Dr. Jean Clinton - How to understand what it really means when your child is not cooperating

1. About Dr. Jean Clinton
2. What it really means when your child is not cooperating
3. How to prevent your own frustrations from driving your behavior
4. How to help build your child’s emotional competence and capacity by becoming a “stress detective”
5. Why your love is a “super nutrient” for your child’s brain
6. Action steps

Dr. Jean Clinton is a Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences at McMaster, division of Child Psychiatry. She is a member on the MindUP Scientific Advisory Board, as well as a MindUp for Families advisor.

Dr. Clinton was a Fellow of the Child Trauma Academy, as well as a Zero to Three Academy Fellow since 2013. Dr. Clinton was appointed as an education advisor to the Premier of Ontario and the Minister of Education 2014 - 2018.

She has been a consultant to children and youth mental health programs, child welfare, and primary care for over 30 years. Her special interest lies in brain development, and the crucial role relationships and connectedness play.

Dr. Clinton has also authored her first book, Love Builds Brains which can be ordered online through Tall Pines Press, on Amazon and in book stores everywhere.

You can find Dr. Jean’s book, Love Builds Brains, here.

And instead, how to collaborate with your child by recognizing the value in both your agendas.

Sue Meintjes: Thanks. I really like that positive mindset. It sounds like it is more about walking away from your own frustrations in the moment, and thinking about how you can help your child, what they need right now?

Dr. Jean Clinton: Yeah. But also examining, “Where is my frustration coming from?” So, what is my image of my little one? You know, if I believe them to be fully right bearing individuals, then their agenda has as much value as my agenda, and our work together is getting to the point.

So, the technique is to observe and recognize your own frustration, but then to really dig in deep and say, well, “Where is my frustration coming from?”

I’ll give you an example. I’m Scottish Canadian. And one thing that would push my buttons when my kids were little, was if they were defiant.

I had to stop and say, well, “Where might that come from?” And, you know, I came from a very strict Scottish background and family, and we would never, ever have been defiant or pushed back in that way. So, it made me really examine well, “Hmm, you know,” there was a message around that, that said, “Do what I want you to do and I’ll love you.” And I’m not sure that that built the best emotional competence.

Why your job as a parent is to be a “stress detective” and how to re-frame your child’s misbehavior as signs of physical or mental stress.

Sue Meintjes: I totally agree with that. You touched on helping kids develop their emotional capacity. What do you think parents should know about how to help kids develop their emotional capacity?

Dr. Jean Clinton: Right. Well, I think it’s a fabulous question, Sue, because I think what we know is that kids will do well if they can. The idea that kids do things to get us upset, I think, is a very wrong reframing of things. You know, in 35 years of child psychiatry, I’ve never met a kid who said, “I’m waking up this morning and screwing my life up.” They don’t do it. I believe that children will do well if they can, and all behavior has a reason and happens in a specific context.

And so, when a little one is becoming dysregulated it means that emotionally they’re under stress, or physically their body is saying, “I’m cold, I’m hungry.” And they don’t necessarily have the words. So, the emotional expression and the behavior that we see really comes from an underlying stress dysregulation.

Our job as parents is to be stress detectors.

As the little one is having a meltdown in the grocery store, the first thing we have to do is frame it and say, “This is stress. This is not misbehavior, this is stress. And I’m going to figure out what’s going on here. Are they hungry? Are they cold physically? Are they emotionally so tired and this is the wrong time to come grocery shopping?” Ding! Note to self, I’m not going to do it again.

Is it that I’m asking them to do too much? You can’t expect a two-year-old to do the same and be the same as a four-year-old.

So, I love to help families look at misbehavior as really coming from a stressor inside the child. The family then becomes stress detectives to figure out. “Oh, it’s 3:30. This is arsenic hours. This is when the kids really need a snack.”

I always, always want kids to be felt emotionally and that their behavior is telling me something, and I want to be the co-regulator who figures out what that is.

Sue Meintjes: Thanks a lot for your insight! Is there anything else you think that is important for parents to know about this?

Dr. Jean Clinton: Yeah. Well, a lot of what I do, I’m informed by what we’ve learned about how the brain develops. And what we know about the brain is that relationships, loving our kids, is a super nutrient for the brain.

It’s far more important to focus on connecting with your kids before you correct them. When they feel felt by you, you know, that real sense of “I’m seen, I’m valued,” then that love is what builds brains.

But it is not just “Love, love, love. You can do whatever you like.” Not at all. We have great evidence from the research that kids need limits. Kids need boundaries. So, my mantra is, “be kind, be firm, be fair.”

And so that’s all about love. That’s all about helping them learn what’s in bounds and out of bounds in a loving, natural way.

The other thing I’d like parents to know is “It’s progress.” We’re not going for perfection, because I’ll tell you with five kids, it was always about progress because you get it with one kid and the next one is completely different.

You have to always be working on it. So “progress, not perfection.”