Season 03 Episode 3
💬 Show Notes
In this enlightening episode of Connected Parenting Minute, hosts Will and CarrieAnn Standfest delve into the complexities of children “losing it” and how parents can navigate these challenging moments. They introduce the concept of the “window of tolerance,” explaining how different children have varying capacities for handling stress before they reach their breaking point. Using vivid analogies and personal anecdotes, Will and CarrieAnn provide practical insights into understanding and expanding this window through connection and empathy.
Will and CarrieAnn share their experiences from a recent conference, including their talk on connecting with teenagers at the CAFO conference, and discuss the importance of being a detective when it comes to your child’s big behaviors. They emphasize the need to look beyond the surface and consider what might be contributing to a child’s stress and reactions. The episode also highlights the transformative power of playful engagement and consistent connection in helping children feel safe and understood.
Don’t miss this episode packed with actionable advice and heartfelt guidance. Tune in to learn how to build stronger connections with your children and help them navigate their emotions more effectively, one connected parenting minute at a time.
Show notes created by https://headliner.app
🗣️ Quotes from Will Standfest
“The window of tolerance is how large is the window of stuff you can tolerate before you lose it in a day.”
“When your kid feels safe enough to lose it at you, that means you’re actually making progress.”
🗣️ Quotes from Carrieann Ann Standfest
“Building connections expands our kids’ windows of tolerance.”
“Being a detective of your kids’ big behaviors can help you understand what’s really going on.”
Season 3 Episode 3 of the Connected Parenting Minute Podcast
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🔑 Episode Keywords
Window of Tolerance, Parenting Strategies, Emotional Regulation, Connection-Based Parenting, Child Development, Family Dynamics, Playfulness, Trauma-Informed Care, Parenting Podcast, Behavior Management
connectedparenting #windowoftolerance #emotionalregulation #parentingstrategies #childdevelopment #familydynamics #playfulness #traumainformed #parentingpodcast #behaviormanagement
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Music by https://lesfm.net/
Show Transcript:
CarrieAnn: And then it just kind of blew up because all of a sudden, it’s my fault the room is messy, and how uncompletely unrealistic to expect it to be a certain level of clean. There is an element where it’s like, okay, I can breathe. I can take a couple minutes. How can I bring playfulness into this?
Intro/Outro: You are listening to the connected parenting minute with Will and CarrieAnn Ann Standfest. this podcast is a conversation about parenting using connection first, trauma informed principles. Because when you lead with connection, everyone feels seen, which is the foundation to a more peaceful home. this podcast reminds you that you don’t have to be a perfect parent, but we can all get a little better. One connected parenting minute at a time.
Connected parenting minute focuses on what happens when our kids lose it
Will: Hello, and welcome back to the connected parenting minute. My name is will standfest, and with me, as always, is the lovely CarrieAnn Ann standfesthenne.
CarrieAnn: Hello, everyone.
Will: We are so glad you took a few moments out of your day to join us, and today we are going to be talking about what in earth is happening when our kids lose it.
CarrieAnn: Yeah, that’s a great topic, and it’s actually really applicable to life right now.
Will: Yeah, I mean, wait, you’re saying that our kids lose it sometimes?
CarrieAnn: Yes, that would be accurate. That is what I’m saying.
Will: Maybe multiple times a day. The same kid?
CarrieAnn: Quite possibly.
Will: Quite possibly.
CarrieAnn: And other kids, too. There’s a lot of things happening in our lives right now.
Will: There is.
K fo conference was really awesome. We got to talk to a lot of people
Well, before we jump into that, I do want to take a moment and say thank you to anybody who came out and heard us talk at the K fo conference.
CarrieAnn: Yeah, that was really awesome. We got to talk to a lot of people, and we got to present, and it was so much fun. Little nerve wracking up until the moment of, you know, talking in front of a live audience. Just people there interacting with us, either, laughing, not laughing. We tend to laugh at each other’s jokes, but it’s a whole new ballgame when we’re in front of a bunch of people that don’t actually know us.
Will: And it was crazy. Cause we were expecting to get put in some classroom at the back end of the church and said we were in, like, a huge cathedral, old school, like, pews and, like, high ceilings, and it felt like it needed stained glass or something. It was crazy.
CarrieAnn: It was quite the experience. I may have had a minor freak out slightly beforehand, but I. It worked out. It was really fun.
Will: It was a great time. We got to speak on connecting with your teenagers. The talk was called from eye rolls to real conversations, and it went really well. It was well received. We had a handful of people come up afterwards and tell us they enjoyed it. And so I want to specifically thank you. If you were one of the people that took a minute afterwards to tell us what you enjoyed or what you got out of the talk, that was really encouraging to us, and it helps us develop the talk better for future conferences, for sure.
CarrieAnn: We look forward to, sharing again at the replanted conference here in October, and then we may have another conference coming down the line here in February. So we’ll share more about that as that comes up.
Will: We will. We will.
We need to understand the window of tolerance, Carrie Ann says
All right, let’s jump back into it. So what is going on when our kids lose it? CarrieAnn Ann?
CarrieAnn: well, that would be point number one, Will, is that we need to understand the window of tolerance.
Will: We need to understand the window of tolerance.
Will: What is the window of tolerance then?
CarrieAnn: That’s a great question. I’m so glad you asked that. Will you actually explain it very, very well. You did a real, a few months, back, I believe, and you actually demonstrated what the window of tolerance is. So why don’t you explain it with your words rather than your actions?
Will: No visuals this time. So the window of tolerance is a concept that Dan Siegel came up with in his book called the Developing Mind. And what it is is it’s basically what it sounds like is how large is the window of stuff you can tolerate before you lose it in a day.
Will: And I think even just with that little bit of explanation, a lot of us can picture. Okay, yeah, I know some people have a much bigger capacity for dealing with a lousy day than others do before they lose it. The visual I’ve used in the past is if you picture two glasses of water sitting on the counter.
Will: One glass is, starts out empty, and the other glass, it starts out half full. You could picture this as two kids with different windows of tolerance. The visual then is you take a picture of water, and every time something bad happens in that kid’s day, you pour a little more water in their glass. And the kid who starts the day out with the empty glass as a bigger window of tolerance, he could have more and more stuff go wrong that day and not have that glass spill out all over the counter and make a mess. The kid who starts his day out with his glass half full, for whatever reason that is, there’s a lot less stuff that he can handle in a day before he loses it. And it just kind of visually, if you can picture that idea that they could have the same bad day, like those two kids could have the same day, and the kid with a bigger window of tolerance might make it through the day and not lose it, and the kid with a smaller window, tolerance, might completely lose it halfway through the day.
CarrieAnn: Yeah, that’s a really good illustration. I think you described that very well. in picturing those things. One of the things that, you know, you have to think about when we’re talking about window of tolerance is that when we have kiddos that maybe were not born to us, that they may already start with a smaller window of tolerance because, you know, those things can flex, you can be having a good week, you can be having a good day, you can be having a good month, and you have a really big window of tolerance. But maybe some hard stuffs happening in your life, because you think about it, in our lives, you have some, harder things and, you know, some extra stressors at work or at school, and then all of a sudden, we have a smaller window of tolerance, so those things can fluctuate. And that’s not unusual. That can be pretty common. But when we’re talking about kiddos that come to us through adoption or who we’re fostering or some, kind of out of home placement, like through kinship, those kids can already come into our home with a smaller window of tolerance because there are already other things that are going on in their life.
Will: Kind of the baseline stressors in their life are already way higher than. Than any of them that we might experience in our life.
CarrieAnn: Exactly. And so that’s one of the reasons why we talk about knowing what’s going on with your kid, knowing where your kid is at, and being able to look at this aspect of the window of tolerance and go, well, what’s going on in their life around them because, you know, they might be coming home from school and, like, just blowing up at me, and I’m not exactly sure why. Well, what’s. What’s happening in their life right now, that maybe the window of tolerance is something to be considered. Like, maybe they’ve just at it all day. They’ve been. This thing happened. This thing happened. This thing happened. And it is pretty common for kids when they come home to lose their stuff because it’s a safer place.
Will: Yeah.
CarrieAnn: And, you know, and by the end of the day, who hasn’t kind of, you know, had it with. With everything that’s going on? I know I get to the end of the day, I’m like, whoo. Okay, I’m done. I need a break.
Will: Oh yeah, for sure. And I mean, that’s the tricky irony of an adoption or foster care situation, that when your kid feels safe enough to lose it at you once in a while, that means you’re actually making progress, that they feel safer with you.
CarrieAnn: Right? That’s a whole other layer of stuff. And I’m sure we will do a podcast at that point, on that topic too.
Will: Yeah.
CarrieAnn: So our first point is that we need to understand the window of tolerance.
CarrieAnn: We’Re hitting the road this fall. Come out and say hello. We’ll be leading a breakout session on.
CarrieAnn: Connecting with your teens.
CarrieAnn: First, join us at the Christian alliance for Orphans CAFO conference in Nashville, Tennessee, September 18 to 20th. Also, don’t miss the replanted conference in Chicago, October 24 to 26th. Visit cafo.org. that’s cafo.org and replantedministry.org to learn more and register today. Want to book us for your next event? Email us using infoconnectedparentingminute.com.
CarrieAnn: We’D love to work with you.
We have to be a detective of our kids big behaviors
Will: And now back to the show.
CarrieAnn: And that kind of leads into our second point of we have to be a, detective of our kids big behaviors. The things that are happening in their life. They come home, they lose their stuff. Well, what’s, what’s happening around those things? What is it that they’re experiencing or that might be building in their life that maybe lessens that window of tolerance or that is, you know, that’s causing that blow up or that frustration or that yelling at your sister or hitting your brother. I mean, hopefully by the time they’re school age, they’re not hitting, but you never know what happens, right?
Will: Well, I mean, one of the most common things, and I think this is a pretty typical situation with teenagers, is you got a kiddo who comes home and is either struggling at school or is constantly grumpy after they get home from school and stuff like that. And those, those two things could be tied to, tied together of they’re struggling at school and so they’re all, they’re stressed all day and they come home and kind of let it, let it out.
Will: You know, or we’ve even had kiddos in the past who’ve been struggling with sleep.
CarrieAnn: Oh, yeah.
Will: Right. You know, maybe there’s a, maybe there’s an allergy or a food dye thing going on or whatever, and they’re just, they’re not sleeping at night. And your older kiddos don’t necessarily tell you how they’re sleeping. Right.
CarrieAnn: They they may not want to tell you how they’re sleeping or maybe completely. They may not even realize something is wrong. They might be tired, but not even realize why.
Will: Right.
CarrieAnn: You know, because that’s a developmental thing. It’s not until you get into maybe your twenties, even a little older, where you’re like, wait a minute, I’m not sleeping really well, and I’m grumpy during the day. M I wonder if those two things, like, go together.
Will: I’m not sure. I’ve learned that in my forties. So I’m hoping when I’m 50, I’ll be like, no, I’m tired. I should go to bed at a normal person’s time.
CarrieAnn: It does take a little bit to figure that piece out. And I agree. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve been like, m maybe I should go to bed earlier. I sit here as we talk about it, and we’re recording super late at night.
Will: It’s 1045 right now, people. We’re being honest with you.
CarrieAnn: Okay? So it’s not super, super late, but considering the week we’ve had, it feels very late.
Will: It’s been a week.
Be a detective of your big behaviors and your kiddos
CarrieAnn: All right. Be a detective of your big behaviors and your kiddos. Kind of ask yourself what’s going on around those things and what can we learn from, what’s happening?
Will: Right? Because we. Because understanding why their window of tolerance might be smaller is really kind of one of the first things you need to look at. Yeah, right. Cause my kid is losing it unusually quickly here, or seems to be really struggling at school, or really seems to be. Really seems to be upset on the weekends, or maybe he’s really upset Sunday night. You know, are they anxious about school Monday morning? Is it. You know, is it close to a birthday or is it close to a time of the year? You know? again, kids not born to us, this is. This is a very complex thing to untangle.
CarrieAnn: Right.
Will: You know, maybe fall was a really lousy time for them. Maybe they remembered doing certain things with their parents that they’re not able to do now, and they may or may not be able to actually articulate those things to us.
CarrieAnn: Yeah, no, that’s true. And I would even pause to say that it doesn’t even have to be an out of home experience to. To. To be having bigger feelings during certain times of the year.
Will: That’s true.
CarrieAnn: I personally do not like fall. I’ve had such a hard time with fall my. Well, into most of my entire adult life. That’s a lot of words. There has been a particular season of life where fall was not good for me. I was feeling very sick, whatever. And even till now, every time I get a cold napkin, I’m like, oh, I gotta think of something to look forward to in fall because I literally feel pukey. But that’s because several years in a row, I was sick around fall time and was throwing up or felt like throwing up. And so my body remembers that. And so I have to give a little extra grace, try to find a little bit of things to look forward to. And I’m hoping maybe in the next ten years or so, I can actually be like, oh, fall. This is fun, rather than dreading it.
Will: Well, and it’s funny you say that too, because the book, there is a book called the body Keep score by Bessel van der Kock. And that’s one of the things that he talks about, is that your body physically, like, physiologically remembers these things.
Will: Even if we don’t actively, in the neck, in the front of our brain, say, oh, I remember doing this thing 20 years ago in the fall, and it’s upsetting to me.
CarrieAnn: Right.
Will: Like, there’s. There’s a part of your body, especially if it’s gone through traumatic or dramatic difficult experiences, that your body will remember that. And either changes in the season or times of the year, things like that can. Can remember and bring physical reactions inside your body. Like you’re saying, like you would physically feel ill with the cold snaps.
Will: Because your body remembered being so ill, associated.
Will: With those cold snaps that eventually your body, like, physically was reacting to that.
CarrieAnn: Right. And I think that that can all feel very overwhelming when we’re talking about our kids because there’s just so many things that could be going on with them. And so I. I want to encourage our, our listeners and I want to encourage myself right now. Cause I’m thinking of all the things that our kids could be going through, and there’s a few of them in our house, and, you know, sometimes it can get a little overwhelming thinking about all those things.
Building connections expands our kids windows of tolerance, according to psychologist
But I think this brings us to point number three, is that building connections expands our kids windows of tolerance.
Will: Building connections expands our kids window of tolerance.
CarrieAnn: And I’ll say that because, like, recently we’ve had a situation where we may be talking about some room cleaning in our home and kind of setting, resetting expectations for that. And at first it was all fine and dandy. Okay, sure, I can do this. And then after a little while, it’s not so fine. And it starts into arguments, and then it starts into getting super rude. And then, you know, I might be losing my temper a little bit, this kid might be losing their temper a little bit. And then all of a sudden it’s a huge fight. And, you know, that window of tolerance for that kid was pretty low to begin with. And then it just kind of blew up because all of a sudden it’s my fault that the room is messy and how on completely unrealistic and unreasonable of me to expect it to be a certain level of clean. And, you know, it’s your fault, your fault, your fault. But there was an element where it’s like, okay, I can breathe. I can take a couple minutes. How can I bring playfulness into this? And so I’m like, okay, am I going to do this? And I just started going, okay, I’m going to stay in the conversation. I’m going to continue to engage. I’m going to regulate myself and keep going at this until we can have a reasonable conversation. And I might have been talking to a door for a little while at this point. And then, you know, finally it was like, hey, I can’t hear you. And so the door got opened, and then, you know, it was my fault. Well, I was. I don’t even remember what. Well, you know, I. It was my fault for some reason. Then I started going, well, this is what you sounded like. And just kind of totally was like, acted like a toddler. And, you know, the reaction was like, and then I did it again. And then I did it again. I’m, like, way over the top, like, really very goofy and silly in this.
Will: Not in like I’m mocking you, but like, I’m trying to be ridiculous.
CarrieAnn: Yeah. And so then what happened is I got a smile and I got a chuckle, and then all of a sudden, all of the argument and all the frustration started breaking down, and we started to be able to actually talk about it. And so there was an element there that we were. I was aiming for building connection, a common theme, a common something to laugh about, something to be a little goofy. And even though I was ready to, like, strangle somebody earlier and, you know, five minutes ago, kept sticking with it, and then we were able to have this conversation, and we’re just gonna be a work in progress for a while.
Keeping our hearts soft towards our kids is really important
Will: Something that jumped out at me at what you just said there, too, is that you also realize it sounded like there was some self reflection there of, I know I can turn this around.
CarrieAnn: Yeah.
Will: Like, there wasn’t because you were getting frustrated. Is what I heard you say, and yet there was also this, well, I could approach it differently. I could do this, whatever. Like, it sounds like there was a little bit of kind of internal gauging inside of your mind of, I think I can regulate myself and turn this thing around. Because again, the right solution is not always just stay in the fight and keep at it.
CarrieAnn: Right? Well, yeah, right.
Will: But by knowing yourself and knowing him, you’re able to say no. I know I can. How I can get him to giggle a little bit, and I know that I can personally. You weren’t so frustrated that you was point of no return. Because there’s no, there’s no harm in disengaging and coming back to that conversation. I want to give people permission to do that, I guess, is what I’m trying to say.
CarrieAnn: No. And that’s for sure. That is for sure. And this is a practice thing. Cause I’m practicing doing this.
CarrieAnn: And so I know my limitations. Where I can go, nope, I’m gonna step away. Cause I’m gonna do something I regret. That’s my, that’s the question I asked myself before I engage, am I gonna do something I’m gonna regret?
Will: Yeah, that’s good.
CarrieAnn: You know, just trying to figure that out and trying to stay, like, if I can reasonably and do something I don’t regret, I will stay engaged. So we can kind of figure it.
Will: Out stuff, which is, which is really good for our kiddos, too, to know that somebody’s gonna stick with them through the middle of a. A conflict situation, especially our kiddos, that you may have some big reactions to conflict.
CarrieAnn: Yep.
Will: So keep it playful is a good one.
CarrieAnn: Yeah.
Will: What other, what other ideas do we have for helping expand their window of tolerance through connection?
CarrieAnn: Well, I think it really is. You keep coming back to it. You know, they know the safety of. Well, we might disagree, we might argue, we might fight about this, but I’m still going to keep coming back. So if you maybe you have a situation where like, no, I cannot engage in this conversation and not say something will regret, then you disengage, you self regulate, and then you come back. Because those steps, over time is going to literally prove to your child that there’s nothing they can do or say that is going to, like, make you not love them. Right. you know, there’s safety in that.
Will: There is.
CarrieAnn: Because when you, it’s the point where when you go, nope, that’s it. I’ve had it. I can’t do this anymore. Where you’re just pushing your kid away, and then you’re like, well, I can’t wait till you move out. I can’t wait to get, like, get you away from me. And that’s what we talk about, keeping our hearts soft towards our kids. And that really comes down to us of being able to continually show up. But also, you know, like, if. If you’re struggling with that, there is help. There are people that you can talk to, there are resources that are available for you to be able to figure out your own stuff. Because then you can love your kid.
Will: Well, yeah. And that’s so, so important. And Lisa Qualls and Melissa Corkram and Melissa Corcomb are two ladies that we’ve met that have written a fantastic book about that called reclaim compassion. I’d encourage you to check it out if that’s something that you’re struggling with.
Will: There’s a lot of very practical kind of step by step things to kind of walk you through, exercise that kind of help you. Like it says reclaim compassion for your kiddos.
CarrieAnn: Right. You know, so these are, I mean, that’s getting super, super deep in the sense that, I mean, deep dive right down there. But really building connection can help your kids expand their window of tolerance over time. It’s just that consistency over time. Because, I mean, as much as we wish there was a quick fix for all of these things, there’s not. And that’s why we keep talking about it. That’s why we keep having these conversations on a podcast and teaching on it, you know? Cause we’re trying to help our listeners, you know, learn the things that we have learned, give you a, like a boost up from where we were at, but then also keep ourselves accountable for this stuff because it is hard work and we’re in the middle of it, too.
Will: Yeah.
CarrieAnn: And we want to continue to get better for ourselves, for our kids, for our grandchildren one day. Like, this is important work. And being able to discuss it and process it and just share that with our listeners is really. I mean, I. I find it to be a blessing for me.
Will: So very good. I love it.
Building connection expands our child’s window of tolerance
All right, I think that about covers our three points. Why don’t we, do a quick recap and we can get out of here.
CarrieAnn: Point number one is we need to understand the window of tolerance.
Will: And just remember that visual of the two cups, one empty cup and one half full cup, and how they could have the same bad day and that kid with a half full cup is gonna lose it. Recognizing that the bigger window of tolerance will help your kids kiddos handle more stuff throughout the day. Point number two, be a detective about the big behaviors.
CarrieAnn: Our children will have reactions for a lot of different things, but knowing what’s happening in their lives, in their worlds right now, will help us better understand if that window of tolerance is playing a big role in the behaviors that we’re seeing in our kids.
Will: Yeah, that’s really good.
CarrieAnn: And point number three is build connection. Building connection expands our child’s window of tolerance.
Will: And all of that just comes back to things we say on the podcast. Make it playful. Connect with your kiddo. Find out what’s going on, get to know them more deeply, and, they will deeply appreciate it. And over the long haul, again, if you show up consistently, again and again and again, you will build that connection with your kiddo. Thank you so much for tuning in, tuning into our podcast. We appreciate each one of our listeners here. If you’ve gotten value from this episode, please share it with a friend. Tell them how great it is. And before we go, we want to.
CarrieAnn: Remind you, you don’t have to be a perfect parent, but we can all.
Will: Get a little bit better. One connected parenting minute at a time. Thank you guys for listening to my mom and dad’s podcast. Please, like, share, follow, and subscribe and have a great, great rest of your day.
Intro/Outro: For more parenting tips or to connect with us, check out the connected parenting minute on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. Or you can send us an email using connectedparentingminute@gmail.com.
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