Janet Lansbury

It's been really hot this month and unfortunately there's probably more to come, but I refuse to be cooped up inside all day so I finally looked into Wayfair's incredible selection of patio umbrellas and it's turned our backyard from a no -go zone into our favorite spot.

No more hiding from the sun, we get shade right where we need it and it's held steady through some seriously windy afternoons.

You know I'm a fan of Wayfair and here's why it works for me.

Quality you can trust.

Every piece is built to last.

And with Wayfair verified, specialists run a 10 -point inspection, checking materials, functionality, even assembly time, so you know what you're getting before you buy.

And the value is real.

Wayfair rewards members get 5 % back every day, so you can create a home you love without overspending.

Wayfair has over 20 million verified five -star reviews with real customer photos, so you can shop with confidence.

Join Wayfair Rewards today to get 5 % back on every purchase and start saving on your next home upgrade.

Head to Wayfair .com to shop all things home.

That's W -A -Y -F -A -I -R dot com.

Wayfair.

Every style, every home.

This episode is brought to you by Palmolive.

Family time isn't just the big moments.

It's weeknight dinners, sitting around the table, everyone talking all at once.

So when the plates are empty and the sink is full, use Palmolive Ultra.

Palmolive's most powerful formula removes up to 99 .9 % of grease, leaving your dishes sparkling clean.

And the new convenient pump makes cleaning even easier, so you can spend less time tackling dishes and more time together.

Shop now at palmolive .com.

My new book is finally finished and available for pre -order.

It's called Baby Person.

And I think you're going to find it unlike any parenting book you've ever come across.

For one, because this book, it's about us and the quality of our experience.

It's about how as parents or grandparents or anyone caring for children, you can discover a deeper level of fulfillment.

You can have more ease, more joy, and more success.

day -to -day, and in the long term.

And at the same time, you'll be building a lifelong bond with your child that's steeped in trust, respect, and mutual delight.

And if you pre -order now, I have an exclusive podcast thank you gift just for you.

You can check it all out on my website, JanetLansbury .com.

Hi, this is Janet Lansbury.

Welcome to Unruffled.

Well, today I have a question about a child who is really at the beginning of learning discipline and therefore the parents at the beginning of learning discipline.

The child is 13 .5 months and I feel this is really important and can actually help parents that are beyond this stage because understanding their point of view versus ours.

from the beginning is the key to making any kind of boundary with our child, any kind of help they need with their behavior, so much easier for us.

Once we understand our child's perspective in this way and what they need from us, we are on track.

And that same track can take us all the way through childhood and even into adulthood and even into the way that we have boundaries with adults.

Yes, children are developing all the time, so there are some shifts, but understanding the perspective of that other person will always help us to know what they need from us and what we need to do to assert ourselves.

So these are the tender beginnings, and I have to say, I love this.

It's very much featured in my new book, How Discipline Begins.

So let me read this note and then I think what I have to say will be clearer.

Hi, Janet.

Thank you so much for all your inspiring teachings and advice.

I was hoping I might be able to get your guidance regarding an issue I experienced this weekend because I really agree with everything you say.

My son is 15 months old, 13 .5 months adjusted, and is such a happy, lovely boy.

I adore being around him.

He doesn't say any words yet.

He is just learning to walk and can take a few independent steps.

I've arranged our house in a Montessori way, so I have little experience asking him not to do something.

Everything he can reach is free to play with, and there is nowhere he can hurt himself.

Playtime is always led by him, and we both have a lovely time in our, quote, yes, environment.

I went to visit my sister for the weekend, and she doesn't have children and lives in a small house, which isn't baby -proofed.

It seemed like all my son wanted to do was climb her stairs, which opened into the only downstairs room.

I had to constantly take him off the stairs.

I tried to use it as practice to put all the principles I'd read about into action.

I set the limit.

I won't let you climb the stairs.

Climbing these stairs is dangerous.

We can climb the stairs at our house because we do it safely together.

Our stairs at home are in the hallway and have a stair gate, so the only time he has access to the stairs is when I'm letting him climb safely with me behind.

Also, these stairs were dirty, and so I didn't want him on them for two reasons.

He is pre -verbal, but I think he does understand a bit of what I say.

Anyway, he paid absolutely no attention to this and continued to climb the stairs.

I said, I won't let you climb the stairs.

Would you like to get down yourself or shall I carry you?

No response.

So I carried him.

He would cry and I'd say, I understand that it's frustrating because you want to climb the stairs, but I won't let you.

I'd put him in the middle of the room and he would go straight back to climb the stairs and I'd just repeat the phrases above again.

I really had no idea what to do.

At home, I would remove the temptation, but we had nowhere else to go.

After this happening endlessly for about an hour, I ended up getting his pram and taking him for a nice walk, but I spent most of it chastising myself for completely failing my first opportunity to practice gentle discipline.

I feel like he knew he wasn't supposed to climb the stairs because he would look at me cheekily while he was doing it.

But he did it anyway, even though it made him cry when I took him off.

I'd really appreciate knowing what I should have done differently.

Thanks so much in advance.

Okay, so here's a parent and child with a wonderful relationship, evident in the fact that he's such a happy, lovely boy, which doesn't mean if our child doesn't seem happy and easy that we don't have a close relationship, by the way.

But everything's going well here, right?

Because this parent adores being around him.

And she set up her home in a way.

She calls it a Montessori way.

This actually originated with the Rye approach where Magda Gerber, my mentor and the founder of Rye, talked about how to have a 100 % safe space for our child to play in.

And I was the one that actually referred to this as a yes space.

because it allows us the freedom of not having to say, no, no, no, don't do this, don't do that.

And it allows our child the same freedom of doing what they're so driven to do in these early years.

And it's this precious, precious instinct they have to be explorers, to be learners.

They have this incredible beginner's mind capacity for learning.

Learning cause and effect, learning physics, learning math concepts, learning what their power in the world is, learning their motor skills.

They spend an inordinate amount of time developing their motor skills and they have a passion for it when we can encourage that and not get in their way.

When they're free to move in a safe space with minimal interruption, they have this passion for learning.

It's actually, they have it almost anywhere anyway, even if we don't give them that.

It's really hard to dim this passion for learning in the early years.

So this is what he's used to.

She has the situation with the stairs that's really helpful.

So that isn't a big focus for him.

He has that barrier to make it safe for him to explore when he's able and she's able to spot him and help him do that.

So he's got this kind of idyllic environment.

for learning.

And now he's in this new place they're visiting where those boundaries aren't there.

And that's going to happen.

I mean, we want to set our child up and set ourselves up for success in all these situations.

So we're not just keeping our child in this bubble of like, well, when you're home and you're free to move and everything's baby -proof, that's great.

but I can't handle or you can't handle when we're in these other situations.

No, we want to give ourselves the freedom to be in all these situations.

And that's why understanding how boundaries work with our children really all the way through, but especially at this age, is so important.

So, yes, I can totally understand this parent's frustration when she's explaining to her child and then he keeps doing it and doing it.

And it's like, what am I supposed to do?

And then she's beating herself up at the end.

So I'm so sorry that she's doing that.

That's totally unwarranted.

You know, she says gentle discipline.

And I, you know, as I've said here a lot, I don't really know how people are defining gentle discipline.

I did a couple of episodes on that, but one very recently where I shared an expert who was describing it, and I shared my disagreements with a lot of things that she was saying.

Maybe one of them is what's going on here, which is expecting that a young child can understand and conform to reason.

The truth is, in the early years, That is very often not the case.

And even in later years, in these early years, when again, they're so open to learning and this passion is so strong, and them also not really understanding this idea of following verbal directions, telling them you shouldn't do something.

I mean, maybe sometimes they'll do it when they want to, when it's not getting in their way, when they can agree with it.

But...

In this case, he's doing what young children do, which is wanting to learn and explore climbing those stairs.

That's exciting.

That's going to overcome anything we say to him.

And in fact, trying to stop him with words alone can tend to make this even more interesting for him.

And not because he's a disobedient, unkind child who doesn't respect us.

But because, whoa, now they don't want me to do this.

Now I kind of am more interested in having to go there and figure out, why don't you want me to do this?

Here's my chance.

At home, I don't have this chance.

And you don't want me to do this?

But this is so compelling.

And even more so because you're trying to stop me with words.

So I believe he does understand some, if not all of these words his parents saying.

So it's not about that.

When she says he's pre -verbal, maybe he's not speaking, but children take in language beginning in the womb.

So I'm sure he's understanding a lot of this, but it's just like, okay, what do you want me to do?

This is so compelling.

I've got to keep doing it.

I can't stop because you're giving me all these reasons why I should.

So this parent says, I won't let you climb the stairs.

Climbing these stairs is dangerous.

I mean, young children don't really have a sense of what dangerous means in terms of they're going to get hurt.

You know, they're very much in the moment.

And that's an inspiring thing about them, right?

Such a positive thing for them because the way that we learn, you know, we're coming from the past and we're thinking about the future.

And there's so much getting in the way of us just embracing learning, embracing what's going on in that moment and what we can take from it.

We don't learn as well as a young child because they're so present to what's going on.

And that is the gift of this age.

In a situation like this, that's going to take precedence.

Like dangerous, what does that mean?

I can't foresee that in the future something bad is going to happen to me if I climb these stairs.

So the parent is...

putting forth this logic that's having no impact on her child.

In fact, it may be even in some ways encouraging him to find more interest in this activity.

And the other thing that's going on here is another reason why it can help us so much to understand our child's perspective and connect with that perspective at every age.

But beginning now, because when we begin now, this understanding becomes much easier.

We've already connected to the fact that our child is this learner and explorer that has a passion that is not going to be dimmed by us saying, don't do that.

In fact, it might be encouraged by that.

And if he's picking up fear or trepidation in us, that kind of edgy thing can also feed his need to explore this.

Then the other thing that's going on here, as I started to say, is that When we're seeing this in an adult way that's not compatible with the perspective of our child, when we're trying to connect in a way that's not going to work, then look at all the words we're wasting.

Look at all the effort we're wasting.

We're going to get exhausted.

We're going to get frustrated.

And then the more that our frustration rises, the more that experience gets charged for our child.

So the more they can get stuck exploring this charge that they're feeling around this experience.

So this is the trap that so many of us fall into naturally, and even when we know better, because it is a mismatch in perspectives.

So us joining and understanding our child's perspective will help us in a world of ways.

I've always been pretty mindful about what I eat, and I tried to apply the same standards to my kids.

But if you're a parent, you know life gets hectic, and before you know it, you're compromising on ingredients and nutrition, all in the name of convenience.

I wish Little Spoon had been around.

Little Spoon makes meals and snacks for babies, toddlers, and big kids, all made with real ingredients for the stage your child is in, as intentional as you are, and made to support real growth.

And speaking of hectic, my niece and nephew have twins.

They're just starting on solids.

So I sent her an assortment of Little Spoon Baby Blends, freshly made organic purees.

They're refrigerated and come in cups or squeeze pouches.

Her kids loved them and she appreciated the convenience.

Needless to say, she's a convert.

Feeding the kiss doesn't have to be complicated.

Little Spoon makes it easy with real, nutritionally balanced meals and snacks designed for every stage.

It shows up ready to go, takes the pressure off, and somehow still gets devoured.

Veggies and all.

No artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners either.

That's a win I'll take every time.

Get 30 % off your first online order at littlespoon .com slash unruffled with code.

That's L -I -T -T -L -E -S -P -O -O -N dot com slash Unruffled with code Unruffled for 30 % off your first order.

When my kids were little, we used to love taking short family vacations together.

I mean, I wouldn't call traveling with three kids relaxing, but those trips, memories, the laughs, the time together, I wouldn't trade those bonding experiences for anything.

Great Wolf Lodge is built around that kind of family time.

At Great Wolf Lodge, the adventure is all under one roof, a massive indoor water park with a wave pool, a lazy river, water slides.

The whole family can ride together, and it's always a perfect 84 degrees.

No weather drama, no sunscreen wars, all splash, no stress.

And the overnight rooms are really reasonable compared to a lot of destination spots.

There are plenty of food options on site.

which matters when you've got tired or picky kids, and they do little extras like nightly dance parties and other activities for the kids.

With more than 20 lodges around the country, there's probably a Great Wolf Lodge just a short drive away.

So if you're looking for a getaway where the whole family can unplug and laugh and make some memories together, bring your pack to Great Wolf Lodge.

Learn more at greatwolf .com and strengthen the pack.

greatwolf .com This parent says he's pre -verbal, but I think he does understand a bit of what I say.

Absolutely.

And she says, anyway, he paid absolutely no attention to this and continued to climb the stairs.

I said, I won't let you climb the stairs.

Would you like to get down yourself or shall I carry you?

So, you know, that kind of choice can be really helpful.

But I feel like if my child is already kind of showing me how compelled they are to do something.

I might not want to waste my energy on giving a choice like that.

But that is a good choice for an older child.

In this case, if I found that this was going on and I was at this point that this parent is where I've already told him this is dangerous and he can't do this and he's still doing it, he's still doing it, I'm probably not going to try to use more verbalization with him about this.

I'm going to help him.

because he's clearly stuck there.

And this is where parents say they're not listening.

He's not listening because he's in a totally different frame of mind.

And so he's not able to obey what we say.

And so to be able to read that early, I know that just takes practice and understanding, but I always recommend erring on the side of just being there right away to stop him as soon as possible.

Setting limits early is what I often say.

And the way this parent has set limits in her home, that's the best way, right?

Because that's setting limits preemptively.

But then when we're in a situation like this, I'm going to talk about it in a minute, exactly how I recommend handling this.

But I just want to get into more understanding the difference in perspective here that's getting in this parent's way.

The parent gave him a choice that he really couldn't make.

So she says, no response.

So I carried him.

He would cry.

And I'd say, I understand that's frustrating because you want to climb the stairs, but I won't let you.

So even there, I feel like this parent is getting caught up in saying too many words to him about this.

And I would keep this much simpler and say something like, you really wanted to do that.

something very genuine, something very connected, rather than all these words that we may not actually be connecting with.

Maybe we're saying the words because we feel like that's being gentle or being respectful.

But oftentimes, we're talking around a connection instead of actually connecting.

I'm not sure if that's what's going on here.

But the ideal is to say less, but really believe it because we understand his perspective.

You were really enjoying that.

And I stopped you.

Yeah, that's upsetting.

something like that or less.

So then she says, I put him in the middle of the room and he would go straight back to climb the stairs.

And I just repeat the phrases once again.

So another kind of go -to besides setting limits early, another go -to that I believe in is don't repeat yourself.

And I would even say like, never repeat yourself because repeating ourselves, and I have a podcast titled Repeating Ourselves Won't Help.

What it will do is frustrate us more when our child is still not doing what we want them to do.

And now we're spending more energy on it.

We're trying to be nice.

We're trying so hard to, you know, be gentle.

And now they're still doing it.

There's no way we're not going to start getting quite annoyed and frustrated and feel like.

We're failing like this parent did, which is not what anyone deserves to feel.

That's navigating this complex stuff.

It's kind of complex in the beginning until we get on that path and get comfortable in, all right, they're throwing this at me.

How can I stop them?

And yeah, they're needing to explore this right now, but it isn't safe.

So I am going to stop them.

So she put him in the middle of the room.

He'd go straight back to climb the stairs and she'd repeat the phrases again, which is a lot of wasted breath and wasted energy that's actually maybe adding even more interest to why is my mom letting me do this if she doesn't want me to do it.

But really more than that, he's just like, oh, look, the stairs.

This is exciting.

And everybody's, my mom's watching me and she's kind of a little intense over there.

His parent says, I really had no idea what to do.

At home, I would remove the temptation, but we had nowhere else to go.

After this happening endlessly for about half an hour, I feel that, I ended up getting his ram and taking him for a nice walk, but I spent most of it chastising myself for completely failing.

Well, no, there's no complete failure here at all.

She's just at cross purposes with her child right here.

So therefore not connecting and setting boundaries is all about connecting no matter how you do it.

In a lot of ways, it's like having our child's back, helping them when they're stuck or they can't seem to help themselves.

Seeing the future when our child is in the moment, being able to see the bigger picture.

They can't be expected to do that.

She says, I feel like he knew he wasn't supposed to climb the stairs because he would look at me cheekily while he was doing it.

But he did it anyway, even though it made him cry when I took him off.

So yeah, that cheeky look.

I've talked all about this in my new book.

Yes, that's the, this is exciting, right?

I mean, it looks like our child is having some deep enjoyment, but it's really more a thrill that's a little bit unnerving, but it's like.

What are you going to do?

Your words aren't stopping me.

I'm still going.

It's almost like going down the roller coaster.

Smile, rather than one that comes from a comfortable, centered place.

We could misread that look, because Garchal's just being a brat here.

But what he's doing is saying, okay, I'm in the thrill of this exploration.

What are you going to do?

And not in a challenging way, but like...

okay, you're telling me and I'm still going.

All they need is for us to stop them.

But again, for our own energy and less frustration, we want to stop them as early as possible.

This parent says, I'd really appreciate knowing what I should have done differently.

So I'm not talking about shoulds here, but here's what I recommend will make this easier for her and much more effective.

Either way, I don't believe she should be chastising herself for not connecting.

Because when we're chastising ourselves, we're not open to seeing what's going on.

We're closing doors and we're making it harder on ourselves.

So there's no judgment here.

We're all on a journey.

It's challenging even when we feel like we know what to do.

But anyway, let's go back to the beginning of this.

So here we are in this other house.

We're kind of ready.

Oh, my child is a free explorer at home.

Let's see how this goes.

And what does our child see?

Thing that's been blocked off to him, and he's been fine with that and used to that, but it's not there.

Whoa, this is cool.

So we see him going there and we realize, yeah, here my child is.

The explorer working on his motor skills.

Almost couldn't stop himself no matter what.

The drive is that strong and that healthy and that positive in any other situation.

But I realize not this one.

It doesn't feel positive.

We go over there.

Don't want to give energy to it by rushing over.

Sometimes I call this like the ho -hum response.

So we walk over there.

Our expectation is that he's a free explorer.

So I'm just going to sit myself right down.

Here, these stairs are wide open, aren't they?

Connecting with his point of view.

I'm going to stop you right here.

Your arm is out so he can't climb up.

Yeah, of course you want to go up here, right?

You want to climb.

Yeah, at home, it's safe to climb.

We're not going to do it here.

Or maybe you do let him climb and you stay under him and you just let him explore that one time calmly without giving this any juice at all.

And then he does get it out of his system.

But let's say you don't even want to do that.

You're there blocking the way, maybe up one step so that he can do his one step and saying, yeah, you can do this step.

I'm going to stop you here.

And we don't, again, have to say a lot of words.

I'm kind of talking through what my actions would be, which is just la -dee -da, blocking this way and understanding.

Of course, he wants to do that and not being threatened by it or shaken or rattled by it at all.

Because, yeah, this makes sense.

This is the guy I want to have, this great learner, this game fellow, you know?

This is what I've been working towards, giving him the confidence to do this stuff.

And I would do this, you know, if there were wires somewhere, if there was a socket, if there were things that I couldn't easily block.

But I also might check out ahead of time what the situation was at my sister's.

And maybe I'd even bring my own little, one of those little gates that you can just sort of wedge in just so I could enjoy the time more and not have to deal with this at all.

But when I do have to deal with it, I understand it and I make very little of it.

I give the most boring response I can give that connects with understanding, yeah, of course he wants to do this.

And I don't even give him that vibe if I can help it that I don't want him to do this because that can also keep him a little stuck there and needing to explore that because they want to know not only, oh, you don't want me to do this, so what happens now?

What happens next when you're telling me you don't want me to do something or I'm getting this vibe from you that you don't want me to do something?

How does that play out?

And again, they're in the now.

What happens now?

What happens now?

What happens now?

It's a very healthy mentality, but frustrating for us in situations like these, obviously.

So I would just hang out there for as long as I possibly could and wait it out with him.

Instead of trying to pick him up and move him when he's free to go right back there.

And he will.

Of course he will.

But if I've allowed him to explore this a couple of times and I haven't made a big deal out of it, or if I've just stopped him boringly like that, he's not nearly as likely to go back there.

Of course, we're never going to be able to take our eyes off him in a place like that ever.

But the impulse won't be nearly as strong.

I don't have to pay 100 % attention.

If I'm there on the stairs, maybe my sister wants to come hang out with me there for a while and we're just there.

And that is what satisfies our child.

That's what helps them to move on and doesn't instead encourage their focus, even obsession, it can seem like sometimes.

It usually is when children are on the move, you know, when they're crawling, that they start exploring things that we don't want them to explore.

A common one is our child wants to pull up to stand in the bathtub when that isn't safe.

We could say, that's not safe.

Don't pull up in the bathtub.

Please sit down until we turn blue in the face.

But our child keeps doing it, right?

And it's so frustrating.

I mean, I feel like I went through this with all of my children.

But I didn't let it get to that point because I understood, of course, they're pulling up to stand.

Like, that's a fun thing to do.

So if I could...

Once I saw that they were into this, I'd say, oh, okay, I have to help you get back down again.

And then I would have my hand in front of that.

You want to get up again?

I can't let you or I won't let you.

That's not safe.

Something simple like that, maybe.

And this could be with an eight, nine month old or even younger.

And then they keep going.

They keep going.

They keep going.

I'm not giving it any juice.

I'm not giving it any excitement, but maybe they're kind of stuck in this pattern.

They keep going.

They try to do it a couple more times.

I stop them.

And then I say, you know what?

We're going to get out now.

We do that last little wipe.

We do that last thing, whatever we need to do.

And we get out, even if it's been two minutes in the tub or one minute.

Because we see that at least at that time, and it could be also that they're tired or, you know, all these other things play a part in it.

And our child not being able to stop themselves with an impulse like that.

So maybe they are tired and have had enough, but it's about us understanding their perspective, setting the limit early and having boundaries for ourselves that, you know, I'm not going to sit here and do this anymore.

You know, and if it's with the little boy in the stairs, we'll find another room where doors can be closed and we'll hang out in there.

I'll ask my sister, can we hang out in here today?

Or we will go on a walk or go out somewhere, do something else.

It's definitely not a failure, even when it doesn't work, right?

We just want to try to catch it early and get in that habit of connecting with what's really going on with our child.

So I hope some of this helps.

I do have posts on this.

And of course, my book, No Bad Kids, Toddler Discipline Without Shame, will give you a lot of this.

There is at least one chapter in there about a child this age and how discipline starts.

But mostly I want you to know we can do this.

Visit Progressive .com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates.

National average 12 -month savings of $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2024 and May 2025.

Potential savings will vary.