How Can I Navigate My Children’s Chaotic Energy at Bedtime?(Listener Question)

Debbie:

Hey everybody today I am joined by Margaret Webb. Margaret is not just a dear friend of mine. She was my very first parenting coach. I wrote about her in Differently Wired. You may have read it and she is also the lead parent coach in my Differently Wired Club where she supports parents in that community. She’s also the author of the wonderful new book, A Hero’s Journey in Parenting: Parenting the Child You Didn’t Expect When You Were Expecting, which is in my opinion, an absolute must read for any parent raising a neurodivergent child. It’s just, it’s the book that I wanted Margaret to write for years because she shares all of her wisdom and her comfort and her tools and her hard -won wisdom. That’s all right. I’m going to stop gushing. Welcome, Margaret. I’m so happy you’re here.

Margaret Webb:

I am so excited to be here and I’m excited to tackle this question.

Debbie:

Yes, me too. Okay. Let’s get into it. The question is, I need help with my kids who are overly energetic and causing complete bedtime chaos. In my home, my children who are six and nine often egg each other on and end up wrestling, leading to injuries due to their impulse control issues. With both having ADHD and my older son being autistic, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to separate them. How can I help them settle down and get things done, especially during transitions where we have to do things like getting ready for school or for bedtime? So a lot to get into. So Margaret, I’m going to ask you to take this one first. I’d love to hear what came up for you when you heard this question.

Margaret Webb:

Yes, so the first thing that came up is that it is absolutely typical for a lot of kids to, especially those ages, to have a lot of energy and to want to avoid transitions. And so what’s a great way to avoid transitions? Then you know, wrestling or getting into it and using all that energy that they’ve got. And so I just want to put that out there that sometimes, especially if those are the only kids that you have or the only kids that you’ve, that you’re around, it can seem like, my gosh, you it’s too much. And it probably does feel like a line, but it’s also, you know, fairly typical for that to happen. Now that said, you know, I’m always curious about the underlying why. And so it’s like, what’s the underlying why around the tension around transition? And so it’s like, you know, transition before bed. Well, we don’t want to go to bed or we don’t want to go to school. And so what we can do is we can get all, you know, there’s like this nervous energy or this anxious energy or just big energy. And they can be getting what I call shadow payoffs from utilizing that energy in, you know, in ways that are not ideal for parents. And so I always like to think about, okay, they’re, you know, in these situations, are they getting shadow payoffs?

And a shadow payoff is just like, they’re getting something from the experience that is not ideal, but they’re still getting something from it. And so that can look like the parent, I mean, it can look like them wrestling, like, so they’re getting a shadow payoff from their siblings. And so they’re getting to have some of that energy burned off. The parent might engage in a way where it’s like, you know, increase in energy, might be yelling, it might be, you know, like giving ultimatums and all of that stuff, which as an adult, you’re thinking like, how is that a payoff? But they’re still getting a different kind of attention and they’re getting a different, you know, they’re getting energy that might be meeting their own energy. And so I’m always curious about that in the sense of looking at, well, what’s working? What’s not working? And what can we do differently? And to be able to zoom out and think about, okay, well, what’s going on? And I like to think about the three, you know, and I’m focusing on three characters, because I don’t know if there’s a partner or not. There wasn’t any mention of a partner or a husband or a wife or anything. So I’m focusing on three. And so it’s zooming out and looking at what’s going on with you during these times. 

And I will be honest and say that when I did this, it was super humbling because I realized that I was distracted or that I was trying to do something and like I was trying to get something done, but then I wanted him to get ready for school and he couldn’t, he didn’t have the executive functioning skills to be able to get himself organized. And so I was doing something aside from that. And so I like to think about my role in this? What am I doing as the parent? What does that look like? And do I need to kind of restructure things if I do notice that, yeah, like I had to learn to shut my computer off. I had to learn like, okay, now is not the time to answer emails because he needs me to help him get ready for school or to get ready for bed. And he’s gonna react to my lack of attention by increasing his energy in order to get my attention – shadow payoff. So there’s the parent circle and then this person has a six year old. And so looking at their circle and thinking about what’s going on with the six year old, what might they be avoiding or what might they be needing or wanting. And then you’ve got the nine -year -old and what’s going on. And doing so not in a shaming or like, there’s something, you know, like we’re doing things wrong, but to zoom out and think about, okay, this is what each of these individuals need and want or what’s actually going on, how do we approach this in a way where we can create something that feels better for all of us? And what can that look like? And that’s where we’re getting super curious about what our current routine or schedule looks like?

And really just doing so from a place of curiosity and not judgment, but just like, what does it look like? And is there anything that we can rejigger, anything that we can kind of shift around, maybe get things ready at a time? Like this question actually made me think about something tomorrow, you know, just making dinner at a different time so that we can reheat it, because I’ve got to take my son to a social group at 5:30, so it’s like, okay. But like really thinking about can we do things at a different time to get ready for school? Or to get ready for bed. That way then at bedtime, we’re just focused. You know, maybe it’s teeth brushing or showering an earlier time or a different time, just shaking things up a little bit to see if that might have an impact on how everybody responds. Also, since they mentioned that there’s a lot of wrestling, like are there any you know, taking into consideration those sensory needs or the needs of their bodies to be moving and to have that big energy. Are there things that you can do or are you doing like heavy work or activities to release energy? You know, are they working with an OT that might be able to give you some ideas of things to do so that they don’t need to wrestle with each other, where they’re actually kind of, okay, all right. So there’s so much, yeah, so much that kind of intertwines. But that’s where my thoughts went.

Debbie:

You definitely touched upon some of the stuff that I had written down as well, starting with getting really curious about what it is that’s setting them off, like what is underneath that, right? The egging on or whatever’s going on. So are they overtired? Do they have too much energy? Is it a sensory overload? Do they have anxiety over the expectations or the tasks that are to come? One sibling pushing another’s button. It’s so important to get to the root of that so that you’re addressing the right problem or the unsolved problem or the lagging skill or whatever it is. Because if you just start trying to come up with strategies and rules for the external behavior, you might get some quick mini wins. But there’s not going to be learning there that’s going to happen would probably be short lived. I love that you talked about building in the heavy lifting. That’s something I talked about doing also like way before bed, just from like a sensory diet perspective and listeners, if you haven’t read the out of sync child, there’s a lot of tools in there and that’s, and a lot of talk about how to do that kind of heavier work or what does from a sensor need from a sensory perspective, what does a child need? I remember my husband used to wrestle with Asher at bedtime, big time, just to kind of work all that stuff out. was like this, like, all right, let’s go to the wrestling match on the bed, just to kind of work all that stuff out. So are there ways to do that? The other stuff that came up for me, well, a couple things.

Thinking about maybe and doing this in collaboration with our kids, but creating jobs with our kids so they know there are like different roles, like giving them something to do, could distract them, could get them engaged in different ways. Again, designing what the jobs are together and you could just, I mean, get silly with them and create funny job titles and just so that the kids have something to do specifically. They have a task that they know they can do that can keep them focused. But that’s fun as opposed to like getting out the door. Your job is to put on your shoes and blah, blah. But can you come up with a funny name for the different things that have to happen? And then also lowering your expectations during these transitions and prioritize shifting the energy, which means managing your own energy as you’re navigating this stuff. You know, especially with transitions, like it’s, it’s really hard because it’s, you know, there’s these basic things. We all have to go to bed every night, right? And we all have to leave the house at some point. And if our kids are school age and they’re going to school, we all have to get out the door for that. So, we can get really rigid in what this should look like. And in these areas of transition we can have these kinds of rules that are unquestioned. Well, they have to be able to do this or, know, so we just kind of plug ahead. And so if we can kind of lower the expectations, kind of recognize what’s hard about this and try to break those cycles that sounds like there are some like predictable cycles now of how things are going by pushing some sort of emotional reset button and then really working on managing your own energy. So your own anxiety or frustration about these transitions isn’t contributing to anything else that’s going on. 

The last thing I’m going to mention, and I’ll see if there’s anything else you want to add. Margaret, as you were talking, I was remembering the Mistaken Goals chart in positive discipline because as you were talking about shadow payoffs, that’s what I was thinking about. I’ll have a link to this in the show notes. can be a really interesting tool because it really prioritizes the parents’ feelings, right? So if the child has this misguided power, this is what I’m, from the question, I think this is misguided power these kids are having, right? And the way they’re kinda like pushing each other’s buttons and stuff. And the parent then is feeling angry or challenged or defeated, right, and tends to react by, I’m just going across the chart here, fighting, thinking you can’t get away with this or wanting to be right or I need to make you do this the right way. That response usually for the child then could be intensifying the behavior. It could be bringing out more defiance. So we’re not gonna get the outcome that we want. We might be contributing to that, really, so if you go across on this chart, the coded message is this is a child who wants to help or who needs choices. So we can kind of, based on how we’re feeling and what we’re seeing the child do, they have these goals that they’re just going about it the wrong way. So I would encourage, again, I’ll link to this in the show notes, but this can be really interesting, the way that we can respond then is to acknowledge that we can’t make our kids do something. We can redirect to positive power. We can ask for help. We can offer limited choices. We can withdraw from the conflict and calm ourselves down. We can act instead of using our words. We can just kind of use our behavior and our calm energy to shift things. And develop this kind of mutual respect. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Sometimes when I’m feeling, especially, you know, when my child was younger, and I was just feeling some sort of way about what was going on, it was really helpful for me to look at, okay, if I’m feeling this way, and my kids doing this, what is actually the need here? Or what is the real intention here? All right, I’m gonna stop talking. Margaret, I’m gonna turn it back to you if there’s anything you wanna add before we wrap up.

Margaret Webb:

No, I think that is like what you just said is so huge because it does feel, you know, it can feel like that where it’s like, wait, I want all these things or I feel like I should be able to control this situation. And, you know, when you look at each individual involved, it’s like, okay, well, we can’t control any other, you know, human being. I mean, I remember feeling so giggly with my sister, like, even though we would fight like cats and dogs, like, I remember there were times where we were just super giggly and we would get in so much trouble because we were just in that state. And so I’m sure like the giggliness might then end up in wrestling and might end up in these other situations. So there’s that kind of nervous energy or anxious energy. But then also just, you know, when you’re transitioning, especially like getting out of the door, there’s so much executive functioning involved, like so much executive functioning, and it can feel so overwhelming as a parent. But I think if you, know, when you’re zoomed out of what is actually going on, if you come up with a plan for really being specific about what the executive functioning needs are in order to get out the door. That can provide so much more ease for everybody involved. And it might be like, okay, like I’m expecting, you know, I say, hey, go in and get ready for school. Okay, go in and get ready for school or go get ready for bed. I mean, that’s just like an open invitation for wrestling. Like, or for just like, you know, if you’re an only child, it’s just like an open invitation just to get lost in like doing, you know, whatever it is that your mind is wanting to do. And so being more specific and realizing, okay, this is who my child is, or this is who each of these kids are. And this is what each of them needs. This is how they operate best can help you to kind of not necessarily avoid, just address head on what’s actually going on and what they actually need instead of, they’re just being defiant or they just won’t do what I’m asking them. Maybe they don’t know what to do or maybe they know what to do, but it’s just like swirling around in their brains and they need something more specific. I think, for me, that’s been super helpful with regards to transitions. And at first it was, it felt a little bit more, you know, direct, specific, deliberate, and it’s eased up over the years. But at 21, he still needs it. And that’s okay. So do I, you know, so do I. So it’s just, it’s learning who each of us are.

Debbie:

I think that’s a great note to end this on. I think we shared a lot of different thoughts and ideas. So I hope that one or more of those thoughts resonated with the person who asked this question. Thank you also for sending in this question. If you have a question for us, you can find a link on any of the show notes pages of the podcast page until parenting where you’ll get taken to a form and you can submit the question in writing or you can actually also leave a voicemail for me. So thank you again and thank you, Margaret, for everything that you shared today and joining me for this one.

Margaret Webb:

Thank you, it’s been super fun.