Child Can’t Handle No {EP 92}

Robyn: Now frustration tolerance and not being able to hear no, is complex. Like there's a lot of things that can go into and be underneath why- hearing no or not getting what they want can be hard for a child. But we're going to focus on one specific thing today, which is frustration tolerance. And generally speaking, when a child, when any human, has a huge reaction to not getting what they want, what is really happening is they don't have the regulatory circuits to tolerate the feeling of frustration. So the thing about being human is that we have wants and needs and hopes and desires all the time. It's a core part of being human. It's- it's really what keeps us alive is that there's always a hope. There's always a thing that we're hoping and expecting is going to happen. It can be things like I hope I get to play with the next door neighbor. I hope I get to have chicken nuggets for dinner. I hope that mom, or dad, or grandma, or grandpa, or Uncle Joe, whoever takes care of me, is going to read me my favorite book at dinnertime. I hope that when we go to the store, that I always get to get a new Lego, or a soda, or a candy bar, right? Like there's all these hopes and desires and wants. And this is not unique to your child. This isn't something bad about your child. They're not spoiled. They're just human. We all have wants, right? And when we get what we want, we feel awesome. And that's true about me, and my guess is that's true about you, too. Right? That like I often feel like life would just be so swell if I always just got what I wanted and people always just did what I wanted, right? That- that would work out fantastically for me, although it actually wouldn't, because it's not a very relationally rich experience in the world. But that's a whole separate podcast when I want what I want, I want it I'm not thinking about like the longer term implications about that. What that means is like for my relationships. And it really does feel like in the moment, like if I could just have what I wanted, like everything would be fine here, people, right? Now, I don't actually move through the world like that, most of the time. Because I have a grown up brain with a relatively appropriate amount of frustration tolerance, given my brain development and my felt safety in the world. Which is pretty high, right? Like, I'm pretty privileged with a lot of felt safety, in a lot of ways. And therefore I tend to have an oh, I've done a, you know, bajillion hours worth of therapy, that have also really grown my own- my frustration tolerance. So even though I still would really like to have what I wanted, whenever I wanted it. I have a pretty developmentally appropriate capability of managing frustration, and disappointment, right? When things don't go the way I want them to, I experience frustration, I experience disappointment. Sometimes, maybe we could even say most of the time, I'm not sure. We’ll have to ask my husband, I manage that frustration well enough. Sometimes, I still don't, right? Like, sometimes, my window of tolerance is too small. Or sometimes there's other variables happening that I just don't have the frustration tolerance, to tolerate that- that no. To tolerate not getting what I want. And that is going to then lead to some dysregulation. 

Robyn: So frustration tolerance is a relatively complex developmental skill. But overall, let's look at this, as you know, a quote unquote owl brain skill. So one of the things about the owl brain is it requires just straight up time. Age, developing, right? That a 16 year old has more frustration tolerance than a 16 month old, right? That it some of these skills are really just developed by growing older. And then understanding that kids with vulnerable nervous systems, kids who have experienced complex trauma in their histories are often developmentally delayed in many- in many ways. But yes, it- frustration tolerance is- is a developmental skill that requires regulation, felt safety, and connection. 

Robyn: So when I get a no, when I hear a no, and I get a boundary. When somebody says I can't have what I want, or do what I want, one of the ways that I can be okay with that no, one of those ways that I can have some frustration tolerance around that no, around that boundary, is when I don't interpret that no or that boundary is that person just being mean to me. Right? And I know that for, probably many of you listening, part of what's happening when our kids- when your kids are getting a no or they're getting a boundary or they can't have what they want, which is for so many reasons, right? Like, kids can't- very regularly children aren't getting what they want. Kids with vulnerable nervous systems, kids, especially with histories of complex trauma and histories where relationship hasn't been safe. They can instantly interpret that know or that boundary as happening because you're being mean to them or because you just don't like them. Right? That kids with histories of complex trauma, really have a hard time embodying the reality that there would be a no or a boundary for really any other reason, right? It always feels personal, it always feels like you would let me do this if you've liked me. That really is about the way that connection is felt in the nervous system and felt safety around relationships. So when I think about fru- growing frustration tolerance, particularly around helping shift that mental model of- of a no, you know, a no means you just don't like me, right? Like that's one mental model. One way we shift that is to be thinking about connection, and felt safety. I'll talk a little bit more later in the episode about more specific things about how to shift and grow frustration tolerance.

Robyn: Another thing that's really important in the experience of frustration tolerance, is having the felt sense that this yucky feeling of frustration or the yucky feeling of disappointment, it's not a forever feeling. It will end. And this might sound totally wild to you, but so often, people with vulnerable nervous systems, especially histories of relational trauma, complex trauma. When things are bad, there's this felt sense that it will always be bad. Now, some of that felt sense is about the way that they're about- It's about memory processing. It is about the implicit memories of all the times in the past, they felt so bad, and frustrated, and disappointed that all of that is activated in this current moment of frustration and disappointed- disappointment, and because of their history of trauma, and their lack of experiencing co-regulation in those previous experiences of frustration and disappointment. The frustration and disappointment in this moment, can have the felt sense that like this will never end. I just did an episode- two episodes on memory. One specifically was on- on mental models. And then the other was on the impact of trauma on implicit and explicit memory. So if this is the first time you're hearing me talk about memory, you might want to go check out those episodes. They- I'm almost positive are literally like just the previous- previous ones. But that way that the memories are processed- or not processed quite correctly, can cause it as embodied sense in the moment that I will feel this bad forever and ever and ever. This bad feeling I'm getting because of disappointment, or because of frustration, or because of not getting what I want, it will never end. I'll always feel that way. And so as you can imagine, if a experience of frustration just totally catapults you into this experience of I will always feel bad, I will never feel good ever again for the rest of my life. That then causes some pretty intense dysregulation. 

Robyn: So, uh, underneath frustration tolerance is this idea that I can feel bad, I can feel frustrated, I can feel disappointed. And I can be okay. I can tolerate having a yucky feeling without freaking out. Because I know I can make it through this yucky feeling and be okay, and the yucky feeling will end. Now, one thing to be really clear around the idea of frustration tolerance is that frustration tolerance does not mean that- that the child will experience frustration joyfully or happily. Right frustration is a valid- frustration and disappointment are both valid, negative emotions. And they're going to be expressed that way. So I work really hard on my family, me and my husband and my kid, the three of us work really hard. We're not perfect at this by any means. But there's a few things that we hold, like really core family values. Repair, and apologies, and reconnection is one of them. And then the right to have bad feelings is another. That I don't expect my child or my spouse to always feel good about everything and to never feel disappointed. They're allowed to be frustrated, they're allowed to be disappointed, and they're allowed to express being frustrated and disappointed. Now, I'll also tell y’all that disappointment actually is a really hard feeling for me. And it's a really hard feeling for me to tolerate in other people. And if you- if you came and observed my family for a long time, you actually would probably see these subtle experiences where I tried to make disappointment be a feeling that's not felt. And I do that in a wide variety of ways. And one of the things that I'm communicating when I do that is disappointment is not an acceptable feeling. I work really, really hard on shifting that narrative for myself, work really really hard and being okay with my frustration, my disappointment and my people's frustration and disappointment, right? My friends, my families, people in relationship with me, my students, you know?I work really hard at being okay with their disappointment. And part of what I'm doing in that is shifting, first of all my own mental models, but also growing frustration tolerance in all of us. 

Robyn: So let's look at that a little bit more specifically, how do we increase frustration tolerance? Well, this isn't easy, because it's the same answer I give always, but also very hard, which is through co-regulation, right? And seeing our child's reactions to being told no, or to having a boundary set, to seeing that as a lack of frustration tolerance, who's seeing that as dysregulation as opposed to, like, they're spoiled, or they have some sort of character flaw, or they're always just being difficult or nothing will ever satisfy them, right? Like, we can start to spin all these narratives around our child's behavior, that one, aren't true, but two, ultimately lead us to be more dysregulated. And then we can't provide the co-regulation that our child really needs in those moments. So that is the number one, then- the number one thing to do is always see it for what it is. See it as frustration tolerance. It is so easy for us as parents to get burned out and intolerant, and just like lose our ability to provide co-regulation when we have kids who are like exploding over everything, right? Like, we end up responding inkind, like we respond with our own frustration. And again, we feel like they're too spoiled, or we're too soft, or, you know, we feel these things that actually prompt us to withdraw co-regulation instead of offering more, right. But frustration tolerance is developed through co-regulation and attunement. And y’all that isn't the same as giving in, which I will talk about before this episode ends. I promise that I'm talking about giving in and ending their frustration, talking about offering co-regulation and attunement. And again, we all we- do that first by always just seeing our child's behavior for what it is. A lack of skill, and a lack of regulation. And then us now having patience and compassion while still having a really strong boundary. So that might sound like I know you're really mad, or sad, or disappointed, or just reflecting back and acknowledging like, I know you feel this way. And that feeling is okay here. It might sound like nothing at all right? Like sometimes, what our kids need when they're dysregulated is for us to just be quiet. That's true more often than not in my own house, like I've come to realize that lots of reflective statements like I can tell that you're so mad, or it makes so much sense that you're disappointed, or frustrated, or whatever. By the time my child is really expressing that level of frustration or disappointment, my verbal reflection back isn't helpful. So usually by then I really actually just say nothing. And focus on staying regulated myself, you know, keeping perspective on what's happening, because it's so easy for me to jump into the like, he's just being a jerk, like whole, right? And then we're all just swimming and dysregulation together. So I really just don't focus on my own regulation in my- in and keeping my own x-ray vision goggles on, like really, truly seeing the behavior for what it is the distress in the nervous system. 

Robyn: Offering co-regulation might sound like offering a drink, or a snack, or some sort of activity of distraction, or a hug and connection, right? After, typically, after you've validated their frustration, you don’t want to jump too fast to offering solutions, because that really gives the felt sense that my feelings aren't tolerated here. All you're trying to do is change them. There's a big difference between trying to stop or change our child's behavior, and co- offering co-regulation. There also, I do think comes a point that we don't talk about too much, maybe I need to do a whole separate episode on this. About sometimes it really there comes a point where it it's time to kind of move on, right? Like some of you listening might have a child that you feel like, you know, we did that episode previously on kind of like that bottomless pit of needs. And that can sort of also feel like that co-regulation pit, right? That no matter how much co-regulation I do, it's like never enough my child never like feels more regulated by it. And again, I think that's a whole ‘nother episode. But I'll just say here, I do think there can come a time and a place for there to be a moment where we just move on. And what that can look like can be pretty nuanced and pretty complicated. I don't know. Now that I'm saying this out loud, I'm not even sure that that's a really great podcast episode because that's a topic that's really better handled, like dyadically, you know? Like, we can go back and forth and talk about it and bounce things off and really see what's going on. So not really sure that that actually is a great podcast episode. I don't know. I promise that I'll think about it. 

Robyn: So sometimes though, you know, helping to grow frustration tolerance does actually look like lowering the bar, right? That the frustration your child's experiencing is just too much. It far exceeds their capacity to tolerate that frustration, and what they need- and what they need not only to be better in that moment, but really to grow. Like to do the bicep curl of growing the frustration, tolerance is lowering the bar. The reality is, is if we have kids that are like, just constantly blown out of their window of tolerance by frustration, we aren't going to grow their frustration muscle. It's like, if I was training for a marathon, and had- and was injured, like, like legitimately injured, I would need to adjust my training plan. I couldn't just keep training on that injury, because I would no longer be growing my muscle, right? I have to lower expectations, giving in is not changing expectations. Those are not the same thing we give in, because we can't tolerate our kids’ dysregulation anymore. And we're like, fine, whatever, I can't tolerate this anymore, just y- and we just give in. Lowering the bar is making a regulated decision to decrease your expectations, because you realize your child can't be successful with the expectations you currently have. So they're two very different experiences, you may end up making the same choice about how to change something for your child's life, they might look the same, but they're being done with wildly different energies. And that really, really, really matters. So again, giving in is really more about I can't tolerate this sensation myself anymore. And so from this dysregulated place, I'm going to change the expectation because I can't tolerate my kids’ dysregulation anymore. Whereas lowering the bar is making a regulated decision to change your expectations, right? So they're very, very, very different. 

Robyn: I also think we can increase frustration tolerance by setting our kids up a little bit better. So we just certainly don't always know that something is coming, that's going to cause frustration in our kids. Like, sometimes it's just shocking, and we have no idea we can't do anything to prepare for it. But sometimes we do know that something is going to be happening that's going to be upsetting or stressful to our kids, or we know we're gonna have to set a boundary or we know we're gonna have to do something that they're not going to like. And we can increase their frustration tolerance in the long run even, if we set our kids up a little bit better, to be able to be successful at tolerating that frustration, when you can anticipate it when you know it's gonna happen. So be thinking about just general like, how do I help support my kids' window of tolerance? Before I have to say no, or before I have to set this boundary so that they kind of are at like their peak performance, like they have the most resources available to them, to be able to tolerate that frustration. So I'm talking about basic things like making sure they're not hungry, making sure they're well rested, they're well hydrated, sometimes even preparing, you know, preparing things like saying that- what I'm about to say is going to feel very frustrating, and I get it. You're allowed to feel frustrated, and you're allowed to express how mad you are. Like setting that up ahead of time can really help our kids, the higher their window of tolerance, the wider their window of tolerance, the more they're gonna be able to tolerate that frustration. And not only is that going to help in this exact moment, but it's actually a long term strategy. Right? The more- that the wider their window of tolerance is when they experience a frustration and then they can navigate that frustration a little bit better because their window of tolerance was nice and wide, the more their- their window of frustration, tolerance is going to grow. Okay, so we can think about how this is helpful in the short term, as well as in the long term. But really y’all like the most important thing we want to think about that is going to help our kids is our own response, our own regulation. Again, like if you live with a child who's just chronically unhappy what- the really most important thing to do is up your self compassion. Your basic physiological self care like making sure you're well hydrated, have decent nutrition, getting good sleep, you know, have safe and gentle movement worked into your routine in some ways. And I know that these things can be feel impossible, and maybe they are impossible, but if they aren't impossible, they're- these things are actually as important to focus on as any sort of like direct parenting strategy you apply to your child. And in many ways are actually more important. So self compassion and your own basic physiological care. 

Robyn: I also have worked with parents who have said it can be really helpful to like visualize seeing their child's owl brain just like, poof, fly away. And their watchdog brain takes over like their owl get scared and, and flies away. And then now they've got this big, barking, growling watchdog that's just taken over. And if you can kind of separate this like watchdog from your child, what you're also helping yourself do is separate their behaviors from who they are as a person. And you'll be able to remember more like where's this behavior coming from? Which then of course will help you remember, well, then what it needs is more regulation, connection, and felt safety. It’s similar to that, even just reframing the behavior away from like, what I named this episode, right? To like my child can't tolerate no or my child can't hear no, even just reframing that and taking a shift away from- from labeling it that way in your own mind to labeling it. My child has poor frustration tolerance. 

Robyn: Okay, one final thing that I'm just gonna mention, but not dive into terribly far because it's complicated and nuanced. And really, again, is one of those things that's best handled and discussed in an actual conversation, as opposed to just this one sided podcast. Is the idea that kids with complex trauma histories oftentimes have poor, or delayed, or not very solid sense of self. And they feel best, they feel most real, they feel most regulated, they feel most okay, when they're pretty enmeshed with somebody else, and especially a caregiver. That the separation of kids from their caregivers and to two separate beings, who can still come together to create like a we space. That's a developmental experience that kids with relational complex trauma histories often haven't really accomplished, yet. It can- it can feel delayed. And in particular, kids, you really feel best when they were most enmeshed when their caregivers, are kids that we could say look like they have pretty intense anxious attachment. And now I did do that attachment series last year, and I replayed it earlier this year. So you can scroll back on my podcast and look for the episode on anxious attachment. You can also go to RobynGobbel.com/AnxiousAttachment to read the summary and the transcript of that episode. And then you can also get the ebook on attachment at Robyn gobbel.com/ebook. Alright, so these really enmeshed kids who feel best when it's like you and me are the same. These kids have a really hard time when a boundary is set. Because it's a separation. It's a moment where you and me aren't the same. Right? And are these kids, the safest is when we're the same. Implicit in a boundary, right? Is what you want and what I want are different. And for kids with extreme anxious attachment, especially extreme anxious attachment that's really moving into more like disorganized attachment, this separation of you and me are different. And we don't want the same thing in this one small little moment. It's just too much. It's wildly disorganizing. And dysregulating, and is going to come out in behavior that looks like I can't tolerate no or I always need everything to go my way. 

Robyn: I offer this explanation for those of you who feel like your child's lack of frustration tolerance is just really extreme. Like maybe you got to the end of the episode and you're like wait a minute that- I didn't find this helpful at all. Well, this could be why. That your child's lack of frustration tolerance is so extreme it could be explained because of this- this extreme need to always be the same. To always be enmeshed into feel- to feel very dangerous, when they're different or separate from you. And so of course the question then becomes well, what do I do about that? And unfortunately, the answer to that is really nuanced. It goes beyond what I can address in this podcast episode and honestly, maybe any podcast episode. Though, I'll put it on my list of things to think about if I can address it in a podcast episode. But what you can do in this moment, again, go check out that attachment series, you can, you can just get the whole series by getting the ebook at RobynGobbel.com/ebook. Or just scroll back a touch in your podcast player on my website. And you'll see that there was the six part attachment series. It starts with an episode called, I don't remember what it's called, I will make sure I put in the show notes where that attachment series starts and then you can just go through the six- the six episodes and then or you can- you can just download the eBook. 

Robyn: Another option for you is to consider joining The Club. And The Club opens up again next, because in The Club is where we can really dive in and discuss all of these nuanced things much more in depth. And I get to know you in The Club. And that means that me and my coaches and all the other Club members even, are giving you thoughts and ideas that are more specific to your kid, and your family, and your situation you’re in. Because we've got- we've had the opportunity to get to know you and you can really look at these different nuances and you know, talk about things in a way that's very applicable to your specific family in your situation.

Robyn: Alright, y'all, I hope this episode was helpful. Just a helpful kind of beginner's look at what frustration tolerance really is, and how you can start to be deliberate about growing frustration tolerance in your child. Again, if I can support you diving deeper into exploring this topic, and really getting more hands on a more practical and your specific family. That's what The Club is for. So when The Club opens again, next, come join us there RobynGobbel.com/TheClub. I'd also love for you to hop over to my social media. I always have at least two posts a week about whatever the episode of The Week is. And so we can chat about the episode on those social media posts. I'm on Facebook, and Instagram. And you may have noticed I have a new social media helper who is making amazing social media graphics that I think are gonna benefit you so much more. Like you can save those graphics, save those images, refer back to them. They're going to be so much better and giving you like some real good practical things to do next to save those posts, share them to refer back to you- can just save them right in your phone or, or whatever. So I'm hoping that that's going to be helpful to you as well. All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you back here on this Parenting After Trauma podcast again next week.