Episode 171: Can You Use AI For Your Parenting - Answering Your Parenting Questions
/Welcome to a special episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast we’re we dive into the fascinating intersection of parenting and AI. Joining me are two incredible guests, Anna Seewald, a psychologist, educator, and parent coach, and Jen, a devoted mom of two girls and an enthusiastic learner and member of my BalancingU community.
In this episode, we explore the use of AI, specifically ChatGPT, to answer your parenting questions. Anna and I will be sharing our insights as parenting consultants, and we'll hear from Jen, an active member of our communities, who brings her love of science and technology into her parenting journey.
Embrace the complexities of parenting, utilize technology wisely, and above all, cherish the unique moments with your family. "Can You Use AI For Your Parenting" opens the door to a future where technology and human intuition work hand in hand.
TRANSCRIPT
Parenting is often lived in the extremes. It's either great joy or chaotic, overwhelmed. In one moment, you're nailing it and the next you're losing your cool. I want to help you find your way to the messy middle, to a place of balance. You see balance is a verb, not a state of being. It is a thing you do. Not a thing you are. It is an action, a process, a series of micro corrections that you make each and every day to keep yourself feeling centered. We are never truly balanced. We are engaged in the process of balancing.
Hello, I'm Dr. Laura Froyen and this is The Balanced Parent Podcast where overwhelmed, stressed out and disconnected parents go to find tools, mindset shifts and practices to help them stop yelling at the people they love and start connecting on a deeper level. All delivered with heaping doses of grace and compassion. Join me in conversations that will help you get clear on your goals and values and start showing up in your parenting, your relationships, your life with openhearted authenticity and balance. Let's go!
Laura: Hello, everybody on this episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast. I am joined by my colleague, Anna Seewald of the Authentic Parenting Podcast and by a member of my community, Jen, who is going to help us answer your parenting questions using AI as a tool. So this episode originally aired on Anna's Authentic Parenting Podcast. I just wanted to make sure that you all got to hear it too as it was really fun to record. I think that there has been a lot of interest and controversy and fear about AI in the past few months. And it was really interesting to see how we could potentially use this tool to better our parenting and the limitations it has. So this is a kind of unique take on listener questions, but it was really fun to dig into with one of my longtime colleagues, Anna and one of my longtime clients and collaborators, Jen. So have a listen, tell me what you think.
Anna: I am Anna Seaworld and this is authentic parenting a podcast about growing ourselves while raising our children. I am a psychologist educator and parent coach. And on this podcast, I explore how you can connect to your authentic self practice, radical self care and raise emotionally healthy children. Let's break the generational cycle of trauma for a more peaceful kind and compassionate world. Today is a special episode in which we get to answer some of your questions. I have two very lovely and super interesting and brilliant people here with me and I would let them introduce themselves. Laura.
Laura: Hi, I'm Doctor Laura Freya Anna. Thanks for having me back on the podcast. I love being here. I have a podcast of my own called The Balanced Parent. And I am a parenting consultant. I help families figure out what is deeply meaningful for them, what their goals are for their relationships and their, for their children and then help them parent in alignment with those goals. So I teach conscious and collaborative parenting. And my, my deepest goal is that all parents understand that they are human beings worthy of compassion and so are their kids. That's what I do. Happy to be here.
Anna: And next we have Jen, I'll let her introduce herself.
Jen: Hi, I'm Jen. I am a mom of two girls and like all of you, I have parenting questions and over the years I've joined different places to go get answers to those questions and consulting with different experts. And Anna and Laura both came into my life to help me with many of those questions and as a member of both of their communities, which are different and beautiful in their own special ways. I have really engaged my love of science and technology in using ChatGPT to answer a lot of parenting questions and just imagine how AI like that might help with the questions that we have as parents. So it's been an interesting experience to add that technology to our communities and that's what I'm hoping to do with all of you today, too.
Anna: You are our expert today on that front, my friend. I am learning so many things from you every time and you inspire me in so many ways, even the bug bite thing that you shared with me about, you know, so much about so many things. You're very resourceful and you love learning. I love that about you. And like I said, I really love how your mind works and the way you use ChatGPT or how you engage with AI is mind blowing. You've taught me so many things, including this parenting area. So we're going to utilize that. But Jen, would you like to read a disclaimer for our listeners before we get into it?
Jen: Yeah, sure.
Anna: That you generate it through the AI.
Jen: I did generate this with AII. The idea is that AII is like a, an experienced knowledgeable friend, right? It can serve as a valuable thought partner when it comes to parenting questions. It's got a lot of information and research and suggestions and different perspectives to share. It's really valuable, very useful and I could go on and on about how great it is. However, it's essential to remember that AI lacks the emotional understanding and the context that human beings possess that parenting is deeply personal and it varies from one child to another one family to another. AI may not fully grasp the unique tonics and nuances of your family situation. So while AI can provide information and suggestions and be that thought partner, we talked about, it's crucial not to take its advice blindly, always consider your own instincts, your own values and your child's specific needs when making parenting decisions.
Anna: Now, thank you for that. So with that disclaimer in place, I would like to read the first question and Laura, I would love to hear your answers and I'll contribute too and then we'll go to Jen, see what the AI has to say. Then again, we'll come back and express our thoughts, our professional opinions, you know, what the AI got right, wrong. What we think about it, that kind of stuff. So the first question is from Heather and it goes like this. How long is healthy for a 3.5 year old to play independently? Mine says she can't or it's too hard and will range if I'm unable to play. You know, usually these questions are not written very well. And Laura, you always do a better job of summarizing them than I basically, this mom wants to know without feeling badly that she's not playing with her daughter.
Laura: Yeah, I think that there's a really key part to this question. She says, I always felt like my mom didn't play with me growing up. So I'm scared I over corrected and now my own daughter can't play alone. And so I'm happy to talk about independent play. I could talk about it all day long. It's wonderful for kids. I think that their capacity to play for lengths of time can be increased by practice. It's a muscle, you know, that takes work and takes kind of skill development over time. But in order for kids to settle in to independent play and really feel confident in their ability to engage in that play by themselves, they need us holding a confident container for them. And so when I hear that this mom didn't get played with a lot growing up that there's maybe some lingering pain around that and maybe even a kind of a deeply put in place desire to do things differently with her kid. I am thinking about, you know, 7-year-old child who's thinking to herself.
Well, I'm always gonna play with my kids whenever they ask. I'm always gonna say yes, because my mom always says no, you know, that we can carry those little narratives, those stories, those like little dictates that we say to ourselves, those little kids with us into adulthood. And I am wondering if there's an opportunity for curiosity within yourself around. Are you feeling guilty every time you have to say no to your child? Are you worried that they're going to have that same narrative with you? That you know, you don't have time for them. What is the deeper pain that's happening in there for you. You know, what do you think it meant that your mom didn't play with you at that point in time when you were little. Are you afraid it will mean to your own child when you have to have the boundary of, of not playing because you need to work on dinner or heaven forbid, go to the bathroom by yourself. I think getting clear on some of those things that, that when you do need to set a boundary around your availability for play, you can do so with confidence and without any of that wishy washiness that guilt can bring in because our kids, they are designed to be sensitively attuned to what's going on emotionally for us.
And if they can absolutely feel when we are not 100% clear on our boundary or the value of our boundary. And so, I mean, just even saying the word value, it makes me think that this mom has two values that are maybe bumping up against each other that she needs to figure out she has the value of being available and connected with her child and the value of, you know, needing time for herself. Those and those two are coming into conflict. And so she needs to sit down with herself and get crystal clear on how do I set that boundary for myself? Teach my child that actually adults are human beings who are allowed to have moments of time and space where they're not playing and hold that boundary with confidence so that my child can actually get settled into independent play. Because if we're not confident, they will feel that anxiety and they will just pull us in for reassurance. That's what they're naturally primed to do. Okay. I just talked a lot. Sorry.
Anna: No, no. Listen, that are these do you want to add something else?
Laura: No, no, I think that that was it. Yeah.
Anna: Yeah. I don't want to repeat on what you're saying. I totally agree. My mind also went immediately to the hotspot of the question. But nevertheless, I'm going to add just a couple of points because I want to hear what the AI has to say about this question, too. I would love to emphasize that, you know, for this age group expecting them to engage in an hour play independently right out of the gate. It's unrealistic. So anywhere from 10 minutes to 15 and like you said, building a muscle is a good idea because she wants to know what's healthy, meaning, what's average, what to expect. I would emphasize the role of pretend play that at this age, the child engages in pretend imaginary play like kitchen, dress up, that kind of stuff are toys of that nature available. I would emphasize the role of the environment, you know, does the child have things accessible? Is it simple enough to navigate. Are there too many toys of all sorts of nature? If yes, maybe declutter simplify, have open ended toys, more pretend toys or play things available and of course, stay close and supervise and you know, you can't expect them to play on their own.
Not all of the children and some children may be more anxious type. I hear anxiety from this question, too. So by staying close, but then extending the distance a little bit, inviting the child into the kitchen to play while you're doing something and then maybe she can play in the next room after several months. So gradually increasing that distance, that space is key. And I have a no here it says, address mom's feelings about the issue, which you talked about already. And another point I had is the screens oftentimes if we introduced screens, you know, gadgets are obviously colorful, exciting, vivid, so much is happening. I noticed that in my friend's children too and my friends complain about the same issue that their children don't want to engage in independent play. Is it because we gave them this exciting device? And when they are on their own, what's there to do? Sometimes we have to teach them how to play independently by us engaging, starting maybe the game and let the child's mind wander and sort of like sparking that first spark and the fire will go. Some children need that. These are my thoughts. So Jen, let's see what the AI has to say about this question.
Jen: Sure. So with AI, it always matters how you ask what exactly you ask that will dictate what answer you get. So I started by giving it some context and I said, I am a parent who asks questions to uncover my child's feelings and needs. And that's a phrase I actually used a lot in using this tool because it then primes the AI to give me questions to ask and to think about in this example, it didn't start out with questions, but that's okay because I then said, I want to help my 3.5 year old play independently for longer periods of time. How could I proceed? And then it gave very practical things that you just went over and uh helping your 3.5 year old child play independently can be a gradual process that involves patient and patience, encouragement and creating the right environment. So a lot of the things that, that you've talked about already having realistic expectations, choosing age appropriate activities, creating a safe space where everything is okayto play with. Modeling, independent play, offering choices, having a routine, providing encouragement, limiting screen time and more. There's a lot more that it has to say and it's all very aspirational, in my opinion, all of this would be great if I could do all of this. So reading all of that, it was a little bit overwhelming. So I jumped back to the first thing it said, which was to set realistic expectations. So I asked what expectations are realistic because that's the first thing that the robot said to do. And it pointed out that at this age, children can be expected to engage in independent play for 10 to 20 minutes. In Heather's question, I got the, the gist that, that her kid is not able to play independently at all. So even 10 minutes might be a challenge. So we have this gap, I'll touch on that gap in just a minute, but it might be surprising that 10 minutes is a realistic goal to start with at this age. And then it talked about other areas of expectations that these children of this age like imaginative play, they still will need supervision. They may have a preference for interaction and knowing that preference is important to understand. They are probably going to want frequent check-ins and to expect gradual progress, which I noted said even over several months, you may notice that they can play independently for longer periods.
So it's not the sort of thing to expect to see progress in a week with that expectation can add a lot of peace to a parent struggling with this. So then I addressed this gap. I said, say I expect my child to play independently for 10 minutes. What questions might I reflect on as I consider how to help my child meet the expectation. And this speaks to my own philosophy about looking into myself, which is what you were doing, Laura with what are your fears about, what are your concerns? And this is something that A I is really good with is helping to generate the questions. And I will often ask it to expand on certain questions to help me think through them. But it talks about whether the activity is age appropriate is the environment safe. Have I demonstrated independent play? Am I allowing for choices? Is the timing, right? Am I nearby for reassurance? And each of these questions? And there's more has like sub questions related ones. There are probably 60 questions in this list. It's it's impressive, but reflecting on those can really help a parent with this struggle figure out where they can make some adjustments today and which adjustments we might wanna save for another time. Then I talked about the gap again because all of that was great self reflection. But now I'd like something practical. I said there's a gap between what my child can do today. No independent play and my expectation which is now realistic. 10 minutes of independent play. And then I repeated the kind of parent that I am. I like to ask questions to uncover what's going on for my child that makes it hard for her to meet the expectation, including her feelings and needs. What questions could I ask my child considering her limited conversation skills.
Then it was questions that I could ask my kiddo. Like, how are you feeling right now? What kinds of toys or games do you like to play with? And then there's an explanation of why each question helps, right? Encourage her to express her preferences, which can guide your choice of activities asking her. Do you feel like playing by yourself today or with someone else? And what would make you feel more comfortable playing by yourself? This question invites her to express any concerns or discomfort she might have about independent play. Is there a special place in your room where you'd like to play today? Right? And make it exciting? There's a special place where you can play by yourself today and there were 12 questions like this and it gives very important reminders to listen attentively to her responses and be patient. They might not have the words to express. These are not easy questions for a 3.5 year old to answer. But asking them and engaging in that conversation can be helpful for the relationship and we'll get you that much closer to independent play for 10 minutes and more.
Anna: Wow, this is a lot as a parent, you guys, both of you. Do you think this is helpful or this is too much information to sift through or you become overwhelmed and you're like, oh my gosh, this is too much. I don't want this, but I really like your questioning, Jen and I was joking before that the AI generates questions but your questions, your prompts are super great. Laura, what do you think? As a professional and as a parent?
Laura: Well, I mean, there's like part of my professional self is like, oh no, I'm out of a job but I know really at the end of the day it's a lot of information. It's overwhelming and a parent who's asking these questions for themselves might not know which direction to go down when there's so many options. I do know that we can ask AI to be more specific or to give me, give her ideas, you know, if it, we are overwhelmed. But I think there are lots of great starting points. I think that especially when a parent is overwhelmed by a problem, it's really hard to know where to start and these can be really good starting points for jumping off. I'm all for parents having more tools in their toolbox to support them. I'm amazed. I also think I really appreciate Jen, you telling us what questions you are asking because I know for a fact when using AI that getting the correct prompt is what will get you good output. You have to have those good prompts. So I really appreciate you modeling those prompts for our listeners today.
Anna: Can I mention two resources before I forget, Laura, you are the go to person for the play program that you have, could you plug in your play program? And we have done an episode together and I believe it is about play and I believe the title is What To Do If You Don't Like How To Play With Your Kids If You Don't Like Playing or something like that. Yeah. Something like that. So, can you tell about your program very briefly?
Laura: Yeah. So I have a couple of play classes. One is called Playful Healing where um I teach you basically how to do play therapy with your kids. So if you are thinking about, you know, wanting to connect more deeply with your kids through play and actually enjoy playing with your kids. Playful Healing is great for you. I also have one on Purposeful Play. That one is more towards kind of parent led structured play to do things with your kids like process dentists, an upcoming dentist trip or prepare them for transitions. But then I also have tons of episodes of my podcast on play and most Januaries, I do a 30 days of play object that's free for the community where we kind of hone in on what are the specific things that support independent play. So all of the things that good old ChatGPTs told us about and that Anna told us about, I break those things down and have kind of one prompt per day. Where I'm encouraging you to make a small incremental shifts so that you can be getting more independent play from your kids.
Anna: Thank you and Jen, I wanna ask you, what's the difference between using Google for asking parenting questions and using AI.
Jen: Google is going to give you overwhelming amounts of information that you have to read through and decide if it's going to be relevant for your question. And AI is more likely to give you answers that are relevant for your question. It's simply more focused. And I've heard some people describe ChatGPT as a tool that scours the internet for the answer, but that's not what it does. It does something a lot more nuanced in a technical way that I won't bother explaining about predicting what the next word is and so on, but it does filter out for you all the things that are not related. So for example, in Google, if we're searching for independent play tips or something, you might get an infographic related to infancy. But my kid is 3.5, I'm not working on 10 month old and asking them to play independently in their playpen for three minutes that I'm working with a 3.5 year old and that's very different.
And ChatGPT doesn't even bother with the infancy level of the answer. So you have to do a lot less filtering out with AI but also as we've heard everywhere that people are talking about AI, we do have to check its factuality. It's its factness because what it is really good at is putting words together that sound plausible but may not be correct. So when it said, for example, that a good expectation is 10 to 20 minutes for this age range. If that's a really important element for the way I'm choosing to proceed through this problem, I would go verify that independently somewhere else. And today you did that for us, both of you talked about that same time frame. So in that detail, I would consider it confirmed, but each detail that matters a lot, go verify.
Anna: Okay. Well, let's move on to our second question, which is about bedtime and it is a voicemail. I will play it now for us to. “Hi Anna, this is Lauren Grogan. I am calling to see if you can answer a question on your podcast. I have been struggling recently with bedtime. My son is eight and my daughter is five and I really struggle the most with my daughter cause my son is pretty ok with being alone. You know, I leave him with some toys, his book, his music and he's pretty content with kind of soothing himself playing and then putting himself to sleep whereas she really needs me and has a hard time with me leaving and it'll take anywhere from 45 minutes to sometime over an hour to put her down each night. And that's a lot of time and it's in the middle of a very busy night when I'm already trying to clean up dinner and prep for the next day, you know, finishing laundry loads, prepping myself for the next day.
You know how it goes. And the night always ends up in just frustration. Lots of yelling, which just gives me very bad mom guilt and makes me very upset because I nighttime should be very and nice time. So luckily I do always go in and apologize and then we do have a good send off, you know, to sleep, but I just wish it never had to get like that and it just always does. There's always a rush to get showered off and dried off and pjs and brushing teeth and then getting into bed all that. Like it just seems to be this long drawn out process or every night I just feel like I'm doing something wrong. Like I'm not, I don't quite have it down. Right. And I, I feel like I'm a, an efficient person, but I, I'm really struggling with this right now. So I don't know if there's any insight or maybe some kind of a structure or suggestion that could help. Thank you very much. Take care.”
Laura: Well, this is a big one. I kind of want to hear your, what you have to say.
Anna: Okay. Yeah, I, I'm going to be very quick because I also want to go to the AI. So what I want to start with this one is again, acknowledging how hard bedtime is compassion for mom and offering take care of yourself. You're not a bad mom, you're not doing it wrong. I mean, there's no right or wrong. But what I would say is what's the feeling that you want to have around bedtime? What's this ideal image that you have? How do you want bedtime to go? What's your intention? Maybe journal about this? Visualize this bedtime, how things are going? I would start with that also encourage her to evaluate or maybe re evaluate the structure, the routine that she has for her children. Another thing I would say is 45 minutes is a decent time um for a five year old to go to bed like reading together 45 minutes to an hour I think is uh is a realistic time frame. I remember from when my daughter was young, I don't know, where do people here do ideas that bedtime has to be short? Do you put them to bed and they're out in five minutes? I'm not sure it takes time and this mom is conflicted, right?
There are those two needs again. But what I'm going to suggest is I want this mom, you know, she's putting the, this is Lauren, I don't want to call her this mom. So Lauren wants to put her children to bed. I definitely have had that feeling when you want to just have your own time. You're done. You're so done because after bedtime, there is more tasks more to do. So your day is not done. So what I am suggesting is including our children in doing tasks and chores around the house with us so that we don't have to look forward to that time when they are finally in bed so that we can get to the laundry or the dinner, the dinner, it's over. Guys let's put some music on together as a family. Let's clean up together. Yes, it may not be to your standards. You may have to, you know, pick up and clean up a little more later.
But encouraging kids to be part of the process, tackles a lot of things togetherness, cohesiveness, family time, time with mommy fun, teaching responsibility on and on and mom doesn't have to have this overwhelming feeling when are they going to go to bed so that I can do the laundry and the dinner, clean up and it's just not necessary so the kids can help with the laundry. They are at a decent age seven and five and the dinner clean up. I would suggest Lauren to look into that cultivating that as a family practice. And I I am seeing Laura is nodding because this is right off of your alley. I think that's all I have for now, what do you want to add Laura?
Laura: I love everything that you've said so far. I also think that going to bed is just one thing, but there's actually a lot of things that can be hard about going to bed. There can be time away from parents that are hard teeth brushing in and of itself can be a complicated process for kids who have sensitive, putting clothes on, you know, changing clothes. Like there's a lot of steps to going to bed. And so I would also suggest that this mom take some time to break down like, okay, so what are all of the expectations that I have going into bed for my kid? And let's take a look at each of them and see if any of them are hard for my kid. If a child really hates their toothpaste, they're gonna drag their feet going upstairs because they know eventually I'm gonna have to brush my teeth with this toothpaste I really hate. And so I think some doing some collaborative problem solving on each of the tasks might really help and help them have this feeling of being a teen, like what's going on? It's been hard for you to go to bed recently, you know, what's up with that? You know, and, and you just like starting to have some of those conversations and if it comes down to this five year old really wants to spend more time with mom which I get that makes sense. Then doing dinner, clean up together can be a wonderful, beautiful connecting time. There's also lots of problem solving that can be done to help a five year old feel connected even when we're apart, so that's connection in the midst of disconnection. That's really challenging for a five year old to be able to do. It takes a lot of cognitive skills. So books like the Kissing Hand or Invisible String, those books teach young children in this age range. So they're designed to teach kids how to feel connected to their loved one even when they're apart. And I think that that would probably be really helpful for this five year old, too.
Anna: Great. Let's hear what Jen has found through AI. What has ChatGPT has to say?
Jen: yes. It's very clear that I have been working with both of you for a while because my thought processes and these questions are very similar to what you all said.
Laura: Yay.
Jen: So I started by giving the children's ages and then I talked about how they're reluctant to go to bed on time. Sometimes they're 90 minutes later than their 830 bedtime. My five year old has FOMO fear of missing out. Can you help me articulate the stages of the bedtime routine? So I can figure out which part is giving us the most trouble. And I liked the answer that ChatGPT gave here because it gave us seven different stages, preparation for bedtime, then bath time, pajamas and teeth brushing, story time or quiet reading. Then good night, hugs and kisses, then the bedtime itself and then falling asleep, which happens after the bedtime and there could be challenges with each of those. It gave a general time frame that preparation should start about 30 to 60 minutes before their intended bedtime. Bath time could be 10 to 15 minutes. Pajamas and teeth brushing might be 5 to 10 minutes. So for each step, it broke it down into a few minutes of how much time is realistic for that step. Going to your point, Anna that we need to be realistic about what it takes to get kids into bed.
But then for each stage, it talked about what the challenges could be. The challenge around bath time might be that some children enjoy it and don't want it to end and others may resist getting in in the first place around bedtime itself. children may resist going to bed because they fear missing out on activities or they feel it's too early and then challenges are falling asleep. They may have difficulty, especially if they have napped too late in the day or had too much screen time, too close to bedtime. And so I didn't read the whole thing there, there's a lot there, but uh then it went straight into problem solving without me having to ask it for anything because the AI then suggested ways to identify the part of the bedtime routine that's causing the most trouble. And step number one was to observe patterns, maybe keep a bedtime journal for a week or two note, when your children resist bedtime and what seems to trigger their reluctance. Then communicate, as you said, Laura, I talk to your children about their feelings and concerns at bedtime, understanding their FOMO or any specific worries can help address those issues. Then more detail around adjusting the timing of bedtime addressing whatever the specific challenges are being consistent, keeping screens limited and creating a relaxing environment which speaks to the intentions, Anna that you were mentioning.
Anna: Can, can I make a quick joke before you go on? It all sounds wonderful if only the parent was an A I to keep a journal and it's like Lauren, I know what you're doing wrong. You need to keep a bedtime journal. It's very generic that AI answers. I'm loving it because it's very aligned with our thought process too and it's more structured and organized. And I think that might be helpful for the listener and Jen, can I ask permission to share the answers of the AI with the people who submitted their questions?
Jen: Yeah, sure. These links to each of these conversations is available.
Anna: Okay, great. Please continue.
Laura: Oh, I just had, I wanted to hop in just for a second. So I just asked ChatGPT a very, like a much more general question that isn't such a carefully constructed prompt. So I said, how do I get my child to go to bed on time? And it gave me very, a lot of very detailed information, but it's very, very general. And so I just want to put a plug in if we're using AI, we've got to make sure we're giving it the proper inputs, you know, I mean, it has established a consistent bedtime routine, create a relaxing environment, limit screen time, set, a bedtime, make gradual adjustments, be a role model of caffeine and sugar before bed. You know, I mean, it's just a bun, it's like it like threw spaghetti at the wall. Basically, they're great ideas, good places to start. But I think really being specific on who you are, the type of relationship you have or want with your child, their ages, your goals. It's writing a good prompt for AI is hard. It's a skill in and of itself.
Anna: It is. And Jen taught me because I needed things for the authentic parenting podcast. And here's what I learned. I think the more as a parent, if you're using it for parenting purposes, be specific, give more details about your case and it can learn who you are and hopefully give you more specific tips, but come back and consult with us because we're always available.
Jen: Yeah, you mentioned earlier, Laura, that it's a good starting point. And I think that's the right frame of mind to go into AI with it will not solve your parenting problems, but it will give you a few different starting points, perhaps different perspectives that may have escaped your attention to think about. So that's really where I see its strength, not in solving our problems for us.
Anna: Going back to this bedtime question, Jen, what stood out the most? What is most helpful? And is it aligned with what we said or is there a better response perhaps that we overlooked?
Jen: No, I think it summarized what you all have said already and it went into more detail about Laura's point about some problem solving too. And again, you can tell that we're friends because these, these same thoughts were coming through in the prompt I asked next. And that's another tip for AI is to follow up in the same conversation, ask more questions about it, ask it to explain it in a different way. So I again reminded it that I like to ask questions to uncover what's going on for my child that makes it difficult for them to meet my expectations. These difficulties could include practical aspects, individual preferences, their feelings and underlying needs, similar to what I said before in the last question. And then for each challenge that had identified just above, make a table that shows four age appropriate questions I could ask my children. And then for each stage, so the preparation stage, you gave me four different questions. I could ask, how would you like to spend the last 30 minutes before bedtime? Is there something you feel you need to do or finish before bed and starting to get their ideas about what their intentions are for this time?
Just as you said, Anna about understanding our own and then questions for bath time for pajamas and teeth brushing and then it stopped at stage five. Good night, hugs and kisses and it gave some questions about that. Do you ever feel like you need some more time with me before falling asleep? Is there something on your mind or any worries you'd like to talk about before bed? But I know that there were seven stages, we still haven't gotten to bedtime itself and we haven't gotten to the falling asleep part and it didn't make a table for those. So I put the word continue, which is another AI tip that if it's clear that it hasn't finished its thoughts, you can just type the word continue and it will continue its thoughts and that's exactly what it did it get then gave me the questions for bedtime and for falling asleep.
So do you ever have trouble falling asleep at night? What's on your mind? Is there something in your room that makes it hard to sleep? Like noise or light and right? Address it once we know where these problems are happening in our child's bedtime routine, which was missing from this question. So that's I think why these questions, these answers are as general as they are. Then my next two questions addressed the worries that I would feel if I was a mom reading this and trying to address bedtime challenges. I said I'm worried this approach will create an elaborate bedtime routine that I don't have energy for. And then again, the key question.
Anna: I love that question. I love your problem.
Jen: Yes. How can I manage that worry? And it talked about things that we've mentioned here, simplify the routine, be realistic in our expectations, prioritize self care. And I'm going through this list very briefly. But each of these items has a whole paragraph about how prioritizing self-care can help make the child's bedtime better. So it's boring to sit and listen to me read. So then it talks about delegating tasks, communicate with your children, be consistent over being elaborate and ask for help. Then the other worry that I would imagine for my own self and imagine maybe the wrong word, but maybe it's remember for myself is losing track of the fact that we've made progress. Bedtime is still hard. I've been working on this for a month and it's still hard. Right. Well, it's not that you haven't made progress. It's that it's still hard because there were seven parts and each had four questions this is a big deal. So I asked it, how can I tell we're making progress where we're making progress and where we're not, it can be discouraging when bedtime continues to be a struggle. Yet, I may overlook the fact that we've worked through other parts enough to have made them easier. So, again, very specific, prompt five ways to stay positive. And I was getting tired of these lists that had 12 and 15 things in them. So I just asked for five and it said to keep a bedtime journal, record the details of each bedtime routine. Not what went well, what improvements you've seen and where challenges persist. This journal can help you objectively track progress over time. My journal when I was struggling with bedtime with my kids was a google doc that I sometimes opened up. It was not very consistent, but the simple act of being observant helped. So that was it number one tip set small goals, communicate with your children, seek support and advice and practice mindfulness and self compassion, which I know we all love so much in this group. So I was really delighted to see that that made ChatGPT list of top five interesting. And then it ended with five affirmations all on its own. It just supplied these affirmations, Doctor Mbeki's style. Okay. I am doing my best to create a loving and consistent bedtime routine for my children. And the second one each day I learn more about my children's needs and preferences and I adapt our routine accordingly. And then three more affirmations, things like that make it feel better that it's still hard. But we are making progress. I'm doing my best each day. I'm learning. I'm trying. This is okay.
Anna: This is very interesting. Yeah, it's awesome. There's a lot, I think it just emphasizes for me the value of working with a parent coach. You know, because if you came to me with this problem, we will get through all of those questions and routines, you know, all of those things, but not in one session. And I think that's the value of working with a professional, you know what I mean?
Laura: And I think that the professional too, when you're actually interacting with a person where you're able to read your body language, the nonverbals and we get to know you too and we get to know your kids, especially when we have the chance to work consistently with you. Like Jen, I've had the opportunity to walk alongside you for a couple of years now. In your parenting journey. I feel like I know your family, I know the things you've tried. I know there's things I probably don't even need to go into because I know you've already tried them before you come to me with something. And I, I think that that can't be understated too. I think we're really not meant to do this alone and it's so good to have a tool. And then it's also really important to have your village, the people that you go to for support.
Jen: I would agree and the questions that I asked that are so admirable here, right? They came from becoming this type of parent that I am today. Not from being the panic, scared parent. I was when my toddlers were so small and I have grown a lot as my children have grown and professionals like you have both helped me to become that parent. And it makes it possible to ask questions like how can I manage that? Worry instead of I can't do this, it's gonna be too hard, right? Those are very different questions but very understandable answers depending on where the parent is in their own journey.
Anna: Yeah. True. Let's move on for the sake of time to our next question. And Laura, are you willing to read the next question?
Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. My seven year old daughter has been diagnosed with two chronic illnesses that she can live with but will cause her pain and suffering during her life. How do I best support her emotional growth for the long term considering this difficult news?
Anna: Just want to send a little bit of compassion and love to this parent.
Jen: Yeah, I know and just that part she will suffer during her life. It just tells me mom's feelings about this. And in my answer, I have a couple of, you know, bullet points for this mom. And the first one is, and I clarified, I asked this mom, have you already told your daughter about her diagnosis? And she said yes. And I don't know what kind of these illnesses are, you know, are they limiting this child in her activities in her day to day life? Are they visible or they just internal things? I don't know. But the first thing I'm going to say is support for mom, find support for yourself, a support group, supportive people, a support group for those illnesses, perhaps so that you can learn more and support your daughter. You have to be in a resourced place in order to be helpful for your daughter. Number one, that's what I would emphasize. Number two, I would say, be honest with your daughter and answer whatever questions you may have in age appropriate, very honest way about the illnesses.
And of course, number three, address her feelings when and if they will rise throughout her childhood and life. But in order to do that effectively, you have to process your own grief and thoughts and feelings around this idea that your daughter has this illness, not one but two for the rest of her life, she has to suffer. So this is a heavy thing. I think mom needs space to process her own emotions around this in a consistent supportive way with someone with a therapist, with a support group so that she can provide that emotional support for her daughter validate. Listen and sometimes there's no need to fix the situation but have space for your daughter to express and complain and vent about the limitations. Or maybe she's feeling not good enough or less than or there is a stigma that I'm not. There's something wrong with me. I am a kid with this limitation and I can't do X Y and Z So we don't know more about the illness, addressing that part of the child's psyche, I think is important. But in order to support your daughter again, I can't emphasize enough, the support for the mom education may be for the mom as well.
Laura: Yeah, I 100% in alignment with you on that. And the only thing I would really add would be to start really considering the role of mindfulness, particularly self compassion based mindfulness. There's so much research on how important mindfulness, meditation and self compassion are for managing chronic conditions, especially chronic pain, they can be hugely helpful. So, and your seven year old is not too young to start learning some of those techniques and making sure she has the support she needs too, whether it's seeing, you know, representation, seeing herself in books, in the media that she's exposed to helping her learn how to advocate for herself as well. But I mean, mindfulness and so compassion. There's a great book called Sitting Still Like a Frog which is she's the right age to start introducing some of those activities.
Anna: Wonderful. You're always full of great ideas. I love it, Jen. Let's hear what the AI has to say about this question.
Jen: Yes. Sure. So the prompt I chose to start with had everything to do with my first reaction. My first reaction was directly aimed at the question as written, right? How do I best support her emotional growth? Okay. Well, my first reaction was well the same as all children and we'll figure out the rest as she faces challenges, right? But that's not gonna do for an answer. But that's the space I was in. When I asked the AI this question, what aspects of emotional growth could parents be deliberate about supporting? How does this change when the child is diagnosed with chronic illnesses at an early age? And said for all children do it like this. And then when diagnosed with a chronic illness, here's how that picture changes somewhat. Some things that might be extra hard, some specific areas that might need some extra attention. So I appreciated the way it framed and organized its answers. So for example, I'll read the one about empathy and social skills. It said for all children encourage empathy by discussing feelings and perspectives, foster social interactions to help children build healthy relationships and learn to cooper with others valid.
And then when diagnosed with chronic illness, children with chronic illnesses might face isolation or stigma. Parents can support them by helping them navigate social situations, promoting self advocacy and building a support network of understanding peers. And then each of the areas of emotional development were addressed in this same way. Here's how to do it for all children and here's how to some special considerations for children with chronic illnesses. So it was very extensive and it gave eight different areas each framed out in those two elements and out of curiosity, I typed, continue, are there nine and 10 and 11 and 12 more? And it continued along the same line of thinking, but it went off in a direction I wasn't expecting. It said here's some additional considerations and strategies for parents when supporting uh the emotional growth of a child diagnosed with a chronic illness. Then it talked about some of the things we've mentioned here.
Education and understanding parents should educate themselves about the specific illness and educate the child about that illness too and advocacy skills, teach your child how to advocate for themselves work with your child to create a health care plan that outlines what their needs are, their medications and contacts, emotional respite for parents taking care of their own emotional well being. And I'm chuckling only because it's exactly where you started celebrating achievements, encouraging hobbies and interests, positive role models. You mentioned laura flexibility and patience and seeking professional help when needed. And then any one of those areas could be expanded upon if we needed to make it more practical. So it's all again, very good but theoretical in general. And I was curious to what I could do to make one of them much more actionable. Okay, encourage them to do this or that. What does that look like? Tell me. So I copied and pasted some of its answers from up above about self esteem and self-confidence where it had said what to do for all children and for children diagnosed with chronic illness. And then I said, please supply two concrete actions I can take for each of these suggestions. And then those concrete actions were fantastic. I thought it gave some example, phrases to say around, for example, encouraging self reflection, teach your child to reflect on their actions and outcomes, ask questions like what did you learn from this experience or what can you do differently next time? And those are things that we aware parents might be helping our kids to do already. And it can be comforting to get advice that you get to ignore because I'm already doing that.
And then the last piece that I addressed with the AI was about the aspect that I can imagine about feeling left out other kids can do normal activities in quotes, eat normal foods and go about life without thinking about their bodies as much. How can I support my kid with that challenge? And then it talked about open and honest communication, normalize their experience, educate peers and school staff encourage empathy and inclusion, create inclusive activities, special treats and celebrations. Again and again, just and two bullets under each of those with things that could help a child who necessarily needs to be excluded from some things to not feel like they're missing out on everything that's important and big in a child's life.
Anna: Can we move to the next question for the sake of time again? Laura or do we want to say something about this?
Laura: Kind of have just a little quick question for Jen, I kind of feel curious about. So Anna and I could never give such comprehensive answers to a question on a podcast. We just couldn't. And so I feel kind of curious for you your perspective as a listener of our content. How is it for you to see kind of the depth and the detail that's coming in ChatGPT versus the trusted advisors that you've chosen to listen to? I, I'm kind of curious about that. Is it okay to go there? I know we have just a few minutes.
Jen: Yes. It's a really good question. I was wondering that as we were discussing things.
Laura: Yeah.
Jen: I think that your entire body of work is as comprehensive as this ChatGPT is, I can hear echoes of things that I've picked up from you all along the way, even things that you haven't mentioned today that the AI is producing, I have heard you all talk about things like getting enough support as parents and finding good role models for our kids. And even if there's an element that doesn't get mentioned in response to a specific conversation in one single podcast as a body, it all shows up in there. So that's one aspect to it is to find an advisor who speaks your language, who speaks to the way that you aspire to parent and gives advice that can be all put together in sensible ways. Sometimes they can't, sometimes you can hear people giving conflicting advice. Some of the older people in my circle, for example, give conflicting advice about parenting. But when we have a holistic view, it all does come together. So that's probably the first thing that I think of is as consider the whole body of work. It is comprehensive and that makes it possible to consume an overwhelming list. Like the ones we've been reading through today and know which parts of it I can disregard because if I'm already doing it automatically or I can disregard it because that's not relevant to my child. And I have experience to prove to me that it's not relevant, but that mindset doesn't happen without getting a podcast like yours in my mind. And in my heart, I didn't become this type of parent who even asks these types of questions. How can I manage that worry is the one we talked about before. I never would have asked that five years ago. But asking it now becomes more automatic because I've had the guidance of people that I trust over the years.
Laura: Yeah. It's really interesting to think about that. That maybe it's not so much that you're coming to me and to Anna to learn what to do, but you're coming to us to learn how to think through problems. And so then you're able to take those skills and apply them to the a massive list of what to do. But because you've got the skill of discernment that you've been practicing quite a lot, you know, at least we spend a lot of time with kind of turning in, checking in you know, learning from yourself.
Jen: Yeah, it's interesting. It's fascinating to think about those things.
Anna: I appreciate that summary. That's very accurate, Laura that I am taking skills that I've gotten from you both and have applied them to questions that aren't even mine.
Jen: And I want to just say that that's the best kind of learning. You're not here to get specific tips or tricks, but to change your mindset, your perspective, learn general principles, digest and understand the philosophy behind it, embody it so that you can be your own authority and lead with your own knowledge. It should come from you and not from us that that's what I'm looking for when I work with someone you know, I don't want them just to repeat what I'm saying. I want to empower them to embody the things that we're talking about so that they can live it, they can breathe it. And gen is a prime example of that.
Laura: I agree with what you're saying on a, I, I often, you know, I love connecting with people. I love it when they come into my membership and I get to walk alongside them, but I know that I will walk alongside them in a season of their life. And there will be a time when they've learned what they can from me and they need to go find a new teacher for a new season or they're ready to take things on their own. And that's good. That's what we're looking for here. I'm looking to have people not rely on me so that they can rely on themselves. And that's the beauty of a tool like this you have, but you need to learn how to rely on yourself and do the filtering the discernment first. Yeah. Okay.
Anna: Right. Great. Why don't you read our fourth question about the body boundaries with this 60 year old?
Laura: Yes. Okay. So how do you help a child who struggles with respecting other people's body boundaries when my six year old wants us to do something for them or with them? And the answer is no, they have a really hard time understanding that that's a simple boundary. And not actually us being mean, they perceive it as someone is being mean to them by not doing what they want. So what can we do to help support this child in understanding that no means no. And they are, even though they're allowed to be sad about it, it doesn't mean that they need to keep persisting and pushing.
Jen: Yeah. The first thing that jumped at me when I read this question and further mom clarifies in the Facebook group. She clarified, I asked her a few questions. The first thing was what is driving this behavior? What is this child's need? And the first thing that I want to say, I mean, there's so much I can say but I want to be choosy and just emphasize one point because I want to hear your answers and the ChatGPT answers is the sensory processing issues. I am sensing that the child may have sensory processing issues, you know, oftentimes from this proprioceptive system, right? They're bumping into things touching, they don't know where their body is in the environment, the vestibular balance.
I am sensing that this is obviously this is not a quote unquote misbehavior. And the child knows, you know, the meaning of no, don't touch me. But is he able to manage that? Is there a sensory need that is driving this? So I would look at that and maybe consult with an occupational therapist because some children have under sensitivity or over sensitivity, right? Some children avoid sensory stuff. Some children seek it. I would look into this. So I want to be brief for the sake of time. I have several notes about this question, but I'm just going to choose this one to focus on. What are you gonna say?
Laura: Yeah. So I think later in her clarification, she also says that she hasn't ever complained that a certain number of people are mean like people who, who in this child's life have very clear boundaries, like her partner herself or her mother-in-law. So she this it's clear that this child when he received a very clear boundary, it's much easier for them to live within that. And so on the one hand, it might be really helpful to offer the siblings some support for setting those clear boundaries and releasing any emotional attachment to the reaction of the child. Younger, especially so this kid who has a four year old sibling and younger siblings can feel really beholden to their older siblings. They want to please them, they want them to like them, they want them to play with them. And so helping a four year old feel empowered in their boundaries around the type of play they're willing to do is so important. So that's one piece that's not even related to the six year old.
I agree with you that there might be some other things going on for the six year old and the other thing that's challenging for a six year old is just developmentally, their ability to do per active taking is still really underdeveloped. That's something that we would coming online more closer to 78. And so for a six year old, being able to under, they're still just very self centered, not in a bad way but in just developmentally, that's how it is. So helping them like slowing down and helping them understand that I understand you might really want a hug. But look at her body, her body is turned away. She's saying no to a hug that would not feel good to her and her body right now. I know you want one but she does not and it's her body and she gets to choose, you know, so having some really clear conversations where you're helping your six year old understand the other person's perspective because that is not coming naturally to the six year old yet. So that I think that that's was my biggest thing.
Anna: Yeah, Jen, let's go to you. What do you have to say?
Jen: So I supplied the AI with some context. Here's what's going on in the family. And then my question was what is most likely the nature of their struggle with other people's boundaries. And it talked about everything you all have already that it's typically part of their normal development as they're still learning social skills and empathy. And it went through five different things uh very similar to, to our conversation so far, having a limited understanding of empathy, being egocentric, lacking social skills, emotional regulation isn't fully online and the developmental stage is quite appropriate for them to be struggling the way that they are. So a lot of don't worry. And then it talked about to help your child navigate these challenges and develop better social skills you can. And then it gave some very general advice, model, empathy, teach, communication, practice some role playing, which I thought was a nice addition to our comments so far, set boundaries in a kind way, be patient and consistent and encourage positive social interactions.
And again, there's more to each of those from the AI, but it was a good starting point again. But then I picked up on a undercurrent in this message where the parent seemed a little surprised that the four year old can do just fine with this, but the six year old is having trouble. What's the deal with that? My six year old should be able to, it wasn't what was said, but it's what I perceived underneath. So I asked the AI this prompt took a little bit of massaging to figure out the right words to get my thoughts across. But what I finally figured out was to ask what might explain why a four year old is able to understand that no, is a perfectly acceptable answer while a six year old has difficulty with no. And the answer was very well organized and the sum of it all was, it's not that your six year old can't do something that your four year old is able to do. It's more like this four year old is not able to do what the six year old is doing. And that six year old has skills and abilities to push back, test their independence, question things that the four year old isn't questioning yet. So it was a really fantastic nuance that it was able to pick up on.
Laura: Yeah, what a great reframe and nuance, I love that.
Anna: So overall, what's our takeaway? What's our conclusion? I want to hear a couple of words from both of you before we say goodbye. I am really thankful for both of you for being present. It's great seeing you. I value both of you. What's our main takeaway?
Laura: Well, first of all, this was really fun. I really enjoyed getting to engage in this. So Jen's in my membership, she brings AI into our membership from time to time and it's always really fun, but it was really nice to have this done in a really structured way. Jen, I really appreciate you bringing that in with us. Anna, I really appreciate you asking me in here again. I love doing these episodes with you. I think the big takeaway for me is that AI is a really great starting point. We all need someone to come alongside us and help us figure out. Okay, what's the next right step for me? Those are my thoughts, but this is fun.
Jen: Yeah. Thank you. I also feel honored that you were interested in what I could do with AI because I do enjoy using it for so many things and I use it in my own personal life for these types of parenting questions all the time. And that's why I bring my passion into the membership spaces and share it with all of you. So it was wonderful to see that you enjoyed and appreciated. And I hope I was able to help these parents who submitted these questions, but all the parents listening, who want to be able to have a place where they can without judgment, ask some questions that might be on their mind and then follow up with even more questions as they consult with someone professional or if they don't have the bandwidth or the money to consult with somebody professional. It's good to know that AI is here as long as we're using it with all the caveats we mentioned at the top to understand the nuance of our own family dynamics that the robots could never understand.
Anna: Okay. Robots, I like how you say that. Well, I wanna thank you again from the bottom of my heart for being a loyal member of the authentic parenting community, being a part of our support calls. I'll see you on the next call, which is pretty soon take care and thank you everyone for listening.
Okay, so thanks for listening today. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and if it was helpful, leave me a review that really helps others find the podcast and join us in this really important work of creating a parenthood that we don't have to escape from and creating a childhood for our kids that they don't have to recover from.
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All right. That's it for me today. I hope that you keep taking really good care of your kids and your family and each other and most importantly of yourself. And just to remember, balance is a verb and you're already doing it. You've got this!