Dr. Paul Jenkins: How “detaching yourself from the outcome” helps your children respond more positively

1. About Dr. Paul Jenkins
2. How “detaching yourself from the outcome” helps your children respond more positively
3. Why having control over your own emotions increases the chances that your kids will cooperate
4. How to use the “No Problem” technique to stay calm and encourage your children to think, instead of fight
5. What to do when you feel like you cannot detach yourself from the outcome of a situation
6. The “Three Stage Model” you can use to understand your child’s maturity, and make the right parenting decisions
7. Dr. Paul’s “Four Rules of Parenting” to help you stay calm, stay supported, and discipline appropriately
8. Action steps

Dr. Paul Jenkins is a child and family psychologist, coach, speaker, and author.

With over two decades of experience as a professional psychologist, Dr. Paul Jenkins guides individuals, executives, leaders, couples, and families through a positive psychology process which empowers relationships and increases happiness and satisfaction.

As a psychologist, Dr. Paul specializes in the science and practice of positivity, and focuses on empowering individuals, families, and influencers to go far beyond traditional therapy or positive thinking programs to create and live the life they love through powerful positive psychology processes.

Dr. Paul is also the author of Pathological Positivity (The Proven Positivity Formula for Personal Development, Parenting, and Relationships) which sold over 15,000 copies the first year after its launch.

He is the host of the popular Live On Purpose Radio podcast and Live On Purpose TV Youtube channel.

You can find out more about Dr. Paul at his website, here.

Dr. Paul has provided a free guide on how to measure the maturity of your child here.

Dr. Paul shares why getting frustrated or upset puts you in a disempowered position, which makes it less likely that your kids will listen.

Sue Meintjes: Do you have any advice on how to do that? How do you stay calm and detached from the outcomes, for example when you are running late in the morning, and feeling stressed?

Dr. Paul Jenkins: Well, take good care of yourself. That’s one of the things. I do a lot of parent coaching in my business and a big part of parent coaching is helping the parents to have more control over their own emotional experience, so they’re not getting tipped over by their kids.

And see, you just gave a really good example of a time when it’s hard because if we’re pressed for time, we’re attached to the outcome, and our kids don’t have to be at that point.

So, if we’re all uptight and upset about something, that puts us in a disempowered position. But if we’re okay, then our kids have to listen and think. That’s the whole key there.

Dr. Paul shares a simple phrase that you can use to remind yourself to detach from the outcome, while also telling your kids that they will need to take responsibility.

Dr. Paul Jenkins: You asked about a trick, or a strategy, that we can apply. One of the things I encourage the parents I’m coaching to try is the phrase, “No problem.”

You have to say it with a little lilt to your voice, and with a smile. Raise your eyebrows just a little bit as you say, “No problem.” And this is a reminder for you, and for your child, to think, not fight.

Every interaction we have with our children is going to invite them to do one or the other, to think, or to fight. If we are smiling, our kids are thinking. If we’re feeling all pressured and upset, if we start yelling, then our kids are just going to fight with us.

So that’s really the key. When you try this, when you say, “No problem,” what that means is, “No problem for me, possible problems coming up for you, but I’ll let you do your own thinking about that.”

So that’s how we can communicate detaching from the outcome. And it helps us as parents to remember, “Wait a minute, this doesn’t have to be a problem for me.” Or, “What can I do so that this isn’t a problem for me?”

Staying calm is difficult, especially in situations where you are attached to the outcome. Here Dr. Paul gives some advice on how you can stay calm when your children don’t want to get ready for school.

Sue Meintjes: What if it is a problem where I am attached to the outcome? For example, if I have to get to work, but my child doesn’t want to get ready for school?

Dr. Paul Jenkins: Well, if it’s a consistent problem, we can do some planning ahead of time to address the problem in a way that it’s not a problem for us.

For example, you might have a friend who could help. And if the child is dragging their feet, making you late, and you’re getting upset and frustrated, and they don’t seem to be cooperating or listening, you can make prior arrangements with this friend to be available so that you can still leave on time, and then the friend comes over and helps to get the child off to school.

Now, that takes a lot of planning and that’s not easy, so you might think of other ways to do it.

For example, you tell your child, “Hey buddy, the car is leaving at eight o’clock and there’s two ways to go. You can go ready for school, or you can go however you are.” Now, some kids wouldn’t care about that, but there’s other kids who, if they’re not already dressed in their school clothes or have their shoes on, that would be more upsetting for them to have to go without being fully ready.

Instead of focusing on your child’s age, Dr. Paul recommends understanding their maturity level. Here he explains the three stage model he developed to help understand your child’s maturity.

Dr. Paul Jenkins: But it depends on the child. And one of the things that we teach in our parent coaching is that it’s about stage, not age.

We’ve developed a model, where you just have to understand what stage your kids are on. There’s three of them.

Stage one is where they’re refusing to cooperate. They won’t listen to you. They’re fighting and yelling and screaming and throwing tantrums and just being very difficult. That’s stage one.

Stage two is where they’ll cooperate with you. They don’t want any problems. They’ll try to work it out with you, and they’ll be reasonably cooperative and compliant.

Stage three is the most mature of the three stages. That’s where they take responsibility, and they take initiative, and they’re doing what they are supposed to do, and they don’t even need to be asked. They are taking care of business.

So, you can see these are very distinct stages, and what we do as a parent is determined by what stage our kids are on.

And understanding what stage our kids are on will help us to make the right decisions as a parent about how we can detach from the outcomes and put the right consequences into place that will help our kids to eventually become more cooperative and listen.

Sue Meintjes: So, the stage your kids are in is not necessarily how old they are, but how developed they are?

Dr. Paul Jenkins: It’s not about how old they are, it’s about how mature they are. And kids of different ages might be at different stages of maturity. In fact, I’d be happy to provide a little one-page summary of those stages for you and for the people who are reading the book.

You can go to DrPaulJenkins.com/listen and get a free copy of this stages model that I’m talking about. That really helps parents to understand what they need to do if their kids are cooperating or if they’re not cooperating. And how we can move them toward listening and being more cooperative.

Sue Meintjes: That sounds amazing, thanks for that! Is there anything else that parents need to know about detaching, or what we talked about today?

Dr. Paul Jenkins: Well, I’ve got four rules for parents. And rule number one, I already mentioned it, “take care of yourself.” Parents need to take care of themselves, or else they’ll find themselves getting tipped over, or upset, or frustrated. So that’s rule number one.

Rule number two, “take care of the team.” Whatever your parenting team is. If you’re married, then it’s your spouse, or your partner. If you are a single parent, then it’s the team that you assemble. Your advisors, or your coaches, or teachers at the school, or people in your neighborhood, or babysitters and caretakers. So that’s rule number two: “Take care of your team.”

Rule number three is to “love your children.” And most parents love their kids, but it’s important to remember that that’s our main job as a parent. And I talk about this on my YouTube channel all the time. Your job is to love them, no matter what. That’s rule number three.

And then rule number four is, “Do appropriate discipline, based on the stages that I just shared with you. Because you discipline a stage one child very differently than you discipline a stage two child.” And that takes a little bit of practice. And that’s what we base all of our coaching programs around. But like I said, I’ll provide a free copy of that stages model for anybody who wants it at DrPaulJenkins.com/listen.