Secret #24: The Favorite Child with Katie Palmer
In this episode, we welcome the insightful Katie Palmer, a renowned educational consultant and parenting coach, who dives deep into the controversial and emotional topic of parental favoritism. Katie invites listeners to explore the reluctant admittance of having a 'favorite child' and the potential psychological impact this taboo subject can have on family dynamics.
This episode peels back the layers on the challenging issue of fair versus equal treatment and the intricacies of parenting. Discover how balancing different needs does not invariably equate to equitable treatment and why understanding this distinction is fundamental in nurturing well-rounded individuals.
Listeners will find themselves deeply engrossed in personal anecdotes and expert insights that shine a light on the internal struggles parents face when connecting with their offspring. Especially poignant is the examination of shared values, teenage rebellion, and the constant negotiation of needs and values within the family structure.
Highlights:
Insights on reluctance in admitting favoritism among children
The Emotional Challenges of Parenting and Fairness
The Favorite Child: Parental Perspectives and Dilemmas
Balancing Values, Needs, and Relationship Dynamics
Fairness vs. Equality: Understanding the Distinction
TIMESTAMPS
[00:00] Speaker discusses common views on favorite child.
[05:20] Perceptions of praise and shame shape behavior.
[06:46] Fearing unequal treatment of children, sibling rivalry.
[10:02] Children feel unfairly treated, prompting important conversations.
[13:07] Children's complaints can reinforce behavior, affecting parents.
[16:32] Parents feel responsible for their children's happiness.
[23:14] Balancing priorities in adult life requires communication.
[24:57] Favoritism and perspective impact our understanding and actions.
[29:20] Reassessing our connections and feelings as parents.
[35:01] Fairness was vital in my upbringing.
[38:13] Equity: meeting needs, involving students in development.
[40:30] Parents frame situations to help children understand.
[46:06] Parenting guided by values creates an overarching picture.
[47:09] Avoid getting redirected by children during conflicts.
Resources Mentioned in this Episode:
A study on the notion of a “favorite child” from Purdue University
An article on parent favoritism from The Institute for Family Studies
Two books by Anthony Wolf:
Mom, Jason’s breathing on me: The solution to sibling bickering. Ballantine Books. (2003).
It’s not fair, Jeremy Spencer’s parents let him stay up all night: A guide to the tougher parts of parenting. Farrar, Straus and Giroux . (1996).
Siblings without rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too. W. W. Norton & Company; Revised edition (2012). by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish·
About Katie Palmer
Follow @Vigeobx on Instagram
Katie Palmer is an educational consultant, board certified behavior analyst and parenting coach. With over 20 years experience in education and over a decade specializing in behavior analysis, she has worked as a classroom teacher, a para-educator, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst, an Educational Consultant, Instructional Coach and Parenting Consultant. She has worked with dozens of schools, hundreds of students, and their families to understand and change behavior, acquire new skills, and deepen learning. In 2017, she designed and built a school to support students whose challenging behavior was such that their needs could not be met in their home district. As the Director of Two Roads Academy, she and her staff created the environment necessary for these students to grow and succeed.
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[00:00:00]
Chris McCurry: Hello, my name is Chris McCurry. Welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets.
Emma Waddington: My name is Emma Waddington, and today we have the honor of having Katie Palmer to talk to us about a, yeah, a dirty little [00:01:00] secret, which is a favorite child. I'd love to introduce you. Katie, welcome.
Katie Palmer: Great. Thank you so much. It's really great to be here.
Emma Waddington: So Katie is an educational consultant, board certified behavior analyst and parenting coach. She has over 20 years experience in education and over a decade specializing in behavior analysis. She's worked as a classroom teacher, a para educator, a board certified behavior analyst, and an educational consultant, an instructional coach, and parenting consultant.
Emma Waddington: My goodness, you've done a lot of things. And I know that she was director of Two Roads Academy, which sounds like an incredible place. And she is really passionate about pro social organizations, which is something very dear to my heart, too. So, we're delighted to have you here today to talk about Favourite Child.
Katie Palmer: Yeah. The favorite child, I, I love that it is a [00:02:00] dirty little secret and, and it's one that people are not ready to admit or, or talk about.
Katie Palmer: There were several people, you know, I knew I was coming to speak to you both about this topic and I've asked a few people out in the world that, that I live in here in Boise, Idaho.
Katie Palmer: And I said, you know, I'm going to go on to this podcast and I'm going to talk about the favorite child and immediately they say things like, Oh, I don't have one. And, and I'm interested in that. Very interested in that. And I would say everyone has one just to be a little bit pokey. And I would say, of course you do have one.
Katie Palmer: It just changes. day to day, week to week. And sometimes I would get some traction. And there was one friend of mine whose face just sort of lit up and she went, Oh yes, that makes sense. And I guess part of [00:03:00] what's interesting to me about that is our initial reluctance. To say, no, no, no, no. I don't have a favorite. And then when we dig a little deeper, well, actually, sometimes this child is easier to get along with. Or sometimes this child is just wonderfully loving when I needed it. And, and I find that when we get stuck in this place of like, Oh no, that's the wrong thing to say, or that's the wrong thing to think. We don't want to talk about it or we pretend it's different.
Chris McCurry: Well, I think often what people say is, well, I love them all equally,
Katie Palmer: Yeah.
Chris McCurry: which I think you can do and still have a favorite of the moment. So how
Emma Waddington: there is a lot of shame, isn't there, around this topic?
Katie Palmer: And there's maybe an underlying awareness that, [00:04:00] you know, a real severe favoritism can harm a child psychologically and harm their development and their growth and their ability to engage in relationships in a positive way later, which sort of brings that distinction. Before we started the recording, we were talking about the difference between a favorite and favoritism,
Katie Palmer: and that might be something to explore and unpack a little bit.
Chris McCurry: we define favoritism? As a behavior analyst, I, I go right to the outward and measurable behavior that we might see that would indicate preferential treatment over and in contrast to the other children. So if in the presence of the youngest, I tell the oldest how smart and organized and fantastic they are, and therefore they can do something special.
Katie Palmer: And I look at the youngest and I say, you haven't cleaned [00:05:00] your room yet. Why can't you be like your sister? Why can't you be like your brother?
Chris McCurry: it involves comparison.
Chris McCurry: Overt, overt comparison and in a way that that's shaming or, you know, diminishing or something like that.
Katie Palmer: yes. And I, I think in a way that's perceptible, even if not directly shaming, but it's perceptible to others, which then of course makes it a little harder to measure. But if it, you know, the perception of the youngest watching the oldest get praised even if there's no, not, not that second part that I just articulated. They will internalize that, or they can, certainly. I was talking to a parent recently about the idea that shame will show up without anyone pointing it out without an external influence pointing it out.
Katie Palmer: And that you know, as, as humans with language, we will see things around us and be self critical in certain contexts when [00:06:00] no one else has been critical of us. And that shame can deepen without anyone else influencing that. so I think sometimes this idea that, you know, my parents prefer my brother over me. It doesn't necessarily come from a really obvious behavior of the parent, but more a perception of the child. Maybe there's some subtle things that are happening week to week.
Emma Waddington: Yeah, and I think that that's, like, idea that our children can think that we favour one over the other. It's a big fear. And because we want to protect them from those big feelings of I guess, yeah, from any sibling rivalry as well, but also the sense that they're less than and not good enough or not good as their sibling.
Emma Waddington: yeah, I think that's a real fear that we carry along with many other fears of, you know, not being a [00:07:00] good enough parent. And I think that's This idea of treating our children equally and fairly to protect them from that sense of not being the same as or treated the same as their siblings is very strong.
Katie Palmer: there is some, there are some families in which there's one child that has a greater number of needs, whether developmentally or physically. Physically. Physically. And. So that fairness question ends up, ends up being a bit of a challenge as a parent. We say we want, we want the kids to, to feel like we're being fair.
Katie Palmer: And yet we know we have to attend to our neurodivergent child in different ways. We have different rules for that child. We, because they are learning at a different pace. How do we help the others understand or
Emma Waddington: Mm. Mm.
Katie Palmer: that's not [00:08:00] an inequity in how we feel,
Katie Palmer: but it's a fairness in addressing need.
Chris McCurry: over the years of, you know, my working with families, I would very often have to say, okay, let's define fair. Because, you know, in the mind of a, of a young child who may have a tendency toward a lot of black and white, all or none, thinking fair means equal.
Chris McCurry: And you know, my. cookie is two millimeters smaller than my sibling's cookie,
Chris McCurry: then that's not fair. As opposed to fair is more along the lines of, of equitable where people are getting what they need and that is going to change even from hour to hour sometimes in a family.
Emma Waddington: It's a big conversation. I mean, it's We know when there are different needs, physical, emotional between children, but even, you know, I think within my [00:09:00] family, my, I have a younger child and my eldest, I asked at dinner table, who's the favorite child. And my two boys sort of pointed at my daughter and she sort of put her hand up and said, it is me.
Emma Waddington: I am the favorite. She then celebrated it with much gusto. But in essence, what they're saying is that she is treated differently. And this is a conversation that we have quite regularly. Because for them, favoritism is the fact that she's treated differently. And I talked to them about the fact that she's seven and not 13.
Emma Waddington: And I joke, would you like me to treat you like a seven year old to my sort of 13 year old, at which point he sort of storms out of the room. is a confusion, isn't it? That as parents, this idea of equitable is very, it's a difficult conversation to have with children and it, because children, in essence, I think part of the concern is that we're not treating [00:10:00] them fairly and that when they speak about not being the favorite child of someone else being.
Emma Waddington: The favorite child, it is about fairness in their eyes. And so it is a really important conversation to be having openly, like we joke about it quite regularly at home because, but, but the reality is the bottom line is what doesn't appear to be fair to them. And so then we talk about needs, which
Chris McCurry: Well, you know, I have one child and We had many discussions about fairness, even though there was no sibling to, to compare himself with and I would say that, you know, sometimes he was not my favorite child, you know, particularly, you know, most, mostly like. High school, you know, middle, middle part of high school.
Chris McCurry: but you know, we have a great relationship and we did our best, but yeah, even only children can, can get caught up in the fairness thing because they're comparing themselves to their siblings. [00:11:00] One of my favorite books is It's called It's Not Fair, Jeremy Spencer's Parents Let Him Stay Up All Night. And it's about this guy named Wolf who writes some wonderful parenting books. But every, every kid knows a Jeremy Spencer. And At least one.
Chris McCurry: you know, Yeah.
Chris McCurry: And so it's just not fair. Cause, you know, so and so's parents let him play these horrible violent video games. Why can't I? You know. Whatever, you know, the, the issue is so there's, there's, you know, that I think going back to what you were saying, Katie, it's like, this can be it's going to be programmed into us without much trouble and without much input from the environment.
Chris McCurry: I think there's just a natural tendency for us to compare ourselves to others, to compare our situations to other situations. And, and then, you know, looking at it through that negative lens of, you know, I'm not getting enough or. You know, [00:12:00] things aren't balanced in some way.
Katie Palmer: Yes. And when, when a child starts to do that, and then, you From their perspective, their situation gets better. That may reinforce the behavior of making those statements about this. Isn't fair. You don't treat me. Well, you know, you, you love my brother more, which is going to land on the parent potentially in really a rough way.
Katie Palmer: And so if they begin to accommodate that or, or overcompensate, then we have a pattern of reinforcing the behavior of naming, you know, that's not fair rather than having a discussion about it, are you getting your needs met? Is your brother getting your needs met? Their needs met? Is everyone getting their needs met?
Katie Palmer: And having that discussion, we can inadvertently from this place of, I really want to be a good parent. Oh my goodness. You feel that I'm, that your brother is the favorite. I'm going to address that with my behavior. We may have then just reinforced the child who is complaining of [00:13:00] the unequal treatment, whether or not it's valid.
Katie Palmer: It's to be fair, like valid. They say that word maybe in air quotes, but Is it really their perception or have they been reinforced for using that phrase, I guess is the, the question and it, which then leads to this parenting is this constant juggle of, am I reacting to my own experience inside? Am I reacting to what I'm seeing?
Katie Palmer: Am I reacting to a pattern? Am I reacting to the way my parents treated me? And that, we cannot be constantly monitoring all of that, and then I cycle back to the little self compassion for the mistakes that we all make as parents.
Chris McCurry: Well, I think we are constantly monitoring that and that's just a given. It's, it's, what I, you know, often call a condition as opposed to a problem. know,
Katie Palmer: Yeah,
Chris McCurry: and so I think it's a question. of, you know, when we go down that path to [00:14:00] notice that we're going down that path and not, you know, react to it in some unhelpful way. But yeah, we're going to do it. Like I said, I think there's a natural propensity for people to make comparisons. I think it probably has survival value in that, it
Chris McCurry: can lead us astray, get us into the weeds.
Emma Waddington: so it's kind of like there's two dirty little secrets here, like on the one hand, one of the dirty little secrets is that you know, children can feel like there is a favorite and that's really triggering and that's the sort of dirty secret that it gets. nobody really wants to talk about the fact that it's so triggering, but then there's a little secret that, you know, we may feel like.
Emma Waddington: we prefer one child over the other. And that kind of sits underneath that fear that our child will see it and that we're doing something wrong.
Emma Waddington: Because it is, it is, you know, we do carry this feeling of incredible sort of sense of responsibility for our child's happiness and [00:15:00] well being. And even, you know, just listening to this.
Emma Waddington: Conversation thinking about how much they're deducing even without us doing very much about it just shows how fallible we can be and how much Well, how little influence sometimes we have in that, you know, narrative, but there is that and that sense of responsibility to control that inner narrative to control how they feel about themselves through how we treat them.
Emma Waddington: So, this fear that they may feel Yeah, I'm fairly treated or not treated as well as their siblings is a real fear. And alongside that, we might feel that it's easier to look after their sibling. And we might, you know, at one point in time or another feel that we connect more with their sibling. And that kind of makes it even more loaded in a way, doesn't it?
Emma Waddington: Having to sort of, that fear of, yeah, in a way that rejection of. that reality that maybe we are connecting more. [00:16:00] Maybe my temperament now is, is such that I'm getting on better with this child, which may change. Their temperament may change, my well being, my sense of you know, how I'm handling things may also change.
Emma Waddington: So it, it does fluctuate, but there is a real fear that we may relate differently Yeah,
Chris McCurry: I've been doing leading up to, you know, this episode and, and I'll put some links on the show notes so that if listeners are interested in exploring this, I'll put some stuff up there. Apparently shared values is primary in terms of which child we feel. Closest to, and which may be identified as again, fairness of the favorite in air quotes.
Chris McCurry: But as you were saying, Emma, you know, just some children you just feel more connected with because of their, because of the matching temperament or the values [00:17:00] or, you know, this, the warmth or whatever it may be. And that's probably just going to be part of life in a family.
Katie Palmer: And when we have teenagers who are pushing against the values of their parents in order to discover where their own values sit, just very important developmental stage for them, right? Thank you. It's harder to connect with them if they're in that place of like, no mom, dad, grandparent, you know, nothing.
Katie Palmer: You're such a fool and this is what's important. Or I need to play these video games online. Cause this is where all my friends are and this is where my connection is. And parents are pushing back against that. So those, that, that, that conflict of values can be so massive at that stage. And then as parents, we do have a harder time connecting.
Chris McCurry: Well, I wonder is this may take us in a completely different direction, but is it really a values conflict or is [00:18:00] it how we were trying to get our needs met at the moment? Because in your example of, you know, I need to play online video games with people in Japan at three o'clock in the morning because they said my only friends You know, the parent and the child may have the value of connection and friendship and community, but how it's getting manifested
Katie Palmer: Yes.
Chris McCurry: that there's the rub, you know, and in the same way that that parents have, can appear to have conflicting values around things like, you know, discipline, but, you know, to me, in my experience, that's often been a matter of like strategy or technique as opposed to the value, you know, okay, you both agree that children need to be respectful toward adults, right? Okay. How we get them to do that, how we, you know, nurture respectful behavior. That's where the the conflict is. So anyway, I just thought I'd throw that
Katie Palmer: Well, I love that because it really, it really [00:19:00] identifies how sometimes believe in my experience. And, and as I coach parents. I noticed that parents will make that leap from what's right to what's important to them. You know, like this is the right thing to do and this is how to do it. And when their child might be trying to create connection in ways that the parents disagree with, so that how we're doing it, that strategy, that technique of how am I approaching that value, the conflict lies there.
Katie Palmer: And when we can unpack that, And say, why does your child want to play these video games? Have you asked them and maybe children don't know, they don't know the answer, but what a wonderful conversation to begin, to begin, to have. That perspective taking, I want to hear why this is important to you. [00:20:00] And, and I don't know, Chris, is that a way for parents to recognize, Oh, we, we are trying for this, a similar value.
Katie Palmer: You know, if, if for instance, I go golfing for four hours on a Saturday, it's my time to connect with friends that may be to the detriment of my family. And I might get a little stubborn about that. This is how I connect with my friends and I see a parallel there and I wonder how often we step into those other shoes and do that perspective taking.
Katie Palmer: Is that sort of what you were describing Chris or did I take it in a whole new direction?
Chris McCurry: Well, I mean, we could take this in so many, so many directions, but no, I, I think that's true. And I think that's, that's an important life lesson because people, you know, going into adulthood are going to have to, learn how to balance these things, you know, how to balance, you know, getting my needs met versus, you know, my partners versus my kids or maybe not, maybe versus isn't even the [00:21:00] right word where it's like, somehow we have to like make all this work. And it's a tricky balancing act, and sometimes things are going to be out of balance. And we have to be able to float with that and make adjustments as necessary. And I think communication is a big part of that, where it's like, let's talk about this. And that's, that's an opportunity to Get some clarification and, you know, teach them skills and prepare our kids to, you know, do this for the rest of their lives with other people that are important to them.
Katie Palmer: I'm, I'm, I'm thinking back now to Emma, the discussion you had at the dinner table could your seven year old take the perspective or step into the shoes of one of her brothers or did you? Does she ever notice when one of her brothers seems like the favorite and what does that look like or what does it feel like and, and I don't know if that's a part of what you talked about, or if you even want to [00:22:00] guess about that, but
Emma Waddington: so listening to you guys, I was thinking it's almost like once again, we've got this word like favoritism or favorite child that is a stand in for something else, isn't it? And that we can get tangled with the word that we miss out on what we really need to be talking about. Well, like Chris says, was trying to solve the wrong problem, because that perspective piece.
Emma Waddington: It's so hard, even for ourselves, like you were talking about it, Katie, and yeah, I go off for a run. And, you know, nobody can take that away from me. you know, when my kids want to do things that perhaps I don't think are, you know, air quotes, healthy or good for them, it might rub up. you know, with me and impact my ability to see things from their perspective.
Emma Waddington: And that may be when, versus maybe I, you know, see the perspective of one of my other children better. That's [00:23:00] where this favoritism can come in. It's like, it's okay for her to do this, but I can't do that. Or it's okay for him to do this. And because it's often, I notice a piece around, yeah, back to the fairness.
Emma Waddington: Right. And that ability to, Almost lean back and think about what's really going in to this moment. I'm not getting tangled up with the fear of, am I appearing like I have a favorite, because they're getting a different treatment. Or am I struggling with this behavior because I don't like video gaming, and therefore disconnecting from my child, and therefore in my heart think, oh, I prefer to hang out with my other kid.
Emma Waddington: Like, that's also. A move that we need to be noticing that we do with the same, you know, with the same language. And it can be damaging. It can be getting in the way of the relationship
Katie Palmer: What I was reminded of is this idea of I'd rather be happy than right. You know, we can stand [00:24:00] on whatever part of the soapbox of video games are maybe not good for brain development. That seems to be pretty clear in a lot of research and we can stand on that and say this is why I don't want you playing video games and that may or may not help us connect with our child.
Katie Palmer: It may not help us move in the direction we really want to go in, in building relationship and, and respectful dialogue and perspective taking for our kids. If we plant our flag on things, regardless of whether we're right in the end. And sometimes, and the word happy isn't quite the right one, but sometimes getting that conversation out is more important than being right about video games.
Chris McCurry: Years ago When I was first in graduate school, I had a, I had a colleague who had two young children and she told me the story where one evening she was doing the dishes and her seven year old girl and nine year old boy were in the other room and they started to [00:25:00] argue and the argument was getting more and more heated and she was just about to go to, to go break it up when she heard the seven year old say to the nine year old, do you want to be right? Or do you want it to work out?
Katie Palmer: the mouths of birds.
Chris McCurry: Yeah, of course it was the girl who said that to the boy, but
Chris McCurry: but you know,
Chris McCurry: my answer to that question is, well, both, you know, I want it to work out because I am right, but yeah, sometimes you, you don't get both,
Chris McCurry: you don't, you don't, you don't get to be right and have it work out,
Chris McCurry: but I, I love that story.
Emma Waddington: Yeah. So I was just thinking back on that, the idea that, you know, we. That perspective taking on ourselves when we're getting tangled up with, you know, how we feel about one of our children at any one point, you know, when we get caught up with, oh, do I favor this child and how we make space for the fact that perhaps we're finding it easier to connect [00:26:00] with one, or we need to maybe ask ourselves why, like, you're asking Katie, it's, it's, are some of the behaviors that we're seeing in one of our children, challenging for us right now.
Emma Waddington: we'd be curious about that instead of, you know, because it will, I think there is a, there is a small group of parents who quite openly talk about favoritism, but the vast majority don't. And to feel that we may prefer one child over another at any one point feels very uncomfortable.
Emma Waddington: And I think that that should be an invitation to be curious as to why. Why am I feeling like this towards this child versus the other and what can I do about it? And maybe it's just acceptance. Maybe it's just the way it is right now. Maybe they're, you know, going through a phase where we're disconnecting and, you know, maybe it's just time.
Emma Waddington: Especially with the adolescent stage. Maybe they're [00:27:00] doing what they're meant to be doing and pushing me away and I'm finding that really hard. And so I'm leaning on, you know, hanging out with my other kids in the meantime. But It's being curious and open to that, and to see if there's anything in it that's useful.
Katie Palmer: Yeah, and one component of what you're talking about involves time, watching it happen, rather than behaving to correct it or behaving to change it, but the noticing, the self reflection, self awareness, the acceptance, and observing over time, when does this change? If, can I look back and say, you know, it was like this last year at this time, or it was like this with my other child two years ago. When did that change? Can we slow down, back up a little bit, pull away from our initial feelings and our impulse to react and say, what would happen if I just watched this?
Emma Waddington: Because we do want to make things right, and we do want to feel [00:28:00] differently.
Emma Waddington: We Is there a path that, yeah, that, that needs to be taken here and, and is it not actually a problem? Is this. It's a situation that's uncomfortable that I don't need to correct or solve.
Chris McCurry: One of my mentors years ago used to say, don't just do something, stand there. So yeah, I think, you know, we, we, we kind of panic and we, you know,
Chris McCurry: we, we need to, we need to do something. We need to fix this as opposed to kind of letting it play out.
Emma Waddington: So true, isn't it? But we do want to make it right and feel better. And I think, you know, parenting is, is a very intense emotional journey, but lots of ups and downs and twists and turns. And a lot of, at least my parenting journey seems to include a lot of guilt and, you know, feeling bad as a parent and overly responsible.
Chris McCurry: Attention, it includes a lot of guilt.
Emma Waddington: it really
Katie Palmer: is [00:29:00] uncomfortable,
Chris McCurry: Oh yeah.
Katie Palmer: but is it always right, or is it always a bad thing?
Chris McCurry: Well, I mean, it is what it is when it shows up, but I think it's a question of what do we do about, what do we do when it shows up? Yeah. How do we, how do we spon respond to it? How do we make use of it perhaps?
Emma Waddington: if there's some use to it, absolutely. It's that curiosity, isn't it? yeah, it's really, I'm really enjoying thinking about you know, what shows up as we parent And that sort of label of, you know, our fear of having a favorite child in a way, and how that can get in the way of parenting, really can get in the way of doing what's needed in that moment, be it nothing, be it the open and curious maybe some acceptance, and yeah, it's, it's, it's a real invitation.
Emma Waddington: I [00:30:00] hadn't thought about it before like that.
Emma Waddington: Like it. And I wanted to touch back on the equitable because, and the thick of it fairly regularly at home, in the conversation about fairness I grew up in a, in a home where fairness was very important to the degree that we got the same presence. And I mean, literally, the stocking was the same. And so we, we stood on, you know, my dad is, was, you know, this was really important to him. So we would find the size of the present and go, okay, let's start with that one because we knew it was the same thing. So for him, fairness was really important. And you know, we were three girls. It's kind of easier to be equal in that sense.
Emma Waddington: But noticing it with my children, my children are so different, they're so different from [00:31:00] each other. Their needs, their desires the way they spend money, like one's always in debt, the other one is sitting in a fortune, I mean, they're just so different. And so fairness is a big conversation, and I think, and, and the kind of definition for them of favoritism is fairness.
Emma Waddington: It's unfairness. She's your favorite or he's your favorite because they got something I didn't get. Like this idea of fairness. So I'd love to touch on that again a little bit more on yeah,
Katie Palmer: you're right, so the, the terms are really I think to answer some of the questions that you're asking, we do need to unpack the terms. Fair and equal are very different. Equal means everyone's getting the same thing. So what your father did with presence was [00:32:00] equal.
Emma Waddington: Equal, yeah. Very
Katie Palmer: And equality rather than equitable. And so, and then let's talk about the word fairness. Tends, it tends to be, Is everyone getting their needs met? Is everyone getting what they need in a certain context? And that context, of course, can really rapidly change. There's a very popular picture to talk about the difference between fair and equal, where there's a baseball game happening behind a fence and there are three children trying to see over the fence. And one is very tall, one is medium size, and the other one is small. small, so in comparison to each other. If they all get the same size box to stand on, the small ones still cannot see the game. The medium one may need to sort of like, hike himself up over the, hold himself over the fence to see, and the tall one can see, to begin with anyway.
Katie Palmer: [00:33:00] He's quite, quite a bit over the fence. If they all get what they need to see the game, the smaller child will get a bigger really dive deep into equity, what we should do. is turn the wooden fence, which is an obstruction, into a more of a chain link fence that everyone can see through, regardless of what they're standing on. so there are different levels to that metaphor and to that image that is, that is so often used. But meeting, Everyone's needs is a better way to talk about fairness. When we get into discussing equitable practices in a field like education, it's much more involved. And, and we talk about a lot of things like, like rigor and making sure that students see themselves in the content and in their, Educators and can identify with both the content and the context in which things are being taught.
Katie Palmer: You know, as well as having a [00:34:00] voice and how often do we give our children a voice in how we meet their needs? So the idea of including students or children in how we. Discipline and how we develop our discipline and how we develop our assessments and how we develop our curriculum, bringing that, that together. Just the receiver's voice into those conversations is, is another part of equitable practices. So that it's another set, it's a set of terms that are often misgrouped, if you will. And I think of how sometimes we think things are the same, but they're not different terms.
Emma Waddington: it is so important, isn't it, as a parent to understand Yes.
Katie Palmer: Yeah. I, I think it helps
Chris McCurry: and it helps kids too, to understand this and, I sometimes describe this as framing where the parent puts a frame around a [00:35:00] situation. So, you know, we all just got back from vacation and our plane was late and we're, you know, all arriving at home at 11 o'clock at night. We're just not going to like Brush teeth or even get in pajamas. We're just gonna go straight to bed. But tomorrow we're gonna be back to the routine. But you know, this is a special occasion or whatever it may be that alerts the child that this is, you know, the rules have changed a little bit, but the rules will be reinstated when conditions change again.
Chris McCurry: And that's life.
Katie Palmer: contextual role following. Yes.
Chris McCurry: it.
Emma Waddington: But there is some freedom. I mean, thinking about, you know, the dirty little secret about, you know, worrying about our kids thinking that we have a favorite, whether we're feeling more connected to one or we're having a preference for one child over another or not, is this idea of helping our Children understand [00:36:00] what is fair and what is equitable between them?
Emma Waddington: Because That is an important conversation. Different treatment doesn't mean that it's wrong.
Katie Palmer: And sometimes it's important.
Katie Palmer: the different treatment is actually critical.
Katie Palmer: And in some cases for safety reasons.
Emma Waddington: That's right. And to be mindful of how that, you know, it's, it's, it comes back to that what you just mentioned, Katie, to have open conversations about you know, rules and how we apply them. And how much of a conversation you can have with your clinic. Yes.
Katie Palmer: our own rules as parents are really
Katie Palmer: important to examine. We have so many rules that we set up when we begin parenting. This is how I'm going to parent. And then life throws our children at us. And if we are too rigid about following a rule that we had before we were in the moment that we're in, we miss, like, this rule isn't working.
Katie Palmer: It's just not working [00:37:00] for me. I'm trying to follow this rule because I think it's the way things should be. And I'm not noticing how doing so is impacting my sense of self, my children, my family.
Chris McCurry: Or the, or the rule that worked when my child was five is not working when they're nine and
Chris McCurry: that rule that worked at nine is not working when they're 13 and you have to be mindful of that. And I think part of that conversation too needs to be addressing, validating the emotions that are showing up when the child is having that idea that things are unfair.
Chris McCurry: So I
Emma Waddington: Mm hmm.
Chris McCurry: That may even be the place to start where the parent says, look, I get it. You're frustrated or you're angry or you're disappointed. And, and then launching into, you know, the discussion of, you know, equitable versus equal and all that sort of thing. But I think [00:38:00] those, those emotions need to get acknowledged and validated and labeled. Otherwise, you know, they're not going to hear a word the parent says.
Emma Waddington: Yeah, because it is often a protest. If I think of, you know, when, when children are talking about favour you know. It is a protest about something that's happened.
Katie Palmer: Yes, they want things a different way,
Katie Palmer: Or imagine things will be better if they're out a different way
Katie Palmer: , I was thinking about the importance of helping kids notice what emotion, you know, I, I do hear this, I hear this, this anger and I do understand. And that your anger doesn't change what is happening or what's going on. Or my conviction to continue doing it in this particular way.
Katie Palmer: And here's why helping kids understand that I can, I can be right here with you while you are angry and frustrated and your emotional state is not going to change my behavior as a parent
Katie Palmer: can help with that piece of my emotions are real [00:39:00] and they're here and I can express them and then we've got to work through what it is I'm looking for.
Chris McCurry: Nice.
Emma Waddington: It's that bigger picture, isn't it? And ultimately, we keep talking about. Values on the podcast, and what's really important to us as parents you know, our values, what we want for our children, and that's that overarching sort of picture. In any one moment we may be doing, having discussion about something, but the overarching is that we want them to be independent, or we want them to be thoughtful, kind.
Emma Waddington: Conscientious, whatever it might be that we're thinking about for them that's important. Ultimately, that's what's navigating our behavior and not that evaluation in that moment, them protesting and, you know, getting very frustrated with us isn't what necessarily needs to dictate what we do as strongly as, as they may be feeling it and as difficult as it may be for us to sort of sit with those feelings. [00:40:00] Yeah.
Emma Waddington: Yeah.
Katie Palmer: not get redirected. There's, there's something that many children get very good at, which is redirection of adults. And so if, if I'm working through a situation with my child, they're getting angrier and angrier, if I can then focus on, you know, correcting their behavior while they're angry. they have derailed where we were headed and, you know, I'm speaking sort of in broad terms here, but sometimes when a child is throwing a fit, if everyone is safe, that's, that's what they're doing with their anger right now. If you allow yourself to then focus on, you know, they threw that toy or they knocked over some things or swiped stuff off the table. We have been derailed from whatever it was. began the situation that we might really need to be continuing on a path with. And I think that's a critical component when we think about I want my child to be [00:41:00] kind and respectful. That behavior is not okay, and so I'm going to pivot to that behavior.
Chris McCurry: Yeah, that gets you into secondary and tertiary issues and you know, you
Chris McCurry: can always address that stuff later. You can always come back and say, okay, that thing you did an hour ago. Not okay. Yeah. But at the moment, you don't want to get too caught up in that. display. You want to try to get to the heart of the matter, but that's really hard,
Chris McCurry: you know, as a parent, because you're being, you're being activated and
Chris McCurry: Disrespected and the ghost, you know, your values are being trampled upon at that moment or so it seems.
Emma Waddington: Yeah. Yeah. You're being hijacked. Your brain is being hijacked. By
Chris McCurry: brain and, and your heart.
Emma Waddington: Yes. Yes.
Chris McCurry: wrap up. Final, final words of wisdom, Katie?
Katie Palmer: Our thoughts and our feelings about who's our favorite don't need to dictate how we behave. Ha
Emma Waddington: Beautifully said. [00:42:00]
Chris McCurry: Well again, check out the show notes for some links to some articles on this topic. I'll put a couple of Anthony Wolfe's books on there too, the Jeremy Spencer book and another one about siblings called Mom Jason's Breathing on Me Again.
Katie Palmer: ha ha!
Emma Waddington: Brilliant,
Chris McCurry: Thank you so much, Katie Palmer. This has been delightful.
Emma Waddington: really has been,
Katie Palmer: Thank you both so much for having me. I, such a joy to spend time with both of you.
[00:43:00]
