Episode 213: Helping Our Kids with Their Big Feelings with Anna Housley Juster
/Welcome to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast! We’ll dive into the fascinating world of the amygdala, the powerful little part of our brain that plays a crucial role in emotional regulation. Joining us is licensed mental health clinician, early childhood education consultant, and children’s book author Anna Housley Juster, who shares insights from her new book How to Train Your Amygdala.
Here are some of the topics we covered:
How validation helps recognize and support your child's emotions
Befriending emotions and helping kids recognize their inherent worth
Shame, regret, and their effects on emotional growth
Recognizing how threat responses contribute to challenging behaviors in children
Differences between externalizing (outward) and internalizing (inward) behaviors in children
Examples of self-regulation techniques
To learn more about Anna, visit her website annahousleyjuster.com and LinkedIn @annahousleyjuster.
Resources:
Remember, helping our kids with their big feelings takes time, patience, and support, and you don’t have to do it alone.
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. This is Doctor Laura Froyen, and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to be talking about the amygdala, this amazing little part of our brain, what it can do for us, and how we can use our greater understanding of this wonderful little part of our brain to help our kiddos be more connected to themselves, more regulated in moments where they're facing challenges, and more connected to us. I'm really excited to have this conversation. And I think I would really like to focus on those kiddos who get dysregulated. Maybe they have a hard time and then do things that they regret. And it's really hard for them to then look back on that. They experience shame, whether we've been shaming or not, and, and kind of dig into how to support those kiddos through those moments. So to help you with this conversation, I have a wonderful clinician and children's book author. Anna Housley Juster. She is lovely and wrote this beautiful book called How to Train Your amygdala. It's for kiddos. I love it. My 9 year old loves it. And I'm excited to share it with you. So, Anna, thank you for joining us. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do, and then we'll jump in.
Anna: Sure, thank you so much for inviting me. As you said, I am a licensed mental health clinician. I work with children, adolescents, and a lot. I do a lot of parent guidance work, but going back further than that, I started my career as a Head Start teacher. I worked for several years in children's media working in formal education, including at Sesame Street and other educational children's brands and programming. And my PhD is in early childhood and elementary education, and it's only in the last 10 years or so that I've been working predominantly in mental health, and I still do a lot of work in education, doing teacher trainings, kind of merging trauma-informed practices with uh what's happening in the classroom. This is my first picture book. It's called How to Train Your Amygdala from Free Spirit Press, and it came out in 2024.
Laura: Yeah, and it's a beautiful and very fun book, to read and to look through. I feel very curious about them, you know, so I feel like the listeners who are listening to this podcast are very interested in the brain and how it functions and how it's there to help us and support us and how to partner with it. I think they're also very interested in teaching their kids about this. I, you know, before we got started, you, we were talking a little bit about why you specifically wrote your book in the way that you did, the kind of the lack you were seeing in children's literature on the topic, and how you wanted to do something different. And I was curious if you would tell us a little bit about that, because this book is delightful. And I want, you know, I'm sorry.
Anna: Thank you so much. I'm honored too because other people have said too when I've been on podcasts that they don't usually talk to children's book authors cause they don't necessarily see that there's a tremendous need for the book itself or something. So I'm very honored that you see that this book can stand out in that way, and I'm grateful for the invitation to talk about it. So what I was finding in my work. With kids is that books about anxiety and about, dysregulation and etc. and how to kind of calm that down tend to be workbooks, which there's a place for, can be very good, but they're more didactic and it's really about like going through the pages and you, when you're working with your, with your child at home or with the, in my case with the client in the office, it has a very specific, plan, like, and it's not super fun and friendly, but it's important.
And then on the very other side of the spectrum, there would be books that are very fanciful, where it's like, totally imaginary, you know, like there's a dragon that's taking over you, and it creates your anger or creates your anxiety. As a person with anxiety and in working with a lot of kids with anxiety, I find that anxiety-provoking, because then the idea is that there's this bad part of you, and I don't believe in any bad parts in, in children I'm working with or in myself or you or anybody else. And so I was what I was trying for with this book is it's a hybrid. It's got basic neuroscience, which is basically what's happening in your amygdala and what you see in your body, what are you experiencing in your body physiologically, and then also what you can do about it. But told directly to the reader through this lovable, overzealous, monsterized amygdala character who was brought to life by Cynthia, Cliff, who did the illustrations and what I think is a really, really spot on sort of beautiful, emotionally, valid sort of a way.
Laura: And, and you said sorry, you said monster just there, but it's like the cutest monster ever. It's like a stuffy monster that you want to snuggle, right?
Anna: Yeah, lovable. I mean, monsterized meaning exactly like soft and cuddly and a little furry and like you just wanna give it a hug. And there's actually in the back of the book, there's a recommendation from the amygdala that you give your amygdala a hug, basically, like, could, if you could do that, that would be really nice and comforting. Exactly. So I didn't want it to be about banishing something, but more about aligning brain and body and staying connected to an empathetic approach to anxiety or which sometimes as we all know, looks like anger and irritability, but starts as fear and so yeah, the book explains the fight flight freeze response and in a very kid friendly way. Yeah.
Laura: I really love that invitation that is in this book and in the way you talk about it, to befriend these parts of ourselves that get anxious or worried or that get offensive, that kick up our anger, or our, you know, more instinctive responses to those things. I think that, you know, out in the world, we often hear things like about, you know, silencing our inner critic, you know, shutting those words down, pushing them to the side. And I, that makes sense, cause so many of us who are grownups, that's all we learned about emotional regulation. And I was like, when negative emotions happened, you just shoved them down, ignored them, and moved on, right? But we know that really, we need to befriend those feelings. We need to start to understand them. We, they need as much validation and empathy as any other part of ourselves. They need acceptance. I really like that. Have you found that kids are open to that idea of having different parts of themselves that need welcoming and understanding?
Anna: I think it's really a relief. You know, for kids across demographics right now, at least in the US, I think there's a little more enormous amount of pressure, you know, to, to kind of perform or be a certain way, and even if parents really try hard not to. Reinforce those values, it's just out in the world, whether it's on social media or just in person at schools and like. When I try to help kids understand that they're kind of good enough. If they get an A or if they bomb a test, they're good enough if they score 3 goals in a soccer game, and if they have a bad game and they don't score any at all. Whatever the thing is, we talk about this through the line of good enough and everything else. This is a podcast, so you might not be able to see me unless there's video of this, but I'm doing this in my hands where there's like a baseline, that's the good enough line. And then you have a curvy line that says good days and bad days that drop under that line and good days and then bad days. So I find that kids find it like to be a relief, and if there's a lot of negative self-talk and a lot of sense of shame, it can be originally rejected when I first bring up this idea because it's like. Well, no, I'm not. I could always be better.
Well, that could be true. Like if you have some goals for yourself and you have action items, that's fine, but already right now you're good enough. And by believing that we believe that all the parts of us, even the parts of us that Get anxious, get us in trouble, make us irritable, make us say things that we just really wish we didn't say or do things we just we wish we do. You're just more likely to connect relationships or everything, and you're more likely to connect and have that relationship if you start from a place of empathy and belief and goodness and effort and what kids can do about something versus Of the 3 kids in my family, you are by far my hardest to deal with. The kid knows I'm always the one that's in a timeout. I'm always the one that keeps us from getting to the place we have. So I'm trying a lot of times in my work to help kids. Recognize that there's actions they can take, but also like you have good qualities and strengths already if we can highlight those and bring them up into the light.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I heard you say that. Kids know they know that of the 3 kids in this family, I'm the one who's always in trouble. I'm the one who's the hardest. When they have done things that they know they're not supposed to do in the heat of the moment, said mean words, you know, been rough with their bodies, they, I think that, so I think in the parent, like the peaceful and positive parenting world, we get this, I, you know, we hear this message, don't shame your children. And I think that there are parents out there who have never ever said anything that was intentionally shaming to their kids, and I think their kids likely still experience the feeling of shame. Cause it's a natural human emotion, and especially for those kids, those kids who are more challenging, who do have maybe, you know, more vulnerable nervous systems that, you know, more active amygdalas that, you know, that are more sensitive and get thrown into that fight or flight more easily. Those kids, I think, are experiencing really, really deeply, wouldn't you agree?
Anna: I do agree. I think it feels really painful to be always in threat response mode. It doesn't, it doesn't feel good, right? It's, it feels bad. Yeah, it's totally exhausting. And then that badness can get translated into I'm bad. And what I really, really wanted in this book is that because it's scientifically based, wait. If kids understood early on in their life as they're learning how to behave in the world and who they are, what their identity is in the world. If they understood the science of that, of what's happening in the brain, it just provides some power and some control in a way, just by having the knowledge. And then if you layer on the skills to manage that threat response in the brain and the understanding that everyone has it. Like, if we didn't have an amygdala, we would be dead, right? Like you, like you, you need it to stop you from stepping into traffic. You need it to keep you away from something that you know you can't get towards. Like we desperately need it. And at the same time, especially for kids who have either a trauma history or a predisposition towards anxiety or are living in a chronically stressful world, which many people are right now, that is the case.
And your amygdala is kind of like always looking for the next threat. It's not only really uncomfortable, but I do think it brings a certain amount of shame, especially if the adult, if some adults may be outside the house in school or other kids don't understand that science. So my hope is that starting with the child and an adult that can read the book, maybe with the child at first, there's a conversation around like, so I as your adult mom also have an amygdala. Remember when I yelled at you the other day because I asked so many times and you didn't turn off the iPad, and then I looked angry at you. I wasn't angry, I was afraid. At first, what you saw was anger, but what I actually initially was the real threat is, I love you so much. I don't want you to spend so much time on something that I, where I'm not really sure what it's going to do to your brain. Like every fight I've ever talked about with parents starts with a threat. And then it's about peeling back the layers of the onion or whatever analogy you want to use to the nugget in the center, which is like love, which is then causes a feeling of fear because it's a Action against another threat and it looks like anger to your child, and then your child's like, why is my mom always so angry?
Laura: Yeah, yeah, and at the root of that just to hold it up to the light, what you're saying is that human beings are wired for connection and are one of our deepest threats. I disconnected, right? And so, when at, like, whenever that threat comes up, our brains are wired to, to send off signals. And that I think that that's one of the reasons why shame is such a prevalent emotion that wells up within us is because historically and evolutionarily, that feeling would have kept us connected and planted in our communities. It would prevent us from doing the, you know, that thing again, that risks our connection, risks our survival, you know, and I, you know, it's, I think it's interesting to think about it that way cause I think we worry a lot, I think a lot of parents worry like, I don't want to shame my kids. And at the same time, they will. They will experience shame. Shame is a natural human emotion that wells up within us sometimes. Yes, there are things that we can do to evoke that feeling in others, but I also think it happens sometimes too, just just wells up within us.
Anna: It does, and I agree that it's protective in some ways. When I, when I'm working with kids who experience a lot of shame or who are being shamed by their parents directly or by someone else in their life, I always borrow from the Berne Brown approach of like regret and shame because Like I agree that shame has a protective factor and we need to feel that feeling. But if you sit with it for too long, to your point, it derails your life and it makes you, it basically paralyzes you because you get stuck in what I would guess I would call like the freeze, right? So what I try to get kids to track back to is like the shame statement would be I'm a bad person. Everything about me is bad. And you get into these generalized statements where we know we're thinking in a more catastrophic sort of a way.
If you could identify the one thing you said to your friend or the one mistake you think you made, and you feel the regret of that, there's an action. Shame has no action. Movement forward because shame is a state of being. When you regret something. You can act on it, and as we know about anxiety, generally, action steps like a to do versus a what if. Moves you in the direction of reducing whatever that shame state is that the feelings that are coming up and flooding you with that, those sensations physiologically, and that isn't good for your physical or mental health over time. So I try to track back to something that you can act on.
Laura: I really love that suggestion and making it so much more specific and tracking, tracking back to that action. I really, really like that. So just to kind of reiterate that for the listeners. So if your kid is coming to you from a place of, you know, I'm a bad friend or I'm a bad student, helping them to kind of go back in time and think about like, is there something you did that you regret, something you said that you regret, something that you wish you could do differently? And being there, I really like that relationship between regret and shame, and helping a kid pull that apart. Oh, that's good.
Anna: It's good and remember all your parents out there, or grandparents or whomever you are, that it's a good thing to practice in yourself. Because there is no parent in the world that hasn't experienced shame at some point about something that they did or said and wish they hadn't done. And so when I'm working with parents, I'll say the same thing, like, let's model this and practice what we're asking our child to do. If you lost your temper and screamed at your child in front of her friends. And you're waking up every night at 4 in the morning with shame. What can we do? We don't have to sit in that sleep-deprived, shame-based state. It's never too late. I told my parents. You could talk about something that happened a year ago. What would that sound like? So it's because it's still that idea of rupture and repair. So you can come back to your child and say, this is gonna sound really funny because I'm gonna talk about something that happened last summer, you know, if it's like, right now it's all of 20ish. I don't know when this is going to come out. It's 2024.
Let's say something happened last year in 20 and you're still feeling that. You just go to the child and say, remember when I was yelling at you in front of your friends and you cried and I was so angry. I've been thinking so much about it ever since and I realized I never really recognized the part of that that was my part, like the part of that that I regret. And the part that I regret is that I wish I had pulled you aside like the next day, or I needed to tell you why I was feeling angry, but I didn't have to do it in that way. And what happened in my brain is that my threat response came up, and I only had 3 options because I was in threat mode and I could fight, freeze or run away. And my brain went to fight, and I yelled at you. But earlier that day, I had waited in traffic all day long. I came home and everything was a mess. My boss said some things that hurt my feelings. And so when I came to that point with you, it was like a volcano, and I just said those things, and I regret doing that, and I'm apologizing, apologizing for that now.
Laura: Oh, beautiful modeling. Thank you.
Anna: And the child doesn't, hey. Thanks, mom.
Laura: I feel like most kids are gonna be like. Okay, thanks.
Anna: I didn't even think about that. I mean, ideally, the child hasn't thought about it, but it's still in there somewhere. And when you bring it out, it's important to just bring it into the light and talk about it, I think.
Laura: Oh, it's such good modeling for the kids, such good repairing, like, even modeling, like, gosh, things that we can regret. We don't have to be tortured about them for, you know, the rest of our lives. We can actually go back and repair those things. And I will tell you, like, I've had a reaction like that with my mom. On a couple, about a couple different points in our relationship from when I was a child, where she has said those things. You know, this happened 20 years ago, you know, 30 years ago, and I still think about it sometimes. And I, and I regret it, you know. And 30 years later, still, still impactful, still wonderful to hear, still repairing. And I know how lucky I am to have a mom who will do that with me. Gosh, wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have to wait 30 years, you know? But still, yeah, so we can.
Anna: It takes a lot of vulnerability, right? So part of this is about strength and vulnerability. And the reason I wanted to bring what's happening in the brain out into the illustrations and really help kids understand early in their life is that if you are in threat response mode. You're not really acting the way you want to act anyway, right? Like, so if you're in threat response mode and you can say it later on, like, I want you to understand that what was happening in my brain is that I, I love you so much. I was feeling threatened by X Y Z. It threatened our connection, which is we're wired for these two, you wouldn't necessarily have to go into all of this because you and I are talking about it now, and our listeners, because we're wired, we're wired to survive primarily, right? And in order to survive, we have to connect because human infants, unlike other species, are not born ready to take off into the world and we have this protracted developmental phase that we call like childhood and adolescence, right? And then we also stay very close to our family, hopefully forever, you know, for our lives.
Because of these two things, survival and connection. They're both incredibly important, but they get, the reason they get pulled apart is because sometimes we make mistakes, because our brains can make mistakes. We mistake that person we're connected to as a threat. And so I'll say this, so the parent could say to the child, my brain was thinking you were a lion. Isn't that ridiculous? Like, I actually was so, I felt so threatened by what was happening that I got so angry and was yelling, or I left and went all the way and had to separate myself cause I needed that time first. I felt like I was gonna say something I didn't want to say, so I needed to take a break and come back. But I'm here for you now, and this is what was happening in my brain. I wanted, I wanted everyone to have the science, a little bit to explain some of what sometimes it's just so hard to explain. And It is what happens like when a child and a parent that are so loving and so connected are fighting back and forth. It's basically like each of their brains. If you could do an FMRI at the same time, like, like somehow project it onto a screen someday. So we'd be able to see what's happening in someone else's brain, each brain mistaking the other person for a lion. It is a threat to their safety. And there's no listening. Because sometimes you can't even access the language so it's, it's surviving at that point and you're trying to survive against your 5-year-old, right? Right, like when your brain actually mistakes that child for an actual threat, right.
Laura: Whatever the child is doing or not doing, right? I think some of the threats I hear most from parents is that You know, if my kid doesn't learn to listen to me, they won't be a good, you know, member of society, you know, like the, you know, just even like just big, big worries like going down the road worries, but once, so I, I feel like I'm, I, you just highlighted kind of two ways this understanding is really helpful. One for your own self, your own experience of an understanding. What's going on in you when you get triggered, when your, you know, fight or flight system gets activated, when you're in threat mode, being able to communicate that to your child around about yourself, I think that We, you're also the one of your goals that you've talked about in your book is so that they you can communicate with the child and teach this to the child, so they can have more self-understanding.
But I think that there's also this piece of like understanding that when your child's in threat mode, this is what's happening, and I think that it's so helpful for parents to understand, and I wanted to ask you, are there, are there specific you know, not specific, but like kind of general categories of of behavior of challenging behaviors or, you know, occurrences that you hear about in your practice or from parents that let you, that you think immediately, oh, that child's in threat mode, that most of the time parents think like this kid is doing this on purpose, this kid is defiant, this kid is, you know, just about like being bad, and and and what those kind of big buckets are, like that was a weird question, but do you know what I mean?
Anna: No, I. Yes, I think the biggest misperception about threat, fear and anxiety is that it looks like cowering. Like, I think the biggest thing to understand is that, like, some kids, when they look anxious, they look anxious. And what I mean by that is that it's the child that like doesn't talk all day in preschool and could fly under because there aren't causing big disruptions, but they're not engaging because they're like, Sitting and looking around and feeling like I'm a mouse and there's hawks all around that are about to attack me, so I'm not gonna raise my hand in circle. I'm not gonna play with anyone on the playground, like, so that's very easy to empathize with in a way because it looks like anxiety and it is anxiety. The biggest bucket I see that gets misunderstood and where kids feel shame is obviously when their anxiety and their feeling of being threatened manifests in a behavior, which is how we see the need. There's a need, and the need looks like a behavior and the behavior is what we see. And that behavior is pushing another kid on the playground, leaving and eloping from the school and running away, which is more of that, that, that, um, flea response when there's only 3.
And that looks defiant. You left the playground. You know you're not allowed to play you know. Well, you know better than that. We have a rule. I'm calling the police now because you left the school property. I absolutely have to call your parents. This is so that the automatic reaction isn't typically with that to see, oh, I wonder what they were fearful about. It's more like, how do we correct the behavior? And so it's nuanced and complicated and at home that can look like, like we said earlier, one child for some reason tends to be the one that is escalating and acting out in anger and throwing things. They typically end up in more timeouts, more removal from the rest of the family, etc. which in that moment might be what has to happen. But the question is, what was driving that behavior? And is there anything they might have been feeling fearful of or threatened by? It's important to find that deeper layer because if you only address the behavior, you're putting a band-aid on the problem and it will probably come off, the band-aid is gonna come off and there's gonna be another. Over and over again, yeah.
Laura: Okay, so it might be really helpful for the listener then to be thinking about what are some of the circumstances in my home on a regular basis where my kiddo is getting really dysregulated, or where I'm being faced with some challenging behavior and what's going on under that behavior. What are some of the possible threats that they might be experiencing that are throwing them into threat mode. What, you know, what might be going on under the surface? Do you, for kids, are there, are there kinds of categories of kind of common perceived threats that they mistake, like, you know, like a perceived threat to autonomy or, you know, are there, are there kind of specific ones that parents could be on the out, like the lookout for?
Anna: Yeah, let's stay within Florida. So this book is designed for, because I would say yes, but then it would depend on what age group we're talking about. So I would like, yeah, so like, so my area of expertise is sort of like 3 or 4 to about 12, which now my daughters are actually outside. I work with younger people. It’s much harder when you have young kids and you're working with young kids. I'm sure that many listeners will have had that experience and maybe you have to.Okay, so, yeah, so for, so the book is for 4 to 8-year-olds, but I've even read it with kids in my practice as old as 12. So let's talk about, like, if, if you're talking about early childhood. Typically, I see a combination. If you have to, if the child is escalating like every day, and it's always at the start of the day getting to school, or it's always right before bed, which are those two common times. Often it's a combination of things, like we talk about a whole puzzle that we're looking at, right? First, I look at relationship-based patterns of behavior, and this would be like a psychological response to a pattern of behavior that's happening.
So, let's say every time that you go to leave the child's bedroom to tuck them in, they are escalating and having all these behaviors. There's probably an anxiety component to that about either separation from you or something about being alone in their bed and that's not necessarily a separation from a specific parent, but just doesn't want to be alone at all. And if you like, go back a little bit under the surface and try in a calm time, not right when you're in the moment.
I am trained in the space intervention from the Yale Child Study Center with Ellie Leibowitz, and this is about managing OCD and anxiety and kids, but with the parent work and his phrase that I always use is like strike when the iron is cold. You're cause you're not gonna go like a moth to the flame into this, right? So this is all like, when you're in calm moments when you can both not be in threat response mode and you're talking. What's going on at night when I like, I'm wondering if you have any ideas about what's happening in your brain and body when It's bedtime and you start to like run around in circles and bump into your siblings and start to get all looks like to me like anger, but I don't know if that's what it is. Can you help me understand what's happening? And try to peel back what's happening.
And then try to address that proactively by putting in place some self-re some co-regulation like let's do some calming things together before we even go into the bedroom and it's bedtime and what like what do you need from me and how can I help you without accommodating your anxiety. The other thing to pay attention to is sensory integration and processing challenges, because a lot of times kids that have anxiety and who tend to escalate are also managing an imbalance in how their brain is processing heat and cold, like temperature, too much sound. People. And so for that, I recommend consulting with school and looking for OT support if you start to see that you think it's a combination.
Because what we know about the threat response is that for a child who is not, whose brain is not integrating and processing sensory stimuli effectively, sometimes that in the brain goes straight from sensation to amygdala. That. In threat response before you even have a chance to understand like any thought, any cortex-based understanding of why you might be overwhelmed. But the combination of a little bit of attention challenge, maybe anxiety and sensory integration challenge, I see a lot in my practice with young children. And to look at that effectively, the parent can't do it alone. Your job is to connect and try to help and peel back what's going on, and then you need your village. You need your support system of, you need a team of your pediatrician, your a therapist for the child, and maybe some parent guidance, and then some OT support and possibly at least an eval. And then ask the teachers. I want to know what's happening with my child when he's in your class, or she's in your class or they're in your class, because At home, I'm seeing this.
If you have a child that all day long is not showing any of the dysregulation that you're thinking about that you see it, then you need to look at what's happening in the relationship and in the behaviors in the family system and and specifically with the adults, because it's possible that if you changed something, we don't know what it is yet, I have to talk to the person. If you change something about how you are responding and what your own threat response is. You could do circular pattern behavior just by changing something in your own threat that's being driven by your own threat response and that takes some Reflection. So it's both reflecting, it's watching, and it's looking for who your support team is gonna be once you kind of start to identify with some curiosity.
Laura: Yeah. One thing I would just add to those families who have these kiddos who are, you know, perfect angels at school, you know, they, they are, there's no issues at school and only at home. We often assume that that means that things are going well at school, and that isn't necessarily the case. It also could be that the child is using up their capacity at school, and some accommodations at school might actually help them have more capacity for at home too. And so that, that is something that just, you know, like I always think about my, my oldest daughter, who we found out much later that she's autistic, but has always had some sensory stuff. And we found out right after, things shut down during the pandemic. So when she came home from school, I mean, she was coming home and having a really hard time. Lots of after school restraint, fatigue and everything. And that all stopped when she stopped going to school during the pandemic.
And then we were able, like when she had been out of school for a couple weeks, we were able, she was in first grade. We were able to get some information out from her, and she just, she had a constant headache all day long from the lights, from the, from the sound of the fluorescent lights, not even just the visual lights, but the sound from the fluorescent lights, which apparently is really grating for her. And I just can't even imagine having a migraine every day, not having the capacity, like the, the language to talk about that with someone, you know. And then coming home and having more expectations placed on you, being dysregulated, you know, it just, you know, and like this is, this is my job. Like I, you know, I, I just have so much compassion for so many families, you know, this is, I talked to parents and families about this type of stuff all the time. And I still needed something like a pandemic and a complete school shutdown in order to see it in my own kid. You know what I mean? We can be so hard on ourselves and, and I don't know, yeah.
Anna: Yeah, I agree. I 100% agree, and I think that's why some kids really fly under the radar because they can have a really good ability to cope. It basically, for the duration of the school day, right? They're just holding it together. And then they come in the door and you see this meltdown. And I still think it's so important to share that with the school, because maybe they could look for and just, I mean, you put a spotlight on something, you're going to see it. So I don't mean like trying to find something that's not there, but like, Basically just being curious and aware because a lot of times in classrooms, as we know, the kids that are externalizing get the attention. And the internalizing kids that are, what I mean by that is like you're managing, you're managing something and it's really hard and you're dealing with a lot of big feelings, but you're doing it in a way that's about inward action.
Laura: That's not actually worth it.
Anna: It's not regulating, it's just holding instead of exploding. But either way, at some point, you know, I use the analogy of like, are you opening the soda bottle slowly if it's been shaken up and you gradually learn how to release and release and release. But if you just have a shaken up soda bottle and you crack it right open, when you, it's just gonna get the, you know, you're gonna get the huge explosion. So what we want is gradual release and, and that takes First adults working together to understand all the factors like you talked about that what's what's in, what are the needs that are in that child. These are the behaviors we're seeing, and this is like a team approach to managing how to help. And to get back to our original point about shame and vulnerability, that takes the parent not being in survival mode. Because if you're in survival mode, you're always just going to be looking at the behavior that's right in front of your face. And you're, and you're always gonna be feeling all you can do is, fight, freeze or run from it. Yeah.
Laura: Oh, gosh, it's so hard. So hard. It's very complicated. It is. But it, but at the same time, there's pieces of it that are straightforward and simple. So I was just thinking about the example you were giving about kind of reflecting outside of the moment with your child on what could be going on for them at bedtime. And that's actually something that I think like, if I were to be having a conversation like this with my kids are a little bit older, but I would have loved to have had your book, during specific times, particularly with my one child who's like open, like more open to reading, kind of like psychoeducational material with me. She actually really likes learning about her brain and her parts and, and all the stuff that's going on in there for her. But I, I think that this book would have been really helpful, and would be really helpful for parents just to get that conversation going around. Like, I have an idea of what might be going on in those moments. Why don't we like to check this out?
We'll read the book, we'll have. Shared language. And then in your book, you have kind of some, I don't know, it's like kind of invitations to start thinking about, like, where you feel things in your body. What helps you feel more calm. And I think having those conversations around, like, In those moments when you're, you know, you start to get activated, that threat mode starts to kind of come online for you, what helps you, and it's lovely to have something to, to guide you through those conversations. So what are some of the favs your favorite Like, kids are so brilliant, right? Kids have amazing ideas for what helps them calm down. I think that they know themselves so well. You have some really good examples in here, that are maybe a little bit more common, but I feel really curious about, like, do you have some favorite things that kids you've worked with have come up with that help them soothe themselves or kind of feel safe again.
Anna: Yes, definitely. And my hope is that just to come back to the, like the use of the book, my hope is that there was enough story. Like, my hope is that there's enough of a story that it sits alone as a picture book. My hope is that you might read this book. Like, you could sit with a child and read it who has no clear need. To regulate their amygdala, like, it's just informational the same way you would read about how you're, how like, I don't know, like I don't know like I like the very Hungry Caterpillar. I mean that's a classic. I don't even want or even just like our body parts like body parts books like we were or just like like. Like the, like the caterpillar is eating along the way and eating all these healthy foods-ish, but it's not like teaching about digestion. That's the best way I could think about it. It's like the story, you care about the amygdala because the amygdala is this deep character that is both fantastic and flawed, right? Like, and asking for your help. And so you're helping the amygdala to train to be trained and The amygdala looks at you as the reader, straight to the reader and says, like, I need your help. Can you help me? And then goes on to teach controlled breathing, progressive muscle relaxation and visual imagery, which is just a fancy way to say, imagining a different reality and feeling different because of that change in thought.
So I just wanted to say that my hope is that like, it doesn't have to be, hey, I think we need to talk about your amygdala, and I want you to read this book with Which is probably gonna backfire, more like, you just have it out and it's like, hey, I got this new picture book, let's read it before you're falling asleep tonight. And there's a funny kitten in it because it's a kitten delivering the large cheese pizza that the amygdala actually mistakes for a very threatening monster or something. And then you can look for the kitten on every page after that. Just a smart idea from my editor, Cassie. This is an adorable little kit. Oh, there it is on this page and it stepped in the paint. And do you see what I mean? Like I think if it was just like sharing a story together and then hopefully also, you're basically teaching mindfulness. As far as like, and I totally agree that it needs to be the right co-regulation strategy or self-regulation strategy for the specific child. So I just modeled some basic preliminary. Strategies that adults might find helpful when they're stuck in traffic, stuck in line in a conversation they don't want to have. Some of the things, so I work with kids that really do not do well with slow relaxed breathing because it's actually somehow it triggers them in that moment. It makes it harder or soft like that and it's about.
So I had a kid that came up with a type of breath called lobster breathing, which is like. You have your hands like pincers, like if you're gonna pretend to be a puppet or something like this, and you take a huge, like really deep, forceful breath in, like, and then you go and you're like forcing it all out really, really quickly because she did not like elevator breathing, which is that's one of which is like a diaphragmatic breath where you're starting down low and breathing all the way. Calming the brain did not work for her. What does? The question is basically like. You don't like to breathe like this, and we know that you need to keep breathing and that holding your breath or breathing up in the top of your chest is going to increase anxiety, cause your brain now thinks you are being chased by a lion, cause why would you be trying to get so much oxygen and breathing up in the top part of your chest. We need to teach your amygdala that this is not an emergency. So, how do you like to breathe? I like lobster breath, you, like they come up with or. One of the breathing strategies that is in the back of the book is dragon breath, which is like forcing all the hot air out. Like, imagine that you were blowing fire because you were so angry at first. So take a deep breath in and then blow fire out.
You're still taking a deep breath, but it works better for a child that really needs to get out something before they're gonna be able to do anything. I think it's important to recognize some people might like to have their hair played with. Maybe you enjoy having it put into your hair and that's calming to your amygdala. Maybe lying on your back and looking up at the sky. Maybe, I mean, I have a lot of kids in my practice that just like to start by playing a basic game. Like a game that doesn't have anything to do with their worry or their fear, but it just is about being good at something and having mastery and controlling that.
Laura: And getting up into the, like the more logical part of the brain, right? Like, you know, getting up into the upper level of the brain, that's beautiful.
Anna: Yeah. So it's really about, I honestly think that anything that works, if, if it's a, so there's maladaptive coping strategies and adaptive coping strategies. So an adaptive coping strategy is anything that is healthy for the brain and body, or at least not harmful, that soothes the amygdala and the threat response, and that is something that you can access either in co-regulation at first, like practicing with another, with an adult and then being able to do on yourself. Obviously, like a maladaptive coping strategy would be to can't be using any substance or like be like taking out what's threatening to you against someone else and being like aggressive to a dog or to like yeah, and those are the things we have to try to, you know, replace with other coping strategies that are more adaptive. But anything adaptive, I think is fantastic and I really like it when it comes to your point.
I really like when it comes from kids because then it is there's agency there and a sense of control of what it was. So typically I start with these are some ideas that we can do together, but I want to hear which of these you like, and also if there's something that you also prefer to do, then let me know what it is and we'll. Build on that and practice it together, and no matter what the goal is that you are recognizing the physiological response in your body when we know your amygdala is in threat response mode, and once you know that, what can you do that is in your control. To calm it down before you that you wish you hadn't done, and that's for the adult and the child.
Laura: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I, I agree that it's so good to have a starting place, but then Letting your kids make it their own, helping them or using your knowledge of them too, around the things that they like, like, so some of the favorite activities that we have for my kids, and I don't even know that they, they know that that's what we're doing in those moments. One is to play keepy Yuppie with a balloon, but they've got to fill up the balloon first, which involves deep breathing and stuff. And then you can play keep yuppie and it's fun and connecting and all of those. So keeping a yuppie is great, but the kid has to work on filling up the balloon. And another one, so sometimes for one of my kids, Hunger. They don't have a lot of ability to perceive their internal state. And so sometimes they're over hungry and so they need to eat something to get back to being regulated. And so, yeah, putting some whole milk in a glass and then having a straw, and having them fill it up with bubbles and then drink a little bit and fill it up with bubbles again really helps with them too. And that, again, like it's a breathing exercise and it's getting some food in, Yeah, I think it's fun that we can be so creative and make these things so individualized for our kids.
Anna: Definitely one of my favorite things to do, I just just brought me right back to my childhood because my mom had these bendy straws with the twisty straws, yeah, yeah, the twisty straw, but with bubbles in the milk with the twisty straw. So fun. And I wouldn't have known it at the time, but it was clearly regulated, you know, like I sometimes basically, if you are in play, so this is a super important message for parents. When kids are engaged in what I call self-directed play, which is play that is like of their own, they come up with the idea for what they're doing and they're making up their own rules. So they pretend to play, they're doing whatever it is, or they're like outside with a ball, but not necessarily playing on a soccer team, but just making up the rules. The neurons are what's happening neurologically. Is that their brain can't be in threat response mode. It has relaxed, the amygdala is relaxed because if we were surviving in the wild and there was a lion charging at us, would we play?
We'd get out of there. You'd be fighting, yeah, running away or freezing in place cause your brain is trying to decide if it's gonna run or if it's gonna fight. So by the nature of what it is, it is protective and therapeutic because it is basically teaching the amygdala. Excuse me, but there's no chance we could be in danger right now because we wouldn't just be sitting around looking here. We would be hyper vigilant and looking around and trying to check everything out. So in the same way that a deep breath is regulating, just playing, just having that opportunity to engage, whether it's with milk bubbles or toys or whatever it is, it can, it is extremely regulating. And sometimes it's as much as a parent sitting down next to them and trying to just do the same thing. Even if you're not talking, you're and showing that you're also calm and playing too can be regulating, then you're co-regulating, then it's then it's so.
Laura: Legos or magna tiles next to each other or even just coloring.
Anna: Yeah, and just being there, like you, it's just being together playing regulates both people's brains.
Laura: Yeah. Oh gosh. I don't know if you know about this podcast, but we love to play around here. We talk about play all the time like. We've had several like in-depth play series, and, but I, we haven't talked about it from a place of healing and regulating the nervous system. So I'm really excited you brought that last piece about play. That's so fun.
Anna: Talk about it at any time, at any length.
Laura: I'm such a nerd about playing too, so good. Well, Anna, I really appreciated this conversation. I had a lot of fun getting to know you and getting to talk about your lovely book. I wanna make sure that the listener gets to find out where you are, where they can learn more from you and, alongside you, and where they can get your book.
Anna: So How To Train Your Amygdala is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, but also ask because it's normally anywhere books are sold, and I really like to support independent locally owned bookstores.
Laura: And most will order a book for you if you ask for it.
Anna: Exactly. If you go in and ask and they don't have it, they typically will probably have the connection to the publisher, which is teacher-created materials and Free Spirit publishing. So ask, and if they don't have it, they could get it. And also you can ask at your library because I know a lot of libraries are now carrying it in different places in the US as well. And I was talking about this earlier with you, but I'm really excited that there's gonna be this kit available from Lakeshore Learning that has the book, plus some tips for teachers and for parents and some products that you can use to do some of the strategies. So if you're interested in that, that's on the Lakeshore Learning website, how to train your Amygdala calming kit. And I am at annahousleyjuster.com, where you could reach out and learn more about me, but also email if you want to reach out and connect. I would love to hear from you.
Laura: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Anna. It's been just lovely to talk with you and learn with you. I'm so grateful for this opportunity. Talking to you was super fun and I learned also in the conversation, which is fantastic.
Anna: So thank you so much for having me.
Laura: Absolutely.
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.
And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out um and definitely go follow me on Instagram. I'm @laurafroyenphd. That's where you can get behind the scenes. Look at what balanced, conscious parenting looks like in action with my family and plus I share a lot of other, really great resources there too.
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!