This week, a TMP Times member wrote in about her 8-year-old son.
Every day, he plays in the lane behind their house. It's a good setup. It’s safe, supervised enough, and close to home. She gives him a 5-minute warning before it's time to come in. She pre-plans. She follows through on consequences. She's doing a lot of things right.
Yet when it's time to come in, he runs further down the lane. He says "No" as a default. He says "you're not the boss of me."
He gets angry. She gets tense.
The same loop plays out over and over including at playdates, at parties, at bedtime - anywhere and anytime something that he’s enjoying has to end.
She wrote, "I am never sure how it will go, and it makes me feel tense when it comes to the moment of saying it's time to go."
I want to sit with that sentence for a second because that tension she's feeling before she even opens her mouth isn’t a small thing. That's actually her nervous system bracing for impact. If she can feel it, he can feel it too.
I had my own version of this moment just this week with my almost 8-year-old. She was trying to be heard. I was focused on getting compliance. I went straight to "you have two choices," and she ultimately did what I asked but I knew the whole time I had bypassed something and I felt it.
That feeling of sadness, guilt, frustration and a hint of shame. The feeling of “ugh, nothing is getting through to you!” followed immediately by a harder truth that I knew deep down: I'm part of this.
That's actually the moment I pay attention to most as a psychologist and as a mom because those feelings are information. They're telling you something in the relationship, the routine, or the dynamic needs to shift, not just in your child, but in you.
Knowing that and doing something about it in the moment are two completely different things. That gap is real and it’s one of the biggest reasons why I write this newsletter.
So let's talk about what's actually happening with this little boy and what his mom can do about it, starting tonight.
