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Emotion Coaching Part 11 - The Coercive Cycle

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This is part 11 of our Emotion Coaching caregiver series. Jonathan Andrus, School Counselor at Elk Ridge Elementary, describes the Coercive Cycle that all families fall into from time to time and how best to avoid it. For more information, visit the Gottman Institute at gottman.com or read "Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child" by Dr. John Gottman.

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Hello White River Families. This is Jonathan Andrus the school counselor at Elk Ridge Elementary. Today we have another video and we're going to talk about the coercive cycle that all parents and kids find themselves in from time to time. And the coercive cyle is research thats come from the Oregon Social Learning Center. There's kind of five steps to it and I'll walk us through it. A child makes a demand. And this is probably a demand that you don't want to give in to. They're being irritating about it, frustrating about it, they're probably upset that you don't want to do it. So a parent comes down hard on it, and maybe you even threaten a consequence if you don't knock this off, right? Especially if this is happening in the grocery store. This coercive cycle really gets a spotlight when we're out in public. Usually this does't work, the child would then escalate in a more irritating way, and more frustrating because they have a one track mind, and they're pretty stubborn about it. So then as a parent we get to the point where we flipped our lid. And I talked about that in a previous video where this power struggle continues to go, they won't give up, on their demand, your child is starting to throw a fit, throw a tantrum, what have you. Parents end up getting so frustrated and exhausted especially if this is out in public, that we give in to the demand that our child made in the first place. My daughter is two, so this cycle looks a little different for me than other families, but my daughter really likes to push the shopping cart and we are at Costco just a few weeks ago and she's pushing blindly because she's you know, yay high and can't see over the cart. So she's pushing blindly. She notices that we have our arms on it, kind of guiding it, and at this point she is not a fan of that and starts pushing away my wife and I, telling us NO she wants to do it herself. It gets to the point where she screaming and crying that we're even trying to push the cart,  and I make the mistake of ordering Costco pizza so the clocks ticking. It's a disaster, a trainwreck. She is now the loudest kid in the grocery store. It's embarrassing for such a silly reason. And, so thankfully, both of us for shopping so my wife just picked Arly up, walked out the door. I finished shopping and moved on. We don't always get that luxury, especially if it's just one parent shopping with multiple kids, eventually you get to the point where you just want to quiet it down, and you end up giving in to the demands that they asked for in the first place. Children end up learning that if they escalate, and if they're more stuborn than parents, which they are quite often, they will eventually get what they want. And the problem is kids are smart. They will apply this...everywhere. They'll go to school and they'll know that if I throw a fit, I'll get what I want. Making friends, they know that they are not going to give in and compromise with their friends. They'll get what they want, right? Kids are smart, and they would rather have the negative emotional connection, than no connection at all. And that can be really frustrating as a parent. We get into this cycle quite a bit. So what can we do? Here's what you can do in the moment when it's happening. First you need to be able to take a pause, as the parent. Even being able to just take a step back, look outside of the situation, recognize the cycle is happening. Okay, that's the first step. Don't give in, no matter what. That is so tough! Cus there's times where that sounds impossible. But we have to be consistent with our kids. Applying a consequence to your kid after you give him a couple reminders. Say you're really early on in the cycle, and nobody's flipped their lid yet. You can give a reminder of, if you continue to argue this is what's going to happen, or you need to knock it off because if you keep going this is what's going to happen. Give them a couple reminders, and then you have to follow through. That can be tough too. Especially if you're out in public. So, you know, if you're out at a restaurant, and you say that we're going to leave if you do X Y and Z, then you gotta follow through. Growing up there were people around me that would threaten the 'wooden spoon' and then never do it. Ug, that's the worst. If you're a family that counts to three, you better deliver the consequence when you get to three. No two and a halfs, no being wishy-washy about it. If you count to three, you gotta do it. This cycle can be nipped in the bud in future situations, if you explain the consequences ahead of time when everybody's still calm. So maybe you're going grocery shopping and that's when the struggles occur. You park in the grocery store, before you get out the car you say I expect you to hold onto the cart, if I say 'no' you need to listen to me, right? Whatever your expectations are, say those upfront. Your kids will know what consequences are coming. And on the parents side this helps so much because if you can lay out what the consequences will be ahead of time, it removes all of the emotional responses and reactions you'd have as a parent. And that is sooo nice. It makes things so much simpler in terms of being consistent. Because if you lay out, this is what's going to happen if you do this behavior, you can be very matter-of-fact and say the reason this is happening now is because you did X Y and Z. And it means you don't have to escalate with your child when they continue to escalate. They will probably deescalate quicker if you're able to stay calm because you know what consequence is coming. It can help a lot. For more information you can visit gottman.com, or read his book. Or feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions. Take care.

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Emotion Coaching Part 11 - The Coercive Cycle

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