep, if you've had a restful weekend, okay? If you've taken a few deep breaths and calmed yourself down and taken a nap, guess what? You can handle things a whole lot better than when you don't. As a parent, when is, uh, when are you most likely to snap at your partner or at your children, okay? When are you most likely to be difficult in your job? And that's when you're exhausted. It

23:18 is no different from children. And so rest and sleep is vital, and it's a part of their self-control. And It's super important to help them understand that. And it's not just because I told you so. When you tell your kids it's time to go to bed, um, they'll often fight you on that, okay? They don't wanna end up, uh, missing on the action or, you know, it's just, it's just a control thing for them. They'll often fight with you. They'll argue with you. They'll say they don't want to. What if they understood why they should? Okay? So it's informing them. It's part of teaching and training them. It's super important. You know what? It's time to go to bed, and it's because every one of those little cells in your brain wanna grow and expand so that you can become smarter than mommy one day, smarter than dad one day. You're gonna learn things we never knew, and your brain isn't gonna be prepared to do that if it doesn't get some rest. Did you know that if you got a really good night's sleep, you could grow taller and stronger than, pick a person that they admire.

24:18 It's important that you get sleep because everything that you're gonna do tomorrow is gonna be better if your brain is prepared and your body is rested. And then on top of it, you can have a joking and because I told you so, or I would joke and say, "Because I'm bigger, because I'm older." And I remember my son going, "What about when I'm bigger than you?" And I'm like, "I'll always be older than you." And it became an ongoing joke, but they understood that bedtime wasn't a punitive thing. It was an important thing. And so making sure that a child gets rest, making sure that there's naps. Um, we used to do, um, in my book, I call it, um, annual passes, um, and it's, it's, it's a section. Uh, in my book, I have a little section called, you know, the value of annual passes. When, when our kids were little, was it- whether it was visiting our local zoo or an aquarium that's a couple hours away that we love to go to, we would always buy an annual pass. Why? Because there is a point at which self-control leaves the child when they're exhausted, and when you try to pack in so many exciting things into their day, they're gonna lose self-control if they're not rested. We've all been there and a part of that nuclear meltdown that our child has when they just have reached maximum, or we watch other children have their meltdown, and we think to ourselves, "Oh, that poor parent." We would go to this aquarium, even though it was a couple hours away, and it would be time to go take a nap. And, um, we would go have a picnic lunch and maybe take a little nap at a park nearby and maybe go back in because we had the pass. We would go to our

25:49 zoo and maybe get to one-third of the exhibits, and then it was time to go. Um, all of those things are because the body was too tired to do any more, okay? So it's such an important tool, and teaching kids why their body needs rest and teaching them why they need to put the screens down and go to sleep, teaching them why they need to, uh, take a nap when the time comes, it's a tool. It's an, a valuable, valuable tool. So hopefully today these things have really helped giving you some tools, helping yourself and your children become aware of their weaknesses, what they need to work on the most, how to delete or remove or get rid of the things that are the enemy to that weakness, okay? Making sure they track and measure what they are doing and improving so that they can continue to do so, or where they're a little bit, um, lacking so that they can see where they need more self-control. And then learning how to have a conversation with themselves rather than get out of control, what words they're gonna put in their head so that they make those self-control decisions that are important, and then why they need rest, and why that's one of the most tool, important tools in their tool belt. Um, if you are enjoying this information, if this is helping you, I really highly encourage you to continue to tune in, share, download this podcast, share it with a friend. It means so much to me when you do. Living by the Mantras, my book, it's available.

27:13 You can click on the, the website at livingbythemantras.com, and you can, uh, get a hold of the book where I talk about all of these through real-life circumstances and through research and really just why these common sense values like self-control, decision-making, overcoming obstacles, why they're all so important. And all the mantras, the simple phrases that are easy for kids to remember, are such an important way to deliver those. Really, really would love it. Um, I have a blog, and if you go to my blog and you, uh, and you subscribe to the blog, you can get a free five, uh, five mantras to live by, and that's another way to begin to understand this process. But most importantly, I'm just grateful that you've tuned in, and I hope that when you think about whether it's wet and not yours and whether you should touch it, that you'll always think about how important self-control is, and we'll talk with you next time.

28:03 You've been listening to Living By the Mantras, where sticky sayings and real parenting talk help values land at home. What's your mantra? Practical parenting wisdom, humor, and purpose for an extraordinary family life. If you got something useful today, follow, rate, and share so other moms and dads can find their mantra too. New episodes regularly. Visit our free blog and get five free mantras at livingbythemantras.com/blog.