LAURA-2017(25of35).jpg — The Balanced Parent

*Perfection not required

Welcome to the home of The Balanced Parent Podcast!

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 each and every day to keep ourselves 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 open-hearted authenticity and balance. Let’s go!

November 22, 2022

Episode 145: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life with Stef Tousignant

November 22, 2022/ Laura Froyen

This is a time of year where we are meant to reflect with gratitude on all that we have, and I just want to express how grateful I am for this beautiful community! And as a token of appreciation, every year for my birthday I put all of my courses & programs (and this year coaching) on sale for the week, STARTING NOW!

Check out my Birthday Sale here !

In keeping with the theme of gratitude, this week's episode digs into how consciously and intentionally cultivating gratitude can make parenting easier, lighter, and more enjoyable. To help me in the conversation on gratitude, I have brought in Stef Tousignant, a parenting expert and gratitude nerd.

Here's a summary of our conversation:

Gratitude, what it is & why cultivating it matters
How do you stay grateful despite being stressed or burnt out
How gratitude can help you become a better parent

If you wish to learn more from Stef, you can check out her works on parentingwithgratitude.com and visit her on Instagram @parent_differently .

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 Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast we're going to dive deep into gratitude and how we can use gratitude practices to help us become more conscious and fully healed parents. To help me with this conversation and I'm welcoming in a colleague who I'm so excited to meet and share with you today, Stef Tousignant. Did I get your name right? Yes?

Stef: Yes, totally.

Laura: Okay, Stef, welcome to The Balanced Parent, we're so happy you're here with us. Will you please tell me a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Stef: Sure, so kind of you to have me. So I am Steph and I have two kids. They are 10 and 14 and I live in Northern California. I am actually a professional nanny and caregiver of 20 plus years. So I've been caring for children for a lot of my life, more than half. I also have the oldest of five kids and I come from a family who we actually owned child cares and so from a very young age, I was always around kids, even if they weren't my siblings, which they were generally, I was always caring for children. And I went through the process of becoming a certified teacher in Massachusetts when I was like 16, very early taking college classes and doing the child development, child psych. All the requirements that are necessary to be a good child care teacher.

And then I worked every single job, every single one of them. I've done school age, I've done preschool, I've done younger toddlers, older toddlers, babies, very new babies, everything. And it was a joy actually because I found out that I actually am a very empathetic caregiver. And that could be because I'm the oldest of five and I came from a very chaotic household and things were very stressful a lot of the time and I had to kind of walk carefully from time to time. But also I think I was just born that way too. And so caring for these children that weren't mine was always easy and I really enjoyed it.

And I came to discover that what really happened was I would care for people's children and then they would come to me and they would ask me all these questions. And even when I was a nanny, the parents were so interested in what I knew. And what I knew about child development, but also what I knew about their child and always so worried. And I'm sure you get this a lot where we're normalizing everything, right? Oh, that's normal. That's typical. That's totally okay. Oh, you gave your two year old ice cream this weekend and you feel bad, that's fine. Do you consider it a mistake? No. Okay then, you know, let's roll with it. And so I learned how to support parents and be a cheerleader.

Laura: All before you were even a parent yourself?

Stef: All before I was even a parent. This was like high school and college.

Laura: Yeah, I can feel a lot of folks, you know, listening thinking like where was a caregiver like this for me? When my babies were little, we were lucky enough to have some college nannies when my babies were little. And I had to do all the training for them. What a gift to be able to have some, a caregiver who knows so much about child development and can be that source of information and support.

Stef: It was. And I felt really like it wasn't even that big of a deal, like it was kind of like I wanted to help. And that's my, you know, that's been my goal, my whole life is to help parents. My mother was the mother of five children and she was always stressed. She had five child cares, she was running a business we had. I mean my, I'm the oldest and my youngest sibling is 10 years younger than me, so we had every age and stage in our house and it was just crazy. And so the need to help came at a young age, and so talking to parents and helping them realize that they were doing an amazing job already really was fulfilling for me. And it really made me feel like I was making a difference.

And so that was through college and then we moved to San Francisco, my husband and I. And I started nannying in San Francisco and I nanny for many years and about a couple of years into nannying, I had my first child. And as you said, I was one of those nannies that you don't want to lose. And so I got to bring my kids to work. And it was a beautiful experience because the children I typically cared for were single, like solo children and their parents were thinking about having another kid and they really wanted to like see how it would go, you know? And for me, I knew the benefits of my child being around other children growing up in childcare and so it was really great, but at the same time it was really, really apparent to me. The difference is in how I parented versus caregive.

Laura: Yeah, stuff I was gonna ask you about that because you know, so I was a longtime babysitter, loved kids. I did, you know, as a grad student, I did research on kids, love spending time with kids. and I was very surprised as I transitioned into motherhood, how different it felt to spend time with my own child. And I thought about this a lot about why it's so different? You know, because I thought, you know, I grew up always wanting to be a little mommy. Like, I mean there's pictures of me when I was three holding my one year old cousin because I was so obsessed with babies, you know? And then, I never expected in a million years that transition into motherhood would be hard for me. I always thought it would be easy and breezy that it would be natural. Was it the same for you?

Stef: Yes.

Laura: Yeah. Tell me about it.

Stef: It was a nightmare to be honest. I mean, they always tell you that that parenthood kind of makes you grow as a human and I didn't really understand that until yeah, I was, I had even a newborn and I was just like, no, I was supposed to know how to do this. I'm supposed to know.

Laura: It was a feel different about this. It was to be confident.

Stef: Oh my God. And it was just like all of that regular, like, I don't know for parents that don't have experience going into newborn hood must be like, wow, I know nothing. And this is like a mess. For me it was like, wow, I know everything and it's still a mess and now I feel so bad.

Laura: A failure.

Stef: I have this horrible mom guilt. I am like beating myself up every turn because I know better.

Laura: And knowing better, you know, we always hear that like once, you know better, you do better. But knowing better and doing better, like the knowing of the thing and the doing of the thing are totally separate processes right there. They're like, it's like a railroad track, right? Than, the knowing better is on one track and doing better is on another track and they don't necessarily always meet, you know? They're not, they're moving at different paces and…

Stef: And sometimes, the knowing better is actually really restrictive. It's sort of like, like the ??? what is right? It's sort of like, well, my baby should be sitting up. Like, I know, like I've seen other babies sit up at six months, right? That should be happening. And I'm like, why isn't it happening? And it's this funny thing where almost like when, you know more then it's like, you're like more worried.

Laura: Yeah, it restricts curiosity, right? So, if we are, you know, in that cultivating curiosity for your experience as a parent, for your experience and, like, witnessing your children is one of the most beautiful things you can do. Bringing that beginner's mind to your experience of parenthood and the experience of your child. But when, you know a lot that can really get in the way of beginner's mind, right?

Stef: Yes.

Laura: Yeah. I feel like nothing go ahead. So, no, I mean, I was just gonna say like, I feel like the other piece for me, I don't know if it's true for you, but in moving into parenthood, it was just so much easier to be fully present with another person's child because I was being paid for the most part to be present, fully present with a child. I wasn't being paid to do all the housework and managing the home, and my identity wasn't wrapped up in the outcome of this little being. My… Like, it was completely separate, right? I don't like that identity piece. I feel like it was really important for me. I don't know. What about for you?

Stef: Yeah, you know, you don't have the resentment of, wow, now I can't go to brunch, right?

Laura: Yeah.

Stef: Yeah. I mean..

Laura: There’s the days off…

Stef: Yeah. You get to go home at the end of the day and that really does help with maintaining your identity. And as a new parent, I was like, oh this is my entire world now and I'm gonna do it right because I was a type A. I was a perfectionist and I knew what I was doing and so I was gonna do it right. And so I went all in and…

Laura: How did it go for you?

Stef: Not well.

Laura: I can see on your face you're watching, can't see it, but I can see. It wasn't, I didn't go well.

Stef: I mean I definitely overdid it. And what's interesting is that reading all these like ages and stages books and all the child, like tips and tricks books out there really actually furthered my career, right? I had so much great information. In fact, like I started a blog on the side answering like parenting questions. But at home it just made me feel more like a failure because when they didn't work, I was like, what the heck is going on? Like I really like I'm trying, I'm trying and nothing's working.

Laura: And I should be able to do this.

Stef: Yes.

Laura: I would like to just pause for a moment and offer some compassion to younger stuff, just like, oh that new mom trying to figure it out. Having read all the things knowing all the things and it's still hard. Uh, just a little bit of compassion and just a little bit of like me too, like she's not alone. There's hundreds and thousands of us in that same position.

Stef: Yeah, it was really hard.

Laura: Yeah.

Stef: And so, I'm trying to decide where to go with the story, there's so many ways.

Laura: Most of the time in many of our stories, there's a point where it was enough is enough. The kind of that breaking point, the point where it stops now.

Stef: So I had been recruited to work at a startup in San Francisco because I have my child care experience. It was a startup that was helping moms open their own family, childcares in their home. And so in addition to nanny, in addition to parenting now, two children and I'm working this new job and I'm getting really, really stressed out. And if you caught my foreshadowing, it was very similar to how my mother used to live her life. But for me…

Laura: It's funny how we do that to ourselves, even when we recognize like it wasn't ideal, we still, it's what we knew and so it's what was comfortable as we seek, we seek what we know, right?

Stef: Me working in the childcare industries felt successful to me.

Laura: Yeah, that's what success looked like.

Stef: Yeah. That is, it's how they put us all through private school.

Laura: Yeah.

Stef: You know, my mom worked her butt off.

Laura: The hustle and the grind. Yeah.

Stef: Yes. And so I'm working for this startup and I'm doing all the things and let's be clear, I haven't had the conversation about the mental load or the invisible load with my husband yet. Okay, so the full load is on. And I'm not sleeping and my arm is starting to really hurt like really shooting pains down my left arm every day like throughout the day just shooting pains and I'm like this is really not normal for me. I don't know what's going on, I'm getting really really worried so I decided to splurge and get a masseuse. So I was like I'm gonna get a massage and I'm gonna see if that helps. And I was so blessed because the masseuse that I got was another mom and she worked on me and she was like Stef you need to breathe. And I'm like I am breathing and she was like no, no you are not breathing. You are tight and you are holding. You’re not breathing.

And I was like I don't know what you mean. Like I'm trying my best but I'm not, you know, I don't understand how to relax in a way you want me to and so at the end of the massage I felt a little bit better but not really. And she was like I really think that more than a massage, what you need is you need to go to yin yoga. And I was like interesting, what's that? And I was like I don't want to do exercise yoga and she was like no, no, no. Yin yoga is yoga in which you take a pose and you hold it for almost a minute and it's about almost meditating in that pose and I was like, oh, that's interesting. That feels more something I could do. And so I started going to yoga once a week and she was right. It was like this little like respite in the storm, I was just like, oh my God. I didn't even know that I could pause. Right? And breathe. Like..

And then on top of that, all of a sudden doing that, I realized all this, you know, crap underneath the surface was coming up and I was like, oh I'm sad and I'm really angry and I'm really resentful, and like all this stuff started coming up so much so that I was afraid of it. Like it was too much. And I was like, I need to get a therapist, I need to start talking about this. And this is when it's funny because it's like in the story, I always think that getting the masseuse was to choose myself moment. But really it was getting the therapist because that was the brave moment. That was the moment where I knew I was gonna have to walk into my vulnerability and had, and deal with stuff and it was scary. But I, the way I made it unscary was, I looked for a therapist that had a buddhist background because I thought if he, if that therapist meditates then at least we can start there. And I did and he was three blocks from my house.

Laura: It was meant to be.

Stef: It was totally meant to be. And meanwhile at home, I still had like, you know, a six and nine year old and it was just nuts. It was not good. It was yelling every day. I was full of …

Laura: You say you had the middle ages.

Stef: Yeah, at that point.

Laura: Yeah. My kids are nine and seven.

Stef: Okay, yeah.

Laura: You know, I'm in the thick of the middle and there's hardly anything out there. I feel like parents, for parents of the middles, there's so much for the littles and some for the teens in the middles.

Stef: Yeah, I find that’s true. I find that’s true for ten.

Laura: Yeah.Yeah.Ten. My nine year olds almost 10. And I feel like it just, they just get glossed over because they're not teens yet and they're not toddlers anymore.

Stef: It's true. It's a very different age…

Laura: But it still has its struggles.

Stef: Oh my God! Like me, if you decided to just grit your teeth and bear it through the first six years, then when you get to those middles, it's like, I don't know, I was like not well prepared to then have conversations that I needed to have with my children. I felt, like so much self doubt when I would sit down with them just to even talk about like, you know, it's time to like start brushing our teeth after lunch on the weekends. Something random. You know what I mean? And it's like they would just come at me because they like, because I was just, so this is gonna go badly. Right? So I totally get that. And so I worked with my therapist for a while and I also started to work on this side project that was journals. And these journals, I was like, I'm self reflecting now. I am a person who self reflects. And so I'm gonna make a journal in which I answer prompts and I self reflect, and I kind of, I added like, you know, three things I'm grateful for. Like it was just kind of a way for me to stay on track. Being a type A, I needed a system.

And so I started making these journals and like all my besties still have like there like data copies, you know, floating around their house. And I started to notice that I really enjoyed thinking about the things that made me grateful. Because it kind of took the spotlight off of the things that I had done wrong. And so every morning I would list a couple of things that I was grateful for and I was just like, oh yeah, oh yeah, I did that yesterday. I'm not like horrible. I'm not a bad mom. And it kind of reminded me that. And I did, I did that for a few years. I really kind of started adding to the list until I got to like 10 and I was doing 10 things I was grateful for every day. And then the pandemic hit. And I was like this first of all being type A, being someone who really values her alone time. All of a sudden my husband's home, my kids are home, everyone's in my space. I had gotten to a place where I was balanced, like balancing we should say right? And I was like, all right, I got, I've got my life together, I feel good and then they're all there.

Laura: I think probably, a lot of us had that experience…

Stef: Yes.

Laura: …of shifting and realigning that needed to happen.

Stef: Wow. And every day around 3 o’clock, I was crying on my bed. It was so overwhelming. It was just the worst. And I kept going because of course that's what you do as a mother you have to do. And I kept doing the journaling, and the journaling in that hard time was almost better. It was so interesting.

Laura: Can we talk for a second about, about gratitude? What like, what that word means to you? How do you define gratitude?

Stef: Sure. So when I look at gratitude, there's obviously, there's the traditional definition of the give and take right? The altruistic. Someone gave me something, I feel really good inside and I kind of want to give something back to you or the next person. I actually defined parental gratitude a little different. Because when you have kids, you're grateful just for them being there at all. Like just their presence alone.

Laura: Right. It's not a transactional relationship, right? So they don't aren't obligated in any way to give us anything back. I think a lot of us go into parenthood thinking like we're gonna get a lot out of the relationship with our kids and we are. we do, but we're not entitled to it. We're not entitled to their politeness or to their gratitude or appreciation, you know? But I think a lot of us feel entitled to those things. I think culture tells us to feel entitled to those things as parents. I do so much for you. You should be grateful to me. I don't spank you, my parents spank me, you should be grateful that I don't do that. I don't use time outs on you. You should be so grateful, you know, to me down the street, gets put in time out if you talk to me like that. You know like Yeah, yeah. I love, I love that. That it's kind of, there's no pressure for it to be transactional or bidirectional.

Stef: Not at all. I think that there is a level of awe that we add in and then there's this sacred connection that we have. And it's sort of like I'm not gonna feel bad about you in any way. Like this is… I made you, you're part of me. And so, and even if you haven't, it feels that way and so I really do look at it as mixed with awe.

Laura: Mixed with awe. Okay, so if you are a parent who's in that place of kind of parental burnout, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like they're doing everything wrong. Where do you start?

Stef: So I have a few different ways that I suggest to start. So the first one is obviously you make a list of 10 things every morning. But that's a lot.

Laura: Ten is a lot.

Stef: Not a toddler. We can talk about why do 10 in a minute, but if you have a toddler like and they jump on you in the morning and like that's your alarm, you're not gonna do a list of 10 things. So I say that you do the 3:33 pm alarm and that's when you just set the alarm on your phone for that time and then you list three good things. And you can do three things that are going well, three things that you're grateful for or you can do three things that make you a good mom. And I think we should do that during the podcast. So I think you should think about it, we can talk about it at the end and maybe the listener can think of three things that makes him a good mom too because once you do it, you'll see that your brain needs a little bit of exercise. And so it's really important to do that every day at least five days a week because it gets easier.

Laura: Yeah, let's talk about the brain because my audience loves getting out about the brain. So I mean one thing like you, you said like it needs exercise. So our brains are by definition efficient, they love to be efficient. They don't want to have to work extra hard for things. And so if we do things repeatedly, our brain will be like, okay, I guess we're doing this now and we'll just, they'll just keep doing it. What you look for is what you find and what you notice. They are driven by efficiency, they're beautiful and so helpful. The problem is that most of the time we have spent our lives training them to look for negative things. Look for, I mean if we're being positive about it, our brains, we kind of task our brain with, looking for opportunities to improve, right? If we're gonna frame that in a positive light, you know, and then our brains are scanning the environment of our daily lives for ways that we're failing right?

And what you're asking them folks to do with these 3:33 practice with where they write down three successes or three things that they're grateful for. Three things, you know, that they're doing well that day. You're asking them to refocus the brain and task the brain to be scanning. And if we give the job to the brain regularly. So the brain knows like, okay, every day I'm gonna have to find these things, it will start scanning your environment, your daily life for those things proactively. So that they're right there and ready, right? You know, I, I mean, I think the brain is flipping awesome. Yeah, all the time. They'll be looking to heal your brain in the background will be collecting them throughout the day because it knows it's going to be asked for it later, right? Brains are so cool.

Stef: And that's what I love about gratitude, is because what it's doing is a baby step before mindfulness, it's just noticing. So as parents were always so concerned about this idea of mindfulness, it sounds important, it sounds like well studied and it could be very beneficial. But I can't do that. I don't have time for that. I don't know how to incorporate into my life. And it's this very simple thing for me. It's like if you make a list and that's why I make a list of 10, it's because I sit down every morning and when I get to three I go, okay, well now what? I don't know. Now I have to. I force myself to look over my yesterday and I start at the beginning of the day and I work all the way through. And what's very interesting is I might have been focused really, really strongly on that one tantrum and target. But then I'll remember, oh my God, like my, my son came and he brought me a book and he sat down with me and we read it together and then he like said thank you. And can you imagine like forgetting that as a memory, you know what I mean? But then we always, we do.

Laura: We absolutely do.

Stef: How it works? And of course we feel like bad moms.

Laura: Right. Of course. Or even just like if we're so focused on this tantrum and target where we, our thoughts were focused on how are people perceiving me and what's happening? How do I get out of the situation? We don't even notice the grounding breath that we took before we abandon our cart and calmly scooped our kid up. You know, we don't even give ourselves credit for that. Like that intention to touch your child with soft hands that we did, right.? All we remember is wrestling them into their cursi, you know? Yeah, we don't give ourselves any credit for those moments. It's just like those little micro moments that are evidence of change and growth.

Stef: Yes. And that's why I always say that if you have a very like committed practice of gratitude, mom guilt becomes a lie. So I don't believe my mom guilt anymore because it's not true. Because I am a good mom. Even if my, even if I say to my husband tonight, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna read a book, can you please put the kids to bed? In the past in those very beginning years when it was just crazy, I would have felt so guilty for missing their bedtime for not being there for that moment. You know when they asked for me or what have you, I would have ended up saying forget it. I'm gonna put my book down, I'm gonna go in there and we'll do a family one, you know, a family bedtime. And that's cute and fine. But the feeling of guilt that is motivating me to go do that is not fine. That's not helping me in anyway.

Laura: And that’s not the energy you want to bring to your kids either.

Stef: No.

Laura: Or the motherhood you want to model for them.

Stef: Modeling. Exactly. And so now when I sit down with that book and my husband's putting my kids to bed and I hear her, she doesn't go away. Mom guilt, she doesn't go, she's there. I acknowledge it and I say I see you and I understand what you're trying to do, but it's not true. And you know why it's not true because I made my list today and I know I'm a good mom. and taking a break doesn't make me a bad mom and asking for help doesn't make me a bad mom. And so what you're saying to me is not true. It's a lie.

Laura: I love how, like, compassionate and assuming the best of that part that you are in my, one of my programs that I run all parenting from within, I teach about something called Internal Family Systems. Have you heard of that phrase? That type of, It's an approach to therapy but you can easily do it with yourself. And it's a lot about stepping into self leadership, understanding that all of the parts of us, the mom guilt part have a story, have a background and have good intentions for us. And so I love that you were talking that you're talking to your parts. It's so beautiful. What a beautiful practice acknowledging, Hey, I see you, I understand you are trying and the only way you know how to help me and you can trust me to be your leader. You can, I've got you right here. I know you're afraid. I know you're worried because I know motherhood is so important to us and I'm actually in taking this time for myself, I'm actually being quite a good mother right now.

You know, you got ideas about what a good mother does that weren't true. You learned what it takes to be a good mother, watching our family growing up and I want to be a good mother in a different way. You know? Just so much compassion and love. I think I feel like I, I don't know about you, but I see so many things out on like Tiktok and instagram where people talk pretty harshly to their inner critics pretty, like pretty harshly to those negative voices in our heads. And I just think it's counterproductive. I think we have to meet those critical parts with so much grace and compassion. Understanding they're doing the very best they know how. They're trying to enact change and the best way that they can. You know?

Stef: And a lot of the times they're just protectors.

Laura: They're just protectors. They're just trying to figure out how can we keep this system safe. How can we keep this, this person loved and connected and okay. Yeah.

Stef: And that's what the negativity bias does for us too. Right? That needing to always learn from our mistakes and really keeping them front and center. And so we train our brain to notice the good by doing these kind of everyday practices and picking what works for you is going to be the best method because you're gonna stick with it. And so I do the list in the morning. Maybe someone will do the 3:33 in the afternoon. Another one that we do as a family is we list three things we're grateful for every morning. And so you can do that with a toddler, you can ask them and you can write it on a white board or a little post it you put on the wall. My kids do it independently at this point. It's part of their morning list. And then they just, they write their three pieces of gratitude and I do request no repeat. Because I like to make it a little hard for them. But they do it, they do it every week and I don't criticize it. I don't really look, you know, I look at it from time to time, but I don't really mind if they are silly about it. Sometimes they're eight socks. You know, it's not the point, the point vocabulary of gratitude in our life.

Laura: And the brain practice.

Stef: Yes, in the brain.

Laura: We have a gratitude journal that we do at dinner time that I've so it's just like it's a perpetual journal. It doesn't, you know, it doesn't have any dates on it and so, and it's, you know, it's nice and thick and we don't do it every night, you know, because life happens. And we've never required any kid to participate because there's, I have two spirited kids who like the more you want them to do something, the less likely they are to do it, you know, and so we have to be unattached to the outcome sometimes. Sometimes it's just me and my husband participating in it, but we've kept it since I was pregnant with my second and they're, you know, they're seven and nine, almost 10 now. And so we have their whole childhood worth of gratitude in like one little book.

And so I mean like we have like my youngest when she was six months old signing that she was grateful for water, you know, like doing the, like the water sign. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I just like, and it's just sometimes I just sit down and read in. So normally when we get it out and do it, we also go back to that date in the previous years and read. you know, like when my oldest was potty training, she was grateful for poop, like pooping in the potty pretty much every day, you know, a big fixture in her life at that point in time. It's just, it's I don't know, it's so lovely and I know as I say this and described this practice and as you were describing your practice with your, your teen and preteen because your your son is for your oldest is 14. I don't know if it's their son or daughter. Yeah, both boys.

I know that somebody will be listening and be like, they will take this on as this is the right way to do things. This is the good way to do things. And it will be another thing that if they aren't doing it, that means they're failing and and I just want to just acknowledge that that process might be happening in the ears and in the heads of some of our listeners right now as they're hearing this. And that at this moment in time we can like put a hand on our hearts and be kind to ourselves and actively choose something different. Like we're not gonna take on this gratitude practice as another thing that we're gonna fail at, right? So how do you do that? Like how do you take on some practice that's meant to be good for you and not bring it into that kind of negative way of, if I don't do what I failed. Do you know what I mean? How do you do that?

Stef: Because I have had those times where I stopped doing it and I felt with failure and then I was like, I had to go back and lean on my intention. So everything and it's kind of funny that we skipped over it, but it's really in my life story where everything is dependent on your intention or your why. and for the longest time my why was to be a perfect parent, right? To be that parent that I was to other kids. And then I softened it a little bit and I just wanted to be a better parent. And so I lived as being a better parent for a while and it was okay, but it got me to these same places where it was like, well, if I wasn't being a better parent than I was being a bad parent, I was worst parent, not good enough either way, I was not good enough.

Laura: It is still grounded and solves judgment.

Stef: Yes, so when I swapped my intention from being a better parent to being a happier human, everything changed. Because it was focused, I took the focus off my kids. Put the focus on me and then I said, Stef, what makes you happy? Then I said, wait, why am I not doing that? Right? So it's sort of like, if gratitude makes you happy, you're gonna keep doing it, right? If you like to do journaling in the morning that you're gonna keep doing it, it's not really about the product, it's more about the process, you really have to find the thing that works for you, I was doing these like high intensity workouts for exercise forever and I hated them. And then I wrote one day, I was like, I'm gonna write my ideal day, I think my therapist asked me to do it. And my ideal day started with walking and it was like wait a minute walking, so I started walking and I love it, I love it. I look forward to it. And I don't need to worry about if I'm doing it well or not well or you know, it's the intrinsic motivation of just feeling good that keeps me coming back. And typically when we do gratitude and I'm sure this is the case for you too. At around two weeks we start really do we start feeling the effects and it feels good.

Laura: Yeah,

Stef: It feels really good. Yeah. And I actually had the double effect where my husband said something's different. And I was like excellent! Alright, it was good to me and like people are noticing that I'm like just happier. That's why I'm always talking about gratitude because I feel like it's the fastest and simplest way for parents to feel better about themselves.

Laura: Yeah. You know, it's so funny, I feel like, you know, I feel like there is a fast and simple way for everybody and for some folks that will be gratitude. For me, like my starting point was finding self compassion, you know? And really practicing that, you know, in a way that was deeply painful at first, because there was a lot of disbelief that I was worthy of it and like moving through that, that like those were the like self compassion is the thing that saved parent, like motherhood for me, you know?

And it sounds like gratitude was the thing for you, and I feel like we're all just called to find that thing, you know? And here we are like offering you know, these opportunities to discover what it is and to try on gratitude. And that's the thing for folks who are listening great and if it's not just confidence and trust, knowing that it's out there for you. And it's okay that it's okay that a listener might not resonate with compassion or not resonate with gratitude, but just the knowledge that it's there for, there's something there for them. That a regular practice, a regular moment that allows them to see themselves more clearly.

Stef: Yeah, Self-reflection is really like, whoa, eye opening sometimes.

Laura: Right. In whatever form it takes too, you know? Yeah, I love that. Okay, well Stef, I would love to have my folks know where they can, can find you and learn more from you, would you share?

Stef: Of course. So I have an awesome opportunity or just you know, email list on my website and it's 12 weeks of gratitude. And each email you get has a different skill, so empathy, creativity, curiosity and then it has a gratitude practice that you do that week with it. And I find that 12 weeks seems like a lot. But there are at least 60% of people still opening that email at 12 weeks. So those moms really are committed to the process because for them the process is working and so it's really a nice thing to see. And so I would encourage people just to go to parentdifferently.com and just sign up for the 90 day gratitude challenge. That's what I call it. And then of course you can find me on Instagram and Tiktok with Parent Differently.

Laura: Parent differently and listeners, you heard it here first. She's starting a new podcast too. That's coming out soon at the time of recording. So by the time this comes out it will already be live. Right? So Parenting Differently with Gratitude is the name of the podcast. Yay! Okay. Welcome to the podcasting world war. So grateful to have you with us.

Stef: Yeah, it's been a great journey. I actually really love it.

Laura: Yeah, it's podcasting is so much fun. Alright, well Stef, thank you so much for sharing with us. We really, we really appreciate what you're putting out into the world and that you're sharing your story and your experiences so that we can all benefit. Thank you.

Stef: All right, thank you.

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!

November 15, 2022

Episode 144: Re-Parenting Ourselves in the Here and Now with Christine Dixon

November 15, 2022/ Laura Froyen

For those of you who are working through Parenting from Within inside my BalancingU membership, this week's episode could not come at a better time! We are currently working through the process of uncovering our inner voices and children and starting the good (but hard) work of healing. If you're interested in this program you can learn more here. We have already started, but it's available as a self study on its own or as a part of my membership. Let me know if you have any questions!

Ok, on to the episode. One of the things that has been the hardest for me in my respectful parenting journey, is swallowing the uncomfortable truth that I can't expect to become a more respectful parent to my children when I'm still using the same old negative tactics on myself, in my own mind. If we know that change and learning and growth for our kids don't happen via shame, blame, and guilt, why would it be any different for us right? And yet it is so hard to let those old patterns go, and start treating ourselves with the same love and compassion we show our children.

And that is where "re-parenting" comes in. Without it, respectful parenting can be quite a slog, because your inner narrative and approach is not aligned with the outer one you're attempting to use with your children. However, WITH IT, in my experience, there is so much healing and grace that it allows respectful parenting to flow through you much more easily.

Re-parenting is actually pretty straight forward and simple and I'm so excited to share with you a process that has been so helpful to me personally. In this week's episode, we will explore how we use Internal Family Systems (IFS- See this previous episode for an introduction!) to help us reparent ourselves and parent our children with compassion, grace, and curiosity.

To help me in this conversation, I brought in Christine Dixon, an IFS expert who I adore learning from. With more than 20 years as an Educational Therapist, Christine's own relational, religious, and medical trauma eventually resulted in panic attacks and bodily symptoms that left her incapacitated. In a desperate effort to heal herself, Christine discovered how integrated her mind and body truly are. After training with renowned Life Coach, Martha Beck, Christine fell in love with the modality of IFS - Internal Family Systems - which she found to be the most direct, effective, holistic, and compassionate inner healing method she had ever encountered. She is committed to sharing her learnings with those who need it.

Here's a summary of our conversation:

Internal Family System (IFS): What does it mean to have an internal family?
Reparenting through an IFS lens
Why it is such good news that we are multifaceted and not mono-minded
IFS as a lifestyle and what it looks like in daily living

If you want to know more and learn how to navigate your internal family systems, visit www.theordinarysacred.com (there are courses such as IFS 101 and Self-Compassion through an IFS Lens- which I loved and is a perfect complement to Parenting from Within) and follow Christine on IG @the_ordinary_ sacred.

Laura: Hello everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of The Balance Parent Podcast we're gonna be talking about how we can use IFS or Internal Family Systems to help us reparent ourselves. So many of us are attempting to parent our children with compassion and grace and curiosity. And I really believe one of the biggest blockers to that is that we are not able to interact with ourselves in our own bodies and minds and spirits, in that same way that we're trying to interact with our kids on the outside. And I think that Internal Family Systems, which is a modality of working with yourself and your inner parts, your inner family is one of the best ways to start engaging in that work. That inner work. And so to help me with this conversation, because I am not an IFS expert, I'm bringing someone in, I'm so pleased to introduce Christine Dixon. Christine, welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself, who you are? What you do?

Christine: Yes. So good to be here, Laura. Yes. So I actually have a background in educational therapy. So I worked with children with learning differences for over 20 years, but then at that point past trauma from childhood from an abusive marriage from various things kind of caught up to me and once I was in a safe space, what often happens is the trauma can manifest in our bodies and it begins to then show up and want attention. And we'll learn you know an IFS that these are actually parts that are stuck back in the moments of trauma that really need to be loved and to be attended to. So at that point I was having all of these physical symptoms and began just going on this quest for healing for myself, and began to see the mind body connection.

Tried so many different things that were very helpful, mindfulness, self compassion, somatic, experiencing all these wonderful things. And then I began a coaching program with Martha Beck, some people may know her, she's one of the most famous coaches and she coached me and she said I'm going to use something called Internal Family Systems with you. And I said okay. And little did I know that my life would forever be changed from that point on. Internal Family Systems for me, what I often say is it's the most direct, effective holistic and compassionate healing method that I have experienced. And so traumas that had been affecting me for my whole life for many, many years were finally healed and it was just so incredibly hopeful and transformative for me that I changed my whole trajectory and I just, like my husband says I began to eat, sleep and breathe IFS.

And it was just my North Star by calling, you know, I was so compelled and pulled forward by it and so now I call myself an IFS educator and enthusiast. And as you know, I share every day on instagram and it really comes from a place of sincerity that this is something, that is a lifestyle to me, that I live and I just want to share with other people. Dick Schwartz, the one who developed IFS, Talks about being a hope merchant for other people and for our parts too. But just, to just sell this idea that there is healing that's possible and the source of healing is within you. And so that's kind of what I am: a hope merchant, a wounded healer. And yeah, just love to share about it.

Laura: I love that. Okay, so if we're gonna specifically talk about kind of reparenting through an IFS lens, where do you think is a good place for us to start? On that kind of, because that's what a lot of my listeners are looking to do. They know that they had childhoods that they don't want to replicate and yet at the same time they find themselves saying the same things their parents said. Doing things in their parenting that they don't want to do, unable to to make that kind of that final shift, they've read the books, they know how, you know, they know what they're supposed to do and say, but they just can't. And from my perspective, the way that I found is learning how to do that for myself is the only way that I can do that for others. Where would you start us off?

Christine: Yeah, so it's interesting. Right? So my clientele is not just parents, but I believe that every person is a parent. Is parenting because they need to parent themselves. And even if you've grown up in a relatively healthy family, you are going to have a lot of wounds because your parents cannot possibly be there for you at every moment when you have, you know, a grief or a letdown. There's going to be cultural, lots of cultural, systemic things that are, are weighing on you. So even if you haven't had trauma, there's gonna be a lot of baggage or what we call in IFS burdens that we're carrying.

So I have people like I said, who don't have children, physical children, but they have inner children. And so just like, you know, your clients who are parents, they're going to all these courses and they're learning how to lovingly consciously parent their physical outer children. I would encourage them to consider the fact that they also have inner children. And the process looks very similar. And in my experience there are times when, I mean you have to juggle the two, the outer children and the inner children. But in my experience when I really tend to my own inner children first, the parenting on the outside becomes very natural.

And I know that's hard for some parents because it's like if I tend to myself that's selfish, they have, that's one of the cold burdens for a lot of women, especially. I'm supposed to sacrifice myself for my children. I'm supposed to go against my limits and against my own needs. And obviously I'm sure they've heard that the whole, you know, put on the oxygen masks first. But again, those parts that hold those burdens, it's very hard to let go of them. So we have to go in and you know an IFS. We have this beautiful process of really meeting those parts and understanding them and validating how they got that message and helping them learn something else. So it really is like going toward a child inside of you.

And I'd like to kind of give a little analogy sometimes, like if you were at the stove and you're making dinner and your child comes up and is pulling on your pant leg, Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Right? And you just you're like you're trying to shoo them away, no, no, no, no go away, I'm making dinner, mommy's having dinner, go away. And they're like and the more you try to shoo them away, the louder and louder they get right? And but if you turn off the stove and you get down on their level for a second, they might say look at my boo boo mommy, can you kiss it? You know, if you kiss it and then they run off or look at my drawing, oh it's so wonderful. And then they run off, right? And so the more we kind of try to push them away when they're distressed, kind of the louder they get and that's the same with our inner children that we have parts of us that will push away.

You know, some of those parts that hold maybe fear or anger or grief, you know, that feel really overwhelming and they're constantly like, no, no, no, I don't have time for this, go away. And what we learn in IFS. Is just experimenting with going toward that. And I think of like a big emotion as like a little child inside of us. And saying just moving toward it maybe for you know, 90 seconds, which is the amount of time that an emotion goes through our bodies and just say I'm here with you, what do you need? And just listening to that part that's holding that and just like our child, it will relax. And the more we learn to do that, the more the system begins to trust that we can, that we can go toward difficult things and we don't have to. I don't know how much of the IFS language you want me to…

Laura: Use it all. We'll talk about if it's a term that I feel like folks don't know, we can talk about what it is. Use it all. Good.

Christine: Yeah. So one of the first things is just understanding that we have these multiple parts inside of us, these inner families that are constantly interacting and for some people this they think, oh they thought of this as a pathology, right? But it's really not. If you begin observing your mind, people who meditate a lot right? They'll observe that there's not a monologue, there's a dialogue or discussion often going on. And it's actually really helpful to understand that because instead of thinking, if I'm angry that means that all of me is angry, right? Or if I'm sad all of me is sad. You can actually understand there's a part of me that's angry here. And if you can get a little distance from it, you'll see that it's protecting something that's more vulnerable underneath. And that angry parts are actually always very loyal to you and to your needs. They're letting you know that there's a need that's unmet or that there's a boundary that's been crossed.

Laura: They just have like sometimes maladaptive or unhelpful strategies for that protection.

Christine: Yes, exactly. And one thing I love it and IFS is this understanding of the difference between the negative impact that particularly a burdened extreme part may have. And it's a positive intention. So there's this idea in IFS that there are no bad parts. Meaning that they… it's kind of like Dr Kennedy, Dr Becky the good inside right? That every part is good inside every person is good inside, their intention is good. And as you go towards them and you get to know them, you will understand that they are protecting something underneath.

And that perhaps they learned this strategy at a time when that's what the only thing that kept you alive. You know, helped you survive? Maybe you had to fawn and please your parents in order to survive. Or maybe, you know, some people say you have an addiction. People try to get the person to stop just to get rid of that addiction. But that addiction is a is a symptom that is showing you there's something underneath and maybe the protector next in line is suicide, right? And that addictive part is like I'm gonna do this no matter what. So that the pain doesn't come up.

Yeah, so I had a situation the other day where I was driving, there was a street light and then the car across from me swerved and started coming towards me, and I thought, oh my gosh, what is this guy doing? How dare he come into my lane and then I saw that there was a child in the road and that he was swerving to get out of the way of the child. So I immediately understood the good intention, right? And this is very much what happens to our parts. Initially we look at them and we go, what the heck is this part doing in ourselves or in someone else. But then as we begin to understand the history, it begins to make sense. Oh, you were protecting this or and so those big parts that have the negative impact, they can't stop doing that until whatever they're protecting is healed. So there's no shame ever in the IFS model.

Laura: I love that experience that you shared. I'm sure it was scary but what a beautiful illustration of what's happening for a lot of us. So I'm curious to know that for someone who is just at the beginning of understanding this. Understanding that I have a complex internal system that's been with me for a long time. That there may be parts that have been pushed to the side for a long time. They've been getting louder and louder and we're ready to start taking a look. What would you recommend is like the first thing someone does if their intention is to start parenting themselves more with more compassion and curiosity? What would be the first thing that you'd have them do?

Christine: Yeah. I often will start just with awareness, right? Just a noticing. I often say noticing whatever is alive in you and you might do that in moments that are not necessarily volatile, at first. I often liken this to it's like a scuba diver who several times a day goes under the surface and looks around at the ocean. If anyone's seen my octopus teacher. You know? Like this and every time they go down it's a different world. Like things are changing and you begin just noticing, right? That there's these subtle changes. So and I often tell people you don't need to start with like 10 minutes at a time. Start with 30 seconds, start with 10 seconds if, do whatever the little amount that your system will allow you to do, that you will do that feels effortless, right?

And you could just for a moment I tell people you're gonna go inside in IFS we say you make a Y. O. U. Turn. You come inside and it's just like I call it being the non judgmental, you know compassionate witness which we'll learn as ourself for capitalist self. That you can practice it on the outside too. Just you know, you're being in this present moment, your five senses, what do I see? What do I hear? What do I smell? What do I taste? And then I'll tell people now turn it inside. And I often like to close my eyes and you're just looking. I say you're looking for your pets, you're looking for your physical sensations, emotional energy and your thoughts and there's no fixing. It's just noticing. Just, oh I notice the pressure of my tailbone on the chair. I noticed the way my hair feels on my shoulder. So you're just looking at physical sensations at first and some people have had significant trauma, have a really hard time even with that. So that's okay.

You would notice that, like I noticed an anxiety about going into my body. Like that seems scary to me. And again, there's no judgment, it's just a noticing. Or maybe there might be moments where you stop and as soon as you stop and be still, oh my goodness, there's a sadness that's just wells up, right? Or you notice, oh my goodness, I'm so tired. Right? Or it's just, it's just going to reveal to you what is true, what is alive in you. And again for those striving parts of us probably that want to try to fix it. Like, oh there's a sadness, oh no, what do I do? Again, you would notice that too. And now I see there's a part that wants to fix and so there's just, it's just a noticing and I'll often say I see you and I see you and I is the self and the you is the part.

I see you. I see you. Or I might have conflicting thoughts in my head. Man, I really, really want to do this, ah but I don't want to do it because you know and and I just listen, I see the part that wants to do that. I see that this part doesn't. So in doing that, then, as you go in, you know each day or whenever you want to, you begin to see the changing terrain inside. And that there are different active parts that come to the surface and you blend with you at different times. If you feel really overwhelmed by something, you can ask it, I like to say, can you just be nose to nose with me? Can you just come right out to the surface?

Laura: Just a second. I want to just swoop back, just, just a smidge, you said they can blend with you. Can you just like hold that to the light for just a minute and help us understand because I think what you mean there is that when we are reacting on the outside, when we're having, we're really flooded, we're angry, we maybe lose our cool and yell that, what you were alluding to there is that that's not actually us, that's the part that's blended with us. Can you talk a little bit about that piece of it?

Christine: Yeah. So in IFS, the experience that I've had, you know, with myself and all my clients and Dick Schwartz is also have all of his clients, is that every single one of us at our core has a capital s self. And that is kind of our true essence, right? And we're born with it. It's innate, it cannot be destroyed, cannot be taken away, it cannot be diminished through trauma. So, it's always there at our core and it has these, these eight C qualities, right? It's curious and compassionate. It's calm and it's clear as clarity. It's connected. It's creative, it's confident. It's courageous. So, if you think about like moments maybe when you're nature or you're with, you're in a really safe space, right? It's kind of that eventual state, you know? You feel really connected and calm, that's kind of your true nature. But just like the sun, you know, is always there but sometimes it gets covered by clouds, right? And you can have like several overcast days and you're like, does the sun even exist?

Laura: Feels like that in winter sometimes here in the midwest.

Christine: Yeah, it can be really, it can be honestly really scary and overwhelming and you know, for a lot of people to, when it's overcast for so long. And in our lives sometimes that happens where these protective parts come in because they learned to do this extreme job to protect us in the past and actually to preserve the self. And so they come like clouds and they cover over that self and they can often have if they're burdened, not all parts are burdened. But if they are burdened they will have very extreme emotion and very extreme tactics because they literally think you're going to die if you don't do this, right?

Or if you don't lash out or you know, whatever their strategy is. And so they will kind of like take the seat of consciousness, they'll kind of cover over the self and they will act as you in a sense. And so what you'll feel like is I am so angry, right? Or you'll feel like I am so worthless, you know? And you'll have a lot of like your whole identity is this thing. And so that's when you'll feel blended and you kind of feel like where’s self, where’s self? There's nowhere to be found. It can be a really overwhelming experience and you'll see other people too, who get blended with their parts.

Laura: I think that, I don't know about you, but in your, my experience, working with folks with parents, they've spent a lot of time being blended. With their parts. Especially when they're in the throes of a really hard stage and parenting.

Christine: Oh, for sure. The beautiful thing to understand is that those parts cannot stop doing what they're doing. Until what they're protecting is healed, right? So there's no shame in those parts. Those parts are faithful. It's in them being able to have a relationship with this core loving compassion itself that they will eventually be able to relax, but only then.

Laura: Because they have to feel safe. There has to be trust and connection and safety in order for them to relax and release those tactics, those strategies that they've cultivated over the years to protect us. It's just like with our kids, right? It's just like with our kids when they're having, you know, a nervous system meltdown. When they are shunted out of the rational brain and into fight or flight. There's no reasoning with them, there's no convincing them. There's only safety. There's only signaling safety to these sweet little ones who are losing their, you know, who are lost to their fear to their anxiety to the trigger that took them. And just like with those kids, all we can do is signal safety. I see you. I'm here with you. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.

Christine: Yeah, exactly. And I love the statement from Marshall Rosenberg who created nonviolent communication. He talks about if you cannot find it in yourself to have compassion on another person. You know, if it's your child in that moment, you must bring it to yourself first. And then you will naturally have it on that. It's not about this willpower of making ourselves. It's about understanding, Oh, if I don't have the capacity to have compassion or empathy on my child right now, there's a part of me that needs it first. So I remember first when I first understood this when my kids were younger. At first I would try to power through, right?

Laura: And I think that's what we're all doing. We’re gritting our teeth, and we’re nickling all through it. What we're supposed to say?

Christine: Yeah. Oh my God. And then and then I would lose it right. I wouldn't be able to power through yell at my child. And then, you know, and then the critic would come in and how many what terrible mom you are. And the shame. And it was just a spiral. But I remember at one point, I remember the exact moment when I made this choice of like an experiment. Because I really think it's helpful to propose to those parts and experiment at first because they don't know yet that it's effective and they might not trust it, but to say I'm just going to go into the laundry room for 90 seconds, I tell my children I'm going to go into the laundry room. I'm gonna be right back and I put my hand on my heart and I would say, oh my goodness, you're suffering. I see that you're suffering, you're so angry, you're so overwhelmed, like just naming whatever it was that was there in me and I would just begin to weep usually at those parts at being seen.

Oh my gosh, yes, it is so hard, you know, and just, you know, I'm being seen by myself and then the tears would come and I would resolve into a little place of more clarity and calm that prefrontal cortex would come back online and I would be able to emerge with so much more common clarity and say, you know, mommy was really triggered here, I might be able to apologize and repair. If I did, you know, just very naturally or I might be very clear about this is what mommy needs right now, without angst without, you know, just just kind of that direct leadership. But it took me going to be with myself first and a lot of people think I'm gonna have to do that for hours, you know, but really you can do it for a couple of minutes, 90 seconds. And my family began to learn that when Mommy had a time out, things went so much better. They’re supportive.

Laura: Yeah. And your system learns that too. So just like our kids need to trust us, so too does our system. So our system you… I love how you phrase it, proposing an experiment. Just let me try this and let's just see what happens. Because they don't, our parts don't always trust us because we've allowed other parts to blend at certain times. You know, that there can be a sense of like there's no way you've got this, you've never had it before. How can you? You know? And we have to build, spend time building trust and then we get better and better as that trust builds too. And as those parts that used to have such destructive strategies once they relax, once we start acknowledging their good intentions, they can actually start learning better strategies too and be a beautiful team for us.

Christine: Right. Yeah. It becomes like you said, I like the quote from Dick Schwartz that IFS is attachment theory on the inside where as we begin to have this secure attachment between our younger parts and ourself on the inside, we're able to parent from our adult self much more right? But if our young parts are coming out right at our kids to know that there's no shame in that, it makes sense. It's just information to us, oh my goodness, there's a part in me that needs attention here. And we can either go in that moment or we can try to make an appointment later and say, I really need to go back and meet with this part and see what its burden is. And gradually you'll begin to notice when those parts come up before they explode, right? You'll begin to notice a little agitation as it starts building. Oh, I'm you know, maybe I'm blended with a part that's pushing me beyond my limits right now. And another part is getting really agitated and before you blow up you can go inside and say, hey, I see, I see both of you. I see the part that thinks I need to, you know, why do you feel that way? And you can begin kind of having this relationship with the different parts in you.

Laura: That's self attunement, right? So, we as caregivers to our children on the outside, are always looking for attunement. Being able to be sensitively attuned to our children. And when we are, we notice the frustration as it starts to bubble as the magnet style tower keeps crashing. We notice the change, the slight change in tone between siblings as they at the very beginning of a disagreement where if we're tuned and we hear it. We can come in and just be present and just offer a little bit of support just with our presence and then lo and behold they actually like notice that they're getting that way and they use their problem solving skills, you know, if we've taught them to them. That is attunement on the outside and you're asking us to become attuned on the inside and it takes practice and time and getting to know what that feels like when it's starting to bubble up within us. Yeah. It’s beautiful.

Christine: Yeah, it really is such such a parallel experience.

Laura: It's totally is. I’m so glad to find someone else who really sees it that way. It’s the same.

Christine: It's the same side. The inside and the outside. Yeah, so yesterday in my eyes, the support we were talking about polarization and like you talk about, you know, two children who are beginning to escalate, right? We can have two parts within us that are fighting with each other and that will often feel like kind of being pulled back and forth into extreme directions or feeling stuck or confused, right? Because we have this part that, you know really, really wants to like I've been working with polarization, I was giving the example of polarization right now, like the part that just really wants to get everything out for free and just help everybody. And another part that's like, yeah, but you need security Christine and you know, and they're kind of like fighting with each other.

Laura: I think I have the same parts.

Christine: Yeah. So it's like there are these parts inside that have… That they are in their moderate form, right? They have, they both have very good intentions. So let's see, a common polarization like for a mother might be the part like I was saying it's very caretaking and wants to give everything of themselves and sacrifice everything for their family. And then often what happens is as extreme as that part is there will be an equal and opposite part that's extreme in the opposite direction. So there's a part that's… Yeah, and it's like I want to go into the woods and abandoned my family and never, you know, I mean it's very extreme. So I'll have a parent come to me and feel such guilt over that. Why do I have this part that just wants to abandon my family? And I'll say, well let's look at the opposite extreme part and this part. So the polarization is a burden systems way of trying to achieve balance.

Laura: Trying to achieve balance.

Christine: So it has this one is like this caretaking part is so extreme that I have to pull to this degree to get you to take care of yourself. Now the care taking part and its moderate form has this beautiful intention to connect to your family and to give to them to love them. And this other part that wants to escape, wants to protect you and your freedom and your expansiveness and your rest, right? So they both have really good intentions and so you become the mediator on the inside, just like you are with your children on the outside. Let's see what is your need? What is your need? Oh my gosh. You both have really good needs.

How can we come to a strategy that meets them both? You know? And if usually I'll ask people which one's older, usually the caretaking part is, is older. And so it might be meaning that it existed before the other. And so that's usually the one that's burdened. And so then you'll want to look underneath and say the big question in IFS is what are you afraid would happen if you didn't do this? What are you afraid would happen if you didn't sacrifice yourself constantly? And then just be open to receiving an answer from that part without thinking it up. Right? And it might say I would be a bad woman, I would be shamed. I would be punished. I would, you know, have no worth. Usually it's a very desperate answer which helps you understand, oh it's no wonder you're doing that to such an extreme. And you make sense. Exactly. And then you can say, you know, when did you get that message? Or when did that happen?

And it might show you again that a younger part of you that either got that message culturally was punished, was, you know, for me there's a lot of religious burden. You know, around you must put others above yourself or you know that's that's the honorable thing to do. So, it's about really getting to know how that part got to be so extreme and going and being with those young parts. And IFS we do reparenting where we actually go in, to a memory and as our current wise adult loving self, we are with that child self and we help them know they're not alone and that they are worthy as they are. And we're really creating this corrective experience. And until an adult parent has that corrective experience inside, they're going to pass on. All of, you know, those burdens inevitably to their children, not because they're a bad person, but because those parts of them genuinely believe that that's how to survive until they have a different experience.

Laura: Absolutely. And so I feel like we've kind of highlighted in this beautiful discussion. Two ways of re parenting, right? So there's this kind of active daily process of sensitive attunement and self kindness and compassion self presence, you know, under you know, just being present with yourself, recognizing those parts. And then there's this reparenting piece that is deeper where you're specifically targeting the parts of ourselves that need a different parenting experience than the one that they received. And we're using the word parent, I feel like parents get such a bad rap sometimes, but that could be an experience with the teacher.It could be a traumatic experience with someone who wasn't your parents, where they, you had unmet needs and or you, you know, you had an experience that didn't make sense and so you were left on your own to make sense of it. I mean we can offer that experience with a wise, compassionate adults to that younger part of ourselves in the here and now. I love like highlighting those kind of two different modalities of reparenting.

Christine: Yeah, once, kind of a daily practice or just a lifestyle and again it doesn't have to be for long periods of time. It can just be a check in here, there, what's alive in me. But then there's some deeper work again that as you notice and I guess we call them triggers or trailheads or tormentors like our children or other people in our lives can be our tor-mentors with a dash, you know. They are mentors because they show us some things there that needs our attention and needs healing. And so I like that you said it's not always parents, it can be anything and as those protective layers as we get to know all the protective parts, the strategies to keep pain out and to keep it down. And because they're just so afraid of the ones that hold the pain. But if we can befriend them and get their permission because they begin to trust the self because they have experience with the self.

What if I could go to that one and they begin to say, oh yes please. I didn't know you could help me, please help me. And then and then in IFS we do this thing that I called time travel. But like I said you know one of the first ones that I did was where I brought my curious compassionate self into this moment when I was 10. And my best friend of many years said you're fat and ugly and I can't be your friend anymore. And she never spoke to me again. And there were other parts of me that had diminished that all my life. Oh that wasn't a big deal that happens, you know? And so I had to ask them if they would just give me space and that's something we can do in IFS. If there are parts that block our way. Oh can I, I see why you're trying to diminish it because you don't want to focus on that.

But can you let me go to it from a space of just openness so that I can witness that. And so that process looks, again, I call it time travel. You're going back to that moment but now this 10 year old me is not alone. Now my adult self is there too. So it's not just reliving, you know, a trauma moment. It's recreating it. It's redoing it right? And really remember going back and really getting how devastating that was for my 10 year old self. And all the messages, the burdens we call them nn IFS, but the beliefs about herself that she took on that day. And then all these protective parts that were developed that day. The parts weren't developed but their role was developed, right? I'm going to be perfect, I'm going to restrict my eating. I'm going to get perfect grades so nobody can criticize me.

Laura: This is never going to happen again.

Christine: Exactly. Yes. Never again. This is the motto of the protective parts. So I began to see how my system developed and how it makes sense. But in going and being with her wit, witnessing her giving her what she needed in those moments that she didn't have, you know, and then retrieving her bringing her out of that moment because a lot of those parts are really sincerely stuck there and helping her unleash those beliefs that she got. Now my protective system doesn't constantly have to do all the work to protect her. She has this loving relationship with self and that frees up energy in my system right? So that's just an example right of what it looks like to do some of that deeper work.

Laura: Yeah. And what's beautiful about this is that we can all imagine our child on the outside having a moment like that. Coming home from school crying, telling us that a friend said something mean. And that active experience of going with and being with yourself in a painful moment, honing that skill of openhearted compassion, nonjudgmental presence, asking what's needed, not what we think is needed, but what that part actually needs. Building that skill that repertoire you can then use on the outside again with your kids. Because your kids will need something different in that moment. Than that, what you did. You know, there's a, this thing, you know, that floats around to be the parent that you needed as a child. And I, like I always say no, you need to be the parent you needed as a child to your own inner children and you need to be the parent that your actual child needs with curiosity and compassion.

Christine: I love that.

Laura: They need a different parent than what you needed. You need a quite unique parent that only you need, they need somebody else, you know.

Christine: Right. I always push back on the, you know, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And I'm like no do unto others as they would have you do unto them.

Laura: My daughter does too. So that, the, like her school, like they talk about the golden rule and then they're like, my daughter insisted that they create a platinum rule that is do unto others as you as they would have, have you do.

Christine: Yeah, I love that.

Laura: I know she's a fabulous soul.

Christine: Oh my goodness.

Laura: Yeah. And absolutely my own partner in healing because you know, we get some of these kids, you know there are kids who for whatever reason kind of just flow with what happens and they don't push the healing, you know, in the way that some other kids do. My daughter, I think there's so much like resonance and reverberation with her. I see so much of my dad and myself in her that like, practically every day with her as an invitation for my own.

Christine: Yeah, they're holding up a mirror to us. They’re… You know what I remember when I first really understood that my triggers were gifts that they were an opportunity to, you know, it's just like a physical symptom, right? We'll have like a physical symptom and we get upset. Oh man, why am I having this pain? But it's actually alerting you, it's letting you know that something needs attention, right? Like seeing your bodily symptoms, your emotional symptoms as these benevolent messengers that are saying there's something underneath that really need attention. And if we can, that's why I love IFS, because it gives us this roadmap of what to do, how to go in and how to actually help and heal those root issues.

Laura: I love that. In one of my programs, Parenting from Within, we have a gratitude practice for triggers where we explicitly practice gratitude towards those things that alert us to where our healing needs to happen. I love that. One of the things that I do feel that I get asked of me a lot for parents who are starting some of this work like in my parenting from within program. I'm sure you get this too from your folks who are in some of your courses, which I'd love for you to tell us about. But there are some folks worry that, because they don't have very many explicit memories. Many of the people who come to work with me either say like my childhood was fine, like there was nothing like big that stands out. Or you know, it wasn't great, but I don't really remember, I don't, you know, they don't have explicit memories. And I'm kind of, you know, I have never found that to be a problem in my work with with parents, but I'm kind of curious about, because I have found in, you know, leading folks through self compassion and IFS that even if we're talking about things that happened in the past, it's all happening in the here and now for the parts…

Christine: Exactly, yeah.

Laura: I'm kind of curious, like for folks who are worried like if they don't they wouldn't have an explicit memory of being 10 and having a friend saying something harsh, what would you do that work?

Christine: Yeah, that's a good question because, so we can have memories in different ways, right? We can have explicit memories and we have implicit memories which are somatic or we feel in our body are in our nervous system? So I would encourage people that their body never lies. Right? So, I remember just having such a volatile nervous system and thinking, you know, and then the shaming piece of why am I experiencing this? Nothing really that bad happened to me. You know, I don't understand why I'm having this, but to really validate that in moments when your nervous system just becomes activated, and maybe you have no idea why. Right? What I will often do is, say there's just a a sudden terror, panic sensation or a grief and you have no idea what it's about or just an irritation or something like that, right? Discuss it.

Again, just begin noticing and knowing that that's coming up for a reason. And what I'll do, I started to say this before, I'll ask it, can you just come right in front of me, right, so that I can be with you and some people visualize their parts. Some people do not. So if you don't visualize and there's nothing wrong with you, right? You might just experience it as an energy in front of you. Sometimes I will, like kind of see myself in that state. I'll see myself in english and I immediately begin to have compassion because it's like, it's another person in front of me is feeling that. But again, if you experience something semantically or in your nervous system. Okay, can you come in front of me and I'll just ask one question. I'll just say, how old are you? And wait for a number to come.

Some people report that they can't ever get an age. They can't get a number. But I was always so surprised that a number would come and what, what that? You don't have to know any kind of detail, any kind of memory at all, just the age can help, you know how to soothe that part. So if it's, if it says I'm an infant, I'm zero, right? You can begin rocking. You can wrap yourself in a blanket. If it's a young child, you might stroke your hair and just say, oh honey, I'm here, I'm here with you. Right? So whatever age, it's a teenager, right? You, you might just have a little bit of distance and let them vent. But it can be just a really quick practice where you don't need to know any kind of detail of…

Laura: You don’t need to know. Yeah, one thing too is that I feel like it's important that I've experienced for myself when I ask that age question, cause I do IFS for my own well being. When I asked that age question, there is always a skeptical part who's right there with me being that is ready to like discount whatever age pops in. So there's always like, you know, like when I'm about to ask that question, that skeptical part is always thinking things like, you know, like you will be able to think of an age like there's no, you know, like it's always right there with me and like, lo and behold the number does usually come. And then that's part is like, how do you know, it's that age, you know, like it's…

Christine: It's like the experimenting again, right? Because I tell people, I don't ever expect you to believe this stuff unless you've experienced it, right? And so I tell people the day before I experienced this, I thought it was crazy. So I feel it with you.

Laura: I feel like every person who experiences IFS and like really has at that moment of like, yes, this is it. Like there's, they have a story about when like it just like…

Christine: Yeah. And I've done that thing with the age so many times now that my parts are, my skeptical and thinking parts are more relaxed, but initially there of course they're going to be there. And I'll just ask, can you just rest back and let me, you know, receive a number that I've learned to trust the validity of that number. The other day I had overwhelmed. I won't go into the situation with my son and I went into the closet that's my place to meet with my parts. And I said, Oh my goodness, you're so overwhelmed, how old are you? And I said 42. And I was like, another part of me was like, no, you're not. Forty-two.

Like, but as I began thinking about it, this thing that I was concerned about with my son, he had this really difficult experience when I was 42 when I went through all these physical ailments and I was hospitalized and I and that, and I couldn't be there for him in that moment. And I was like, Oh, you are 42. But it was like my rational brain hadn't put any of that together. So it's really on a subconscious level where there's a certain wisdom and as you experience it, these parts will begin to tell you things if you can just receive an answer from them and you'll be amazed at the insight. You go, oh my gosh, that makes complete sense. You'll have clarity about it that you didn't have before. So again, just encourage you to experiment with it and see what happens.

Laura: Yeah. Well, Christine, thank you so much for this beautiful conversation. I'm sure that folks are, you know, who are listening for whom this is like, oh gosh, you know, like making some curiosity, interest arise. I'm sure that they'd love to know how they could learn more from you and with you.

Christine: Yeah. So, if you follow me on Instagram, I am the underscore ordinary underscore sacred.

Laura: And I hope everybody listening, I will put all of the links to everything in the show notes. So you'll be able to go and connect.

Christine: Yeah so it's theordinarysacred.com but my entire content is about IFS Education. So I have tons of posts. You can go back and watch videos and different things there. And then on my website, theordinarysacred.com, I have some self-paced courses. There's one called IFS 101 so you can just get the basics. And then there's one self compassion through an IFS Lens. And I'm actually working on one that I hope to come out at the end of the month. That's IFS And The Body. And really just connecting how our parts show up and how they use our bodies to give us messages. So that's the third one is coming out. And then I also have some worksheets. I was like you know, I can't be one on one with everybody but I put out all these worksheets because it's almost like I'm there directing you kind of through the process through this worksheet. And then I have some meditations and some other resources on the website. I do have a support group and I have a support group that meets on Tuesdays at, from 1 to 2:30 Central Time right now. It's an open group in the future. It might be more closed. But that the cost of that is just $20 a month and the courses are $36 that might go up soon. So…

Laura: And I definitely so I have her self compassion with an IFS Lens because that's like that's what I teach and I have never found anybody else who teach really like teaches that I obviously teach it for parents specifically, but it's lovely to find other teachers we all teach in very different ways. It's so delightful to learn from other enthusiasts and another compassionate souls. So I definitely am a testimonial for your courses and listeners. If you've taken a course with me, you should know that the flow of Christine's courses is very similar. So if you liked my flow and pace, I have found hers to feel very homey to me. Okay, well Christine. I so enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much for sharing. Not just with us but with the world. I just adored our conversation. Thank you.

Christine: Me too. I appreciate the opportunity and just had such a good time talking to you.

November 08, 2022

Episode 143: Fed Up: How to Balance Emotional Labor in Your Relationship with Gemma Hartley

November 08, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Over the past year my husband and I have been on a journey in figuring out how to be more balanced in our roles at home. We noticed that my husband did a lot of the visible labor, like dishes & laundry, while I did most of the invisible work, like holding emotional space for my kids' big feelings, carefully considering the play and reading materials in our home, and planing meals. A part of our work this year has focused on both of us fully recognizing and acknowledging all of the invisible, emotional, and mental labor that I do every day. I have to tell you, I've never felt more seen and heard in our family, but getting here wasn't always easy.

A big part of what we need to grow s a couple is an opportunity to learn from teachers who aren't me, so that I can learn alongside my partner, rather than be the one teaching him. It evens the playing field a bit and allows for more vulnerability. Part of that is reading books together and discussing them weekly, like a couple's book club. And one of the books we read was Fed Up: Emotional Labor, Women and the Way Forward by Gemma Hartley and I was thrilled to get the chance to interview her for the podcast this week! Gemma is a freelance journalist, speaker, and author who has spoken on the topic of emotional labor around the world, from corporate conferences to festivals at the Sydney Opera House. She is passionate about creating a more equitable world in which invisible labor is valued and supported by both personal partners and public policy alike.

Here's an overview of our conversation:

What makes up emotional labor? (noticing, planning, delegating, overseeing completion)
Why is there such a disparity between men and women when it comes to who takes on emotional labor/the mental load in a relationship?
How do you reach a compromise when it comes to standards of how things get done?

I'd love to hear from you on this topic! Do you and your partner have balanced roles? Is emotional labor & mental load something you're actively discussing together? Let me know!

If you want to know more about how to balance your emotional labor with your partner, visit www.gemmahartley.com and follow Gemma on IG @gemmalhartley.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we're gonna be talking about emotional labor, the mental load and how to actually create lasting change in your relationship with your partner. And to help me with this conversation is an amazing author and journalist, author of Fed Up which is a great book that really highlights how important the work we do as mothers is, how it keeps the world turning. So welcome to the show Gemma Hartley. I'm so excited to have you here Gemma. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and then we'll dive right into this important topic.

Gemma: Yeah. So I mean, you kind of covered it. I'm a journalist and freelance writer. I am the author of Fed Up. I live in Reno Nevada with my three kids who were much younger when I wrote the book. They’re now at like six, eight and eleven. They were in like that two, four, six stage when I wrote the book, which was…

Laura: Heavy.

Gemma: A lot to handle. They’re much easier now.

Laura: I think it's so important to talk about this. So I have a nine and a six year old, almost seven-year old and I so agree those early years. So listeners, if you're in those early years just know you're not crazy. It actually is harder. The physical aspect of it, the physical labor is so much more when they're still little and they're asking you to carry them and it's harder. What is that… What is it about it that's so much harder?

Gemma: Like literally everything. No, seriously, I, you know, I wrote a piece about this recently about how we need to stop like telling moms of smaller kids that like, oh, it doesn't, you know, get easier. It just gets different. Like, no, that is not true. It gets so much easier. Like really does because you know, I think there's this misconception that when they're younger, it's more physically demanding but then it becomes more emotionally demanding as they get older. But I don't think that's true. They have a really big emotions that they can't regulate when they're really little. They get better at regulation skills as they get older. I mean yeah, it kind of goes haywire as they enter that like preteen years because I'm starting to deal with that now, but still they have that like basic knowledge of how to self regulate if you've been working on that with them and little kids don't have that. So it's emotionally taxing on you when they're little as well as really physically taxing.

Laura: Yeah, I so agree. And I, you know the type of parenting that I support on our podcast is more work intensive, more emotionally intensive, more mental and emotional labor intensive in the younger years because you're building this rock solid foundation of a social and emotional skills for the kiddos and a relationship that is flexible and resilient and kind of can handle those ups and downs and so parenting young kids and the kind of the respectful parenting conscious parenting world is a lot harder. But man, if you're laying that foundation and it sounds like you've had that experience too. If you're laying that foundation as they get older, it's a lot easier and a lot more fun. I mean there's still challenges, right? There's still parts that are hard but it's not as full on. Right?

Gemma: Yeah, I think that's very true. Like when you're putting in that groundwork, when they're little, like you are putting in a lot and not knowing if it's gonna be easier when they get older. It will be, you know, I really expected to get into these preteen years and really just be hating life to be honest. Because that was the experience that my parents had, you know, conscious parenting was not a thing when I was little. And so I didn't learn any regulation skills. I was just kind of like big emotions bouncing off the walls when I came into those years and my kids have a lot better like self regulation skills and we have a more trusting like bonded relationship and that makes such a difference in how much you can enjoy parenting in those like later years.

Laura: Absolutely. But it's a lot of work. This type of parenting is intensive at times and you know, so what we're talking about today is this emotional labor, the mental load of parenting, which is heavy anyway. And then we add this additional layer of attempting to be respectful conscious parents. It's a lot and a lot of that goes unseen and that's something that, that your work, your original article and in the book that kind of came after has really brought to light and we've been given some language to talk about it. Do you want to dive in there a little bit for us?

Gemma: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I think that's very true that when we're doing conscious parenting, it adds a whole extra layer here. But what I talk about in my book is like the mental load isn't just like all the to do lists that you keep in your head. I don't have this in the book, which is really frustrating because I've I've thought a lot about it since writing the book, but there's really this framework that I like to think about it as you know, you're noticing the problem, the thing that needs to be done, whether that is like a physical labor task, like the floors need to be vacuumed. Or it's something like, oh, I need to pay attention to this part of the parenting relationship with my child. Then you have the planning stage, which is, you know, how you're going to go about this, what's the best option? You then have to either do that work yourself or delegate or if you're going to, you know, for parenting, I think really it's like you're working with your partner, you have to be on the same page as much as possible when you're doing conscious parenting. So you're relaying that information, you're delegating out what needs to be done. And then a lot of the times were overseeing that work because we are taught that it's our responsibility and that if we take it off of our plate, it's not going to get done. And so even the tasks both physical and not physical that we delegate out, it never fully leaves because we feel responsible for every little thing that we do in our lives.

Laura: So it's much and it's not just that we feel responsible for it. I think even now we still are responsible out in the world. If you know, if folks come into our house and it's not perfectly tidy, our husbands don't get looked at, we get looked at, you know what I mean? Like it and so there's this extra weight of it all to that because society has told us that even if we want to kind of shrug that stuff off and not be responsible for it and put it into someone else's hands, the rest of the world hasn't caught up to that yet. You know what I mean?

Gemma: Yeah, there's a really strong cultural expectation that anything that goes on within the family, anything that goes on within the home is completely up to, you know, moms and so you know, if there is a, if you're out and you see a family and a child is misbehaving, no one's looking at the dad to be like, oh he should really do something about that. It's always, always the mother. And me and my husband have had some interesting conversations about this, like he, you know, when he goes out with all three kids, he's a hero. Like people will pat him on the back as our youngest is having like, you know, a back arching tantrum. Whereas if that's me, it's like just side eye and look, you know, we don't, we don't have that same expectation for men and women, which is a real problem, especially when we start trying to undo these expectations within our own relationships and find that point of balance where we're both working together in order to balance out the emotional labor and mental load.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. So I know that a lot of the folks who are listening to this right now, know exactly what we're talking about, right. They know exactly what we're talking about. They feel it they experience in their own lives and yet they likely got partners who are more engaged than the average partner who are, you know, great dads, great husbands and at the same time there's still the same imbalance. I've got one of those husbands, I got one of those great men, you know who right from the very beginning was up for every night waking when my babies were infants and would change the diaper and then bring the baby in bed to me to nurse every single time while they were infants. You know, just really like a good modern dad. And yet these imbalances are still, they're still present in our lives.

And in order to get to a place where we were gonna change something, I had to get to a place where I was fed up and that's why I love the the topic of your book so much is because I know so many people have to get to that kind of a breaking point where they're at this intense moment of, it has to change and that's when change starts to happen. And I'm kind of curious about like, can change happen without getting to that fed up point? Can… And once we're, you know, that's an energy that's hard to hold and hard to keep and maintain for a long time. What happens when we're past that energy and things start to slip again? Can we talk about the change process? Like how do we actually change these dynamics in the home?

Gemma: Yeah, so I think that honestly getting maybe not to a breaking point, but to a point where we recognize like there is anger, there is discomfort. I think that's necessary in the process of change. I don't think anyone is like super comfortable and then decides that they need to change. There has to be a level of discomfort. There has to be, you know, sometimes the level of anger and frustration in order for us to make meaningful change in our lives. I think that's true, no matter what we're talking about. The problem is like once that initial like fire is over. You have to have a framework that allows you to continue with the changes that you've made. And this has been a really hard one.

And I had a really hard time when I was writing my book because I would notice like we'd make some progress and then it would back slip. And what most women, you know, tend to ask me for when they reach out is like, well what is that? You know, one conversation we can have that will change everything forever and fix it. And I'm like, oh, there's no one magic conversation. There's no like perfect words that are going to fix this on the first try. You know, I've been doing this with my husband for the past like five years since I wrote that original article and it's still a constant conversation. So I think one of the big things is like we have to learn how to communicate really well.

And I also think that one of the things we really need is for our partners to be committed to the change as much as we are. And that's the thing that I often don't see. Because usually, you know, if you've got that guy that is better than most men, he feels pretty comfortable because society is going to say like you're doing a great job compared to most of the other guys out there. Like kudos to you, they're getting all of these gold stars from everyone else. And so it's easy to back slip and to say, well I'm doing enough, I'm doing so much more than your friend's husband than my dad used to do than your dad used to do.

And that, you know, that commitment to change is what really makes things different and it, you know, it's frustrating because we have society set up for inequality like that, that is just the foundation of how we have set up, you know, power and comfort in this country. It's made to cater to men. And so it's really hard for them to maintain that commitment. I think. You know, I would guess that most of the people out there listening are women looking for the solution to take and to do the emotional labor, to figure out how to have this conversation, how to talk to them about it, how to implement that change. We need that level of commitment from our partners.

Laura: I so agree that's one of the reasons why I made my husband read your book. So and he really, we had kind of book club and I do that sometimes where we have like partner Book Club and we did that with yours and we love the audible version for folks who are looking for a book to get. So we both got the audible version of the book and I also got a paper version because I like to make notes and highlight things because I'm nerdy that way. But it was really good to do together and by having a structure and something that we were doing together in a kind of a thing to be able to have us have those conversations was really helpful for us. Something else has been helpful and I don't know if this was helpful in your world. Was us being on the lookout for my invisible labor for my, especially my emotional labor as a therapist by training.

I do a lot of the kind of the space holding and not just the mental load pieces. I do those things too, but the, you know, having one kid who's got a lot of big feelings, I spend a lot of time and energy and mental and emotional energy figuring out how to navigate those things and starting to speak to it. Just noticing it more has been really helpful for me and my husband having him be on the lookout for ways he for just noticing when I'm doing those things has been helpful too. As an example, we were noticing that he does all of the lunch is the lunch packing for our kids and that every morning he gets up and he packed the lunches. And I was feeling a little guilty about that because I don't do any of the lunch packing, you know, and it seems like that's something I'm supposed to be doing and all of those good old thoughts rolling through the head.

But we also, when we sat down to really look at it, we noticed that he was just packing the lunch based off the menu that I had set that I had spent hours crafting with are pretty picky kid who has sensory issues that I spend lots of time changing and shifting for balancing their nutritional needs, balancing taste and preferences and that he really just looks at the chalkboard and packs what's on the chalkboard. And like recognizing the hours and the time that I put in to make a menu that works on an ongoing basis for my kids. Give me a lot of permission to just sit and enjoy my coffee every morning while he made the packed lunches. Do you know, like, so is there room for that? Is that something that you've found yourself being able to look for and be on the lookout for? I don't know.

Gemma: Yeah, absolutely. A big part of us figuring out where all of like, because at first it was kind of this, you know, resentment that I couldn't quite put into words and so I was like, you know what, like I don't want you to feel like attacked when I do this, but I'm gonna start pointing things out. And so we can like kind of make the invisible visible and then work from there because that's the really tricky part about this is so much of it is invisible and it, you know, it is that way by design. Like it's really easy to turn a blind eye to something that you can't see going on because so much of this is mental and emotional work.

And so you know, pointing those things out and also like I think it's really good that you said your husband was the one like on notice like he was the one that was tasked with noticing a lot of these things. And I think that's the really important part because it's adding a lot of labor for us. If we're like okay now on top of already doing that work, I'm going to like, you know, because it becomes very automatic for us and so pointing it all out is another layer of work uh you know, not necessarily something that we don't want to do in the beginning just so we can really recognize it, but also we shouldn't be the only ones doing that work.

You know, I think it's really important for my husband to, you know, really open his eyes and take a look at the way that our life works. How does it work the way it does? It's because of all of this invisible labor and how do I take on some of that invisible labor to even it out to make sure that there isn't this huge imbalance. And I'm not saying that that's easy work to do. It's really not, you know, we've been conditioned our whole lives to do it. I'm not saying that this is, you know, simple work for men to do. It's really not, but it's work that has to be done. And so I think it's worthwhile for them to start recognizing them to start learning.

Laura: I think it is something that my husband and I have been talking about a lot and that you touch on at various points in your book is how this is good for them too. That by being cut off from certain aspects of life, they're not living a full life. They miss out on being full participants in their lives at a certain level. I really appreciate it Gemma that you included that because it's I think it's easy when having these conversation to slip into, like, we're just like, we don't… I love men, I love men, I love my husband, I think he's wonderful. And it's easy to feel like we're just attacking men or masculinity in general, and I don't, I don't feel that way at all. And I appreciated that your book didn't come off that way to me too. And there's a difference between attacking men and holding men accountable. All you know, all men and you were you walk that line very, very well in your book.

Gemma: Thank you. Yeah, I think that that's a really good distinction, like, there's a very big difference between accountability and just like, you know, misandry, like, we just hate men. So, you know, and I think that a lot of the reason I do this isn't just because like, yes, there is an imbalance here, and like, women need to have a lot of this taken off their plate so that, you know, we can be fully functioning as well. But you know, like, as I was saying earlier, like, yeah, our society is set up for men's power and comfort.

Power and comfort is not full humanity. Like those are two different things. You can have power and comfort and still have a lot of your full humanity denied to you. And we do that to men a lot in this society. You know, we tell them that they can't feel deeply, they can't be in this deep loving relationship with their children where they're engaged conscious parents like that. That's supposedly weak for men not to be the disciplinarian, to not separate themselves from their children in that role. And so, you know, to unlearn those things and to come more fully into your life by like noticing the little details and being involved and responsible for those things. It's really magical.

And I you know, getting to witness that firsthand as, you know, my husband sort of went through this process of taking on more responsibility within our home. Taking on deeper relationships, you know, with his children. Like it was just awe inspiring to see like the change that made in his life because before it was like, well, you know, my identity is wrapped up in work and being a provider and you know, those traditional masculinity roles that he didn't realize he had taken on so strongly until he had to dismantle them. And it really makes a huge difference in like, how you experience life and how you experience their relationship with each other. Like, when you fully see one another and see all of the work that you're doing together, it makes a huge difference.

Laura: It really does. You move from being someone who's just living a life together to being a full witness to each other's lives.

Gemma: Yeah. And I think that was a shift I didn't expect. You know, when he started taking on some of that invisible labor I felt seen in a way that I didn't know I needed. Like I could not recognize that before, like how much I needed, you know, my full life to be seen, which seems, you know, odd to say now, but you know, I have been conditioned to think like, well, this part is, you know, my lot in life and you know, it's just like, you know, my friends will see it, my mom will see it like, but having my partner see it, it made a huge difference in the level of intimacy that we have.

Laura: Yeah, I love that, you know, so that brings us to what we were talking about before we started recording. I think that there was this at the beginning of the, you know, this it's been a rough two years. And the research is overwhelmingly showing that women have been more negatively impacted our moms, especially by what's been happening these past two years, our careers, our mental health, everything. But I think that there was some hope at the beginning. I remember articles at the beginning of the pandemic when the shutdown was happening, that no one would ever ask a stay at home mom, what do you do all day again? Because now we're able to see it because now everybody's at home and seeing what they do all day. And there was this, like, really hopeful vibe that was happening. And I'm kind of curious, you know, this is your your field of expertise. Are you still seeing that vibe? How has the kind of, the pandemic shifted the way you view this topic and how do we need to address it?

Gemma: Yeah, so it was really interesting when I was writing my book, you know, I thought, oh, this, you know, I've had this really privileged experience of having my husband be laid off at the same time that I got a book deal, so that we were financially secure and able to make these changes at home together. And I was like, oh, but you know, how many people are going to ever get that chance where both people are in the house and like working this out and then I was like, oh the pandemic, like here's a small silver lining to this awful thing that's going on in the world. Everyone's at home together, everyone's seeing all the work that's being done, maybe things will change. I thought for sure that was going to be what happened. I was very hopeful at the beginning. That does not seem to have been the case, which is really frustrating because I thought, you know, given the time and space that we had that these changes would be made and so it's really frustrating to see that we didn't seize that opportunity in so many ways to change the way things were.

Laura: Why do you think that is?

Gemma: You know, I think we just did not shift the cultural expectations on women, we just kinda added to them. And there's, you know, that sort of image of the supermom that can like do everything and keeps everything running smoothly and well, you know, here's a pandemic, let's add that to our plate and see how it goes. And the thing is like, women are so conditioned that we were like, okay, yeah, no one else is going to do this work, let's just do it, at the cost of our mental health, at the cost of our careers. I mean, it's been really sad to watch what women have done to themselves rather than demand that accountability of their partners.

Laura: Okay. So I feel like that was a little bleak and I but it's true and and you know, there's this part of it that is, you know, there's this, you know what women have done to themselves. And there's this part of like, of we are at a certain level at some points letting it happen. And of course there's privileged and positions where certain people hold privilege, where they can push for change within their partnerships and there are families who don't have that level of privilege or access to be working on those things. I think you're so right that there are things that we do that keep ourselves in these positions. You know, not advocating for ourselves. Micromanaging, maternal gatekeeping is a phrase we've talked about on the podcast before. So we're recognizing this now.

So let's think about like the average person listening to this who is recognizing like, yes, I have been more negatively impacted by this pandemic when schools shut down or their kids are home for a quarantine. I'm the one who has to take off the days of work or I'm the one who's got to figure out how to feed them all while they're home. I was the one who was making up homeschool schedules, you know, they are noticing this, you know, this extra level, and you know, if we are talking about mental load just even like the like how many masks do we have in the house for the kids and which ones does this kid like versus which one does this kid like? and do I need to place that amazon order, you know like all it's just it's a lot you know to be having all at one time. So where… If this is the moment where people are recognizing, okay, so yes, I've been negatively impacted and maybe even more. So what do we do? Like what's the next step?

Gemma: So I mean, I think the first step is always opening up that door of communication with your partner and I think it's important to note that like the reason that you know we aren't really doing this to ourselves just because we're conditioned to I think a lot of it has to do with the fear of going to your partner and telling them all of these things and then having like that's a vulnerable moment to say like this is my life that you have not been recognizing up to this point and to have your partner not recognize it still like there is a certain level of comfort in being like, okay, well I can do all of this on my own and he just doesn't see it and I'll just never bring it up like you can keep that fantasy in your head that like well you know, if I did decide to change things, things would change.

The scary thing is for a lot of women that doesn't happen, you bring that up with your partner and you're still not seen your work is still not recognized? I've heard from women who have partners who have said, you know, I don't even believe that the mental load thing is real. How hard is it to ask for, you know, so I want to do something and so I think that's a very real fear that holds us back from having these conversations and from having them, you know, at the level that we need, because I think we kind of cushion our needs. Like when we, when we bring them, we're like, oh, well, I don't want to ask for too much because what if I don't get anything at all? It's, you know, it's really scary, but I do think that we need to have these conversations and then deal with the reality of the situation. Whether you have a partner that is willing to be in it with you or not, you need to know.

Laura: So that's one of like, that's definitely one of my questions. If you have that moment where you, you know, you say this is where I stand and you're at that place of I can't keep going like this, something has to change. What, how do you, what do you do if your partner is not there yet and you love them and you, but you can't change them because they're a person there themselves, you know, and what do you do? You have to figure out where, where your line is, right? Where your boundary ultimately is?

Gemma: Yeah. And that's something that I can't decide for you, you know, that's the thing. Like those boundaries you have, like, and and this is something maybe to think about before you have that conversation, like, given the potential outcomes, like, what are my boundaries gonna be after this? Like, what is the best case scenario? What is worst case scenario? And, you know, sometimes it means that your relationship might not make it, which is like, the scariest one, you know? I know for so many women like that, that is so frightening that it feels better to work yourself to death with emotional labor than to, you know, broach that topic and find out that you're alone. Like, it's better to make the choice to do it all yourself than to not be given that choice. That's really a difficult thing to face. You know, not everyone is going to make that choice to leave a relationship in that scenario. I think you have to get really clear on what your boundaries are and on how far you're going to push yourself. You know, I have a really hard time saying like, it's the right choice to stay in a relationship where you're not supported and not heard.

Laura: Yeah, and I think like, this is the other piece of this, that is that we, like, we get to choose what conversations we have. We get to choose how we want to handle these things and it's okay. I think for, you know, this conversation was really important for me to have with my husband, but I had a lot of security going into that conversation because we got married while I was in grad school to be a marriage and family therapist. And when we got married, we had an agreement that we would always fight for our marriage and we would do anything it took to fight for it. And so I like going into my marriage. I knew that he would if I asked him to go to couples therapy, he would. And that if he asked me, I would, we had that security at our backs the whole time and it makes it feel really safe to bring things like this up and not everybody has that. And you can also recognize, I think, too, that these things, that there are these imbalances and feel fine with them or feel not ready to broach it or not ready to do anything about it. I just want to sit with it for a little while and see or you know, just continue to get that validation and feel seen from your girlfriends or your mom or your mother in law. Like it, it's okay. You know, I guess nobody, we don't have to do anything right? Gemma I feel like some people need a little permission to do nothing, but it doesn't make them bad women.

Gemma: No, it doesn't, it doesn't make you a bad person to not bring this up before you're ready. I think, I think everyone hopefully does come to that point of reckoning where they, you know, they decide what their boundaries are going to be and how they're going to approach this with their partner. But that doesn't mean you have to like, listen to this podcast and go, you know, right now to your partner and be like, all right, we're gonna have a sit down conversation about this. And if it doesn't go well, I'm leaving the marriage like, that is not, that is not what we're recommending that we're going for here. You know, and I think there is a lot to be said or sitting with this. Because if you're just starting to recognize this for yourself like sitting with it and getting clear on how you feel about it and maybe envisioning what you would like your life to look like being aware of the imbalance of emotional labor that you have, like what would it look like ideally for you, to have a level of balance?

Which doesn't mean a 50-50 split. But something that works for you. Something that gives you the amount of mental space and like having your emotional needs met. What does that look like because sometimes we'll go into these conversations being like something needs to change and we don't have a clear idea of what we want that change to look like. And I think that's a really important first step to have. So you know, take some time and sit with that. Before you have this conversation so that you can go into it, not just with this like amorphous blob of resentment, but like a vision of what you would like your partnership to look like, how you want to create those shared standards with your partner. Because I think, you know, change doesn't come just from you being angry and frustrated. It comes from you having like hope and vision for a better partnership and better life together.

Laura: Change doesn't just come from you being angry and frustrated. It comes from having hope. I like that quote a lot, Gemma, thank you for that is good. I think that's a good place to wrap up. I think that that's something that is important. And I think it it really speaks to this idea that like that we have a lot of we have a lot of power within ourselves and we get to decide what's right for us and I agree that going in with some clear ideas and I think that that's really hard, I think it's really hard to come up with what do we want this to look like when we are reimagining partnerships when we're reimagining the way we get to be moms, you know, in this space, like in this world, in this culture. I think that there's probably room for inviting your partner into doing some of that reimagining to, and getting to a space where you can co create something new.

Gemma: Yeah, absolutely.

Laura: Yeah. I just, you know, we've been singing Encanto a lot at home today and I was just thinking about that. What else can I do? Song that just popped into my head, you know where she says we just made something unexpected. But it's beautiful and it's all mine. We can do that in our marriages. Right?

Gemma: We can.

Laura: Yeah. Alright, well thank you so much Gemma. Where can people find the work that you have going on? I know that you're, you're consistently writing new articles and new pieces. Where can people follow you?

Gemma: I think the easiest place to follow me is on Facebook at Gemma Hartley author, otherwise I'm somewhat good about updating my website. GemmaHartley.com. Some seasons go better than others with updating that I'm also on Instagram at Gemma Hartley or Gemma L Hartley on Instagram. But yeah, Facebook if you're interested in, you know, my work on an emotional labor and the articles that I write, that's where most of that goes. My instagram can get a little bit jumbled because I'm a yoga teacher and a lot of it just like, here's my yoga schedule for the week.

Laura: Oh cool. I didn't know you did that too. Good for you.

Gemma: Yeah, I've made some big changes during the pandemic. So yeah.

Laura: I hope it's been good for you. Good changes. I do think that there's been parts of the pandemic that have given us permission to let go of things that weren't serving us and embrace things that give us a fuller understanding and fuller expression of ourselves.

Gemma: Yeah, absolutely. And that's, you know, that's what teaching yoga has been for me and my parents are very much like, why have you done this? Why are you teaching yoga and making no money doing that? And I'm like, because it, you know, feeds my soul and that's worth it.

Laura: Yeah, good for you. I love it. Thank you so much Gemma for this conversation. It was really wonderful.

Gemma: Thank you for having me. This was really wonderful.

Laura: Okay, we're back again because we realized that we forgot to include a very important part of our audience, folks who are in gay and lesbian relationships. And so, I wanted to just touch base with you on how this imbalance that we've been talking about plays out in relationships that are nazis and not hetero.

Gemma: Yeah, so this is really interesting because it does still play out to some extent. And I've noticed since my book has come out and I've had a lot of conversations, you know, with same sex couples with couples that are outside of the binary, that there are really differing levels of how they experience this imbalance of emotional labor in their relationships. And I think what I've noticed a lot is that in gay relationships that, you know, you've done a lot of the work to dismantle old roles and ideas that you had about like what a marriage is supposed to look like. And in some ways that makes it a lot easier. That being said, you still grew up with a lot of social conditioning. And so I've noticed a lot of the times in lesbian relationships particularly that there is usually one person who is more inclined to do all of that work and it becomes very, very frustrating.

I am usually talking to one side of the relationship that is like why am I basically an assist pet couple for doing all of the emotional labor, which I thought was really interesting. I have not talked to any gay men in relationships that have that same thing going on for them, that same dynamic and if they do it's very, very like, it's been quick and easy to fix. That being said, like, no, no identity is like a monolith. So I'm sure that there are couples that break the mold out there and have very different experiences with this. But I think that doing so much of the work to dismantle your ideas about how a relationship is supposed to look, gives you a really good foundation to start having these conversations about emotional labor.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And I think to the… You know, regardless of the structure of your family, the basic communication skills that you need to have open, honest, vulnerable and compassionate and loving conversations are the same regardless of who you're partnered with, right? You know, they're the, those skills as core skills that most of us did not get growing up, that we have to learn as adults on how to have, you know, conscious couple relationships, those skills that will are the ones that will help you be able to really fully move into a more balanced and equitable relationship. Not, again, not 50 50 necessarily, but a relationship that works for you that feels fulfilling and life giving.

Gemma: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, learning communication skills and having both sides of a partnership, learn those communication skills is, that is the foundation for changing anything in a relationship. Like you have to be able to have that open line of communication that doesn't turn into a cage match.

Laura: Yes, exactly, absolutely. That's why, you know, so I have a course called partners in parenting and we talked very little about actual parenting in it and it's primarily building those foundational skills so that you as a couple can work together to figure these things out. So for listeners, if you know, you and your partner don't have those skills and you need them, there are resources out there available to you and building those communication skills. Well Gemma again, thank you for coming back on, on air with us and wrapping up that conversation. I really appreciate it.

Gemma: Yeah, of course. Thank you.

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.

November 01, 2022

Episode 142: Learning to Trust Yourself as a Parent with Cathy Adams

November 01, 2022/ Laura Froyen

This week we will be talk about intuition and how we can learn to tune into and trust ourselves as parents and partners and create that beautiful relationship with ourselves as individuals. For many of us, our experiences out in the world have taught us to look outside of ourselves for answers, feedback, validation, and wisdom. Has that been your experience? It definitely has been mine! For me, conscious parenting more than tips, trick, and scripts has been about learning to tune out the noise and tune IN to myself and my child. That's what I want to share with you today!!

To help me in this conversation, I brought in a colleague, Cathy Cassani Adams, LCSW. She is a co-host of Zen Parenting Radio (one of my favorite podcasts!) and the author of Zen Parenting: Caring for Ourselves and Our Children in an Unpredictable World. She is a social worker, certified parent coach, former elementary school educator, and yoga teacher.

Here's a summary of what we talked about:

How do we hold our goals, vision, and purpose that loosely and make room for who our kids are
Practical things that we can do everyday to practice intuition
Practicing the pause with ourselves

If you want to get more support from Cathy, visit zenparentingradio.com and follow her on IG @zenparentingradio.

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! Welcome back to another episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast. I'm Dr Laura Froyen, and this week we're gonna be talking about intuition and how we can really learn to tune into ourselves and trust ourselves as parents and as partners and just in that beautiful relationship we have with ourselves as individuals. To help me with this conversation, I'm bringing in a colleague and someone that I'm a little bit fangirling over. She is one of the cohosts of Zen Parenting, one of my favorite podcasts, Cathy Cassani Adams. She is a social worker and just a beautiful soul and light in the world of parenting with authenticity and balance. So Cathy, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are and what you do?

Cathy: Thank you Laura, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. So I guess that, you know, I would start with, like you said, I'm a social worker, I'm a clinician, I'm a therapist, I'm a former school teacher. I come from a family of teachers. My parents were teachers, my aunt's a teacher, my niece is a teacher. So that kind of always is my first thought when it comes to education as I feel like, very part of that family. You too?

Laura: Mine too. My entire family. Like literally I have one uncle who did not work in the school system in my whole family.

Cathy: Exactly how my life is. And of course, you know, growing up then, you're all of your parents, friends are teachers. So like every... Your whole life… So it's funny because I went to, you know, when I went to college, I was going to be, I was a journalism major. And then when I was a sophomore, I just remember being like, I got to be a teacher. Like it was just, it was like a cellular memory thing, I got to be a teacher. And the truth is I ended up in the, you know, the education system, you know, typical fifth grade teacher, kindergarten teacher, that kind of thing. And I wasn't great at that. Like I realized that I really wanted to focus more on people's emotions, people's feelings. And it… but it took me a bunch of different, you know, tries like I worked at organization and taught, I taught in a hospital in a partial hospitalization program and then I went back to school to become a therapist and now I'm a teacher at a university. So I'm still teaching, but it's had many iterations. Like it hasn't looked very traditional when I tell people I'm a certified teacher, I'm like, yeah, but not the way you are. You know, like I kind of did different things, but I'm a clinical therapist. And I also, after I had my first daughter, I have three daughters. Nineteen, 19 years old, she just turned 19 last week, which is why I'm having that response. Nineteen, seventeen and fourteen. So I have three daughters. But when I had my first daughter, I decided to… Because I had been working in a hospital setting, so long and kind of crisis management. I mean really literally because I was working in an inpatient unit. So it was pretty intense, I decided to become a parent coach, which was at the time kind of novel like talking on the phone to people, you know?

Laura: Yes. You know, it's funny, I think about when I started my undergrad degree in Psychology, the career that I have now literally didn't exist. It's wild, right? So, okay, so then you had a little one at home and you became a parenting coach. Yeah?

Cathy: Yes, I became a parenting coach and that was like a whole different world because to your point, like we we didn't see that as an option. Like as a therapist, you think you have to have an office and you think it has to look a certain way. And Laura even the way that, you know, coaching and coaching and therapy are different, like they are told they are different paths and I'm very clear about that. But as a therapist, there's a lot of like keeping to yourself as far as you are a little more of a blank slate when you're with people, you know, there is a sense of, it's not like you're always sharing your stories. There is a little more, you know, there's like this clinical way. And as a coach, I found that there's a lot more that I could do as far as relationship development with people. And I found it very… Do you use a coaching model too? Or do you focus… Okay, you do too.

Laura: So, I was a professor of Human Development and Family Studies and desperately missed working with families. So left that, and also realized that I had gotten completely burned out as a therapist. I wasn't able to bring as, like you just said as much of myself as I really wanted to. And so the coaching model fits much better for me and I actually prefer group coaching too. I like having a lot of people in a space where we are witnessing each other in a way that just, you don't get enough in this world, you know what I mean?

Cathy: I do Laura, we are so similar in this way because when I first started doing this was, you know, years ago, like the one on one coaching or one on one, you know, clinical work with people, it was too much for me and that's… What I mean by that is I think the labels have… I try not to be too lablely, but I definitely absorbed people's stuff. I'm an empath. I kind of get it. Like when people tell me something, I tend to jump in a little too far, I try and run it through my body. I use all these things that I would tell people to not do. And so when I was in group work though, I felt that we all kind of shared it and I was much healthier as the person who was running the group and I felt like people were getting a lot more, not only from maybe what I was offering, but just the group dynamics.

So I'm so with you, you know, and I ended up running a women's circle and I ended up running a new moms circle, like I just really enjoyed that dynamic. So, so anyway, I then, you know, you know, life goes on when I started doing different things as I was just telling you before I teach at a university outside of Chicago, ended up doing a lot of writing. You know, my husband and I started a podcast called Zen Parenting Radio about 11 years ago. Kind of before that's why we called Zen Parenting Radio because podcasts weren't really a thing. So we thought we were, we thought we were going to sell our show to the radio.

Laura: You’re one of the OGs. Yeah, I love it. That's awesome.

Cathy: It's so funny now because we're like, we really had an interesting game plan there, but it worked out fine, we're still doing it. So, you know, and why we're really talking today is because I did write three books over the last 10 years. Self published books that I adore, but they were kind of a different, I really made them more for my clients, for people who could read them and kind of we could have conversations, where this book then parenting, I tried to pull together everything that I have learned, experienced, witnessed, over the last 20 years as a clinician, as a podcaster as a teacher and as a parent. And bring all of those pieces together into this book. And so that's kind of kick starting our conversation here.

Laura: Oh, I'm so excited to share this book. So it's called Zen Parenting, Caring for Ourselves and Our Children In An Unpredictable World. Yeah. Just one thing that I really appreciated too is that how it's a, it's a book that is very well positioned for the time that we're in right now. It's clear that you were writing it in the midst of this time and things are a little different right now for all of us and we're gonna get to the kind of talking about instincts and intuition and trusting ourselves. But I guess I just wanted to kind of ask you, what are you seeing in the families that you work with and the kiddos that you get to hear about through their parents. What are you, what are you seeing right now?

Cathy: Okay. I am seeing…

Laura: I know what I'm seeing, but I don't get a chance always, to talk to a lot of colleagues who are on the ground with me.

Cathy: Yeah, understood. Yeah. I… And sometimes just the news reports alone can cloud our thinking of, you know, there's all this data collection, you know, here's, here's all this information and sometimes it clouds maybe what we're experiencing and families personally. What I'm seeing is a lot of kids and I'm gonna, I'm gonna specify that most of the people I'm working with right now are 12 and older. So I'm not working with younger children and obviously, my own experience as a parent of teenagers. I'm seeing them having to deal with a lot of mental health issues that I think is very uncommon. I'm gonna use my words very carefully because I also have a very optimistic take on this, but I really want to be honest about the conversations I'm having with teenagers. The level of anxiety that they're experiencing and unfortunately their experiences with depression are increased.

I would say I'm having these conversations more often. Now while that can sound really daunting and it feels daunting to me sometimes. They also understand what it is, which is different. Because I would say before, when I was working with families, especially teenagers, there was a lot of: I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed, I don't know what it is, I don't know how to combat this. I don't know who to go to. Where I feel like the language that I'm hearing from the teenagers I'm working with is I feel very anxious because I'm not being honest about, like there's a little more understanding of, and asking for support and not having a problem, having a therapist or asking for coaching support or even getting more intensive, you know? IOP, you know, inpatient treatment or it's, there's a willingness to ask for what they need. Are you experiencing something similar?

Laura: Yeah, you know? Yes, absolutely. I work primarily with folks with younger, younger kids, the middles and littles. So what I'm seeing with a lot those kids is that there seems to be kind of just some lagging and development of social and emotional regulation and skills. But overall what I'm noticing in families is that especially for kids raised in families, like the ones that we tend to support, ones that are emotionally aware, accepting of the ups and downs of life, that these kids do seem to be more well equipped. To be very able to seek out and open to the support that they need at various times. Do you see that too? That there's, and I just, I sometimes I think this teenage generation like this generations that are the, the teens right now are just kind of so cool. Like they're so much more sav… like savvy and well equipped on one end of things than we ever were as teenagers.

Cathy: A 100% agree. I am so in love with teenagers. I am so in love with the way that they experience the world and see the world in all the different. I mean, and I'm very aware of their brain development. They're risk takers. I'm not always psyched about some of the things they decide to do, but I appreciate where it's coming from and their willingness to be creative and hopeful and thoughtful and conscious and so this is kind of, I think it all goes together. Like they expect things that are more… How do I say this? They would like the world to be different. A that's a very big, you know, macro way to look at it. And they also feel like they should have more joy than they have.

And they're like, I'm going to kind of figure out ways to rest. Or I would like to figure out ways to be more mindful. Or I don't love what is being expected of me and this is for some of the older kids that I work with who in their twenties, you know, my college students. I don't like the idea that I have to work all weekend and then I'm getting paid less than these people. And what's so interesting is some of my friends who are in charge, you know, they're, you know, they're the Gen X people who are in charge now, get very frustrated with these young kids because they're like, I had to work this way. I didn't ask any questions. I didn’t, you know, do what they're doing, and I'm like, yeah, but see this is they're not lazy. They're not unwilling to work. They just want more meaning, they just want to understand, right? They want to be like this, this makes sense, and I'm using my skills and isn't that how we raised them?

Laura: Yeah, isn't that what we wanted all along. And it's so trippy too, to be, to see this generation of kids doing this and experience are kind of like: how dare they, the audacity. And then almost all of the parents that I work with were working through like how do you claim some of that for yourself? How do you, you know, how do you exist in a world that doesn't want you noticing and waking up to the way that our expectations don't serve us? You know, a world that thrives on us valuing productivity over, you know, all else. And so, so many of us are waking up to that and I guess and that I feel like this leads us beautifully into this conversation about intuition, and trusting ourselves, and slowing down, and it must be hard for kids to be going like, going through this process and not have very like, well, you know savvy guides. Because we don't, we're learning how to do it at the same time, right?

Cathy: I know. Well, and that's what's so interesting is then we become kind of, I don't… We’re guides, we’re not super savvy, but they are watching us and learn a lot of things. I think that you know a lot of what this book, this Zen Parenting book is about, is it really is, for parents. It's about you. So I know everyone would say well yeah of course, but so many books about how to get your child to do something or how do I understand my child and that is part of it. But my lead into that is, this is really all about you. And if you can kind of take a look at yourself and your beliefs and your history and where you began and why do you think the way you do? Like even those simple questions are like, why? You know, when parents will tell me that they are like, this is my line in the sand and they cannot, you know, they have to take this higher level math course. There's no other way around it.

And I'm like, where does that come from? Why? And it doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means you have to be clear about why am I asking my kids to do something, be something, say something, where does it come from? And you may investigate it and find that it comes from a place where you're like, this is really my value system, then amen. Like, you know, it's not about that there's a good and bad, it's about why. And so I think our generation, we're doing a lot of unlearning. We're doing a lot of shedding of our history. We're doing a lot of dealing with our trauma. And so our kids are kind of watching that alongside of us. If we are willing to talk about it, for example, the opening of my book is all of these issues that are difficult to talk about, sex education, inequality, race, sexuality and gender. That's the whole introduction of my book and they're very… It's very short. Like it's not in depth enough. You know, I would really request that people, you know, read beyond this text.

Laura: There's a book out there for every, everyone of this.

Cathy: And I actually have a list in the back of like, if you really want to go deeper, go elsewhere, right? But I jump into that first because before you start the self awareness journey, you have to consider these things. How do you feel about this and why? What's your history? So it's a lot of unlearning for us and that helps us talk to our kids about these things where they don't have to learn it and then unlearn it later. They can maybe pick up a more genuine connection to self and about what they need and then have less layers to shed.

So, and you know, our kids are also, you know, and again with, I'm with teenagers, they are teaching me all the time. That sounds so cliche. I mean this in a literal way, girls, how do you say this? You know, girls, when you're experiencing this, what language should I use? They are helping me navigate this generation. Some of it's fun and carefree and some of it's serious. You know, how do I speak these things and make sure that everybody feels seen and heard and valued. So I guess, you know, to your point, we're kind of going through it together.

Laura: Yeah. Right alongside each other. I love that I do, you know, it's in the parenting world, it's really common to tell parents that they’re the expert on their family, you know? And I always have like the caveat of… But your child is actually the expert on themselves. And they have a lot, they always have so much good information to share with us. If we go about seeking it with curiosity and compassion and grace, you know, with just this open hand of like I've never parented you at nine before, tell me what I need to know. I've never parented you at 12 before, tell me what I need to know, you know?

Cathy: And which is why this whole process, like if we tap in, to our own self awareness and have an understanding of how we think, feel, experience the world, even simple things like what's your favorite color, right? You know, like what is your favorite color and why? When we start to recognize we have this really deep internal world and we kind of have our own experience and we have a deep respect for how we see things, then we take those glasses and that's how we see our kid. Then we're like, oh they have that too. Even at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and of course at 15, 16, 17, 18. It can be more obvious as they get older.

But a two year old kid as I know, you know, they know who they are. And they're very, they're very willing to tell you and it doesn't mean that, then we say, oh sure you can run into the street, no problem. Obviously we have safety norms, we have boundaries, we have bedtimes. But we can listen to what they're telling us. This is what I like. This is what feels good to me, rather than telling them who they are going to be and why they should like certain things. That's, that's a dream from our brain. That's like a creation that may have been things we didn't do, things we wish we would do, something we want to see in our children versus showing up for this person in front of us and allowing them to be who they are.

Laura: Okay. So, Cathy, you're making me want to ask you about. So when we do have this vision for our kids and we're very carefully tuning into like, what's mine, you know, what's my stuff? My unfulfilled dreams, let's know what stuff am I holding onto too right. But at the same time, we want, we have goals, we have a vision, we have a purpose for our family. How do we hold that loosely and make room for who our kids are? Who they are? The reality of it, while still guiding them in the way that feels right to us.

Cathy: Right. And I think it's got a lot to do with the goals and how broad or how specific they are. Because I always kind of, I've always, you know, I don't know, most people will be listening to, so they can't see my hands, but there's like, when we're talking about like goals for our kids, like I always say you got to get big in that what do you want for them overall? Like for it all, just speak for myself right now because I'm not gonna tell anybody else how to do this. I would like my kids to live a genuine life. I would like them to feel that they're in alignment with themselves, I would like them to feel that they know how to create connection with people? I would like them to feel like relationships are important. I would like them to find work career that is meaningful to them and something that they wake up in the morning and say, yeah, it's still work, but man, I really feel like this is something that's important. So I'm saying that because those are very broad ideas that a lot of different things could end up making those things true.

Laura: You’re right. They could look a lot of different ways and you got it like everyday living.

Cathy: Exactly. And that I then can stay out of, does that mean stem or does that mean acting? Does that mean you play the piano? Does that mean you run track? I don't care. Just as long as you feel like you are in alignment with who you are and that whole messaging of learning how to do that and tap into what's important to you is really what adulting is about. So the idea that we're going to train our kids and I'm using that word purposefully when they're young to do what we tell them as best or what society tells them as best or what teachers tell them as best and then we send them into the adult world and we're like, yeah, but think for yourself. It doesn't make any sense. No, so it's just this broad like, and again, I, you know Laura, I'm sure you get this all the time. You know, people will be like, but my kid has to play piano. You know, my kid has to stay in band. My kid has to get, you know, all A's. And those are very micro ideas. And there can be reasons behind those ideas and those are things most of the time, not all the time, but most of the time, those are things we need to work through in ourself. Like why, why is that important? What does that mean? What were you taught that that means? And is that true? Exactly, Yeah.

Laura: Oh yes, absolutely. I so, I so agree. Okay, I want to read a little passage from your book, Is that okay? I feel like I hope that's okay. Alright, so you say I, ironically right about parenting and have an office filled with parenting books, but I don't always love them. The idea that someone understands and has a final answer to your personal experience is too convenient. And while I know our society loves final answers and most experts are doing their best to help, there are too many variables to insist that there is one way effective decision making necessitates knowing yourself knowing your child and being present with the moment. So this is the thing that my coaching clients, the people in my membership, always gets so frustrated with me on, because I don't tell them the answer because that's not my job. You know, I just love that you're bringing this out. But it is, it's hard for folks who are feeling lost and overwhelm and looking for the answer because things are hard right now. They're in the thick of it with their kids. What? So when parents are looking for the answer and you know that you don't have it, that the answer is deep within them. What do you do? What's the first thing?

Cathy: Yeah, well, you know, you kind of already said it and there's so many different ways to come at this, like I don't have the answer because it's not my experience. I don't have your history. I don't have your child and you may have four children and the answer is different for every single one. There is… I know… This is… Let me come at it this way because I think this will feel less daunting because as soon as we talk about parenting, all these things, it's kind of like, you know how there's words Laura that kind of send us into discomfort, like divorce, depression, parenting and all of a sudden we're already in like fight or flight were like, well, you know, like we're… Totally… We're like so ready to be like, tell me what to do and I'm really like a story that I often tell on the show is that in the first like five years of being married, I really didn't use the word husband a lot, because I found when I use the word husband, it took me down a path of like expectation and annoyance and you know, you'd be in a group of people and be like, my husband doesn't do this, my husband doesn't do that. Yes. And I felt like you, you know what Todd is my bestest friend. He is the neatest person. I'm using, that's the cheesiest word, neatest person, but he's such a great person.

Laura: I love that!

Cathy: And he's not a perfect person, but neither am I, were very flawed, like human beings, but he's so great. So to like put him in this category and I'm doing this, I'm rubbing my hands together with this word. So I would just be like Todd or like, you know? I just kinda… Now I can use it and it's fine but it's like sometimes words carry too heavy of a meaning where it takes us down a different path. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna put the word parenting aside, I'm gonna put a pin in it and let's talk about relationships. Okay? Because that feels a little warmer and like what kind of relationship do you want to have with yourself and what kind of relationship do you want to have with your children?

And obviously these relationships grow and change and they're very different when your child is five versus 15. But if you view it through the lens of relationship rather than parenting, you show up more in present time with what they need in that moment, rather than a set of rules or guidelines of what parenting means. Because sometimes you may be thinking to yourself, I'll use something very benign. You know, 15 year olds should not be going to rated R movies, okay, maybe that's a rule you have in your head from your childhood. And then your your 15 year old is pretty mature and they have a pretty deep understanding of things and they talk to you about really deep things and it just so happens a movie is coming out about issues that are really important to them or heck, you know, maybe it's a marvel movie, even though I think they keep those PG. And you're like this kid and I are gonna go see this movie. And I’m… Instead of living in this dogma or this set of rules we’re with this child and we are dealing with them in present time and we're dealing with ourselves in present times.

So the movie thing is it's a little more simple than, do I let my kid hang out with these kids? What do I do with my child? You know, in some way hurting their skin or making poor choices or you know, I know that it can become more daunting, but the same kind of thing applies where you're showing up with this child in this moment. Not worried about what happened yesterday, not focused on their sibling and not focused on your fear of the future. You're like, what do I do now? And that kind of, and I'll put the word parenting back in, that kind of parenting is connective, it's relationship building, it's authentic and you have left that this is something I can say after all these experiences, you have less challenges going forward. It doesn't mean life doesn't throw you unpredictable or difficult things. But feeling connected to your child, allowing them to share with you who they are and then respecting that, and honoring that, decreases, doesn't eliminate, decreases challenges later on.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And so I think whenever I feel like we kind of get to this topic in other interviews that I hear on other podcasts and stuff, I think that I can hear like the parents in the audience saying okay, yes, but how? And so like what are some like super just practical things that they can do on an everyday basis to kind of start exercising this intuition, turning inward muscle. What are some things that you, that you have your clients do or that you do yourself that helped that kind… Because it's a muscle, right? It's a skill, it's not just a tool in the toolbox, it's something you actually get better at using over time. It takes practice. And for most of us, you know, most of my listeners identify as women, most of us have been shutting down our intuition in our lives. We got the message very early on that it's not to be trusted, shut it down, you know? And so that process of kind of awakening within it, what do you, what do you have people do, what do you do yourself? That helps you kind of build that muscle, that capacity?

Cathy: Yeah, it's a great question and it's multilayered, but there is a beginning which is actually the book kind of goes through the process of the chakras. Which, chakras can sound really esoteric and I don't want them to be because chakras basically are the energy, you know, energy sources in our body, if you are, if you do yoga, if you like Reiki, if you like acupuncture, if you like any kind of bodywork you've probably heard about chakras because they're used very often and they're used to explain different, different ways that we can align with ourselves. But if you're not interested in any of those things, just think about them kind of as levels of personal understanding. Like just different kind of levels that tend to build on each other and go a little bit back and forth. They're all kind of interconnected. So you know, again, I just want to make sure that people don't feel like, oh I don't get that, you don't have to.

Laura: It was a really helpful way to frame the book. Yeah, yeah. You know in your book you definitely don't have to have a deep understanding or you know, lots of the folks that listen to my podcasts are very into the research and the data and the literature and sometimes things like that can feel a little flowery. I like that piece of the things I think the more I read research, the more I think we need things that aren't just only grounded in literature. But anyway, go ahead.

Cathy: Absolutely. Yeah. Like and you know what I try to do is in every chakra talk about data and research.

Laura: Yeah, It’s all there, like it's all there.

Cathy: It's just all there like the blending of for me, Western and Eastern is kind of the whole picture of a human being. I think if we just go data and we just go research and we just go dogma and we just go like you know, here's the four tips. We miss out on half of who we are. You know, like if not more, you know. So it's like how do we blend the two? So why I start with the chakra awareness is that you know, your question to me is how do we do this? What are the steps and it's not, it's not linear but it's beginning in ideas like I'll start with Chakra one. Like do you feel like you belong? Chakra one is all about feeling, like connected to the earth literally maybe with your feet or just connected to the world. Like what are your beliefs about being here? Like what… this gets so, it gets deep but it's important in that, how do you see life? Because that is what your children are gonna learn from you.

Do you think life is a slog that you have to get through and that everybody is out there to ambush you? And that you better keep yourself safe and protected because if that's your belief system which is understandable for people who have gone through a lot of traumatic experience or have a history of you know of a family where they experienced a lot of things that were unhealthy or traumatic then that is the way you will raise your children. You will raise them in a way where you want to keep them safe physically. You know, keep them away from people who maybe you don't know. It becomes your kind of modus operandi and how you parent.

And while some of it is very helpful because you're talking about safety and you're talking about making sure that your kids don't maybe have similar experiences that you do. It also is one of those things where you can for a moment and this is getting into a literal thing that you can do. When you're about to say something to your child about what they can or can't do to take a breath. And breathing is another one of those things that can sound really like, oh yeah, I don't practice yoga. Don't tell me to breathe, Breathing is the most researched thing. You know, this is what doctors tell us to do. This is what psychologists tell us to do. Clinicians, social work, the military uses it. Like this is not a task that is, you know, in any way…

Laura: It’s just part of having a human body.

Cathy: You got it. This is neurobiology. This is everything. So it taking a breath and choosing how you're going to respond? Okay. So because the thing that we do as parents like the big question about like well how do I do this, is we're very used to reacting. We're very on autopilot. So we have a feeling we haven't experienced something happens in front of us and we react. And we say, well my child did this and I had to do this. You know, they didn't put their shoes away. I had to yell if you take a breath or just take a pause, you can respond. Which is different than reacting. Respond is ,what do I want to say? Maybe I say nothing right now. Maybe I, you know, laugh, maybe I walk away for a second, or maybe I say please put your shoes away, but I don't do the yelling part.

This is a very subtle shift where I think people will say, well, yeah, that's great, but that won't work for me. Just try it. Try a time when your child is struggling with something or you're frustrated at them in the morning. Try before you say something, taking a breath and then responding. This is what I tell teenagers to do with social networking too. Before you post anything, take a breath and decide. Do not do autopilot reactive posting. Do not comment, autopilot reactive. And these are things that shift every dynamic going forward. Because you know, if you have a kid in the morning who's you know, they have a difficult time getting their shoes on or they have a difficult time getting out the door, they're complaining or whatever. Those things can set the tone for the day. So everything is kind of dominoes after that.

What if you do something just slightly different in the morning and you respond differently. And see how that dynamic begins to shift. And this is why, the reason I started with the chakra one and grounding is you have to feel really kind of like, okay, this is important. This is something I want to try. This is, I feel like something that could be effective. In yoga, we call it root to rise, where you like, put your feet on the mat, you spread your feet, like now I'm strong and now I can reach for something new. But if we're on autopilot, kind of flowing around in the world, we're not even willing to do anything new, we just want people to tell us what to do. So there's a little shift in… This is important. I'm important, they're important. I'm gonna do something different.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's I think, thinking about this pause, I've been thinking about this a lot with my own life and in, you know, the life of the families that I work with, that, that pause, it is hard to get because we're in a state in the world of just reactivity a lot of the time, right? And I don't know about you, I'd love to hear your experience, but in my experience, practicing that pause with myself with my own flood of thoughts, my own narrative just within myself, even when my kids aren't involved. Like, you know earlier, just before we sat down, I mixed some stuff into my coffee and I had overfilled the cup a little bit. And so then when I put the mixer on it overflowed and there's a flood of thoughts that came along with having spilled my coffee.

And those moments, there's a little less pressure in those moments to practice the pause. Okay, hold on just a second now, what is real and true right now? Okay, I spilled my coffee, I love self compassion based mindfulness. You know, am I alone and having spilled my coffee this morning? No, likely thousands of other people all over the world spilled their coffee this morning too, right here with me. You know, like just that practice for me personally and that it builds that capacity within myself. And I think there's this transcendent piece of it, that the more we are deeply connected and accepting and able to have that kind of pause, full responsive relationship with ourselves, the more we're able to offer it with the important people in our lives.

Cathy: I mean, you just hit on everything that's important and everything we're trying to say, which is what we were saying before about parenting is not about your kid. Parenting is about you. And if you want, if the word parenting has that daunting feeling, relationships begin with you. And the relationship that is most important is the one you have with yourself, which is you this morning, you put the stuff in your coffee, it overflowed, and you're the most reactive thing that happens is our brain start to feel like it's threatened by this coffee that's overflowing like this is a threat and I need to do something and how could I do it? And what? And then your ability to be more in your conscious mind, you know, up here in your prefrontal cortex, you were like, this is, you know, you use the self compassion. You know, this is I'm gonna be here.

Laura: Yeah, I think I was in my brain, I think I was in my heart too.

Cathy: I love that.

Laura: You know, I think that, there's, that I've been doing this thing when I am interacting with kids lately in my work. I've been asking them where they live in their bodies and kids almost always say they live here. And when I ask grown ups often times they, say they live up here and there's the shift with teens to where they… At some point they moved to thinking they're up in their brains, you know? When really like we're here, you know? Sorry, that was a total divergence. But yeah,

Cathy: No, I love that, you know, in the book, I actually, I think it's in the chapter in chakra four. The first thing I say is point to yourself right now and everybody listening point to yourself, you point to your heart, so we know nobody points to their head, even though you're right, adults say I live in my husband says it all the time. He's like I live in my head. He feels like a floating head and he says that not to be self critical but to keep recognizing that he really is. He feels very disconnected from his body, which is again, another big part of chakra awareness when it comes to, you know, all of them, you know, one through seven is how to bring, how to bridge that mind and body. They've really never been separated, but we have maybe put too much energy into the mind and so we forget how most, I love that you say you felt it in your heart because really that's where the feelings begin. It's all body based.

And sometimes it takes a while like the beauty of the, you know, certain areas of the brain is they can kind of help us be more rational and not so primitive and autopilot so we can utilize. But you're right. So much of our instincts really come from what's going on. You know what we feel and how it ends. And Laura, right there, like some feelings are so uncomfortable in the body. That's why we jump to reaction of course because we want it gone like gone. Do not make me feel this way. Like this, you know, this jumps into again a self awareness thing with our kids that whenever they're feeling something it would be anxiety or sadness or depression or grief or just you know, fear. We, you know, everything starts firing because we're human beings, our mirror neurons start firing, just the connection to our kids.

And we feel, we're feeling that too and we want it to stop because maybe we were never taught that it was okay to feel those things. So we don't want our kids to feel it. And even though we say yeah, we want to help them, we really just wanted to end like what's the best feeling for parenting? You know, teenager or I should say, parents of teenagers is when you say how are you and kids are like fine, we're like, good, you know? Now, I can go on with my day because you're fine. And we know that that word means nothing, but there's a relief in it, right? Because when we say to our kids, how are you and they start to tell us the truth, things get real. And it can be really uncomfortable and a lot of it, it's because of what that feeling feels like in our body and we just want to jump right over it.

Laura: Yeah, Yes, and that's the work right of recognizing our our very human, you know, response to that, it makes sense that we would respond that way and coming back to what we also know to be true that right here in those moments, that connection, that relationship, we don't have to know the exact right thing to do and say. We can just be there at that moment. Yeah. And stuff.

Cathy: It is and that is why, you know, we're kind of substituting the word relationships for parenting is, that's what we're trying to teach our kids right? We're not trying to teach them to be good kids to us. We're trying to teach them to be human beings in the world and how to have healthy relationships. So that whole process begins with their relationship with us. Do we have… And when I use the word healthy, I don't mean perfect. I don't mean always happy. I mean typical, like you can have an argument and respect each other's perspective. You can be frustrated at each other and resolve it and repair it. That's what a healthy relationship is. It's not about constant joy, that's not reality.

Laura: It's the full range of human experience and resilience, you know? Yeah. Oh gosh, okay, Cathy, I do feel like we could probably talk for hours. I so appreciate your time and your and your, your presence and your… Was sharing your wisdom. Not just here but in the world. Why don't you make sure our listeners know where to find you and I'll make sure everything gets into the show notes, but sometimes folks like to hear it out loud, so…

Cathy: Sure, sure. So zenparentingradio.com is where everything is. We actually, even when you get to that page, there's like a resource page where it has everything that we do. The podcast has obviously been around for 11 years. So there's like, what do we have like 660 podcast to choose from. So we pretty much talked about everything and I, we still have plenty of found there or wherever books are sold. And you know, just zenparentingradio.com is the best place to go and you can find everything. Yes, instead of going through each individual thing will just say that.

Laura: Okay, well thank you again so much Cathy. I really, truly… Your work and your work with Todd is just so, so lovely. So please everybody be sure you do go check out. Check out her podcast and her book. Thank you for being here.

Cathy: Thank you Laura. Thank you for your work too. I'm glad we're in it together.

Laura: Yeah, we are. It’s so good. It's so good to have colleagues.

Cathy: It is.

October 28, 2022

Bonus: Live Coaching - Helping a Child Take Responsibility after a Mistake

October 28, 2022/ Laura Froyen

This week will have another bonus episode - a live coaching I did with one of my BalancingU community members. We will be talking about how to help a child take responsibility after a mistake WITHOUT forcing apologies. I hope that as you listen, you can pull out meaningful takeaways that apply to your family. And if there are, I'd like you to share your reflections on Instagram and tag me @laurafroyenphd.

Laura: So tell me about your family and how I can help? You got a spirited, strong willed little one.

Lindsay: I do. So just a little bit of a brief background about a year and a half ago we moved from New York City to Paris and it's been amazing and intense of course, as moving internationally and adding covid into the mix woul d be. But by and large, I'm like so impressed with my family's response and my kiddos in particular. So when we moved here, my son was, I guess five. And I remember when he was in pre-k for at night going to bed, he would lay there in reaction or in anticipation of us moving here.

He would just start crying and say, you know, like what if they don't understand me? You know, because he is in a bilingual school, it's 80% French, 20% English and we don't speak any French. What if they don't understand me? What if I need to go to the bathroom? What if I need to drink? And he would cry, you know? And whereas my eight year old or at the time I guess was six was just sort of like, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I'm gonna roll with this. Right? So the interesting thing was, once we got here, it kind of reversed. She was now experiencing more of that and he was like, okay, let's go with this. Like this is pretty cool.

Laura: And that makes sense, right? Because the one got all of that out ahead of time and the other one was maybe feeling all those things but kept it in. Right?

Lindsay: Yeah, totally. So they went to different schools last year because he didn't get into the school that she did. Did great in school, super resilient. This year, now, they are in the same school together and same thing. He's like, so adaptable when it comes to new environments. So I just wanted to frame all that because there's just great stuff to say about him. He's a sensitive little guy and he's stubborn and has a very hard time moving past strong feelings. He's my guy who at three years old, maybe we would say something about like time out or something like this.

And he would go, no, no, he would say I'm going to put myself in time out. And he would go in the bedroom and close the door and just want to stay there. So it's sort of this, like, defiant nature. You know, you don't want me to do this or you're gonna punish me. I put myself there first. That's an early memory that comes on. And now I would say more what I think about is just that, like, once he gets in a funk or in a place he just stuck there.

Laura: And would you characterize him as kind of holding it together? Kind of school is really, really hard for him to hold it together. Do what he needs to do, be well regulated and then he comes home and it just kind of all comes out, is that kind of what's happening?

Lindsay: I would agree with that.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. I love… First of all how you framed this because we're never all just one thing, right? We all have all these parts of us and I love that you're seeing all of the good stuff, the awesome stuff in your son too. That's so important and that can get so lost when we're having a hard time when they're in a sticky face. Okay, so it sounds like you're wanting to help him learn how to not get stuck in some of those hard feelings or those thought patterns. Is that kind of what I'm hearing?

Lindsay: There's definitely that and I would just add to that. What I hear myself saying these days a lot is that he's kind of getting in his own way with those feelings. So he'll kind of get stuck there or not be able to move on. And what I've been explaining to him is that he's getting in his own way and potentially even making the situation worse versus being able to navigate out of it. And, you know, I view it as a skill of resiliency and adaptability and those are all things we strive and for in our family, obviously moving across the country, across the world, you know, attributes that are important. So not only do I want to help him now, cope better, but also just thinking of him being a little adult. Yeah.

Laura: Okay, so give me just a couple examples of things that he gets stuck in when you're, he's experiencing that. So you're seeing him kind of getting in his own way. Just a couple examples will help me.

Lindsay: Yeah, yeah. Of course, I’m glad you asked me.

Laura: I know right, like we have this like global idea that it is a certain way and it probably is. But then when we go for specifics are hard to find, hard to hold on to.

Lindsay: Yeah. Like, I mean I can try to kind of come up with something. It's like he fights in the system and it's like he has a hard time saying, I'm sorry, are you okay? Hey, it was an accident. She got hurt. You know, just be like, hey, are you okay? Like everything alright? You want me to get mom, you want to get dad, you know, whatever. And he won't say sorry. You know, this is like a really big deal because I think he thinks it's admitting guilt or that, or something. Then he'll just stew and not get off the couch or not move or not participate in the next activity. And you know, I'll say something like, gosh, you know, if you had just asked if she was okay, we want to show empathy for our system. We want to make sure, you know, and it's like you could have deescalated this whole thing. But because you were so fixated on not saying that, you know, things the family got, she got more upset, we got disappointed in you blah blah blah.

Laura: Absolutely. And you know, like, so in that moment, like there's a piece of this that's so important to understand for those kiddos who get stuck in times like that. I think in my experience with kids like this in those moments, they feel so badly about inadvertently hurting their sister or you know, whatever it is that, you know, they have this kind of sense of like this was bad or this was wrong, I did this wrong. And it's not that they don't feel bad about it, it's actually that they do and it's hard to think of themselves that way. And because they're young, you know, so he's only six, his ability to kind of quiet his own emotional experience of having hurt someone inadvertently.

Quiet that experience, hold that experience in one hand. And also at the same time see his sister's experience and have like, the empathy, that perspective taking as a very advanced skill in terms of emotional intelligence. I mean this is a skill that literally, if I'm working with couples, I have to teach the couples, the adult couples how to do how to have your own emotional experience here and at the same time witness and validate someone else's emotions experience, you know? All the time, we get stuck in places of like, well, I mean, even just like politically we hear like here… Well, I didn't mean it that way. And so you shouldn't be upset because I didn't mean it that way.

This is ability to hold space for your feelings of like, oh man, I did something that I didn't mean to hurt someone and I feel kind of bad about myself, but I also don't want to think badly about myself and all of that starts flowing and it stops us, that gets in the way of being able to be present with the impact of our words, you know? And have access to like the skills and tools that we could use to kind of get ourselves out of it, you know? One thing that can be helpful is to practice those things outside of the moment. I want to have a sense of, this is now I'm gonna ask you a question, so is this mostly in the moment when you're kind of addressing these things, practicing these skills, giving him like well you could just say, you know, or like close after it's happened, when he's still kind of stuck or we doing anything preventatively or proactively about building these skills for him.

Lindsay: It's a great question, I'm not sure if this is going to answer it, but what comes to mind when you are asking me the question is like, it will even continue the next day. Like, so the next, let's say, it happens around dinner time, you know, the evening will be this way we'll wake up the next day and be like, do you want to ask your sister anything, you know? How she's doing if her back still hurts and I'm not sure, I think you might be asking me the opposite direction or even like really disengaged from the event.

Laura: Yeah. Super disengaged from the event and then the other piece too is that, you know what I found with working with individuals of all ages with this issue, like social emotional skill that takes the lifespan to develop. And so one is like having like reasonable expectations for a six year old to, you know, so perspective, taking, putting yourself into someone else's shoes is a cognitive skill that develops in the 6-8 range for typically developing kids. And that range of course we know it's a bell curve, right? And so they give us the age ranges that is at the top, but then there's kids who are normal and typical who are either end of those curves too, you know?

And if we have a really emotionally intelligent older kid and then the younger one is a little bit slower and those things that can even look wider, like my kids really behind in this and that's not necessarily the case at all. So one thing that can be really helpful in these circumstances is to validate and empathize with the one who did the hurting first, to clear out their hurtingness. Just think about, like if you hurt your partner's feelings and you didn't mean to and they're upset and some defensiveness flares up in you, right? You have to do a little bit of soothing in yourself, right? A little bit of comforting. Like, oh, you know, you didn't mean to do that and you know, it's okay that you hurt your husband's feelings. You're still a good person, you still love him. You do a little bit of soothing before you then go and make the apology. Right?

So we kind of like, the kids can't always do that inside themselves. So a little bit of soothing, like, oh man, it must have really hurt to hurt your sister's feelings. You said something, it landed wrong on your sister and you didn't mean to hurt her feelings and then suddenly everybody was mad at you. Everybody was thinking that you did something mean and you didn't even mean to. I must have really been hard. You know, like, so that kind of empathizing on that piece of things, right? So that he's not he gets that empathy. That validation of like, yeah, I'm a good kid. I didn't mean to hurt my sister's feelings. I didn't, I didn't mean to do this thing wrong and it really feels like everyone's against me, kind of validating that perspective can help get some of his stuff cleared out of the way and allow him the space to be more apologetic. You know, when we give forgiveness, we’re more in return, we're more giving with our responsibility taking. I don't know if that's helpful at all.

Lindsay: I love that. It's something I've never thought about.

Laura: Yeah, okay, good. And then the other thing that it's sounding to me like he has some scripts and some narratives bubbling under the surface. You know, we all tell ourselves stories about ourselves all the time and I've never seen him and I've never heard him, but I'm guessing. And you could probably even tell me, like, what do you think he's thinking about himself? Like, when he's stuck these moments? So when we get stuck in feelings, we are often rehearsing thoughts about ourselves or about the people around us over and over in our minds. And it can be really helpful to find out what he's thinking about. So that, if once we know then we can speak to those narratives and start gently reshaping and helping them rescript those things before they get too entrenched. He's six, you know, like these still very malleable. These scripts and narratives are still very easy to work with, you know, when they're six. Do you know what he's thinking about himself for thinking about his family? Like, what his story is?

Lindsay: I think you're bringing up a really good point. I think you nailed him in the sense that, like, he's the kind of kid, like, even if he gets hurt physically, he won't say something. Well, kind of, like, maybe hear a noise and go back to the house and he's like, you know, holding it and it's like, well, gosh, like, come to us, you know? Whereas his sister was used to that kind of behavior. So I do think he's the type of person who's got a lot going on thinking things. So I think you hit the nail on the head. I'm gonna have to think about what his script would be. I think you're absolutely right that he's got one.

Laura: And so like in these preventative and proactive times when you are like, it's been a while, been a couple of days, maybe since something like this has happened. Then you can sit down and say, hey, you know, you remember the other day when this happened, it seemed like you got a little stuck in feeling bad about yourself and I was kind of curious about like if there were any like thoughts in your heads. If your brain was telling you anything about yourself or about your family, about maybe how we feel about you. I was just curious if your brain was telling you anything about those, about yourself and about and and just see what he says? You know, and you can also model this for him to awareness of your thoughts.

So like just in like everyday situations so, like let's say, you're getting a cup of coffee and you spilled it on the counter. Maybe your first thought in that moment is like, I'm such a klutz. So you may even say like, oh my brain is telling me that I'm clumsy, but I know I'm human and everybody makes mistakes. You can say that out loud, like not like to him, but to yourself, but just kind of have that like self coaching happening, you know that we do. I don't know if you do this, but I do this all the time. Like I have the script that I developed in childhood, you know, where I need to be perfect in order to be loved comes out and then I self correct. You know, like yeah, it is hard to make mistakes, but you're human and everybody does and you know, and so sometimes doing that out loud can be really helpful too, just as modeling the thought process.

And there's a book that I really like, I don't know if you would call him an overtly anxious kid, but he is what you how you're describing him as making some anxiety like bells pop up in my head because sometimes anxiety when it's internalized looks different than what we think about a kid who, you know, like he bumps himself, he gets hurt and he doesn't tell you. He probably also isn't telling you when he's having worries or fears sometimes too, you know? So, this book Anxiety Relief for Kids is basically a manual that teaches parents how to do cognitive behavioral therapy techniques with their kids.

Lindsay: Awesome!

Laura: And it's lovely. And what I was just talking about is basically what this book teaches. So this is something that you can grab and there's little just little things in there to help them become aware of their thoughts and start working with their thoughts. And thoughts were recognizing that, just because the neuron fires in your brain giving you a thought doesn't mean it's true. That your brain will say things that are random and not true all the time. And just cause you're thinking, it doesn't mean it's true.

Recognizing thoughts that are unhelpful and then starting to work with them and make different kind of actively choose different thoughts. Those things can be really helpful skills for everybody to have everybody in the house, especially for a kid who maybe is getting stuck in their thoughts, in the story that they're telling themselves about themselves. Another one that I really like, that I don't have here because it's in my daughter's room because she likes it. My oldest is like your son in this way, but it's called Sam and the Negative Voice. And that's a book for kids that basically teaches you about how we all have an inner critic and an inner coach. And that sometimes our inner critic can be really loud, but when we let it be loud, it stops us from enjoying life. Yeah, so I like that one.

And then there's another book that my kids like to around kind of perfectionism and making mistakes and being graceful with yourself. It's called The Girl Who Never Made Mistake. So I like that book too if you're looking for kids books for them. The concept of an inner coach and an inner critic can also be helpful to teach to kids. It's helpful for parents too. I mean, my inner critic is extremely active and loud sometimes and knowing that kind of externalizing it, giving it a little bit of distance from me, knowing that that negative voice inside my head isn't me, but that's just the negative voice, you know, that's something else. And then being able to talk back with it and have a conversation with it is also just a helpful skill for kids to learn.

And then one other practice that you can be engaging in is engaging in recognizing as an exercise, as a family, recognizing when you've made a mistake and how you can be kind to yourself when you've made a mistake. Because that's really what's getting in his way, right? So he makes a mistake and he's hard on himself, so hard on himself that it prevents him from seeing, you know, being able to be there to repair the mistake that he's made, right? One daily practice that we do in our family as we go around the table saying that like, one thing that we did well today that we're proud of, one thing, mistake we made. And then one way that we were kind to ourselves about the mistake. And so that's just like modeling, noticing that every day we do things well, every day we make mistakes and every day we have a chance to be kind to ourselves. I feel like I'm giving you a lot of information. Can… Do you wanna, like, give me your feedback. Let me know what you're thinking questions. I feel like I overwhelm you. I'm so sorry.

Lindsay: No, no, no, it was perfect. And like you, you weren't joking when you said we were gonna get a lot done, but like, it wasn't in an overwhelming way, it's just like you gave me something and I was like that, okay, you can't really top that. And then you gave me something else. I was like, well, yep, she sure can. The third time or fourth time. That was beautiful. I love that. I do have a question going back to the one of the first things you said, which was when providing empathy at that time, when, you know, wow, you hurt your sister, you didn't mean to do that. And that must have been really hard, that whole thing. What do you suggest a step after that would be?

Laura: Yeah. Okay, so, first of all, just framing that, don't do that in front of your daughter. So that's something that happens privately with your son. We don't always have to subject our kids to our empathy for the other person. That's when it starts to feel like we're taking sides, right? So if we're going to be super empathetic, really coming alongside. Really kind of on one kid's side do that in private so that you can also be on the other kids side. This is part of being having multi directed partiality. Sometimes you need to do things privately so that they feel fully supported by you.

So first of all when you go in with that empathy, you can't go in with the goal of making them want to apologize. You have to go in with the mindset that regardless of what they just did, they are also hurting, right? So holding space that a person can hurt someone and be hurting at the same time and that your only goal, your only agenda is to help them feel seen and supported and unconditionally loved in that moment. And so if we go in with the goal of like I'm only validating so that you will apologize will rush it and they'll feel it, they'll feel it's not authentic, not real.

Your mindset is super important and then afterwards sit for a minute, how you feeling? All right, what do you think we should do? So getting curious and inviting their instinct is the next thing you know? What do you think we should do about this? Okay, we're feeling better now. What should we do? What do you think we can do? I can hear your sister still crying. What do you think? So you can maybe just get a little curious with just some little nudges and see what they do. Sometimes they have really good ideas for ways to apologize or make up that we would never think of and that allow them to save face. You know? That allows them to repair and apologize in ways that are authentic and true to them.

You know, I think adults sometimes have ideas about, you know, how a repair and apology is supposed to look. Kids often need very different things. So like one of the things that my five year old does in these moments like this is that, after we have our talking she almost always grabs a piece of paper and draws a picture of her and her sister together holding hands and slips that to her and that is the apology and that's all the apology her older sister needs. And so it's tempting as an adult to force, you know, saying the words I shouldn't have said that, you know, I can see how that hurt your feelings and often we don't always have to do that. We might say that to our own kid, kind of for the one we had a chance to talk and “Oh man, he feels so bad about the way he said that. He didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but he sees now how it could have”.

You know, and we sometimes, so sometimes it's just modeling for them the words to say because they don't always know the language, but also giving them the ability to just do whatever it is. That's their own language. My kids often give each other little gifts as apologies. You know, like little stones that they found out on a rock or my eight year old often allows, you know when she's apologizing in those moments she will offer the younger one a chance to sleep with one of her stuffed animals that she doesn't normally get to sleep to. Those are beautiful, childlike, heartfelt apologies that are more effective than anything we can make our kids do, you know? Is that helpful? Does that answer?

Lindsay: Yeah, that's really helpful. Would you recommend in the moment, like separate, like going and having that private. Like right away like right when it happens?

Laura: You know your kid best. I'm guessing that he will need practice, proactive practice with some of the self soothing, some of the thought work stuff before he's ready for you to immediately go there with him. He may need some time to just get some big feelings, especially like if he is like when this is happening, he's feeling vulnerable. So this is about vulnerability. He feels vulnerable when he makes this mistake, he feels badly about himself. I am guessing that he's having lots of thoughts about, you know, bad thoughts about himself or thoughts about like I'm all alone, no one gets me, whatever it is. You know, he maybe needs a little bit of time with those feelings before he's ready. You know him best. Like if you went in with nothing but empathy. “Oh buddy. Oh you must be really upset. You didn't mean to hurt her feelings and you did and you feel so bad and now it seems like everyone's mad at you”. Like you, do you know, like how he would respond to that?

Lindsay: I don't but I'm really curious to find out.

Laura: Give it a try. Like worse that could happen would be like he'd be like – get out, go away. You know? And slam the door. You know, that might happen.

Lindsay: Like, just want to go into his room and like he will be in there for an hour if I let them. Reading whatever and like fine, not angry, not throwing stuff just like hey I'm being in here, I really don't want to see anyone right now.

Laura: I think often in the peaceful parenting community we get the idea that we're not supposed to let our kids do that, that we're not supposed to let our kids be alone with their feelings but some kids need to be, and if that's what they're telling you that they need in that I would respect them. You can always circle back, circling back as always an option. Regulate, let them calm down, you know, let them, you know, soothe so that they are open and available for, to our guidance, you know? I think it's okay. But you can also ask him too, so this is another thing that can happen in some of those proactive conversations, you know, like hey! you know when you make a mistake, just like everybody makes mistakes.

And you're really hard on yourself, what do you want me to do? I know you're really upset, I want to be able to be there for you, but sometimes it seems like you just want to be alone. So what would be helpful when that happened? What could I say to help you? What could I do? Getting curious with them on those things and then just trusting them, you know, trusting them to know what they need. I do think that too though, like separating can be helpful, like, I mean often they do it by themselves, I think, I don't know in your family, but they take themselves away from the situation. But sometimes separating needs to happen even just for the vulnerability of being able to fully empathize with one kid without the other kids seeing it. You know?

Lindsay: Yeah, you bring up something in my mind which I didn't even realize I was gonna think about today, which is like I always have a hard time in that moment because she's hurt and not being even able to validate her, give her like that attention that she deserves because I'm so focused on him because he's that problem or he's the person that requires the attention or the skill or the lesson where she's just and I feel so… Yeah.

Laura: Absolutely. And so like in those moments, like we don't need to teach him a lesson. First of all, he is the kind of the natural consequence of his sister crying as the most beautiful teacher available. But his own like, sense of shame or blame or self judgment is likely getting in the way of him being able to learn that lesson, right? Because we, when we're in a place of shame or blame or judgment are learning centers in our brain are turned off, right? So, he can't even learn a lesson when he's there. I mean something similar just happened last night in my own house. My youngest daughter was making a face and we all thought that it was a joke face, but she was actually upset and she got even more upset and we all like the three of us were like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.

Right away, she accepted my husband's and my apologies for kind of reading the situation wrong, but my eight year old lost it. About like, just lost it and went off to her room and ran off and like that we just let that go. You know, because she was just in a tender place of having accidentally hurt her sister's feelings and then feeling as if she was bad and wrong, you know? So, we eventually made all that up, you know? But yeah, sometimes like we got to go to the one who's hurting, understanding that the other one is likely hurting too just in a little bit different way. But yeah, if like someone gets physically hurt or have their feelings hurt, a little bit of soothing is not for them and knowing that the lesson, nothing will be lost in the time in our meaning. You know, the lesson is always going to be available there for them to learn.

Lindsay: It's a good reminder because I think I feel that in the moment. I'm like, I've got, you know, this is the time when I've got to do this. It's freshen our mind, but actually it's probably not even a place where they're able to take in.

Laura: Yeah, exactly. We also like have this pressure of like they need to know it's not okay. They wouldn't be upset if they didn't know it wasn't okay. They would not be upset right then. So like the fact that he's upset tells you like he knows this isn't okay and if he could be doing better handling this better right now, he would be, you know? He would be doing better if he could in that moment say like, oh wow, I screwed up and I'm so sorry. He would do that. A hundred percent he would do that. And I bet there's times at school where he does that with his friends or whatever and he just, for some reason at home in that moment, he can't. He doesn't have that skill available to him and it's not because he's a bad kid or because he's unempathetic or anything. Just he just didn't, wasn't able to right then.

Lindsay: Yeah, this is so awesome. You’re amazing!

Laura: Thank you so much Lindsay. This is so much fun. Ok, So I have a strange question. You can think about this, but I think so many people would benefit from this conversation. So just think about it. What would you think about me using this as a podcast episode and then I give you another whole session just for you. Just curious.

Lindsay: Totally down for that.

Laura: Oh, yey! Because I feel like this stuff is almost everybody needs to know about these things. Thank you!

Lindsay: I'm glad to reversal and that. That it could benefit other people. That makes me very happy.

Laura: Oh, it would so benefit other people. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time and your vulnerability. I really appreciate it.

Lindsay: Like, gosh! To have another session with you would be incredible because my husband wanted it to be able to join for this and I'll be able to do is play this for him with the recording and then we'll be able to kind of gather our thoughts around another future session that hopefully all three of us can be in together.

Laura: Yes, that would be awesome. So what I'll do is when I send this, I'll send you a link for, to schedule an hour long session and then you can just get on my calendar.

Lindsay: Amazing. This is like a win for everybody. Thank you.

Laura: Oh my gosh! It's a huge one for me. I feel so blessed that you said yes to that. Thank you.

Lindsay: Thanks for your time. Your perspective is really special. Thank you again.

Laura: Oh, thank you. You take good care. You are… They're so lucky to have you as their mom. They're so lucky.

Lindsay: Thank you. Bye.

October 25, 2022

Episode 141: What You Need to Know about Childhood Substance Use with Richard Capriola

October 25, 2022/ Laura Froyen

The topic that we will be tackling for this week's episode on The Balanced Parent podcast is a bit tricky, but it's also something we will all need to think about sooner or later: Substance Use. I don't love the idea of parenting from a place of fear, as I'm sure you know, but I also know the statistics about teenage substance use and the risks. I want to be mindful and conscious as my children approach their teen years, with the hopes of fostering honest conversations that help my kids see me as a safe space to get information and help when they need it. I also know that some of you with teens may be feeling a bit lost for warning signs to look for and how to hold boundaries while honoring your teen's autonomy.

No matter where you are in your parenting journey, I hope this conversation can be there for you when you need it! To help me in this conversation, I am joined by Richard Capriola. He has been a mental health and addiction counselor for over two decades. He worked as an addictions counselor at Menninger Clinic in Houston Texas for over a decade where he treated adolescents and adults diagnosed with mental health and substance use disorders. He is the author of The Addicted Child: A Parent's Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse.

Here's an overview of our conversation:

What warning signs should parents know about and the first step to do when noticing these signs
Body Autonomy and how to balance between being able to choose what to do with their body, the substances to put in their body, and keeping them safe and their well being
How to balance supporting our children with love and compassion vs. crossing that line into enabling their substance use

If you want to get more support for your kiddo, visit Richard's website helptheaddictedchild.com.

Laura: Hello, everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this episode of The Balanced Parent, we are going to be talking with my guest expert Richard Capriola and he is a mental health and addictions counselor and an expert on helping families whose child or teen adolescent is dealing with substance abuse and addiction. So this conversation I know can be a topic that is hard and scary for parents to even think about. I know a lot of my audience has younger kids and some who have teens and so I'm really excited to have this conversation both for parents whose teens are perhaps facing these issues who are entering the age where substance use starts becoming more prevalent and for those of us with younger kids like myself who are looking for ways to prevent substance abuse. So Richard, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being with us. Will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Richard: Yes, thank you, Laura. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me and I think that you just identified the core reason as to why I wrote my book The Addicted Child: A parent's Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse, when you talked about how this is such a scary topic for parents. It is a scary topic and I wrote my book to give them information to give them resources. I kept it very short, hoping that they would feel better prepared for this in the event that they need to confront it, that they would not be so afraid of this topic that they would learn about it, that they would be more knowledgeable about it and feel more confident, that they can deal with this issue. So that was a good introduction as to why I wrote the book.

My background includes a long history in education. I was in education administration for over 30 years in Illinois. I transitioned from that career to working in mental health where I worked as a crisis center counselor and I noticed that quite a few people who were coming to the crisis center had a mental health issue and a substance abuse issue. So I went back to the University of Illinois and obtained a master's degree in human services with an emphasis in addictions counseling. I continued to work at the crisis center for a while until I was offered a position at Menninger Clinic in Houston texas. Menninger Clinic is a large psychiatric hospital serving adults and adolescents. And I worked there for over a decade treating both adolescents and adults who were diagnosed with mental health and substance abuse issues.

Many families, many parents who were struggling with this issue of having a child with substance abuse and worked with them. And then I left Menninger a little over a year ago and I, and because of my work with so many parents, I wanted to write a resource that would be a good guide for them. And I kept it to around 100 pages because I know parents are busy, they don't have time to read several 100 pages. So I kept it to about 100 pages with very short concise chapters, but yet packed it with a lot of information that I hope is helpful for parents and that I think that will be beneficial to them. Make it maybe a little bit less scary of a subject for them.

Laura: Yeah, well I really appreciate that and I appreciate what you're saying here too, that this might be some a resource to check out and look into, even if you have younger kids or even if the substance use isn't actually something that you're terribly concerned about with your kids. Just so that you know, you're prepared and ready for the conversation or for what to do if it comes up. I really like that perspective.

Richard: I think knowledge is power. So the more we can empower parents by giving them the information on this subject, the less fearful they become of it and they feel better prepared and no matter what the age of your child may be they’re 6, maybe they're 7, maybe 8, maybe they're 15, 16, it's never too late or too early to begin to become familiar with this issue. Know what's going on out there in terms of kids using substances. Know how the substances work in the developing adolescent brain. What resources and tests are out there and just become less afraid and more confident that you'll be able to handle this issue if it does come up.

Laura: Yeah, I so appreciate that. I think it's so important to be prepared in that way. Okay, so then let's dive into some of those things that you just brought up. What are some of the warning signs that parents should set off alarm bells for parents that we can be looking out for?

Richard: That isn't an important issue because so many times I would sit across from parents and I would go through their child's history of using a substance and I would give them the diagnosis of a substance use disorder that was either mild or moderate or severe. And when I finished explaining the history of their child's use of a substance, they would look at me and many times they would say I had no idea this was going on. Or if they did suspect their child was using a substance, they would say something like, well I sort of thought something was going on, but I didn't know it was this bad, and these are good parents and they would feel guilty. They would say, how did I not know this was going on? How did I not catch it? How did I miss the warning signs? Well, they missed the warning signs because nobody told them what to look for.

So in my book, I present warning signs for a child that might be drinking alcohol. Warning signs for a child that might be using marijuana. Warning signs for a child that might be developing an eating disorder or self harming because they sometimes can accompany a child using a substance. So those warning signs are all listed in my book. As a general rule, what I recommend to parents is pay attention to the changes that you see in your child, you know, your child better than anyone. So pay attention to the changes that you see. Don't assume that the changes that you're seeing, the behaviors that you're seeing is just normal adolescent acting out. It may very well be, but it also might be an indicator that there's something else going on underneath the surface. The longer these changes last and the more of these changes you see, you probably should be more concerned.

If you see a change that lasts for a couple of days or you just see maybe one of these changes for a brief period of time. Okay. That maybe that's not too concerning. But if you start to see a series of changes in your child's behavior and they last for longer periods of time, then you need to be concerned and maybe follow up and get some advice as to what's going on and some assessments. Some of the examples that I give parents are, you may have a child that was earning very good grades and now the grades are starting to fall. You may have a child that was very social and outgoing now becomes very isolating and quiet. You may have a child who used to participate in sports no longer wants to participate in sports. You may have a child who very openly introduced you to their friends, you knew who their friends were, you might have even known who their family members were, now becomes very secretive of who their friends are. So, these are just some examples of changes that we see in children that as parents, we need to follow up on and see, you know, what's going on underneath the surface.

Laura: Oh yeah, those are super common ones. I think changing friend groups is probably one too. I love that you are mentioning that parents should trust their guts. That we have good instincts, that we know our kids and that if there is something that feels off that we shouldn't downplay that, that we should trust ourselves. You know? Not get alarmist, but really take note of those things that are kind of giving. I call it our parenting spidey sense. I think parents get a little bit of a tingle, you know, when they know something's not quite right with their kids and we should trust that.

Richard: Yeah, you should trust it. Like I say, you know, your child, you know, you know their behaviors and you know, when something's not quite right too. And some when, when some behavior just seems out of the ordinary and maybe it lasts for a day and it's not too concerning. But if you start to see a pattern of these happen and they're happening for an extended period of time, then I think we know as a parent something's going on now, we're not professionals, we don't have all of the information in training that others have, but we have the instinct of just knowing something's not right here. So let me check out with some professionals and get an assessment done and get the information that I need as a parent so that I can make some decisions.

Laura: You're leading me right where I want to go then. So if we're having some sense, our intuition is telling us that something's not quite right or we're seeing some of these warning signs as a parent who loves their child, what's the very first thing we should do? Should we go to our kiddos? Should we reach out to their doctor? Where do we go? What's our first step?

Richard: I think the first thing that you do is have a conversation with your child. To have a discussion to express your concern, not to accuse your child of doing something, not to threaten them, but to have a conversation that goes along the lines of I'm seeing this behavior, can you help me understand why I'm seeing it? So that maybe the child will feel less threatened and will be able to offer some information about why you're seeing the behavior. So you want to approach it from a curiosity point of view. I'm seeing this behavior. Can you help me understand why I'm seeing it? Now, that's a conversation that's likely to go one of two ways. It's either gonna blow up and the child's gonna become defensive and argumentative, which you probably have seen before as a parent in your child or it might actually lead to some information that you were unaware of.

The other thing I would say is we're pretty good at listening to each other's words. When we talk to each other and when we talk to our kids. We're not so good sometimes that listening to the feelings that are behind those words and that's a skill that every parent can work on and every parent can develop. And I encourage every parent to work on developing those listening skills so that when we're talking to our children and you're having a conversation. You're not just hearing your child's words, you're hearing the feelings behind those words. It takes practice, it takes work, but it's a skill every parent can learn and can practice.

Once you have that conversation with your child, regardless of how it goes, if you still have concerns, the next step is to get the assessments done that I've outlined in my book so that you can get a diagnosis, rule in or rule out anything that might be going on. Get a treatment plan put together if it's needed and get some recommendations from professionals on what you're seeing and what the next step should be. So, regardless of how that first conversation or second conversation goes with the child, if you're still concerned, you need to get the assessments done that I've outlined in my book.

Laura: Okay, great, thank you for that. You know, you're mentioning these curious open empathic conversations and I think that this is highlighting probably, and correct me if I'm wrong, but highlighting one of the things that parents can be doing from a very young age as a preventative too. So I know that one of my goals as a parent with my young kids is to encourage trust and security and have ongoing curious conversations about their feelings. Well, I'm practicing those good skills so that in those big moments later when they're teens, we already have that relational context. We already have a pattern of communicating in that way. You know what I mean?

Richard: That is absolutely right. I agree with you that the younger you can start to practice these skills, the younger your child is, the sooner you can begin to develop that foundation of trust and communication. So if your child is preteen, learn these listening skills, practice these listening skills, you'll get better as you practice and and over time. But even if your child is 14, 15, 16 or 17, this is still a skill that will benefit both you and them. So regardless of the age of your child, you know, work on developing these listening skills, fine-tune your listening skills so that you're listening, not just to your child's words, but you're tuning into the feelings as well and reflecting those back to the child in a way that the child is able to check whether or not what you're hearing is the way that they're feeling. That can be a very powerful communication tool.

Laura: Absolutely. And if you're wrong and they're correcting you just know like they're giving you feedback. Like, no mom, that's not quite right. It's really this, just know that that means you've got a lot of trust with them that they're able to give you that feedback and please don't be defensive about it or contradict them. Trust them.

Richard: Because you don't want to invalidate those feelings by questioning them or saying they're not right. What you want to do is validate their feelings and maybe you did misunderstand it. And that's the whole purpose of this communication so that you as a parent, get a better understanding of how your child is thinking and how your child is feeling and you're getting that information directly from the child. Sometimes you'll misinterpret it, that's normal. That's human. But that's the whole purpose of reflecting back what you're hearing. It gives the child the opportunity to say, Yeah, that was right.' That's exactly how I'm feeling or no, that's not quite it. Let me try to rephrase that.

Laura: Yeah, that's beautiful. Okay, so something that's bubbling in my head right now is that you were mentioning before that in your experience you would have parents who experience guilt around not having seen the signs or that there's something that they missed or something that could have been done differently. And now we're kind of talking about things that we can be doing as parents to prevent substance use or help our kids if they're starting to use substances in a way that is abusive or disordered. And so, like that piece is always a really like tender line for me to walk because I definitely don't want parents to feel guilty. It's not all our fault when our kids have things going on for them. And so I guess I just want to know if you have anything to say to parents who perhaps are in that place of knowing their kids are struggling and feeling like it's all their fault.

Richard: I think as parents, we do take on that burden of thinking that it's our fault. What did I do wrong? How could I have prevented this? How did I not see the warning signs? And I think first of all, just to recognize that those are very normal human feelings that as parents, we sometimes experience and raising a child that it's okay to have those feelings, but to recognize that there are certain things that we don't have absolute control over. And as our children get older, they tend to disengage from us and they tend to become more independent and that carries a risk with it. There are only certain things that we can do as parents to protect our child and we do everything that we can. But the bottom line is that every child is vulnerable to becoming captured by alcohol or drug use. No child is totally protected.

There's protective environments and we try to construct those protective environments for our children. But no child is totally protected. It doesn't matter where you live, suburban, urban, rural area, it doesn't matter what your income level is. It doesn't matter what church you go to. Doesn't matter what school you go to. All children are subject to being captured by substance abuse now. That doesn't mean you should become paranoid about it. That means you should just learning information, gain the knowledge, feel more confident that if it arises, you'll be able to handle it. And you'll be better prepared to deal with it rather than try and deal with it in the midst of a crisis which is already very disturbing. But then on top of that, you sort of get in a situation where you don't know where to go, you don't know who to turn to. You don't know what to do next. Hopefully, my book and the information that's in it will help you feel more confident that if you're in this situation, hopefully, you won't be. But if you are, you'll be better prepared and more confident to deal with it.

Laura: Yeah, I think that's so important. Thank you for that reassurance that it's not all our fault and even though those feelings can be natural and normal, can also make it a lot more overwhelming. To be kind of …

Richard: And there are a lot of reasons why children turn to alcohol or drugs. There's not just one reason some of them do it because of peer pressure. Some of them do it because they just want to experiment with it. Some of them do it because they had an opportunity to use a substance it was offered to them and they tried it and then they get a feeling that they really like and they continue with it. And for some children, not all children, but for some children, there's an underlying psychological issue that's driving that child to use a substance. You know, I worked in a psychiatric hospital. So a lot of the children that I worked with had not only a substance abuse issue, but a mental health issue as well.

For example, just about every child that I worked with who was smoking marijuana when I asked them to help me understand why they were smoking marijuana. The number one answer that came back was it helps me with my anxiety. So for a certain number of kids, not for all kids, but for a certain number of kids, there's an underlying mental health issue that needs to be addressed. And oftentimes, we don't see it because we get so focused on the alcohol use or the marijuana use or the drug use that we fail to see that the child is really trying to deal with an underlying issue. It might be anxiety or depression or maybe being bullied at school that we didn't know about. So that's the reason why if you're concerned, you need to get these professional assessments to either rule in or rule out whether or not there might be some other issues going on with your child.

Laura: Yeah, that makes so much sense. Absolutely. I'm sure we can all relate, you know, especially during this pandemic. I know lots of adults struggle with self-medicating with substances. I feel kind of curious if we can go into, you know, a little bit. I see child substance use. So my training is in marriage and family therapy. I'm a systems thinker, very systemic and I feel curious about how family culture and parents' behavior around substances tends to influence children's behavior with substances.

Richard: I think it has a lot to do with a child's vulnerability to using a substance. Parents who are tend to be more permissive, inadvertently develop that culture where their child begins to think it's okay to use substances. I sometimes get out, ask the question, well, what do you think about parents who say to their child, okay, you can drink alcohol, but you only can do it in the home. My reaction is what the research shows about that, is that for parents who allow their child to drink alcohol at home, those children, when they go off to college end up drinking even more than children who come from homes where it was discouraged. So it is not good advice for a parent to allow their child to use a substance in their home or anywhere else.

And the reason for that is as parents, we need, first of all to recognize that our child's brain is in the process of maturing and developing. It's not Going to get developed until around age 24 or 25. So we need to do everything we can to protect that child's brain and substances interact with the brain and can cause some rather serious consequences as a result of injecting substances into the brain. And that's something that kids don't recognize. And many parents don't recognize it because they haven't been informed about the neuroscience of how drugs work within the brain. And that's such an important issue that I put a very brief chapter in my book on the neuroscience so that parents very quickly could understand how drugs like marijuana work within their child's brain and influence behaviors and actually change the brain. I've seen some consequences of that in the kids that I've worked with.

Laura: It's really interesting, you know, so I'm in Wisconsin And state law allows children to drink with their parents even in bars. So at 16, a child can be in a bar with their parents and drink. It's a very cultural thing here and I like that you're talking about that difference and you're bringing some evidence and research to it that those kids who drink with their parents, you know, I hear this often and kind of common wisdom in the parenting world that if we teach kids young, we give them permission. Well, we won't make it kind of forbidden fruit. They'll learn their tolerance. They'll learn what it feels like and they won't experiment so much outside of the home. It's interesting to hear that the research actually shows the opposite effect.

Richard: Yes. I mean, kids take a lot of cues and a lot of their information from, you know, their parents, even their grandparents and their aunts and their uncles. They looked at them as being sources of information. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way for us parents, but they really do rely on us for information. And if we have a home environment which discourages alcohol and discourages drugs that has an impression on these kids. And, it's an important thing for parents to do.

Laura: And so what about parents' own use of alcohol? Like being able to have a glass of wine with dinner? Not problematic use, but normal use.

Richard: I think there's nothing inherently wrong with that. It's not something that necessarily needs to be discouraged. Adults are adults. But I think if the question comes up is to, well, why is it okay for you to drink and not okay for me to drink, then I think you get back to the neuroscience, you know? If there is one thing that I noticed in working with so many teenagers who are using substances. The one thing that really captured their attention was the neuroscience. It didn't do me any good to tell them the drug was illegal or that their grades might decline. They might not graduate. They might not get in the car. They didn't believe any of that stuff.

Laura: No, that didn’t quieted them.

Richard: Yeah right. But what did capture their attention was when I talked to them about the brain and when I talked to them about the neuroscience of how these substances work within the brain. So my recommendation to parents is, if you want to have a conversation with your child about alcohol and substance abuse, approach it from the neuroscience point of view, learn about the neuroscience, learn about the brain. Not, you don't have to become a neuroscientist but learn the basics of it like I have in my book so that you can have a conversation with your child about the need to protect their brain, how vulnerable their brain is and how substances can change the brain. The example that I would give you is, the kids that I was working with, the young men and women that I were working, that I was working with who were smoking a lot of marijuana, they had very high IQs. Their IQs were above average to superior. But they were smoking marijuana multiple times today.

And when the psychological test came back I noticed that the processing speed of their brain was below average. Their short-term memory was impaired and their motivation was curtailed and those are examples that, of how a drug like marijuana can interact with the developing brain and cause some serious complications. Now, you know, these kids may or may not have noticed the effect, but when I showed them how these drugs work in the brain, I would show them the different areas of the brain and what they're responsible for and then I'd show them where marijuana attached itself to the brain, I had their attention. So the route to getting children's attention is through the neuroscience approach and that's an approach that parents can very easily learn and use with their own children to just educate them on how their brain works and the importance of keeping their brain protected from these drugs.

Laura: I love that. I think that kids deserve to be educated about their bodies and about their brain and I think that they want to be educated about it. Even my 8-and-a-half-year-old enjoys learning about her brain and what's going on in her brain and why sometimes she's 8 and a half and the difference between her brain and her six-year-old sister's brain. We talk about their brains all the time to explain why some things are hard for her little sister and easier for her and how they will get easier even more so as she gets older as her brain power grows. I think kids are hungry for that at all ages. They want to know about their bodies.

Richard: They're very curious and as a parent, we can sort of use that route to begin age appropriateness to be able to introduce the importance of the brain, to educate them on what the brain does in the different areas of the brain, you know? You know, this area of the brain helps you with speech. This one helps you with coordination and balance and so on and so forth. And then as they get a little bit older, we can start to introduce the idea of well how do we protect our brain and what are some of the things that can damage our brain? And then you can get to the discussion of, okay, well let's talk about how alcohol and drugs work within your brain.

And then you begin over a process of time to begin, to reinforce in your child the need to protect the brain and how these drugs can damage the brain. It's a discussion as you pointed out, that can begin at a very young age appropriately, and as the child gets closer to pre-teen and teenage, you can start to build in more of the education component of it. So first you've captured their attention and their curiosity and then you build on that with the education.

Laura: I love that. And I think, you know, it's funny so as a child of the eighties of course, when I think about this is you know, about your brain on drugs. I think about that classic commercial, you know, with the egg and the frying and do you remember that one?

Richard: I remember it very well. Just say no campaign that basically we're running all the time. But yeah, yeah…

Laura: So the frying pan, the egg is cracked in the frying pan and says, this is your brain and this is your brain on drugs, but you're talking about having a much more nuanced conversation. And I think if we're starting early, if they're used to us talking about their brain, it won't seem so targeted and some kids are really resistant to our persuasion or to our agenda. And so I think if we are building it along the way having multiple conversations, it won't seem so kind of out of the blue about these things.

Richard: Right. You want to start with the basics. Just educate them about the brain, and then appropriately at certain points start to enter discussion on how different things can affect the brain, including alcohol and drugs. But, you know, other things as well.

Laura: Okay, alright. So there's a question that I want to ask you and I've been thinking about how to ask you this. So a lot of my listeners feel very passionately about teaching their children about bodily autonomy and consent that it's their body, it's their choice and we start that young with diaper changes. And so lots of the parents in my community have been working really hard on body autonomy and I know that one of their big questions on this topic specifically is as my children grow and as they become teens, how do I balance their bodily autonomy there being able to choose what to do with their body, the substances to put in their body and keeping them safe and their well being? How do I walk that line in a balanced way?

Richard: Well, again, I think it gets back to the education component, I think it's you as a parent helping your child as they grow older in an appropriate way, begin to understand that yes, it is their body and having that body carries with it a responsibility to take care of that body and what does that mean? How do we take care of our body? That is not just a discussion on alcohol or drugs, but there's a lot of different ways in which we can in a healthy way take care of our body. You know, it includes nutrition, exercise, a whole bunch of things that we do to help us stay healthy and feel good about ourselves. And so you can have that conversation about, yes, you do want to develop your own body.

You want to take responsibility for your body as you get older and become you know, more responsible for the decisions that you make. So let's have a discussion on healthy decisions that you can make and unhealthy decisions that some people make, not you, but some people make and then you can structure and end terms of a dialogue about okay with autonomy comes the responsibility to make these decisions. So let's talk about how we can make healthy decisions. And let's talk about what maybe some unhealthy decisions are. And they participate in the discussion in terms of identifying which are unhealthy and which are healthy. So really you're giving the child the authority and the opportunity to take responsibility for their own health.

Laura: Absolutely. I think an important thing to add here, I'd love to know your opinion on it too, is to make sure that we're leaving moral judgments out of the conversation because I think that if kids think that we are judging them or shaming them, that the, you know, making those mistakes or choosing something that is less healthy is going to carry judgment from us or disappointment from us. They will be less likely to disclose that to us in the future. So, I think coming from a place that is honest, but nonjudgmental, I don't, I don't know what do you think?

Richard: I think you're absolutely right. There's an item in my book that talks about why is it that some children are reluctant to talk to their parents about things that are bothering them? And when we ask children that question, the response that comes back is a fear of being judged. Kids fear being judged by their parents. So they often…

Laura: All humans fear being judged. We all are, but especially kids.

Richard: And that's one of the reasons why they say that they would hold information. So I think, you know, developing that foundation of trust is very important to allowing your child to feel comfortable disclosing things to you in a way that they feel you won't be judging them, you know? And so if they can tell you, hey, I tried marijuana once you don't, you know, come down and judge them. You don't criticize them. You don't threaten them. But you come back to the perspective of trying to understand, well, what was it that led you to want to try this? So kids fear being judged by their parents and whatever you can do to help a child not feel like they're going to be judged, I think sets that good foundation for communication and trust.

Laura: I agree. And I think probably the same goes for punishment. So if we're using harsh punishments, it can decrease a child's willingness to disclose to us, right?

Richard: Yes, Absolutely. Yeah.

Laura: Okay. And so one of the other questions that I wanted to ask that's kind of on the same lines of balance, right? So we're The Balanced Parent Podcast. We talk about balance a lot here. I think a lot of families who have a child who is struggling with substance abuse really don't know how to balance supporting their child with love and compassion versus crossing that line into enabling their substance use. So I would love to have a discussion on how to hold boundaries and protect their child and support their well-being in a way that doesn't enable them to continue using.

Richard: That's a tough call for any parent setting the boundaries, enforcing the boundaries and then coping with the reaction that you get from the child, which many times is going to be anger very negative and learning how to deal with that issue. And there is no simple solution to it. I would say to every parent who is going through experience of having a child who has a substance use issue to get some support, get some help. I think that's very important. Oftentimes we put the focus on the child and we lose sight that the parent is going through their own struggle, their own issues with this.

I wrote a parent handbook that accompanies this book, which helps parents work through the feelings and the emotions that they're having. I think it's best worked in consultation with a close friend, a family member or a therapist or a counselor. But the bottom line is if you're a parent who is struggling with a child who's using a substance, Yes, you need to get the assessments done. You need to get the diagnoses and the treatment plan so that you know what should be done next and what type of treatment is best for your child, but you also need to get support for yourself. That's so very important. So that you don't feel isolated, you don't feel alone and get the help that will support you because this not only affects your child, it affects your entire family, including you as a parent.

So I encourage parents if you're going through this, do what you can to get some support for yourself. Maybe it's a good friend, maybe it's another family member, maybe it's a counselor or a therapist, but get some help for you and support for yourself. So that you are better able to take care of yourself and support your child as they go through this process of assessment and treatment and recovery. The other message I would say to parents is there is hope, there is hope that your child and your family can get through this process and they can recover.

The remarkable thing about the adolescent brain is it has a remarkable capacity to heal itself. So once a child goes into treatment, even if they're to go into treatment, you know, and they go through the treatment process and you as a parent, go through that struggle with them of getting them into treatment and supporting them as they go to treatment and aftercare. There is a tremendous amount of hope that your child and your family can recover from this crisis of a child using substance. There is hope out there, recovery does happen. It doesn't happen automatically, you know, so many times it requires treatment, but there is hope that recovery and treatment can work.

Laura: Richard, I feel like that's the perfect place to leave this with a message of hope. Thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and your expertise. I want to make sure that people know exactly where to find you. Do you want to share where the best place to reach out to you if they have questions or want to check out your book?

Richard: I would say the best place to go is the book's website which is www.helptheaddictedchild.com. On that website, they can read endorsements, they can read book reviews, they can see a sample of the book, they can learn a little bit about the parent workbook. There's a link that will take them directly to amazon where they can order the workbook. The main book is available as a Kindle for people who like to read on Kindle. For people who like to mark up books and highlight them, it's also available in paperback and I priced it to be extremely affordable for parents because I really want to make this an affordable resource for them. And if your child is 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ,7 or 17 or 18, it's never too late to get this information and feel empowered by having the information. There's also a link that will allow them to go directly to amazon where they can purchase the book or the parent workbook and a link where they can contact me. So go to www.helptheaddictedchild.com.

Laura: Well thank you so much, Richard. I really appreciate it.

Richard: Thank you, Laura. I really appreciate you and the work that you're doing and also your contributions to this discussion which I thought were very helpful. So thank you very much.

Laura: It was a really fun discussion. Thank you. Surprisingly fun discussion on a topic that can be hard to talk about. So thank you for that.

Richard: You're welcome. Thank you.

October 18, 2022

Episode 140: Shifting Focus from Behavior to Seeing the Whole Child with Shani Mandel

October 18, 2022/ Laura Froyen

As a podcast host, I get approached by experts in different fields. And one of the fields I get approached by a lot are board certified behavior analysts who practice a form of therapy called Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). ABA is one of the very few forms of therapy that are "approved" for autistic folks and in listening to and learning from the autistic community, many have outlined the harm caused by ABA to themselves and their loved ones. And while the ABA field as a whole seems to be working to change their practices and stop the most harmful of them, it is still grounded in a behaviorist perspective that can be incredibly dehumanizing.

On the flipside, I also have desperate parents reaching out to me on a regular basis who are looking for guidance and ABA is the only option being recommended to them, and I simply don't know enough about ABA, and how it is changing to, to make a responsible recommendation. It's a really nuanced issue and I felt the need to discuss it with someone who knew ABA from the inside, who knew how to look beyond behaviors, and who if all possible identified as neurodiverse.

Well, I finally found the person to come on and talk about it with us, so here we go! For this week's episode, I am excited to introduce Shani Mandel. She is a certified provider of Collaborative and Proactive Solutions and has formal training in the RIE parenting method. She is a neurodivergent adult and a parent coach specializing in transforming parents’ relationships with their children. She is also a former Applied Behavioral Analyst.

Here's a summary of what we talked about:

Applied Behavior Analysis: What it is, what it isn't, and why it may not be right for your child
How to shift our focus from seeing the behavior to seeing the whole child
Collaborative Problem Solving

If you want to get more support for your kiddo, visit Shani's website yourconfidentchild.com. And, follow her on Instagram @your_confident_child.

Laura: Hello everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of The Balanced Parent Podcast, we're gonna be talking about how our approaches to working with neurodivergent and challenging kids has changed over the past, you know 10 years and in particular.

So as a host of a podcast, I get approached by experts in a range of fields often. And one of the fields that I get approached by a lot are folks who are board-certified behavior analysts practice a form of therapy called ABA. And it's something that I have been reluctant to have a guest on in this area because in my experience with the autism community, particularly autistic adults and their reflections on their time in ABA, the community, in general, has had some pretty negative experiences with it. And so I've been reluctant. I very much want to prioritize autistic voices here in this podcast and I've been really struggling with this because I get asked a lot, but I finally found the person to come on and talk about it with you. So I'm excited for this conversation.

My guest this week is one of the community managers in my free Balance Parenting Facebook group. If you're not in there yet, the link to it is in the show notes, I'd love to have you come in. So our moderator is a certified collaborative and proactive solutions provider like I am. Collaborative and proactive solution is the model that was built by Dr. Ross Greene. You might be familiar with his book The Explosive child. This model is a beautiful collaborative approach to meeting a child where they are and supporting them in getting their very unique needs met so that there can be more harmony in a home.

So Shani, my guest, and I are both certified in CPS and Shani happens to be a former BCBA. And so she's going to share a little bit about why she left the field and moved into this more collaborative approach and I'm hoping that this conversation will be really helpful, particularly for families who are looking to get their kiddos, some support. Get their family, some support and are finding that most of the providers available are recommended to them have that BCBA, those letters behind their name. So that's my hope for this podcast episode.

Shani, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you. Why don't you just introduce yourself for a minute for those of you who aren't familiar with you yet, I hope you all will get familiar with her. She does amazing Facebook live so many great questions in our free Facebook group. So Shani, welcome to the show.

Shani: Hi! Thank you for that compliment.

Laura: Of course. Tell us about yourself.

Shani: I have a certified collaborative proactive solutions provider. That's something that I've been involved with for probably about two years now. And before that I spent about a decade in the ABA field. The last two years of which I was board certified, which would be the supervisory level, maybe a therapist.

Laura: Yeah, and for listeners, sorry, ABA, stands for Applied Behavioral Analysis. Yes?

Shani: Yeah. Exactly.

Laura: Okay. And so what is it that led you to see the need to leave that field?

Shani: You know, it wasn't an instant decision. It really was a very gradual process. I fell into the field at the age of 19. It was a summer job. I worked out a special ed school and I was put in the ABA classroom and was trained and I was like, oh, this seems so cool, we can actually control what kids do. It seems like such a wonderful thing. I guess, I kind of put it towards my young age at the time that I really just wasn't thinking about what's right or wrong, but this was what was told to me.

Laura: I think it's important to note too that at 19, the part of our brain and you know, we think of 19 is a complete adult, but 19-year-olds, the part of our brain that makes rational decisions, does a lot of good abstract thinking. That kind of, that last level is still growing, still got five more years to go of growth and development. So I just want to offer your beautiful brain some compassion. At that point.

Shani: That's a good point actually. Yeah. You know what? It was about maybe five years into the field. So that would match with what you just said, that I was starting to think and starting to have doubts. And so my first introduction to a different way of seeing parenting and education was the RIE method I found online somehow. And so part of me knew like this is amazing when I have kids, I want to do this. But the other part of me was just like, okay, but we're doing ABA at work. So that's what we're doing.

Laura: Fascinating. I'm a RIE parent too, right? Like right parenting, I fell in love with it as when my children were infants, when my young… oldest was an infant, interesting.

Shani: Yeah,

Laura: It doesn't track, does it? When you're treating infants with such deep respect and collaboration.

Shani: Yeah. It was a cognitive dissonance. It was yeah, this is… it's a very emotional topic. Like you'll see, I'm like pausing a lot. I'm feeling a lot of emotion about this journey. I would say that there's a lot of personal change that has happened for me, aside from professional change. Through finding a different way of trading children, I've discovered a different way of treating myself.

Laura: That doesn't happen very much these days. Yeah, I feel like I'm so sorry. No, I'm not, sorry, tears are beautiful. I'm not sorry. The world wants us to apologize for our tears and our sensitivity. I don't think we should. But gosh, you just so succinctly summed up my vocation in learning to treat children differently. We learned to treat ourselves differently. It's beautiful. Sorry.

Shani: It really is. Yeah. So, continuous journey. So yeah, I had that cognitive dissonance, right? And then there was a part of me too, that said that why can't they both be true ABA and this respectful approach and I want to clarify. So I'll go into a little bit of my viewpoint on ABA, because…

Laura: And maybe at some point maybe we should backtrack because maybe we don't… many of our listeners don't really know what ABA is, the approach. So maybe can I hold a placeholder for that? And you can tell us a little bit about what ABA is? And why maybe you didn't feel so respectful to you once you were learning more.

Shani: Yeah, I definitely want to do that. And I'll just put in for now that I don't hold the position that ABA, that science is harmful. I want to clarify that because, you know, if ABA people are listening to this. I understand the need for accuracy and the science is the science and really the issues I had with the field were completely with the applications and not with the science itself, because you can't… It's like gravity. You can't have an issue with gravity. It's what you do with the information.

Laura: Tell us more. I want to lean into that. What do you mean by that? What is the science? And then what is the, what are the problems with how it can be applied?

Shani: There are principles of behavior that are just true. And that's what ABA is based on. The principles of behavior. We learned, you know, in the courses that I took to become certified, we were taught that ABA is a natural science and not a social science. Meaning that they're seeing it as just a form of nature, right? Like gravity. And I don't doubt that that's true. I think that there is a part like I'm holding up like a circle viewers like a small little circle of behavior that we've managed to turn into a natural science that we've managed to analyze and break down into like measurable pieces. I think the issue comes from the fact that we were so confident that we've turned it into a natural science that we extend that into all realms of the motion and attachment and behavior change.

Laura: And the reality is that humans are much more complicated than that.

Shani: Right. And to me, because I've been in both worlds, I really see why there's such a divide between. I see why it's so hard for each, I don't know. Not that I think that autistic people need to hear, they decide, I don't want to say that. But I think a lot of what the struggle is with autistic adults really would like to ban ABA. And I totally understand that. And I, when I've seen ABA people on the receiving end of hearing that their argument is always but we're science. There's nothing to ban. We’re literally information that explains how the world works. So that's why the conversation never happens.

Laura: So you're saying that it becomes abusive in its application?

Shani: Yes.

Laura: Or problematic in its application?

Shani: Right. The most neutral term.

Laura: At the same time, you know, as I was preparing for this interview, I was thinking back to a time when my kids got guinea pigs. We were new pet owners for the first time and my oldest child desperately wants to learn everything about a topic that she can before she has to do something. And so she was reading a guinea pig care manual and there was… they were talking about how you can train a guinea pig, you know? To do tricks and stuff. But there was this pullout box that highlighted that you should never use punishment. You know? And punishment from a behavioral science perspective, punishment is a legitimate way of teaching animals. We use, that's how we learned, we learned it through B.F. Skinner's work, we learned it through Watson's work. We learned, you know, Pavlov's dogs that by applying a painful stimulus, animals will learn.

And it's interesting to me that my child immediately recognize this because she knows that I teach parenting without punishment. You know, that when we talk about that in our home, she comes home and tells stories about punishments her friends have received and very curious about why parents think that that would work. And she, she read that part and she said to me, she's like, why do parents think that they should do something to kids that these experts are saying we shouldn't even do two guinea pigs, you know, it was just, it's just like it is…

Shani: There's that dissonance there and so I don't think that them from the diagnosis piece that there's a certain that it's viewed as a medical thing they're trying to treat. So yeah, that's, that's a lot of the autistic adults complaint is view us as people not as diagnoses that need to be fixed. Yeah.

Laura: Yeah, they don't need fixing. And honestly, in one thing that I've learned in my work with collaborative and proactive solutions, is that most of the time there's nothing wrong with the child. That happening for most kids who are having a really challenging time is that there's a mismatch between environment and the child's needs.

And once the child's needs are more fully supported and seen and the environment is shifted, the kid is fine. They just, you know, aren't existing in a world that was built for them and we have been trained to want to make our children conform and fit into the box that we think they're supposed to fit into. And that's just not reality for a lot of folks and it's really not what's good for most people either. You know what I mean? I don't know, I feel like we got off track. But…

Shani: Yeah, there's so much to talk about. There's so many different things.

Laura: So in my mind and my picture of ABA. And I think like probably the folks who, people who have maybe seen ABA, like the portrayals in the media maybe are not the greatest but… My gosh, what was that tv shows that has ABA therapist in it? She was ABA therapist, oh what the show is about? Families. I’m not going to be able to remember it. I’m gonna… They will come back to me. There seem to be a lot of rewards sticker charts by figuring out what motivates the child and using that to get them to do what you want. That's kind of my impression of ABA. What is it really like?

Shani: Yeah that's a huge part of it. I like to break it down into… There's really two different reasons why I'm against ABA. And the first one is there are actual harmful practices that are still being done outside of those reward sticker.

Laura: Such as what?

Shani: So the harmful ones that I think that the field is trying to move away from partially they're aware but I mean it's just still so widespread and so those would be - escape extinction is one. Escape extinction. Should I describe this?

Laura: Yeah go.

Shani: Trigger warning.

Laura: Trigger warning. Yes. You know because we do have lots of folks who identify as autistic in our audience and who have autistic kids. So yeah.

Shani: Yeah so trigger warning definitely for people for you to identify that way. So escape extinction is what the adult has determined is that the child is doing their behavior in order to get the reinforcer of escape right? That's the reason they're doing it. So how do we respond to that?

Laura: Like I mean to like get out of doing something, is that what is that what that means in practical terms? Like you know if they are not doing their homework or something or you know…

Shani: Yeah, maybe a standing a lot of times will be just running away from the work desk, you know, or just not having escaped from demands being presented as often.When the therapist has to tend to their behaviors all of a sudden work stops being presented, right? So that's the theory. So following that theory, how do we fix this? Well, we don't let them get what they want, what they're looking for. We don't let them get escaped. But how can you do that in a non harmful way? I mean, it's just not possible. You'd have to pretty much either restraints. So it was never called restraint at that point, it was called a full physical prompt, we can you know, that's maybe a legal question of what restraint actually is. But there were full physical prompts to keep the child continuing with the task or verbal continuing with the verbal demands that if they were escaping from the verbal demands, that's one of the things that….

Laura: Shani, help me like square this with the science. So if we're saying that this is a behavior, you know, this is a natural science behavior. Square with this with the science, with the neuroscience science of the fight or flight system that escape is but…

Shani: Their flight system and our science was not at all discussed.

Laura: So there was never a thought if a child is running away from a work desk and hiding that their flight system might be activated?

Shani: There was no discussion of that. What do you think about behaviors? Again, it's that when I'm holding up that small little circle it's they're so focused on the piece of behavior that they understand that they understand enough to measure and change, that they're ignoring the rest of behavior. And that's where the fallacy lies. Thinking that you can take what is. It's almost like when you have some truth, it's almost more dangerous if you think you have all the truth.

Laura: Because it blinds you to the full picture.

Shani: Yes. And there is like you know what it does work if you prevent the child from escaping eventually they'll give up. So yeah, scientifically it works. And but what about the science of emotions and stress response and nervous system? All of that science is it just doesn't fit into the framework of that little circle that I talk about, the natural science understanding that they have. Now there is I think that is trying to be changed, and I think there are plenty that still do it and there are plenty that are understanding that we can't do this anymore. And that brings me to the second point of my disagreement with ABA. And that's just even if you eliminate those actively harmful practices, is reinforcement. What I call, I'm gonna use some ABA terminology which if any ABA people listening to appreciate this.

The concept of us controlling the child's reinforcers means that what we're doing is contriving reinforcement. So because people always say reinforcement happens anyway, we're just choosing what to reinforce and what not to reinforce. It's been a while since I have like, writing so many writings of like how to explain this in the scientific terms because that's really what we need, we need to… The science is there and we have to go with the science and show that the science is being misapplied. We don't have evidence that contriving reinforcement is healthy for a relationship. That's the big question.Is it therapeutic? And I think as social beings, we can sense that it’s not. But because it’s out science or natural science,they go by - is there data? And there's no data proving that it is damaging the relationship. So that's why they keep doing what they're doing.

Laura: I feel like my nervous system is experiencing some stress while discussing this topic. I don't know about you. Okay, can we just, I don't know if you like breaths, but I'm just gonna put my hand on my heart for just a second here and send some love and compassion out to all the kiddos and the folks who are grappling with this. I don't know about you but for me the lens change that I had to go through in learning about collaborative and proactive solutions and you know, as a parent reading the explosive child, you know from not from a clinician in but as a parent who needed the book. You know? The mindset shift, the lens change that I went through.

And the idea of, you know, Dr. Greene's tagline kids do well when they can. That tagline is at complete odds with any form of reinforcement or attempt to control behavior because in order to control behavior using rewards and punishments or reinforcement or whatever. We have to, there has to be some that is all predicated upon the idea that the child has volitional control over the challenging behavior that they're displaying. And it's at complete odds with the idea that children are not choosing to be challenging. That when children are displaying challenging behaviors is because they've got lagging skills and unsolved problems.

And for me, that perspective that mindset was such a huge relief as a parent, like understanding, you know, that the voice in my head telling me all these lies about my child. I was just completely misinformed, completely wrong, that my kid was struggling and in those moments when she was struggling, she needed de-escalation and compassion, and then we needed to work together proactively to figure things out. That mindset shift was a huge relief, continues to be a hard struggle too. But when I find it again after a difficult time when I settled back into, it just feels so it's like such a relief, there's nothing wrong with my kids. My kids not doing this on purpose. My kid is not fulfilling all of the greatest fears that parents have, you know, that they're never gonna get this. That they're doing this on purpose, that they're manipulating me all the things that parents, things like rolling through our heads. None of them are true. Anyway. Sorry.

Shani: Yeah, that's true.

Laura: So what was it like for you finding the collaborative and proactive solutions model when it seems like you're kind of your move away from ABA, was rather gradual. I'm kind of curious about when you started leaning and what your practice look as you leaned.

Shani: You know, I spent the, I would say, the second half of my time in the ABA field I really was trying to both grapple with - is there still a way I was and I am convinced that you can use the science in a compassionate way if you acknowledge that you're only have the science only refers to a small tiny part of of our understanding of the brain and I was trying to like see if that's what I mean, I became board certified even when I was already grappling because I thought then I'll have more say in what's happening in the programs we set up.

I actually, there is one behavior analyst who I would say is the furthest along in ABA Reform and I started following him. His name is Greg Hanley and he is really focused on meeting children's needs first and foremost, that's a big step up and I thought okay maybe this is the answer. The reason I ended up leaving was because after trying to get this newer version of ABA implemented, I realized that the people that I was supervising had such a hard time processing this new way of thinking that it just, it was not happening. The shift wasn't happening even when I was at the supervisor level, I mean..

Laura: Trying to swim upstream in a doubt like in a waterfall.

Shani: Yes, it was and I even had the support of my boss, both the CEO and the director above me, they were all like, you know, we don't necessarily agree with that, we need to change, but you're welcome to do whatever you want. But it just yeah, swimming upstream, it was too hard. So I took probably, it was probably a year off where I didn't, I just didn't work and I was privileged I was able to do that. And I just spent the time learning and reading autistic people's perspective and also seeing what else is out there. I think that I knew in my mind already what I would want to do in my practice, but finding Dr. Greene was like finding someone who wrote the script out for me. So it's just so helpful when, when helping parents because he has the script written and I don't have to like to explain it from my own heart which can be harder and…

Laura: He's got science too... Right? So he's got lots of research behind him.

Shani: Exactly. Yeah, he's done research.

Laura: Yeah. So what is it about the CPS model that you like so much?

Shani: I think that piece that I said that it's scripted and it makes it like there's a step-by-step process to get to where we're trying to go?

Laura: Where are you trying to go? with families and kids?

Shani: We're trying to change the relationship. That's really that's really what we're trying to do. I know that the model is about problem-solving but it's the relationship that really ends up changing and I'm sure you know that from your practice too.

Laura: Absolutely. that the model is about problem-solving, you know, in having these a lot of sessions with kids and families. That first meeting with the parents and the kids together where you're gonna perhaps try solving a problem together? That first meeting is all about rebuilding trust with the child. They've had so many behavioral plans in place. They've had so many top-down decisions made about their lives. They've had so many attempts, well-intentioned attempts by beautiful, wonderful families, wonderful parents to solve problems where they just didn't stick with the model long enough and then applied a top-down solution to the kid that they didn't the kid didn’t… that you know, that really didn't fully understand the problem or that the kid didn't fully agree to, you know?

So we do this a lot with kids. We do kind of, we really try hard to problem solve and then the kids not giving us much. And so then we just make a decision about what we're gonna try. And there's a lot of convincing that has to happen. I found, I don't know if you found with kids that this is going to be different, you know, and something that I talk about with my parents too, and with the kids is that my job here is to teach your parents how to do this because grownups aren't taught how to talk to kids. Grown-ups are taught how to really understand a kid's perspective.

Most grownups don't know how to ask questions in a way that will help them understand what you need and that's my job and it's my hope that you will at one point you'll never see me again. You know? That you, because your parents are the ones who will be able to really hear you and understand you and see you. That's what I love doing. I love like coming in and getting out. I really like getting out and never seeing people again and, you know, like thinking of them fondly sometimes. Like, wondering how they are and knowing that they've got this. I really like that.
Shani: Yeah, you had said to me, we were when we were talking at a different time. Something that really struck me. You had said that your work, you feel it's about helping the parent get in touch with their own inner wisdom. What a great concept. I've been holding that in me the whole time now as I do as I help my clients.

Laura: Yeah, I love that too. I mean and that feels so good and that's I think that that's what, you know really, that's what collaborative and proactive solutions is about is about quieting the noise, all the cultural messaging that we receive about how we're supposed to be as parents, the authority figures, the ones in charge, you know that you know, and what our kids are supposed to be compliant, obedient, good listeners, you know? Attentive on task and just quieting all that noise and really seeing our kids very, very clearly for who they really, truly are.

And I don't think, you know, and I think the other thing that I like very much about the collaborative and proactive solutions model is that, wow, the model itself is prescriptive, right? So there is a, there's a script that we follow, you know, that were trained in its you know, its manual eyes practically this and this is how they do research on it. They have to do it this way in order to do research. Right? So the folks listening, most of them love research talk and so we have to be.. before you know, I don't participate in any of the research studies.

But if they are doing research studies, they have to have fidelity to the model to know that it's that it's the model that's working right when they look at outcomes for kids and so that is there. But there's a huge, within the model there's a huge range of variation for how each plan B or problem-solving conversation looks like with parents and children, right? Or with teachers and children. There's so much room for the individual family in it. I really like that. Whereas I you know, my impression of modalities like ABA, is that if you have X, you apply Y. You know? And you apply Y until…

Shani: I would say that ABA practitioners do strive to be individualizing their treatment plans. Yeah. It's that they're individualizing it within the small world of behavior reinforcer or behavior remove reinforcer to change the behavior right? When you have such a narrow window of how you're looking at things, you're missing everything else. And I really, I want to say to that I don't harbor any bad thoughts towards ABA people. I mean I think that everyone is trying to find their way within this complicated world. And I know that when I first found ABA, it seemed really reassuring.

So, I've discovered I'm neurodivergent that's been part of my journey when I met the autistic community online. And I found it really reassuring at first and soothing to have this data based completely like all of our behavior just fits into these boxes. I think that, you know, there might be a lot of struggling nervous systems within the field that find it really reassuring and to know that okay we can fit everything into this box, everything's gonna be okay. Yeah, that might be why it's so hard to switch out of it because it has brought them a sense of like, you know, the world makes sense now. Get the world now. It's important to me.

Laura: Yeah, I think… I really like how you're talking about it in this one small piece and that order in that one small pieces there, you know? And right, like that sense of kind of relief and comfort comes to me when I see parents understand their kids concerns for the first time, you know? I was doing a CPS conversation with a girl who her parents, you know, I think have, we're really concerned in terms of think they were thinking about like oppositional defiant disorder, you know, all sorts of really big concerns, really big challenges. And the first one that we decided to focus on was filling up her own water bottle before bedtime. So filling up her water bottle that she would then have beside her on her bedside table. And as we were doing it, doing the problem solving, I was doing it with the girl, the parents just were sitting there with their jaws dropped.

They had no idea how hard it was for her to do this job. They had, you know, the water bottles up high on the shelves, the ice machine was broken. So she had to open up the refrigerator and practically climbed into the, into the freezer to get the ice, you know, because there was just so many obstacles in her way. And the… you know after hearing all of these obstacles, they, they just apologized to her, we had no idea how hard it was, you know? I don't know, it's just that sense of relief that is order to me like that is that's relieving to me this is those moments of like we had no idea what was getting in their way. You know? We had no idea what is preventing them, you know, and that's relieving. I find so much relief in that I don't know about you.

Shani: Yeah, me too, for sure. I think probably everyone's brain is different in terms of how much… this is slightly off-topic, but I just saw this fascinating study that different political, I'm not going political but that different political views have different types of brains and that like certain political views, those brains were more in need of order and structure and other types of brains, other types of political views. The brain was more in need of nuance and not being black and white and that to me explains a lot about like yeah, like I also find comfort in nuance and like I like the nuance of weight.

Parent is not really in charge of the child. We're actually like all human beings and all of our concern while they're in charge, but they're responsible for them. All of our concerns are equal. That's like you have to enjoy the mental gymnastics, I think to be drawn to this method, but I think even for the other types of brains that they really need that order and control, I think what we can show them as a practitioner is that you actually will, will achieve much more order and control once you can let go of that need for everything to be perfectly in ordering control.

Laura: Yeah, and even more powerful, you achieve influence, right? That I mean you because your child trusts you because your child thinks of you as on there, you're on their side that you want, you get them or at least, at the very least you want to get them, you want to understand them. Okay. So now I'm thinking about the parents who come to me and say my child was just diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and we were referred to, you know, X, Y and Z therapies and one of them is an ABA therapist.

So for those families who are just on the receiving end of a diagnosis or who perhaps already have their child in ABA. What do you want to say to them, what are the things that they should be looking out for, that they should be concerned about or that they should just be taking into consideration and holding lightly with curiosity, especially if this is the only, you know, so many of my the folks that I talk to are an isolated small communities where they have very little access to a broader range of resources. So if they're limited in what they can access, what do we do? I'm sorry. I feel like I just asked you like a five-part question.

Shani: All five parts are great questions. Yeah. Okay. Well, first thing I want to say is that autism diagnosis feels like, and I've seen this with parents when they get hit with that. I think it's the way that the doctor presents it maybe? But they feel like their life has just changed. And the first thing I want to remind parents is that your child is still the same person they were a day ago before the diagno… and you are not negligent if you don't do ABA. Okay? That's first of all, that's I think the probably the biggest

Laura: The parents get that message? That you're negligent if you don't do ABA?

Shani: ABA is considered the medically necessary treatment for autism and autism is like a bad disorder and you have to treat it, right? Yeah, this is huge. You're not negligent for not doing ABA. Yeah, big stuff. Really big stuff. I hear what you're saying like and in communities where there really are no other resources. I think that parents can look into… If they just need help because they're overwhelmed by the behaviors that are happening and they need like a babysitter type of person. I've seen some parents were, they want the ABA just for that purpose, you know like... Yeah.

So, right. So for those parents I ask, I recommend they look into respite because that is also funded and that's just babysitting basically. What other reasons? I think some parents are worried that they're not, their child is not going to gain the skills that they need to gain. Look, I have worked with parents who have decided to keep their kids in ABA. I think that if you're very carefully monitoring and doing the research on what to look out for, you might just have a therapist coming in and I don't know teaching a skill but not forcing compliance. If that's where you need to go, there's no judgment from me and I would just say research, research, research, and monitor, monitor, monitor. I think that…

Laura: There's a check-in with your child to like debrief with your child and see how, how it's going for them.

Shani: Yeah. I mean when I say mantra, I would say like sit with…

Laura: Right, I mean, but also get their perspective because what we watch and see might not tell us much about how it feels to the child, you know, to be experiencing it.

Shani: Right. That's a great point too. Yeah.

Laura: And then of course for those of us who are looking for support and wanting to do, you know, because worrying about the skills that they need to be successful, I have found in my own personal experience using this model, the collaborative and proactive solutions model myself, personally and professionally. And then of course lots of other folks who put this into practice that the skills that kids need to be successful are, are actively taught through experiential learning within the model. There's a lot of them. And so that's something else to just consider the need, you know, the ability to break a problem down into its parts, to think critically, and to take perspectives. You know, those are critical social skills and critical executive functioning skills and emotional skills that I don't think you can teach. I don't know that you can teach in a classroom-type setting. I think that those skills need to be practiced and used in order to get better at them and they're used very effectively. Yeah. Yeah.

Shani: But like in ABA, we definitely try and teach, we would try and teach those skills but it's in a contrived situation. And yeah, we want them to learn the skills in an authentic setting like oh I am regulating my emotions because someone else, someone else's boundaries are being crossed and not because I'm gonna get the cookie at the end of this program.

Laura: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And so for that there's folks like you and me who do collaborative and practice solutions, right? So we sit down with parents and help them. I'm not currently taking clients, but are you? Shani?

Shani: Yeah, I still do have spots. Okay, good. I still have 1 to 1 spots open. For anyone looking for support. Please reach out.

Laura: And do you so, you know, when I've worked with folks on collaborative and proactive solutions, it's been very kind of, that's what we're doing. Do you take clients who maybe are those folks who've just gotten this autism diagnosis and kind of need someone to hold them gently as they walk through the process and maybe do CPS at some point or are you pretty rigidly following the model in your work?

Shani: I can do that too. I'm pretty familiar with the nuances of that shift and that's definitely something I feel very prepared to help families with because I walked through the shift myself. Yeah, not too long ago.

Laura: Oh Shani, I so appreciate you sharing your experiences and perspectives and expertise listeners. If you're not already in my free Facebook community, the balanced parenting community, please come join us. Shani is a wealth of information. And if you have questions about the collaborative and proactive solutions model. She is your go-to person in there or you know, is seeking a 1 to1 consultation with her, why she's so good.

Shani: Thank you. Thank you for the chance to share this. This is really important stuff we're talking about today.

Laura: It is, I appreciate the way that you've held kind of all sides of it with a lot of compassion and grace. I think that it is, it's a conversation that I have been I think has been needed, like has been necessary and there's no one else I would have wanted to have it with so I think I really appreciate it, Shani.
Shani: Yeah, of course. My pleasure.

And if you're listening, grab a screenshot and tag me on Instagram so that I can give you a shout out, 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.

October 11, 2022

139: How to Support your Sensory Kids with Laura Petix

October 11, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Let me ask if this sounds familiar:

Your child freaks out if there are tags of seams on some of their clothes or the transition to weather appropriate clothes is a nightmare...

Or it feels like your child is always crashing into you or things, jumping off of high stuff or needing a wrestle...

Perhaps loud noises or bright lights overwhelm them...

Or maybe they are just so. dang. loud. themselves?

If this does sound familiar for a kiddo in your life, your child may need some support with sensory processing! I hear this sort of thing from parents all the time, but sensory processing needs are still something that a lot of the professionals in our kids lives aren't fully versed in, let alone in how to help. So, to help us understand how to recognize "sensory stuff" when we see it and figure out if Occupational Therapy could help, I brought in the wonderful human behind one of my favorite Instagram accounts, The OT Butterfly (@theotbutterfly). She is a mom to her own sensory kiddo, wife and pediatric Occupational Therapist. With a degree in Neuropsychology and Masters in Occupational Therapy, she teaches parents how sensory processing impacts their child’s behaviors and how to support them.

Here's an overview of our discussion:

Occupational Therapy: How it helps neurodivergent kids or children with a sensory processing disorder
Sensory IS behavior (rather than the debate “is it sensory OR behavior?)
Figuring out if your kiddo needs more support from an OT and understanding what happens in an OT session
How to support sensory kids at home

If you want to get more support for your kiddo, you can schedule a consult with Laura Petix here www.theotbutterfly.com/parentconsult. And, follow her on Instagram @theotbutterfly.

RESOURCES

Sensory W.I.S.E. Solutions Course for Parents (waitlist) www.theotbutterfly.com/waitlist
Sensory IS Behavior course: www.theotbutterfly.com/behavior
Heavy Work Freebie: www.theotbutterfly.com/heavyworkfreebie
Sensory Sensitivity Checklist: www.theotbutterfly.com/checklist
Website: www.theotbutterfly.com
Podcast: Sensory W.I.S.E. Solutions Podcast for Parents

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr Laura Froyen and on this week's episode we're gonna be talking about occupational therapy and how to support kiddos who are not necessarily neuro typical or have some sensory processing issues like I know many of your kiddos have. I will also touch on how to figure out if you need more support from an OT and to help me with this conversation, I'm bringing in one of my favorite accounts on instagram, the… what is it? The Ot butterfly? Yes, yeah, that's for your handle on instagram Laura. So we're having a Laura chat today. Laura, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Laura Petix: Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. I love talking to everybody about parenting and OT. So I am a pediatric occupational therapist. I specialize in working with children ages 2-10 and I work in a private clinic part time. But the rest of my time I spend on instagram, on my podcast, on my website, on courses. I really have a passion, a deep, deep passion, like way too obsessed with this. Like I think about it all the time teaching parents and teachers and really anyone who doesn't have the lens that island, I love teaching everybody how sensory processing impacts and learning and behavior.

And there's a lot of hidden things about sensory processing that can contribute to learning and behavior that we don't always think about. And I have a 4 and a half year old who is a neurodivergent kid. She has anxiety and sensory processing disorder. So I just really have a soft spot in my heart for parents who are going through this, particularly the ones who are no stranger to 45 minute meltdowns when I coach parents through it, I love saying like I'm in that club too. I get it and it makes me feel like I'm a better parent coach and OT because I lived through it too. So there's already that added connection and I have a lot more practical solutions that I know is doable.

I cringe when I think of some of the things I used to recommend to parents in my early OT days when I was like a brand new, like straight out of grad school, like textbook learning grad school, like telling the parents what to do and I was like now I'm looking back and like I would have, I would have never done that as like a parent of like a brand new kid. So anyway, yeah.

Laura: I want to just highlight this too. So I have one of these kiddos who's had lots of hard times, you know, just lots. And I don't know about you but for me and being in this space in this position of being an expert, supposing, supposedly having all the answers, all of the tools in my toolbox and still having a hard time that can be hard, you know? To be in that place of like, gosh and at the same time it makes me have so much compassion because it's like with all of the well really like wealth of knowledge and resources were still struggling, like it's just sometimes it's just hard.

Laura Petix: Oh yeah. A 100% and I say that all the time and I find that parents like hearing that like, like I don't know I don't want this to come off weird but like you have to know how comforting it is to know that you have a hard kid too. They're like, that this OT is still having a challenge raising their neurodivergent child and I'm like yes I was that pregnant first time mom was like I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, my kid's gonna hit all the milestones, I'm gonna do all the sensory play. We're going to be like the textbook, like all of this set up right? Like I could program my child.

If, as the kind of person I am, that would be the person, that would be the child I would want because I'm so I need to be in control of things and I do things by the book, I study everything. And so I was like this is what's going to happen, this is how it's gonna work out and guess what it did not work out that way. Because she has her own personality, her temperament, she has her own brain wiring that I, even as much as I try to shape and mold our daily experiences, I have no effect on how her brain perceives the world and how she learns and communicates. And that's something that I am now very comfortable and have come to terms with and I love helping parents get to that part of their journey, even if it means using myself as an example. Like, hey look, I'm an OT. And I still struggle with this and I have no shame in admitting that.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. And there's this piece of relief that, like, okay, wait a second, it must not be my fault. There's nothing wrong with me, and there's actually nothing wrong with my child. They are just wired a little bit differently and they need different supports and they need different inputs coming in, they need different, you know, different environment that helps them feel safe and stable. Right?

Laura Petix: Exactly. Exactly.

Laura: Okay, so let's dig into that a little bit because a lot of the parents I work with have these intense spirited kids who are who reactive or the book I was reading most recently by Mona Delahooke - Brain-Body Parenting and she calls them…

Laura Petix: I haven't read it yet, but I heard it, it's amazing.

Laura: It’s so it's so good, you'll love it. But she calls these, these are kids with unstable platforms that just kind of get thrown into fight or flight so easily. Yeah, I love that phrasing the unstable platforms, I just love it. And so for lots of the parents that I have, you know, I can tell immediately when I just when I hear them talking about their kids that their kids would benefit from OT. But why don't you just give me a quick rundown around how is OT helpful for these kids who maybe have a sensory processing disorder or has a neurodivergent. What is, what is it that supports them?

Laura Petix: Yes. Yeah. So I just want to quickly, I also want to mention one thing that you said from Mona Delahooke book that reminds me of something that my husband said at the time. Just if this resonates with other parents and I hear parents say this all the time when you have a spirited child or a child who easily gets dysregulated and just goes and goes into meltdown mode. Like quote out of nowhere, right? My husband said one day he's like I just don't get it like how can she go from like 0 to 100.

And I'm like because she's not at zero, she's not hovering at 75 every single day, like she does not get down to zero and that is the best with no context, like that's all I say and parents like yes that is exactly my child. She is not a zero. She is always hovering, her nervous system is always kind of, at this like high alert state. So it doesn't take much for her to pass that threshold into dysregulation state. So how OT helps with that. So if you have a child who is always hovering around 75, always seems to be like - on alert, cautious, fearful, easy to react to certain things. So what happens in their brain is the brain has developed like a shortcut pathway to dysregulation.

Usually in a context that is repeated for them. That has maybe some sensory triggers for them. Right? So let's take the example of the bathroom. There's a lot of things that happen in a bathroom that might be stressful for kids with sensory processing challenges, particularly sensory sensitivities, right? So there's, if they are sensitive to like teeth brushing or hair brushing or washing their face or taking a bath or washing their hair or going to the potty, all of that happens in the context of the bathroom. And so what may start as a sensory sensitivity, like those things trigger their nervous system to have this big emotional fight or flight reaction that for neurotypical people feels like either out of nowhere or like exaggerated, right? We don't really get it over. Like, what are you talking about? It's not even that loud or it doesn't smell that bad or it's not even you're not even wet, like it was a splash of water.

So that triggers their brain into fight or flight because they have a different threshold for getting dysregulated. They have a lower threshold for getting dysregulated. And the more often that happens, the brain starts to create an association, a learned pathway to dysregulation and it does that sort of to like protect your body where it's like, hey, every time we're in this bathroom it makes our heart race, my pupils are dilated, I start sweating, I don't feel good in my body, I feel stressed out. Let's not go in here again. Every time we go in here, we're gonna have a fight or flight reaction to keep us out of this bathroom because it does not feel good to the nervous system. That is what the brain is automatically doing. But on the outside, this is your child avoiding bath. This is your child running away. This is your child screaming, putting their hands over their ears. This is them screaming, bloody murdered while you're trying to just like wash their face and you're scared your neighbors are going to call CPS because it's so loud and you're like, I swear I'm just trying to clean my child.

So the brain creates these like shortcut pathways to dis regulation. And it does so in a way that sometimes it's like, okay, you keep going to the bathroom. So now to save us from even going there, we're gonna start, the brain is starting, it's gonna start triggering this regulation. Maybe when we see the bathroom or when we hear mom say it's gonna be bath time. Now, when we hear the word bath time, our brain is creating stronger and stronger pathways to dysregulation.

So what OT does either through parent coaching, like what I do online or within person, sensory into both of these are a great supplemental way to work on this. Is OT help your child create pathways to regulation? So the way that I like to visualize it is if like if you were taking like a shortcut route through this like wild field and there's like there's weeds and grass is really tall pieces of foliage and all that, and you're trying to take a shortcut to get somewhere and there's no path. So you're like pushing your way through right? That's like the first way that your brain is creating like the first neuron connection to this right to regulation when you're in the bathroom. But the more often you take the same path, what happens is you create this little paved pathway in that field because you take it every single day over and over.

So now your brain has created this pathway to regulation and OT does that by like I said coaching parents on how to set up their environment at home and how to offer their kids more positive associations with a certain environment or context, and the clinic if you work with an OT with sensory integration, they are actively teaching your child how to experience moments of regulation. Not so much in the context because they're not always gonna be like in the bathroom where they're not gonna have the same triggers in the clinic but it's truly just giving your child's brain more experience in your child's nervous system. More like game time of like, this is what regulation feels like bringing them a little below 75 if we're going to 0-100 scale right? Their body, their nervous system like oh this is regular, this is what it's supposed to feel like. And the more that the brain and nervous system feel that way. Hopefully it can then lead to like less meltdowns or less intense meltdowns and just more times of regulation.

Laura: Yeah. Okay so I love this. All right so there's kind of two directions Laura, that I want to go here. So I'm making a mental note for myself to come back to the one that I'm not going to take to that path that I'm not gonna take. So I'm gonna take right now. Is that a lot of my clients and community members who have gotten their child into OT, it seems to me when I hear from them about their experiences that they're not fully accessing the wealth of knowledge that OT’s have. That they're not fully accessing, that they don't necessarily even know how to fully access the experience of OT over these past two years. A lot of the OT has been happening virtually. Which I can't even imagine when, when my daughter was an OT. We were in person in the room, a parent was always with their, and was heavily involved in the O. T. It was crucial for us to be involved and I know that that's been really difficult over these past two years.

If you had anything for I guess, any recommendations or ways for parents to really engage with their OTs and work with them. Start partnering with them with their child's OTs. Do you have any like kind of jumping off points? Because I feel like there are a lot of the parents I talked to there is this kind of almost like a lack of understanding of what is happening in the OT session with their child. And how it translates to things at home and it sounds like you're very you know, I know all OTs have different experience and training. And I'm sure some are better at others than like really walking a parent through things. So, if that you are a parent who doesn't have one of those OTs who's walking through, you through it, or you haven't had access to because you haven't been in person because that's just the reality for these past two years. This is the longest question ever. I'm sorry.

Laura Petix: I know I love the way you're explaining it because setting it up perfectly.

Laura: Okay, good. Yeah, so for those parents, how can, what can they be doing and saying to really partner with their OT and really understand what the OT is doing for their kid? And how they can start applying those principles and really starting to embody them and build them into their parenting? Because that was the thing that I think helped us so much in my child's OT experience and I'm happy to talk about that too. But go ahead.

Laura Petix: Yeah. So, the first thing I want to say is I always preface this with saying that I am a private clinic OT. So I work in sensory integration clinics and it is not affiliated with a hospital like outpatient setting, and we are not affiliate, like we help parents get reimbursed by like providing them an invoice but we don't take insurance’s directly, right? And so that frame, that already like mindset already kind of shapes how I… the freedom that I have as an OT and I know from speaking to parents who have different, have their kids in different settings or from colleagues who are in different settings. I know that not all settings are able to do what I'm going to share with you, but if but it's always worth asking. Right? So I will already separate if your child in school based OT that is a whole different layer of red tape and things to get through just to like email your OT and get a response back. Like they can't even access their emails sometimes outside of school, like wifi. Like they have a lot more steps to get in contact with them. Right?

Laura: So, that’s such good contextual information, thinking that you are…

Laura Petix: Exactly! Because I get that too. I'll try to email someone, an OT that I'm collaborating with on a client that we both see and I will get an email back like this weekend, I don't have access to my email because I have to be within school whatever. And I'm like oh that, that makes sense. So that already is a piece. So, and then the other part is even if you're just if you're in an OT clinic with your child, but you are more of like an affiliate, you're in a clinic that's affiliated with the hospital or you're going through insurance. I know that these clinics typically have really really high caseload numbers and are also very like… they can seem quick with the information because they have to get to the next kid. Like right away there's like no time in person. So I kind of get that.

Laura: Can we just have like a moment for, of compassion for these providers. I mean and I know that as parents, we're so focused on our individual child and it can be so frustrating. But for these providers are our kids therapists and OTs. They've been living through this, this time too. They've been seeing all of the stuff that the kids are living through, right? We get just this little picture of just our child often who have been in very privileged positions. You know, been very well protected from the just the trauma of these past two years and they're still these kids are still having big reactions and then they have been exposed to just so much more. You know, I just, just a moment of compassion for all the works that your colleague…

Laura Petix: Yes. When I hear those, when I hear colleagues of mine going through that, oh that really seems like a big stress to your, like nervous system, just talking about your nervous system. Like daily waking up stress and the level of productivity that they are held to by their companies by the insurance where like literally down to the minute they have where they don't even have time to go to the bathroom. Like there's a lot of stuff going in there. So for parents to have compassion for that, but so I'm going to share with you some ways that I have been privileged enough to be able to afford my clients and offer to them because I would say in these private clinics we have a lot more free reign. We are not limited by a lot of insurance parameters on my goals or like only 12 visits. Like there's a lot of like I can work on so many things, but again, it's a privileged setting to work in for myself and for the families who are able to come because a lot of them pay out of pocket. So I understand that that is definitely an aspect to this, but…

So something that, what I feel like wasn't stressed a lot in grad school when I went for an OT. I don't know if it's different now. Maybe times are changing maybe even after Covid but they did not stress a lot. The importance of having regular one on one like parents OT conference consultations, coaching sessions. They did not stress that. We talked about like the parent coaching model but they never were like you should be doing this every month or every three months or things like that. And what I found was when I was more full time in the clinic pre covid. I like you or like my colleagues, like after each session I would spend like five minutes debriefing with them. But there were two things wrong with that. One was I was like my mind was like split like okay I gotta clean up that room, get ready for this kid and try to go pee. But I really want to spend time telling his mom how great her son did this but it comes out of me spewing so we did this obstacle course with vestibular input inappropriate stuff. Like I'm splurging all these things that I remember she and I did have this conversation about it. But it was like six months ago when I first evaluated her son and we sat down for the parent conference but like I don't… Why would she remember that each and every time?

Laura: It’s overwhelming as a parent.

Laura Petix: It’s overwhelming. So that's like one piece, the speed of it. The second piece was the kid is always there like next to us right? And so there's that distraction of them ready to go home, Mom let's go or mom look what I did and they want to be part of the conversation. But then there's the other piece of like not talking about the kid in front of the kids so then I can't be fully candid about things that were hard for them. So I'm like sugarcoating things and I can't really tell mom like hey we should look out for this thing I noticed like… and so then I would spend outside hours emailing parents and then that was just like a, like not balanced lifestyle for me as well.

So once Covid hit I heard a lot of pros about teletherapy was that the OTs finally got to really spend time coaching parents or parents really got to sit in and notice the language that OTs use. The really creative ways we get to motivate kids through tasks that they would otherwise refuse. And what I noticed was that, so during Covid that's when I started. I wasn't seeing kids, I was in between clinics and I just started focusing on coaching parents and telling them how they can support their kids at home and even without their kids seeing me in person they were still making progress. So then fast forward to when things got more manageable and now I'm back in the clinic less time.

Now I've made it a point to when I evaluate a family, I say I have that first parent evaluation and I say, hey, this is what I noticed going on. We're gonna work on it this way. So explaining explicitly what they're going to see in the session. Yes what you are here for feeding for handwriting, but we are going to be spending time doing obstacle courses playing games on the floor. It's going to look a lot like playing, it is playing, but I promise you we're working on skills. And then I say I recommend having parent consults, parent coaching once a month for at least the first 3 to 6 months depending on how severe or how much information I need to give them.

And I've noticed such a huge impact from the parents' understanding, from my confidence, like not worrying. Like you know, I know if any OTs or other therapists are listening like there's a, there's this like hidden stress sometimes when I'm playing with the kid and if I didn't get to connect with that parent and they like come and observe the last five minutes. I feel so much pressure of them thinking like I'm not doing anything because we're like sitting and talking about like dolls and doing pretend play. But I'm like I promise this is really impactful. So now I feel way less stressed and I feel more confident and then the parents feel more confident. It's just all around great. So for parents, if you can ask whatever setting you're in, it doesn't help her to ask if there can be set aside time for one on one, uninterrupted parent consultations within your therapist caseload.

Now to be creative with this, if your therapist is like I don't have time to add that to my caseload, right? Then I have sometimes and I have again, I have the flexibility to do that. But some, I know colleagues who are just like back to back to back. I've had parents substitute. So if your kid is going once a week for the fall like a full months or four visits, I would have parents substitute one of those four visits to be just parent and OT and then parents like, but wait, aren't they not going to… like I don't want them to miss a session. I'm like trust me the the value you're gonna get from a parent coaching one on one is going to supplement or even make it better your experience even if your child is not getting it, getting that direct OT.

Laura: Because you're only together one, you know, one hour a week if you're doing weekly sessions and there's so many other hours in the time in between sessions. Yeah, so I really love that emphasis and so being able to ask for that, you know, there were times two we were able to do like a half session with my daughter and then a half session with just us, where we were, this was during Covid. So we were at a park doing sessions, we were doing outside park and so she would just go and play and we would say…

Laura Petix: I love that. So you could be super creative with the settings and doing it. You just have to ask. And it's interesting because since I've been talking about this like the current clinic at I went into when I started working there, I was like I am happy to work here, but I was just so you know, this is what I'm going to be recommending to all my families, like I have to make parents part of it. And then the clinic director, she was like that's amazing. And so now she's having all of the other therapists offer that. And then there's other… my colleagues that I have instagram that are other OT. So like I started doing that in my practice too and it's made such a difference. like it's not something that's standard, but once they start offering…

So, so when I'm saying that because when parents ask OTs, they might be like - oh we don't do that because they've never done it, but they've never considered it will be like, are you willing to like substitute a session? But knowing that parents again coming in like this is definitely one of those privileged pieces. So you probably you will have to pay out of pocket for it sometimes if you're going through an insurance plan and probably won't be covered by insure unless there's a some insurance is great with parent coaching, but just so you know that that would be like an typically an added charge added fee to it, but it's definitely worth asking if they could do phone calls, zoom calls in person, some uninterrupted time to talk at length about your child's progress, their strengths, things that they're noticing, things you're noticing at home and this gives the OT chances to coach you on specific things at home. Because that's the number one thing I hear from parents when they come to me for virtual coaching is there like, yeah, we're in OT, but they don't really help us with home stuff. They just like work with my kid and they don't help me deal with the meltdowns. I’m like, oh they should be helping you with the meltdowns. Like you should ask them, I'm happy to coach you through it. I love that. But also it's probably more bang for your buck if you get, if you work with the OT who sees your child person and knows them. So definitely ask.

Laura: Okay, so I love that. It never hurts to ask and I really, I think that that's so important. So kind of, can you give us… what… I think in my experience with OT with my oldest daughter who's nine now and she graduated from OT when she was seven. So she went from, when she was 5 to 7 and it was wonderful. I think the thing that helped the most in terms of OT for her, was her therapist very carefully helping her tune into her body and listen to what her body was communicating and to what it needed. And so we would go through various, I mean she had a lot of reflex integration issues, a lot of… she didn't crawl so she had a lot of crossing the midline stuff that needed to be happen to. But most of it was spent kind of engaging different sensory systems doing different things and figuring out does this activate you or does this regulate you?

Does this you know, does this make you feel more calm? Does this make you feel more alert and really tuning in? And I think I wasn't expecting that that would be part of OT. You know what I mean? And I'm curious if you can… So the other issue that I see in my communities right now is that people who know their kids need OT and they cannot get in. And because it's the wait lists are so long. And so like, what are some of the things we can be doing as parents at home with our kids when we know something's going on for our kids and we feel very ill equipped to help them. What are some of the things we can be doing?

Laura Petix: Yeah so first of all it sounds like your OT, was an amazing OT because that's definitely that is A plus gold standard, real good OT-ing right there because it's not just doing onto the child is not just playing with them. But it's really take then you bridge the gap. That steps towards self regulation so that your daughter knows what works for her body. And this is where I really love highlighting like what's that quote? It's like, if you give a man a fish,

Laura: He will eat for a day.

Laura Petix: If you teach a man of ill.. what that thing? Yes that ,that whole thing that's what I focus on with parents because they're like what can I do to regulate my child? She's hyperactive.What can I do to regulate my child? She is having meltdowns? And I'm like well it really depends because whatever regulates me might not regulate your daughter, what might regulate your daughter, might not regulate your son. And it’s everybody's another system. It’s different. So you really do need to know how to be a sensory detective, which is what I call or so, in my parent program I talked about becoming sensory detectives and so there are some general sensory inputs that are pretty universally regulating mostly. And I was like tread lightly there because obviously everybody is different but it's about… So that's heavy work. It’s like any input that's to your muscles and tendons and joints anytime you're chewing, pushing, jumping, carrying all of that input to your muscles and tendons and joints is highly regulating to the nervous system. No matter what kind of sensory threshold you have, it's pretty universally calming. Just like deep breaths are those are the two that are like, start here, right? And so…

Laura: This is one of the reasons why I think runners love running so much. Like runners, who are intense runners. You pound the pavement. I’m like you guys are sensory seekers…

Laura Petix: Sensory seekers or people that go to the gym every day and lift and they, and they're like, I don't feel good unless they do that. I'm like, that's great, I wish I had that sensory profile, I don't have that one, so that's amazing. But parents always ask like, is my kid going to grow out of this? I'm like, they might not grow out of it, but they will adapt their lifestyle. Like they might be the person who wakes up at five in the morning to make sure that they get their yoga running working out and not to be a fitness person, but because it feels good for their nervous system.

So they might, or they might grow up and be like a skydiver because they're such a sensory seeker. So parents to notice what you think regulates your child. When I say, regulate, like, what do you notice is most calming for your child do? is it when they move and they swing a lot, then you notice like wow like they were like sitting all through dinner super quiet and like had conversations they weren't just regulated. I wonder if I had to do with the hour of swinging they did before or today was a swim day. After swim they seem to always be super regulated. Or I noticed when my child is having a meltdown like the only thing that calms her down is when I'm hugging her and humming or something and so you're trying to take little clues and then you can try to categorize like is it a touch close body thing? Is it a movement thing? And then try to find different activities that can target that.

Again, this sometimes needs some guidance from an OT. But even if you can't work directly with an OT, there's a lot of information on instagram. I have a lot of stuff on instagram to dive into the sensory regulation stuff but my point is whatever like, Pinterest list you print out of. Like if you type in heavy work there's probably gonna be some free thing of like 101 ways to do heavy work.

Laura: Can I tell you when I started recommending heavy work to parents seven years ago there was nothing. There was one article and an OTs website with list of heavy work activities.

Laura Petix: It's great but it's like it can be overwhelming and so what I like parents to know is that like not all heavy work. Not all regulation activities are created equal. Like oh I found this 101 list I'm gonna do 101 of these every single day. It's - take that list and I would narrow it down like what do you think is something your child might like to do, like oh I see them crawl all the time, maybe they would like this army crawling like activity or whatever. And then once you do it, then that's when you really become the detective and you can involve your child if they have speaking abilities and and they have the other cognitive abilities to help dissect what's happening like your OT was helping your daughter.

So you do the activity and then you ask them. How did that make your heart feel? How did that make your body feel? I noticed you started moving a lot slower. I noticed the volume of your voice got down to my level and it wasn't super loud or opposite. I noticed your body started moving really fast and silly. Maybe that's not such a good calming activity. What do you think? So you can really like try these out and involve your child in the process if they can, but really for you to observe how is this regulating the body?

The other thing I want to mention to parents whenever you're trying like a sensory strategy heavy work activity or deep breathing activity is like if you try it once and like it feels like it “doesn't work” or didn't “do anything”. I'm putting a lot of air quotes here. I usually recommend to parents to try something. Like for a couple of weeks consistently before you truly notice anything, because it takes kids sometimes that initial time to get over a new routine where they might be like fighting back to it, or the novelty of it is really exciting and then they do great with it. But then after a while, like, well it doesn't work anymore. So I say give it a couple of weeks before you decide if a sensory strategy is really working for you.

Laura: There's a piece of it, like of the “do’s” too, like write, you know, doing it over time. It builds those neural connections and it helps with those things. And then there's also like, I don't know for if this is true for all folks, but for my child swinging to a certain point is really groundin., But if she goes past it and gets too much, then it's, she's wild. You know? And so helping her, like hone in on like what is the limit, where is that boundary? And you to like, as a parent noticing and helping them notice. I think, well, you know, they're gonna own this body forever, right? This is their body. They're gonna have this nervous system forever. And they need to learn how to use it for their best highest self.

Laura Petix: Yeah so that's why I spend most of my time teaching parents how to notice signs of this regulation because I can't tell you… like well how long should I be doing heavy work? Like well it depends what the heavy work is? what your child is? how much… like there's so many it depends, it depends. I don't… you won't see me give like a full list of like here's a sensory diet. If you have a sensory seeker here's what you should do. That is not what I do. I give like ideas of how to structure certain activities but it's really your job as a parent. And maybe in conjunction with an OT to help craft a list of things that might work for your particular child. And then you really do have to sit and observe and it's a constant re analysis of what is working what might not work noticing other patterns and context that might be contributing to that. Like while swinging works on Monday but not on Fridays, why? Oh well because on Friday she also has gymnastics. She also has swim, it's half day at school that we do the water park. Like there's a lot that goes into it. It's never just a one size fits all thing, for sure.

Laura: I love that. The individualizing pieces of it. Alright so you have a course that where you support parents with figuring some of these things out for those of us who don't have access to OTs, or to awesome OTs like you, who are really going to be supporting our kiddos.

Laura Petix: So I have two courses that are kind of helpful. So one is a, just a very like crash course mini course. If you are kind of starting out as a parent and you're still trying to figure out your child's behaviors or you do know your child has a sensor, has a sensory challenge but you're like - oh, whenever they hit their brother, I can't tell like is that a behavior, is that a sensory thing? Like what is this? Are they doing it on purpose or is this some other thing? There's usually that debate like what is going on here? And yes and I love when parents are asking that that means you're already like step one is already like curious about the behavior. You're not just like jumping to a conclusion, but it does take some like troubleshooting and taking things apart.

So I have this course called sensory is behavior by the time this podcast is out, it will be live. So you can go to the OT butterfly dot com slash behavior and that's where I really talk about like 10 really common childhood behaviors. And I brain dumped all the potential reasons why it could be a sensory trigger and I could and I bring them all the potential reasons why it's not a sensory trigger that includes no need for a parent connection. Language challenges, cognitive abilities, all of those things and then giving you some general ideas on how to support a sensory behavior versus a non sensory behavior.

Again, I never go into too much detail and these like widespread courses because it's not a one size fits all. So if you're looking for like a one side and oh, not one side. If you're looking for more guided support for particular, like very unique behavior or something that's happening, I offer one on one coaching which is the OT butterfly dot com slash parent, consult one word, where I can really talk through all of the nuance to it. But then the other, the last offer that I have that's really helpful for parents is very niche specific if you have a child who is sensory sensitive. So they have a hard time with clothes. This is my daughter. Like the feel of socks, the feel of like seems the feel of the way the pants fit jackets and any of that or if they are a picky eater or if they're sensitive to any of the grooming things. I kind of talked about earlier in the bathroom, like brushing hair, washing hair, taking a bath, nail clipping, haircutting. If they're sensitive to sound or sensitive, too messy play. All of those things I focus on in my parent program called the sensory wise solutions program. And it's an online, it's a course with a group coaching.

So this is where I can give you, because I'm focusing on very specific sensitivity to bathroom. I can give exactly what you should do and some ideas to tailor it for your kids and there's group coaching there as well. So that one enrolls a few times a year, the next time I'm opening, it is probably in June, but if you want to know more, you can always just go to the Ot Butterfly dot com and everything will be there or find me on instagram and I will happily guide you in the right to resource. But a couple I want to mention to free sources, resources for parents who want to just find out more. So one of my favorite ones is if you're curious what sensory sensitivity really looks like more fleshed out, I have a checklist for that. So you can go to the OT Butterfly dot com slash checklist and to see if your child is sensory sensitive or if it is like leaning that way and at least gives you kind of like talking points to bring up to professionals if you want to talk about your child's behaviors. And then, since I did mention heavy work and if you want to learn more about that, I have a freebie called who needs heavy work. So it talks about like the different behaviors that would benefit from extra heavy work and then some general ideas of what that is and that's the OT butterfly dot com slash heavy work. I'll have to make sure that that's the right thing. I'll send you the link for sure. But yeah, so there's lots of stuff out there for parents to get started if you're in that long, long wait list for OT, which I know it's just getting…

Laura: I'm so glad that there's resources out there for folks. Can I ask you one question? And this is maybe like a professional, professional question. So, but you all get to listen to it because I know we're wrapping up, you've got to go to a session. So when you were talking for, I got completely like, just down in like a thought wormhole when you were talking about, is this a sensory thing or is this a behavioral thing? And I just want to make sure I'm thinking about things, right? Because I'm not an expert on, like, on sensory stuff. I've done a lot of self educating. I work with a lot of folks who are, you know, I work on the parenting side of things and you're definitely the expert on the kind of the censoring what's going on in the, for the child from that perspective. And so when I'm, when I'm thinking about things like, you know, if a kid is refusing, you know, you're driving on the highway and the kid is refusing to put the window up because, you know, it's rushing on their face, right? That's clearly a sensory thing. But if the kiddo is, you know, dysregulated and hitting their sibling, so I'm just checking to make sure I'm thinking about this, right?

If they are doing that, it could be that they have this need for connection right then, or they have some jealousy and they need some emotional support to help them be regulated. But in my experience with my kiddo, it could also be that they've had this other, this whole day that was just challenging for them because of their unique neural wiring where just existing, like literally walking through the world is harder for them and their platform is already at that kind of at that 75 we were talking about. And so it can, it can be this, I don't know this muddy thing to tease apart. And so even if that behavior when she's hitting her sister is really about getting connection, right? There's also other sensory things at play there, is that right? Am I thinking about this, right?

Laura Petix: That's, that's right, That's exactly right. And that's, that hitting is such a calm. I mean, all behaviors are more complex than what we see obviously, but hitting is one that I get asked a lot and like, you're right, there's that emotional component to it. And then if your child is maybe more prone to dysregulation, there could be like this build up of things throughout their day, sensory inputs, routine changes, things that just were like thrown at their nervous system that now they're just in no place to be in control of it and it's all just spilling out. And so in that case it could be a sensory thing and an emotional need, peace. It could be both right.

And the thing that I like to say about sensory triggers is that, it doesn't always have to be such a clear cut, like you said like window or like the toilet flushing and then that happens and then cry and then it's done like, oh that was clear that the toilet. It can be a build up, like you're talking about, it can be a build up from that day, it could be a build up of weeks, it could be right, and it could just be like, maybe even if a kid like didn't sleep well the night before. I sometimes still consider that a sensory issue. If they have interception and challenges with their internal states and their nervous system is even more dysregulated and they are a dysregulated child. Like more often I could still consider that part of it. So it really is complex. And then the other piece is sometimes the actual act of hitting gives feedback, appropriate corrective feedback.

So it's a tricky way that it actually feels good to their body even if they know they like should not. So that's the piece, right, as parents. But you know, you're not supposed to hit but either like one, it feels good to my body. Two, it felt good to like express that emotion. Three, I really have no control over my body, right? There's like a lot of things that go into it and that first step of noticing that there's so many different reasons for this gives you an ounce more, I hope, of compassion, to be able to make it through to respond in a more intentional way to your child. Although I know I'm like the first to admit, I'm not always perfect with the way that I respond to my child's behaviors, but it can help when you have the right mindset most of the time.

Laura: Absolutely. And you know, all of us parents, we know from experience that the knowing and the doing, like the knowing the right thing to do and the doing of the right thing, are two completely different.

Laura Petix: Even for us. Yes, exactly. So it's like, so when parents are like, well she knows not to hit, I'm like, well, you know, not to yell and you still yell. They're like, oops, and I'm like, I mean I do too, but it's just like pointing it out that we are human. Exactly. Exactly.

Laura: And if it's confusing to us to like think about piecing it all out with our fully developed brains. I just, I can just imagine how confusing it is for kids to have to be in this dysregulated state and then have these impulses and emotions boiling to the surface with very few skills and experience.

Laura Petix: And executive functioning. Like that's not even developed until you're like mid twenties. Why are we not talking about that?

Laura: Yes, exactly. I feel so much the same, So much compassion to parents and kiddos and wonderful. Thank you Laura for this time you spent with us. I really appreciate you helping me shine some light on some of these.

Laura Petix: I'm so happy too. I'm so happy too. It fills my cup to be able to talk about this and knowing more people are hearing about OT maybe for the first time or feeling reinvigorated to go back to their child's OT with more ideas or feeling more confident at home. I just want parents to feel like more empowered really to either child's best advocate. So..

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Parents are amazing. Don't you love them? I love, I love working, getting to work with parents.

Laura Petix: I used to, I used to be afraid of working with parents when I wasn't one. And every time I had a parent console I'd be so nervous and like, oh my gosh, she doesn't like me or like, I don't know how to tell her, but now it's my favorite. It's my absolute favorite. In fact, even when I started the OT butterfly, I used to only talk to therapists and they're like, can you give parents? And I'm like, no, I only talk to a therapist, my audience is there. I'm giving them… Because I was scared to talk to parents even as a parent, but now I'm like, once I open the door I'm like, oh you are my people and I connect with you and it feels it's so rewarding to know that like you've given parents these tools for a lifetime so that you can set them up for success. So they can set their kids up for success. I love it.

Laura: It's beautiful. Thank you. It's a gift. Thank you for working through that and starting to share because we need it.

Laura Petix: Oh, I love it. I'm glad that I'm on this path now. I would never, I would never change that.

Laura: Beautiful. Thanks for being here Laura, thank you so much.

October 04, 2022

Episode 138: Creating Success for Children w/ Learning Differences with Victoria Waller

October 04, 2022/ Laura Froyen

It can be so hard to see our children struggle to learn new skills, especially in school, where learning differences often manifest as behavioral challenges. In so many cases when our kids are young, the advice is to wait and see, and trust that they will do it when they are ready, but sometimes we get to a point where we know our child needs more support than they are getting, and we need help figuring out what that needs to look like.

To help me in this conversation, I brought in Dr. Victoria Waller. She shares with parents, teachers, and therapists her proven techniques for helping any child to discover their natural love of learning, overcome their particular challenges, and succeed in school. Her methods are designed and proven to draw out the singular genius within your child, whether they’re just a reluctant reader or have a diagnosis such as ADHD or other learning differences.

If your child has trouble reading, can’t sit still in class, or doesn’t feel like they can participate, then this episode is for you! Plus, there are some great tips for every parent about recognizing your child's unique interests and supporting them in exploring them! For example, in the episode she recommends a weekly news magazine for kids. We decided to check it out and my kids absolutely love it!

Here's a summary of what we talked about:

Yes! You Can: step-by-step instructions on how to help your child achieve in school and build lifelong intellectual confidence
Exactly how to teach your child using their strengths and passions
On-the-ground success stories straight from her new book: Yes! Your Child Can: Creating Success for Children with Learning Differences

If you want to learn more from Dr. Waller, you can check out her website www.drvictoriawaller.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

RESOURCES:

The Week Junior: a weekly subscription magazine that reports news directly to kids ages 8-14 and gives Gen Alpha the information they need to form and express their own opinions while also educating them about current events. (There’s a counterpart for adults, too! Check it out here: theweek.com)

What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff: a book that answers all your baby questions

PROMISE PROJECT by Dana Buchman: a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping underserved children with learning disabilities (LD) get the support they need to learn

Straight Talk about ADHD in Girls: How to Help Your Daughter Thrive by Stephen Hinshaw: a guide that provides vital information and advice to help you understand and meet your daughter's needs

Newsela: Meaningful classroom learning and instructional materials for every student.

TheSpanglerEffect by Steve Spangler: a YouTube Channel that gives do-it-yourself experiments to amaze friends and make science learning fun.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen and on this week's episode of the balanced parent podcast, we're gonna be talking about how we can support our kiddos who have learning differences with an expert Dr Victoria Waller. Victoria, I'm so glad to have you on, on the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do.

Dr. Waller: Okay good. Well I've been teaching children with learning differences for over 40 years, which is a long time. And I always called my children, they have learning differences. I've never used the word disabilities and I think that's very important in this podcast. My children all have abilities. They don't have disabilities and I think now, we are seeing that they're geniuses of our time like Anderson Cooper, Richard Branson, Simone Biles, the astronaut Scott Kelly and many more. I have found every child can learn and become successful and happy. If we diagnose them early, we get them help when they need it, most importantly, and I want everybody who has a child that they have a gut feeling about, something's a little off. They have to teach them with their strengths and passions.

Too often, we talk about what's wrong with children and we should be talking about what's right with them. It's interesting because I originally wrote a 360-page book, which is really bizarre, because a principal at one of the schools where I was working with the child individually at home and she said, you have to write a report after every time you see him. And I said, okay and every time I'd write a report. She'd say this is a book, I hear it, this is a book. And so I went, I thought, oh this is a book. And I took it to an editor of fabulous editor Suzanne Kingsbury and she radishes Vicky. It's wonderful. The stories are fantastic. It's wonderful who's gonna buy it. I said, well parents who have kids with learning differences, maybe they have attention issues. She said, but it's a story about one boy.

Parents want to know what to do with their child. Every book my parent gets, that says ADHD. They tell me this, they buy them all, they open them up, there's a picture of a brain, close the book. And she said this has to be a book. Who do you want it to be for? Well I want to help parents and teachers too, and neuropsychologists, the people that test these children. This book is for everybody. Well, I don't see it, it's a wonderful book, but I don't know who would get help from it. I put it away on my desk, my shelf and within two weeks two things happened. Knock on the door and I opened the door and I see this very tall, six ft two kid but he's not a kid, scruffy, you know, hair. And he goes Dr. Waller, it's me Dexter. And I went, oh my goodness Dexter.

Dexter was seven years old. He was in my reading class, special reading class and I was doing claymation. I was very involved with the Walt Disney company. They let me bring my children to every event they had and he could do, he would build the claymation characters, he would make the actual setup, he would tell everybody what to do. He was seven years old and the principal said, he doesn't told the mother, maybe he'll work at Mcdonald's one day. He's not very smart. And I said you have to get him help, you have to get him tested. It has to be at a school where he is, you know, understood and he has to see somebody like me all the time outside of school. And he said it's me Dexter and he said, I did what you said. I said what? He said, you told my mom I should follow my passions and my strength. So I did! I said Dexter, what are your passions and strengths? Trees! I said what? He got a master's degree from Yale, another master's degree from Clark. He had just received a doctorate and he wanted to talk to me about it and he was going to go for his postdoc on trees.

I said okay, it's the environment. It's trees. Our trees helped build, you know, bad areas up so that it's nice and believe me, I never thought. And now, like if you look up his name, he is like the major person in trees in the country and he has articles and he has everything and that was just interesting. I thought to myself gee that's really interesting and then another child comes.

And I had started working with kids as a therapist and teaching. And the mother comes to the door hysterical crying at two in the afternoon. I said what's wrong? What's wrong? They want, they want me to test my child. There's something wrong with her brain. We have to go to a brain doctor. And I went, no, no, no hold on hold on. And all of a sudden I realized I said there's nothing wrong with his brain. There's a lot right with his brain. He was seven years old. He couldn't read or write but he could tell you about every animal. You could ask him about any animal. He could tell you 20 facts about that animal. And all of a sudden I thought that's what my book has to be about. It has to be about what… you know the pregnancy book, It's called “What to Expect When You're Expecting?” And it takes you on a journey every month of what's going to happen in your pregnancy. And I thought that's what I have to do. My book has to be a book, telling my parents what to expect. And it starts out with the very first one is “He's not here.” She is not gonna snap out of it. A paranoid has a gut feeling. The other parent says oh they'll be fine, they're not going to snap out of it. You've got to get them help. So I made my book a step-by-step journey for that parent who has that feeling that something's just a mist and exactly what to do.

Why there is a neuropsychologist? What do you mean I have to get him a tutor? Do I need an odd therapist? Do I need a teacher? And that's what I did. I made my book different than all books. And Dana Buchman started a fabulous, PROMISES PROJECT in New York where they test, neuropsychologist test, for free. Children from the inner city, which is amazing because those tests are like $7000. And Dana Buchman said my book should be the first book a parent reads and I can tell you about the journey if you want me to. Step by step. So you understand.

Laura: Yeah, so I love the step-by-step approach in your book. And it has, you know, when I'm looking at the outline, it has kind of every question that the major questions that I get that I'm on the receiving end and that parents are thinking. But I'm kind of curious about what are some of those things that are happening as a young child enters into schooling that get a parent getting that gut feeling. What are some of those early like warning signs that parents can be on the lookout for or noticing when they see them in their child. That should kind of ping in a parent. What are some of those things?

Dr. Waller: Well I think when they see the child and it really doesn't even have to do with a slow talker, slow walker. It's when you're seeing your child in a setting and the child is either being very hyperactive and can't focus. If you were in let's say the preschool class even at four years old I can go into a class and I see the kid that's running all over and can't really stay focused. And I also see not only boys, I see girls and it's interesting because Stephen Hinshaw has just written a new book that's coming out in a few months and it's girls in ADHD. I see a child quietly not focusing. Those are the ones that the parents are mostly surprised about because they'll go but she sits quietly or he sits quietly. It's inattentive. And every time people say ADHD. Hyperactivity. I have found the student that I get in my private practice, are the kids that have been overlooked because they're quiet.

I had a student, I had this big tree outside my window. I had him for three years. He was a very quiet and attentive. He would, you know, not be listening. He would be thinking about something else and he said to me after three years he says you know you have an alligator on your tree. I went what? I've been sitting here for 30 years and I love the big tree. And sure enough now whenever I look out the window I see Max's alligator on the tree, because the branches and the bark. But I never noticed it before. But he would just sort of go out. So if you saw that when you were younger you saw a kid going from a child going from thing to thing or a child just sitting there and you called them 27 times and they're not paying attention to you. Although with now, the computer and everything you can do call your child 27 times and they don't reply because they're involved in the computer. But a lot of those things the teachers saying your child just isn't picking up things. They could have speech issues. They could have motor issues. There's many many flags and I think with learning differences the flags could be not noticed because they're a quiet child.

The children that are hyper and running from thing to thing and can see is still like a motor is going. Parents tend to notice that first. They don't notice the one that's inattentive at. And you'll hear it from a teacher. A good teacher will tell you, you know Susie sitting there, but she's really not, when we tell her to do something, maybe she's not doing it. And any of the things to do. It was funny I sat in a meeting with a very very famous person in LA. I'm in LA. It's very Hollywood. It's not unusual to have, you know, parents of kids. And I said you know he's seven years old and I think it's time you really should get a speech evaluation. He has a list and with the list he's having trouble when he's spelling because he's staying it wrong. So he hears it wrong and he's writing it wrong. And they both looked at me and this was a major person in Hollywood. He said he doesn't have anything like that. And I'm sitting there thinking oh Vicki, what did you do? What… maybe it's a different child. You know, they left, I go running to his classroom. I said that out with me, let's read a little bit. Huge list. But because it was something they always heard. They didn’t really recognize. So sometimes, and it can be a teacher saying something about your child or you can just see like why aren't they? They're so smart. That's what everybody will say.

But my child is smart, he can't have attention issues. One thing doesn't have to do with the other. I have never ever, and this is,I'm old, this is thousands of children I have taught. I have never found a child to not have a passion and a strength, and that's what I used to teach them. A parent came in a couple of months ago and I said what are your child passion, strength? She went well, he likes the computer. I said well is there anything else he's really good at or and she said no, he just likes to be on the computer all the time. Child comes in and said, what do you like to do? He says, oh I love to build with legos. Okay, so the next time he was here, I bought him a little tiny lego thing and I thought I would start out by doing that. Give him a little lego thing to me. And he comes in and he laughs and one minute he puts it together and I said, what kind of legos do you put together? He says are the ones with 10,000 pieces. I said can you read the directions? He says, no. Dr .Waller, I can't read. I just look at the pictures.

Now, I want to tell you something. Laura, I look at those pictures, there is nothing in my brain that put anything together that has five pieces, let alone 10,000. And then, he knows everything about whales and sharks. But I mean like an encyclopedia, I hooked him up with Michael Packard. Michael Packard was the man lobster fisherman a year ago june. He was lobster fishing like he's been doing for a long time and a whale, put caught him in his mouth. I was fascinated by the whole thing and the whale spit him out. I called Michael Pack, We have google now you can find everybody. And I said this child knows all about whales and sharks. Can he interview you? He said absolutely, we read, I read to him, he couldn't read, I read him every single article on Michael Packer. We looked at videos and he made up questions. I typed up the questions and I knew because he was smart, he was going to remember what he wrote. He read it, maybe he didn't read every, but he knew what questions he was asking. He sat here like an abc interviewer and interviewed Michael on zoom and waited, paused when he gave the answer. It was amazing. And then I typed everything up the questions and the answers and I used that to teach him with.

Laura: Okay, I want to dive in there, because I think that this is a big premise of your book and something that everybody in my audience wholeheartedly believes in, that all children have unique talents and passions and that finding those natural strengths within them, are kind of the avenue for their growth. This is something that I think we all believe in. But the practicalities of it can be difficult sometimes. So figuring out what those passions and strengths are for your unique child, I think can be hard for parents and for teachers and then figuring out how do we go about supporting our children, learning through those strengths and passions, especially for the families who perhaps don't have access to a wonderful support system like yours or, you know, teachers who maybe are under resourced and have, you know, way too many kids in their classroom to do such individualized instructions. What can we, as parents do in these settings, in these circumstances?

Dr. Waller: Okay, first of all, you have to know what your child likes, you really do. I taught in the inner city in Detroit. I can't, I'm sorry I can't give teachers a pass when it comes, and that's why my book is for teachers also, so that they understand who these children are. And that they are smart and they can work. And my step by step will help teachers to see, wait a minute, these kids are smart. What can I do for them? When I taught in the inner city in Detroit there were 40 desks. 40 desks, there were no pencils, no books, nothing and that started Vicky Waller begging and borrowing from every person I ever met. I go into stores, I go into toy stores, I got everything.

The children were supposed to do something like the American revolution. These kids in the inner city of Detroit in the seventies were not, they did not care about the American Revolution. And they said well you could do the principal said well the United States. I said I think that would be good. Let's do the United States. I had the children, I taught them how to write letters and they wrote letters to their relatives who wrote letters. Notice there was no, there was no email. Wrote letters to all their relatives. I got stamps. I got everything donated. Then we put up the whole room became the United States and when they and they all received letters back which was really interesting. A lot of the appearance were from the south relatives and we put the letters up in every state and they learned about States.

If a teacher, if a parent knows - okay. Even teachers, when they're giving something to do, like whatever they're studying. Maybe this child, an art, this child who did the shark out of clay. He made a shark, of which I've never seen before in my life, unbelievable, with feet sticking out of the mouth because Michael Packard was stuck in there. I think if teachers read my book, if parents read my book, they know, okay. The child's not gonna snap out of it. Okay, how do we get testing? You can get testing in schools, you can get free testing in schools. And I'm telling you, they're as good as a neuropsychologist who costs $7,000. Parents have to accept their child for who they are. If they need medication then they have to accept. That's like if you need medication for maybe you have something wrong with you, you take a little bit of medication. You have to hire the right person. Sometimes, can I tell you? Fine. I have a doctor big deal. Vicky Waller's done it for 100 years. She is a doctor. Guess what Your second grade teacher that your child loves and she's been teaching for 50 years or five years. But she's gifted and loves your child, that's the person you get. So you don't have to have a doctor necessarily.

You can have the favorite teacher. I had a girl I met the other day, we were sitting around the table and it was very funny. She's 32 and she said, I have learning differences. She said disabilities. And I said, I bet you don't have disabilities, tell me what you do. She's a famous, she dresses Hollywood movie stars. She's not, doesn't have, she didn't think she had any ability. She has plenty of abilities. And she said, you know, I saw my second grade teacher till I was in seventh grade. She said she saved my life. So it doesn't matter. You have to find, hire the right person or you know, to help your child. You have to have books.

Now there's so many ways to get books online and that you could be reading. And if a child can't read, I had a child couldn't read. His father had read him every book that I ever would even have in my thousands of books in the garage. The father would read to him every night. So the child was getting it. You're being read to also. The team is very important. The parent, the teacher. If there is a tutor you get together. How is the child doing? Communication is really important. And the most important is finding your child's strengths and passions.

I had a parent, the child loved doing contests and I never had that before. Contest and she had the child enter contests, and now on the computer, you can find a million contests if that's what your child's into and you won't believe it. She made, remember the heart kisses at Valentine's day, and they have little sayings on them? So you had it was a contest and she won like $10,000 or something, and they put her heart in the box hugs and kisses, that was her. So every child has a strength. And I say that because the children who have differences, parents and teachers aren't looking at their strengths. They’re looking at the things they can't do. We need to focus on what they can do, reading, writing, even executive function. When you think about doing something step by step. Watch this boy do 10,000 piece lego, he's doing step by step. He's got it, we just have to transfer and he needs help.

Laura: So I guess in those situations, you know, one of the things that I get asked about a lot from parents is that, they see their child's unique strengths. They see, you know, they've worked really hard to figure out what approaches work really well for their child and they're mastering it at home. Things are going really well at home, but their child is struggling with a mismatch with a teacher at school. And parents are worried about alienating teachers, about pushing. And so do you have any tips for how to work well with teachers? Particularly teachers who might be a little resistant to doing things a little differently for kids who need it.

And by the way, I just want to preface this by saying that my entire family, out of my entire family tree, I have one uncle who is not an educator. And so my entire family are our teachers and I adore teachers and respect them so, so much. And I know personally, from personal experience, how taxed they are? How much pressure we put on them? How under-resourced most of their classrooms are. And so I just, I love teachers so much. And at the same time, parents have to learn to work with them and how to get them on their kids side. You know?

Dr. Waller: Yes. And it's interesting that you're saying that because I really think during the pandemic, it was really difficult for teachers. It was… because I was doing it and I'm not used to, I'm… listen, I had a computer in my classroom in 1975, that's how old I am. There was this thing called the computer and I would go to these reading conventions and one of the places was Borgwarner, which was a computer. They had just started making these things called computers and they were giving them free to teachers to see if they worked. And I had a computer in this little room that was really a hallway that they converted to a reading room for me because I saw about eight kids a time. We were in a reading in the hallway. And you know why I didn't like it? Because the kids wanted to keep being on this computer thing. They didn't want to listen to me and do projects. They just wanted to be on the computer.

Laura: Of course they did.

Dr. Waller: I've had computers for a long time.

Laura: I remember when my mom was, my mom was a special reading teacher, so she had her reading resource classroom and in the summer she would get to bring her computer home. And I remember playing word munchers all summer long. That’s how I learned to read.

Dr. Waller: So I think it’s very and I don’t think, in college you maybe get one book on reading and there's maybe one chapter on a child with learning differences. I find, if the parents have to really get their child involved and if they… but I think what happens is that parents are so undone about what's wrong with my child? That even when they come to me and I interview them, they never tell me all the things that are right about their child. And then I find it out and I build their confidence through that. And I have learned, it's really… that's probably what I do the best. And I didn't realize it till this… it was passed over a jewish holiday and the children have to read at the passover table.

All of my students have a nervous breakdown. You know, they go around the table and they're counting what am I gonna have to read. Of course, I tell the parents, practice one page for a couple of weeks and have your child read that, and that'll be fine because they'll remember what they're reading. And when I called the father I had his child like 10 years ago and I said do you remember that I got an email and it said call me ASAP, I'm crying. And the father… And it was on passover and I knew what happened.

The child had to read and he couldn't read and he said I can't believe that he read. And so when I called him this time I said do you remember that email? He said yes but it wasn't that he read, I'm gonna cry. It was that you had given him the confidence to read. It wasn't that he was reading. Yes of course it was, but it's what you gave him. That's a gift. He still has and he's in 11th grade getting all A's and he still has somebody who helps him with his massive amounts of homework. But that confidence, you know when you go into a room, even now I'll go into a room you could just tell that person that just has confidence is talking to everybody and the other people who are like quiet and staying in the corner or whatever. And when you have confidence, if parents can…. The only thing that I know that works is when you have a teacher that doesn't understand your child, you get the tutor outside of school, you get his old second grade teacher to work with him. If he loves playing sports, get him into sports where he's feeling good. It's very hard if there's a teacher, I had a principal who said this child is never gonna go to seventh grade and the child was in kindergarten, I just met the mother the other day in the market. Do you believe it? And now the child like 25 of course he's some fantastic. But she said the child, I said, what are you talking about? The child's in kindergarten just has a little inattention. That's all I had the mother do my step by step, which I've been doing for years. Let's get him tested. Let's find out what we can do, get somebody to work with him. But can you believe a principal said that?

Laura: No, I mean, I can unfortunately.

Dr. Waller: But that's why my book is written. It is written like Dana Buchman said from Promise’s project. This is a step by step that every parent, every teacher will understand and go, oh yeah, that's that kid I have. Maybe I should try to work something out, or parents and I find that even if the kids are good in sports, that's wonderful. Talk about confidence. If they're good in sports. If they're good… this little boy who the mom said, oh yeah, he likes legos. If you… I can show you that shark, you'll just go what? And he's not using plasticine, which I use, he's using that real clay that you put water and I don't even know how to do that, with the, with the feet coming out and he just did an unbelievable camera project too. I use old cameras. And if you have that stuff for the child at home, if they love art, if they want to do sports, whatever they want. I know it's really hard now because the kids, the kids are stuck on the computers all the time.

Laura: Well, it’s not just the kids too, there's a lot of pressure on parents. I think I have a lot of compassion for parents that, you know, because when we see our kids showing up differently than how their teachers are expecting them to and how the world expects them to. It can create a lot of anxiety within us. And you know, I don't know about you, but sometimes I work in fields where there's lots of privileged parents who are highly educated. And then they've got this kid who's a little bit different and isn't doing the things that they expected them to do or isn't responding to a packed schedule in the way that they're expecting or they're maybe there are friends, or adult friends, kids are responding to it. And I guess I just, you know, there's… I love that you're giving permission to relax on some of those things to just give…

Dr. Waller: Hey! Wait a minute. Be happy because I've never met a child with learning differences. And I'm telling you when I say thousands, thousands that didn't have that special heart of them and that we're not smart. I think it's interesting on the spaceship. Richard Branson. He has… they call it dyslexia. I will never call it that, because dyslexia’s inability to read and my children all learned to read. So I don't like that word at all. They have learning differences. But he said, they said, how did you feel the 10 minutes you were up in space and he has learning disabilities and attention issues. He said, and he said, well he said the thing that happened, that was sort of funny is you had to seat belts once he felt you let go and you could fly around, you know? you could move around for the 10 minutes and the other seat belt was your seatbelt for your parachute. So they said undo your seatbelt and you're right seat belts so you can float around.

And because he had learning differences, he unbelted a seatbelt that let go of his parachute. And I thought that was so classic. Like that was just, it was classic. And I just feel that… I hope this book is… the book is written for teachers. At the end of every chapter, there's a box with the takeaway of the chapter and there's a box for parents and teachers. Here's what you do. So a lot of my book, has a lot of the wonderful stories about children and what do you do? You get them tested, you get them… you do, you go step by step. It has to start with the parent. I had on zoom. I had a student that made himself an alien. Now, truthfully, I'm somebody who works with kids who I think are very creative in one way or another. And so I thought it was, I saw his little face, but all the rest of him was an alien. And the teacher called me and went, I can't stand this, why is he an alien? And I just, I had to laugh and I said, I said, it doesn't bother me. I realized in the classroom maybe you don't want them to do that. And I wrote it into the New York Times. They put it, they said, what's different about your time during quarantine? And I put, I taught an alien to read. It's something that didn't bother me, but I could see where a teacher with the whole classroom wouldn't be so happy about it with the kids' faces on the computer.

Laura: But Victoria, I think that you're hitting on this very critical mindset shift that is so important with kids. You're able to look at that and see his creativity, see his unique spirit and delight in it versus looking at it through a lens of this is a kid who's not doing what he's supposed to be doing. This is a kid who's goofing around, who's making a scene and leaning into those unique passions and strengths and channeling them and letting them, you know, build within the child and then directing them for the good of the learning. It. I mean, it's a very big skill that I think teachers have to learn and that parents have to learn how to advocate for.

Dr. Waller: Well, that's why you have to get my book. Take them on, step by step. You can't say you don't know about it anymore, if you read this book. That's why I'm saying it's for teachers too. They're gonna look and go, oh, that's what he does. Oh, this is what I should do. Now, the big part of this is the testing and if the child needs medication that… listen, that saying, okay, maybe that will work. Now, you want to try without, you want to try different things fine. But if your child is failing in school and failing in school and it's because they can't pay attention and they have these differences. You've got to get them help.

Laura: Yeah. And medication, the way I've always viewed it, is that it gets kids up to a level of functioning where the other things that we're trying can have it in a better effect. You know? So it gets them access to the internal resources that they need to be able to do the things that we want them.

Dr. Waller: And the resources that they have, that they can't do because they're either inattentive or they have some learning differences but getting them help and I'm telling you… You can… there's always that, that the woman who I sat with who's 32 had that second grade teacher who saw her all those years and she said I really… she told my mother… and that's why my book is done, you know, there's… it's done for parents, teachers and colleges because colleges, there's nothing about learning differences. They go “oh he has learning disabilities”. No, differences, they have differences. But the children that have these differences, I'm telling you, I've never had one that was not smart and didn't have wonderful interests. I just didn't. And the team, the child's team is very important. Very important, who you use, and if they have a speech issue they need to get somebody to help them. The public schools do have, I have a granddaughter who has some difficulties. And the public school they have, the Speech, she sees a Speech person there. She sees an O.T. there. I mean they really help. It's just not oh I can't afford, it isn't that anymore. There are a lot of people that can help in your school.

Laura: Yes, I agree so much. The schools are doing so much better now. Alright, so the one thing, as this episode is airing, kids are going to be heading back to school and for lots of kids who do have learning differences or challenges that time period can be really stressful for them and for their families. There can be a lot of school refusal that starts happening and I'm just curious if you have any tips as we head back into the school year here in the United States.

Dr. Waller: Okay, so here's my book. Yes, your child can. Creating success for children with learning differences and there's a whole chapter on how to avoid back to school hysteria. The most important thing I have to tell you right now. My parents tend to be anxious about their child going back to school to a new teacher. They want to write to them, they want to go meet them. Here's what to tell you. I was a classroom teacher. Don't come to me in August and start telling me about your child all these things about, he doesn't do this and he can't do this and he did… No, no, take it easy. Write a letter to the… email to the teacher and say, I do have a child who is learning differences. Hopefully, your writing were getting him help. I'd like to speak to you in a couple of weeks when you've been in the classroom. A teacher’s putting up bulletin boards, especially after these two years. You know, it might be a new teacher to the school. They're busy getting ready, they don't want that mother father in their ear about their kid and all, they're gonna remember, oh no, I'm getting a kid who can't sit still. No, no.

Laura: Yeah, they need a chance to have an unbiased view too. For sure.

Dr. Waller: Yes, yeah, and believe me in a couple of weeks then, they'll be sitting down. Another thing is parents tend to take children off of medical… if they're on medication and I must tell you about medication. It's nothing like it used to be one medication, there are many now which you would talk to a doctor about, a medical doctor. There are many now and they really just… sometimes it's a little bit… they need to just treat their attention whether it's inattentive or being hyper, it's just not horrible just…

Laura: It’s very different like it was in the eighties.

Dr. Waller: It's very different. But some of my parents do take their children off medication in the summer. Then they come back telling me that they've had the worst summer in the world. Or like my students in the book, Alex. They went away the first… they put him on medication, everything was terrific, and then they went away for the Christmas holiday. And I didn't say, I mean, I didn't think of it at that time to say don't forget to keep him on medication. Well they thought, we’re going to take them off medication. He was so difficult. He was oppositional. He was defiant and I said you took him off medication.

The medication helped that. So don't go doing that. You've, if you've taken your child off medication you have to have a doctor that your child is seeing. Also as they grow up too, you know, maybe physically they need a different medicine. Also, most children in the summer go to bed later, light out till 10 and all of a sudden the night before you're saying go to bed at eight o'clock, no start two weeks before. Just putting him to bed 10 minutes earlier, five minutes earlier for the next two weeks. So they don't really see the… Though it's only 8:05, they won't know by five minutes, five minutes. Otherwise the first few weeks of school the child's gonna be totally exhausted, relaxing them. Every child gets nervous about the next grade. Start reading to them. My student Alex what I loved the best is that his father read to him all the time. And he could read all the time. They read to him as I told you, the children who have learning differences and I don't care what anybody says. They're very smart, I don't care what anybody says. I've seen thousands.

Read to them, read books, joke books, they have so many wonderful books and the best thing you can get, two things. The Week Junior, it's the old magazine, The Week for Adults and The Week Junior is for kids and it's everything that's happened that week in the world. But like little tiny four inch articles. Kids love it. It is the best thing you can buy. Buy that now and Newsela which comes on the internet. And it's the same thing where it's what went on like Michael Packard and the whale. All little interesting articles for children. Start that, before bed start… Have a little talk if you haven't done that with your child and something very nice to do. How was your day? Are you worried about school? What can I do to help you with that? What are the things you're good at? Try to talk about, so you're really prepping them for what they're good at in case they're going into a grade where it's going to be hard and I know you're gonna laugh at this.

Every teacher in the world, I'm telling you it's true. The first day of school they say write what you did on your vacation. I'm telling you they do, do that. And every child goes, oh Vicki they don't do that. I said, just listen to me, Let's practice. What was the favorite thing you did? And they'll think, you know, they won't remember any of the 400 things they did. We went on 17 hikes, we went swimming. I said, okay. And I have them write it and then I always love it because the second day or the next time? I see the child, how did you know my teacher was going to say. What did you do on your vacation? I said because so… get to talk to them about that. What would you write? What would you do? Talk about what you did this summer?

Let's talk about the books they read. I hope they're reading The Week Junior. What was the most interesting article? There's so many interesting articles in The Week Junior. I don't have one child who doesn't love that, that magazine. And it comes every week. Also, in the car, two weeks before I start talking about, you know schools coming up, you're gonna have I don't, most of the time I think they know their teacher. I'm not sure. Usually you get a note saying who you're getting now they hold it because they don't want parents calling them and bugging them. But talk about you know, here are the two teachers in the next grade.

Do you think we're gonna have a good year? What do you think you can do to make the year a good year? What are some of the things you do? Well, a lot of my kids are very good in math but they can't read or they're good in ideas. Okay, so when you have to write something that's what we do this summer, all remember when we found those, I have five rabbits in my backyard, I just want to tell you that now. My husband goes, oh aren't they cute? I go, no, I used to think they're cute, but they're eating my lawn and it drives me crazy. Ok, I would write about the five rabbits in my backyard. Give them some ideas, because they'll say I didn't do anything all summer. And you know the parents, you've done 4000 things with them.

Even if it was building with, by the way, I didn't talk about building with Amazon boxes. You do not have to have money to have Amazon boxes, a little bit of glue paper and markers and have them. I can tell a child okay… we're going… maybe they read a story on a boy who climbed a mountain. I take them in my garage, which is filled with every piece of junk you've ever imagined tops too. Right now, I have a coffee, a coffee container, has these black covers, and I'm going, oh, I bet that would become something. My students can go in the garage, they can go through all the junk in five or 10 minutes. They can know exactly what they're gonna make.

Do something with that. Oh, look how good you are at that. Tell them that the teachers are scared to. I have to tell you I was a teacher in a classroom, I'd be so hyper before school started. Who are my kids gonna be, would I be doing a good lesson? And don't, please parents do not bother the teachers about your child yet. Talk about what they like, they like science. Talk about science maybe Steve Spangler has great science stuff on the Youtube. You can watch those doing some experiments with your kids if they like that.

Talk about what their schedule is gonna be. Oh so you're gonna be doing sports on Tuesday and what would you like to do in art class? Because you like art so much. Talk about what their schedule is gonna be. Check this class list. Are there kids that he really likes in the class? You'll get that about two weeks before. if there are, say let's get together, we haven't seen him all summer. Because sometimes you don't see your friends. That alleviates anxiety because you're with that. Yeah you'll know. Okay. Before school, the weekend before, do a family thing, go on a hike, have a swim contest. Have friends over. I had a bark mitzvah for my dog and my student had a hamster mitzvah for his hamster which was hilarious. Have something fun. And by some of the kids over from his class.

Once school starts, it's very important. One parent at least should be putting the child to bed even if they’re in fifth grade. They go in bed, you sit on the bed with them just talking about what you did this summer. Wasn't that fun or what book did we read you or whatever? Maybe you'll be seeing Miss Smith who's gonna be your tutor. So don't worry we will have somebody to help you with your work. I find the one parent said to me, he's so oppositional defiant and he just loves coming to you. I said I'm not his mother and you know I'm building projects out of used cameras that I buy on amazon. If you read a book about the baseball player, I have them build using hot glue a camera and paper and maybe a little styrofoam top for a head and they make characters out of an old camera. You have old remote controls. Oh they make fantastic people.

They make people I mean do things like that and talk to them at bedtime about things they're good at and you'll be with Jimmy, you like him so much. These are all things that I think reduce the child's anxiety and reduce your anxiety because parents all have anxiety. And it’s just one day at a time, but I would start two weeks ahead with a little bit every single day. And if they're seeing a therapist or a tutor, have them start like a week or two ahead. They'll remember that they like being with them and just keep reading to them, just read to them, get them back into that feeling of listening and if they need to be tested, get them tested and if they need somebody to help them. That's the most. That's number one in my book. They may need help and they're such good. I'm telling you, there's such good teachers at school who like your child and probably would like to tutor them, maybe after school to help them. But you have to get help for your child. That's the most important thing. And you know, use their passions and strengths and after they're in school for that couple of weeks and you want to write the letter to the teacher, maybe could we meet like October first. And don't get scared. Oh, it's a month, that first month, everybody's just getting used to everything.

Meet with the teacher. And if you have a tutor, have the tutor be in the meeting too, you know, and maybe they're seeing a specialist in the school. But what you have to, more than anything is realized that with your child's passions and strengths, yes, they can succeed. And that's what my book is all about. My book is, Yes, your child can. Creating success for children with learning differences and that's what it is. And they can all be successful. But you have to follow, you have to follow the step by step and don't be scared. They're smart kids, can you imagine all these years? I've never had a child come to me and I'd say to my husband, oh, this one isn't smart. They all have special qualities. Every child and these are the kids in class who maybe are harder to teach. They all have special qualities. And if you use those qualities to make them confident, that word came up so many times, confident. If they, if you go into a party there could be a lot of brilliant people and you're like, you know, you don't want to get near them. They're like scientists and stuff, but the one that exudes confidence, that's the one that's interesting and they may not be a scientist, but there's something about that confidence and that's what I think. I think it's the most important and you as a parent, it's your number one job and to feel good about your child. Yeah.

Laura: Well, thank you so much Victoria. This was really a great conversation.

Dr. Waller: Oh, you’re terrific! I like you.

Laura: All right. So yes, I'll have links, you know, in the show notes and everything. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Waller: Oh well, I loved it. I just really love your… I love everything about you. I was reading all of… I was listening and reading all about you, so thank you so much.

September 30, 2022

Bonus (Group Coaching Call): The Power of Mindset When Big Kids Meltdown

September 30, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Hey, my dears! We are going to do something a little bit different for today's episode. I'm going to let you listen in on one of the group coaching calls that I had recently in my membership, Balancing U.

You may have been following along with the Reactivity to Responsiveness Challenge and if you have, then you know that I have decided to move all of my courses and programs into my membership. And starting next week on October 10, we're going to be doing my program Parenting from Within as a part of the membership, which means you get to have my biggest program for the monthly right of Balancing U.

So, I wanted to give you a taste of what it's like to be in a group coaching program with me, and what it's like to hop into a Zoom room and get to discuss the ins and outs of being a conscious parent in this conversation.

And in this episode, we were:

digging into releasing old mindsets that kind of keep us trapped in punitive parenting
understanding the desire to teach a lesson and give a consequence

The folks that are with me in the room have been dedicating themselves to nonpunitive parenting for well over a year and this work is ongoing for all of us.

So, I'd love to have you listening to this conversation about really firmly keeping that mindset shift in place. I hope that it helps you and I hope it gives you a little bit of a taste so you can see if Balancing U is right for you. We'd love to have anybody in there who is wanting to make these changes in their lives and wants to contribute to a loving and compassionate community.

If you think it might be right for you, feel free to reach out to me and check it out. If you're considering Parenting from Within, we'd love to have you do the program with us as we run it live in the membership in October and November this fall. You can check all of that out at www.laurafroyen.com/pfw to learn more about Parenting from Within and everything that's inside of it.

If you just want to check out the membership in general, you think it's time to get some on-the-ground support, weekly space for you to ask questions, and a chance to be on the podcast and get coached by me for free, you can check that out at laurafroyen.com/membership.

Here are the resources mentioned in the call that I think might benefit you as well.

Resources:
- Flying Wish Paper (there are a lot of pretty designs on Amazon!)
- Collaborative & Proactive Solutions Approach by Dr. Ross Greene (you can find the Assessment of Lagging Skills and Unsolved Problems or ALSUP here)
- Anxiety Relief for Kids by Bridget Flynn Walker, Ph.D.
- The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm by Levar Burton

September 27, 2022

Episode 137: How to Help Your Child With School Struggles with Philip Mott

September 27, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Every year in the month after school starts back up here in the States, I get flooded with questions from parents about how to ease their child's transition back to school and how to navigate an educational environment that is not always grounded in the same principles of respect that we focus on at home. And I know from personal experience that big transitions are never easy, especially for those of us with sensitive, spirited kiddos when moving into an environment where they aren't fully seen and accepted. And so, to give you tips on how to help children with school struggles, I brought in Philip Mott, a homeschooling father to three and a monthly contributor to First Time Parent Magazine and FatheringTogether.org. He runs Kids Are People and Self Directed Community, two online groups for parents who are practicing and supporting each other in a non-authoritarian approach to educating and raising their children.

We will be talking about how we can bring a lens of respect and connection into our child's interactions with education and into their academic life

Here's an overview of our conversation:

Respectful instruction: How our disposition affects relationships
Connect first: Prioritizing connection over curriculum
Lose the battle: Reframe power struggles

If you are looking for more resources, visit Philip's website www.philipmott.com and follow him on Instagram @philip.mott.

September 20, 2022

Episode 136: Language Development: What You Need to Know with Leanne Sherred

September 20, 2022/ Laura Froyen

For this week's episode, we are going to talk about speech development and how to go about getting your children's support. To help me in this conversation, I brought in a speech pathologist and therapist, Leanne Sherred. She is currently the President and Founder of Expressable - online speech therapy, a company that envisions a modern and affordable way for anyone who needs speech therapy to access these vital services.

Here's a summary of our discussion:

The benefit of early intervention for better speech outcomes
Signs and myths regarding stuttering in childhood
Early signs to seek professional evaluation/support
What a speech-language pathologist can support

To get more resources and look for more support from Leanne, follow her on Instagram @expressablehq and Facebook.

September 13, 2022

Episode 135: Why Coming Home Can Be So Hard, and How to Make It Easier

September 13, 2022/ Laura Froyen

I hear a lot of parents who want to help their kids make transitions a little bit easier, but transition can be difficult for us, adults, too! Like when you come in from a grocery store run and you'd like to just unload in peace but everyone needs something! Whether you've just been gone for luxurious solo Target run, a relaxing yoga class, a lovely nature walk, or even a night away, the chaos of coming home can feel like it "un-does" the alone time you just had. I wanted to know if I was alone in experiencing this and if anyone had developed any strategies to make home-comings as a parent a bit easier. Well, my IG community agreed that they can sometimes be so hard they aren't really sure the trip out is "worth it". When I asked my community if they had any rituals or practices they do to make their transition back to their homes (after going out, buying groceries, or taking a mini vacation alone) a little bit easier, most of them answered NO.

And so, for today's episode, I want to help find a bit more ease and peace for those moments when you need to transition from being away from home to being with your kids and put on our 'mom' or 'dad' role.

Here's an outline of what I discussed:

Why coming home can be so hard for us parents (and kiddos too!)
How do we balance between being with our kids and taking the time to transition back into our house
Transition and reunion rituals for kids and adults

Hey, we are already halfway through September! If you didn't get the memo yet, I'd love to invite you to join me in my Reactivity to Responsiveness Challenge taking place at the end of of this month. All the details for signing up are here: www.laurafroyen.com/reactivity.

September 06, 2022

Episode 134: The Sneaky Double Standards of Parenting with Blimie Heller

September 06, 2022/ Laura Froyen

I have a vivid memory as a tween of looking at my parent in outrage, thinking in my head (because I was afraid to say it out-loud), "What a hypocrite!"

I don't really remember what they were doing that set me off, but that FEELING of injustice is still so clear. I think I'm not alone in having moments as a tween and teen of seeing my parents through the lens of "How come you can do it and I can't?!" In fact, my own kids (7 & 9 yrs) have said those exact words to my partner and me, multiple times, and for us, those moments are an invitation to pause, soothe my indignant and entitled feelings, and attempt to see it from their point of view (conscious parenting is about awareness and kind self-evaluation, not perfection). Kids tend to have a keen sense of justice, fairness, and right and wrong (and as a spirited kid I got an extra dose of that 😂), and as a kid I saw SO much of it: The teachers eating in class when we couldn't. Parents staying up late when we couldn't. Grownups having seconds (and thirds) of desserts when we couldn't. And those are just the ones I noticed as a kids, now as an adult I see soooo many more...

I truly believe that the way for us to teach kids the values we really want to pass on, is to do our best to embody and model them in our daily lives. But it's hard because sometimes these double standards are so sneaky, and are cloaked in our cultural conditioning that can make us prejudiced against kids so that we can feel justified in saying, "my kids can't do this but I can since I am an adult." And some of these may be so deeply ingrained that we aren't even aware of them, which means we may be perpetuating them without even realizing it! (And I'm right there with you on this, I still find myself setting double standards from time to time, and luckily we've created an environment where our kids feel safe enough to push back and question us, and show us where the double standards are. They are such amazing partners in this parenting journey.) And that is why, for this week's episode, we will be talking about the sneaky double standards that gets in our way of parenting.

And to help me in the conversation, we have Blimie Heller of Unconditional Parenting (one of my favorite Instagram accounts, go check it out @unconditional_parenting). She is a mom who’s passionate about helping parents build relationships with their children based on respect and trust. Here's a summary of our conversation:

The kind of double standards that can exist in parenting
The sneaky stuff that creeps in as we work on conscious parenting
How to shift away from the double standards we notice in ourselves

We would like to invite you for a little homework after you listen to this episode. Grab a notebook or your journal and list down the double standards you notice in your parenting and share it on Instagram. Don't forget to tag us, @unconditional_parenting @laurafroyenphd so we'll know. And if you're up for more work, I'd love to invite you to join me in my Reactivity to Responsiveness Challenge taking place at the end of September. All the details for signing up are here: www.laurafroyen.com/reactivity.

August 30, 2022

Episode 133: Break the React & Regret Cycle to Reclaim Your Power w/ Christian de la Huerta

August 30, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Ok, it's story time my friends!!

Yesterday morning my kids were putting away their new school clothes and one of them asked if they could wear one of the outfits that day. My immediate thought in my head was, "No! We got those for school and they need to stay 'new' for the first day!". And then, right there, before I said a word, I got the elusive *pause* I know we are all searching for. That doesn't always happen for me, conscious parenting doesn't come easy for me the way it seems to for some parenting folks out there (**cough cough** Janet... Robin **cough cough** Please know I'm joking and greatly admire my colleagues and know that every parent struggles with something!), but it happened yesterday! And so I got curious, where did that idea come from? And I was flooded with back-to-school memories of asking my mom to wear my new clothes, her saying no, and then being glad on the first day because my outfit felt so special and I felt so confident in it. I could see in my mind my first day of school pictures, and remember the excitement I felt to be going back. And I was afraid she would miss out on that. There was a LOT going on under the surface of my default "No" response to a seemingly small, mundane parenting moment, right? And guess what, most of the time that flows through us without even noticing. We react from our default, from our stories, instead of responding to the child in front of us, while acknowledging the child within us. And this noticing, this pausing, this awareness and curiosity? THIS is the work of conscious parenting, and it will last a lifetime.

If you're wanting to know how to do this work, I'd love to invite you to join me in my Reactivity to Responsiveness Challenge taking place at the end of September. All the details for signing up are here: www.laurafroyen.com/reactivity.

Ok, so you're probably wondering what I actually *did* after the pause, right? Well once I was clear on the story underlying my automatic response, I was able to tell her that they were her clothes, so it was her decision. I asked for permission to share my thoughts on the subject, and she said ok. Turns out, she agreed that she wanted one outfit to stay "new" for school, and just wanted to wear the other one. And then we just went about our day. No fighting or yelling or hurt feelings... That moment of pause allowed me to release my story (and control & fear).

Mainstream parenting (aka the parenting most of us received, and that most of us are trying move away from) often relies solely on power currencies that are inherently damaging to relationships: like fear, control, and hierarchy. If any of those are present in a romantic relationship, we know (even if we can't always see it from the inside) that it's not ok, not healthy. Yet they tend to be the default for so many of us, myself included, and not just with our kids, but in our own heads even as we try to change ourselves. The irony of trying to become a more peaceful, respectful, and compassionate parent by using the very tactics we are trying to avoid with our kids on ourselves, will always fill me with bemused sadness. And yet each day is a constant practice of reminding myself that I, too, am worthy of compassion, dignity, and respect. And that releasing shame, blame, judgement, fear and control is just as healthy for me as it is for my kids. And what's more, if I want true and lasting change, then it starts with me. Not in my actions in the world with my kids or my partner, but in my interactions with the person I will be in relationship with the longest: myself.

This work, this life-long work, is the topic of not only of the R2R challenge I mentioned above, but also this week's discussion on the podcast with my guest, Christian de la Huerta, a sought-after spiritual teacher, personal transformation coach and leading voice in the breathwork community. Here's what we talked about:

What it means to have power and the different types of it
How to be empowered without being domineering to our partners and kids
How to break the react and regret cycle

If you want to find out more about the work Christian do, you can do so at SoulfulPower.com (if you get on his email list, you will get a sample chapter from his book!) and follow him on Instagram @christiandlh.

You can get a copy of his book, Awakening the Soul of Power, here.

August 23, 2022

Episode 132: Parenting as a Spiritual Journey with Mary Van Geffen

August 23, 2022/ Laura Froyen

If you were able to listen to the bonus episode last week, let me know if it helped you in dealing with a spirited child who is stuck in their big feelings (if you have one), I always love hearing from you! To continue the conversation around this topic, we will talk about how parenting a challenging, strong-willed kiddo can be seen as a spiritual practice and a journey.

I know that raising a spirited, strong-willed child can be well... a lot. And so, to help me in this conversation, I have brought in a wonderful colleague, Mary Van Greffen. She is an international parenting coach for overwhelmed moms of strong-willed & spicy children. She believes that when a mom realizes how hard she is on herself and cracks the door open for some self-compassion, her entire family is bathed in light!

Here's a summary of our conversation:

Embodying Motherhood: Using your body’s presence, posture and proximity to stay calm and to generate more cooperation from your strong willed child
Key Postures (or ways of "showing up") that your spirited kiddo needs you to embody
Embracing the spiritual process of parenting a spicy child

If you are looking for more support, you can visit Mary's website and follow her on Instagram @maryvangeffen.

August 19, 2022

Bonus: Live Coaching - How to Help A Kid When They Are Stuck In Their Big Feelings

August 19, 2022/ Laura Froyen

Listen in to this coaching session with a wonderful mom from my BalancingU Membership community as I help her problem solve how to help her spirited kiddo who is struggling to move past his strong feelings.

Free (anonymous if you prefer) coaching on the podcast is a perk of being in my BalancingU membership.

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.

Laura: So tell me about your family and how I can help. You got a spirited, strong willed little one.

Lindsey: I do, I do. So just a little bit of a brief background about a year and a half ago we moved from new york city to paris and it's been amazing and intense of course as moving internationally and adding Covid into the mix would be but by and large, I'm like so impressed with my family's response and my kiddos in particular.

So when we moved here, my son was, I guess five and I remember when he was in pre k for at night going to bed, he would lay there and in reaction or in in anticipation of us moving here, he would just start crying and say, you know, like what if they don't understand me? You know, because he is in a bilingual school. It's 80% French, 20% English and we don't speak any French.

So he's like, you know what if, what if they don't understand me, what if I need to go to the bathroom, whatever I need to drink and he would cry, you know, and whereas my eight year old or at the time I guess was six was just sort of like, yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I'm gonna roll with this. Right? So the interesting thing was, once we got here, it kind of reversed. She was now experiencing more of that and he was like, okay, let's go with this. Like, this is pretty cool.

Laura: And that makes sense, right? Because the one got all of that out ahead of time and the other one was maybe feeling all those things but kept it in right?

Lindsey: Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally, totally. And so they went to different schools last year because he didn't get into the school that she did did great in a school super resilient this year now they are in the same school together and same thing. He's like, he is so adaptable when it comes to, to new environments. So I just wanted to frame all that because there's just great stuff, great stuff to say about him.

He's a sensitive little guy and he's stubborn and has a very hard time moving past strong feelings. He's my guy who at three years old, he would say, I'm gonna put myself in time out and he would go in the bedroom and, and close the door and just want to stay there. So it's sort of this like defiant nature, you know? Yeah, you're gonna, you're, you don't want me to do this or you're gonna punish me, I'll put myself there first. That's an early night that comes on. And now I would say more what I think about is just that like once he gets in a funk or in a place he just stuck there.

Laura: And would you characterize him as kind of like holding it together kind of at school? Maybe it's hard, like school is really, really hard for him to hold it together, Do what he needs to do, be well regulated and then he comes home and it just kind of all comes out is that kind of what's happening.

Lindsey: I would agree with that.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. And I love, first of all how you framed this because we're never all just one thing, right? We all have all these parts of us and I love that you're seeing all of the good stuff, The awesome stuff in your son too, that's so important and that can get so lost when we're having a hard time when they're in a sticky face. Okay. So it sounds like you're wanting to help him learn how to not get stuck in some of those hard feelings or those thought patterns is that kind of what I'm hearing.

Lindsey: There's definitely that and I would just add to that, that what I hear myself saying these days a lot is that he's kind of getting in his own way with those feelings. So you know, you'll kind of get stuck there or not be able to move on. And what I've been explaining to him is that he's getting into own way and potentially even making the situation worse versus being able to navigate out of it.

And you know, I view it as a skill of resiliency and adaptability and those are all things we strive and for our family, obviously moving across the country across the world, you know, Earl are all, you know, attributes that are important. So not only do I want to help him now cope better, but also just thinking ahead of him being a little adult. Yeah.

Laura: Yeah. Okay. So give me just a couple examples of things that he gets stuck in when when you're he's experiencing that. So you're seeing him kind of getting in his own way. Just a couple examples will help me.

Lindsey: Yeah. Yeah, of course, now that you ask me.

Laura: I know right? Like we have this like global idea that it is a certain way and it probably is. But then when we go for specifics, they're hard to find hard to hold on to.

Lindsey: Yeah, like I mean I can try to kind of come up with something. It's like he fights with his sister and you know, it's like he has a hard time saying I'm sorry or asking, are you okay? Hey, it was an axis and she got hurt. You know, just be like, hey, are you okay? Like everything alright? You want me to get mom, you want to get dad, you know, whatever and he won't say sorry.

You know, this is like a really big deal because I think he thinks it's admitting guilt or that or something and then then he'll just stew and not get off the couch or not move or not participate in the next activity and you know, I'll say something like, gosh, you know, if you had just asked if she was okay, we want to show empathy for us a story. I want to make sure you know, and it's like you could have de escalated this whole thing, but because you were so fixated on not saying that, you know, things the family got, she got more upset, we got disappointed in you blah blah blah.

Laura: Absolutely and you know, like, so in that moment, like there's a piece of this that's so important to understand for those kiddos who get stuck in in times like that, I think in my experience with kids like this, in those moments they feel so badly about inadvertently hurting their sister or you know, whatever it is that, you know, they have this kind of sense of like this was bad or this was wrong, I did this wrong, and it's not that they don't feel bad about it, it's actually that they do and it's hard to think of themselves that way.

And so the, and because they're young, you know, so he's only six, his ability to kind of quiet his own emotional experience of having hurt someone inadvertently, quiet that experience, hold that experience in one hand, and also at the same time, see his sister's experience and have like that empathy, that perspective taking as a very advanced skill in terms of emotional intelligence. I mean this is a skill that like literally if I'm working with couples, I have to teach the couple the adult couples how to do how to have your own emotional experience here and at the same time witness and validate someone else's emotional experience, you know, all the time. We get stuck in places of like, well, I mean even just like politically we hear like here the whole time.

Well I didn't mean it that way, you know, like, and so you shouldn't be upset because I didn't mean it that way, This is this ability to hold space for your feelings of like, oh man, I did something that I didn't mean to and it hurt someone and I feel kind of bad about myself, but I also don't want to think badly about myself and all of that starts flowing and it stops us, it gets in the way of being able to be present with the impact of our words, you know, and and have access to like the skills and tools that we could use to kind of get ourselves out of it, you know?

And so one thing that can be helpful is to practice those things outside of the moment, so I want to have a sense of, I'm just this is not going to ask you a question. So is this mostly in the moment when you're kind of addressing these things, practicing these skills, giving him like, well you could just say, you know, or is it most or like close after it's happened when he's still kind of stuck or we doing anything preventatively or proactively about building these skills for him.

Lindsey: It's a great question, I'm not sure if this is going to answer it, but what comes to mind when you are asking me the question is like, it will even continue the next day. Yeah, right? Like, so, so the next let's say it happens around dinner time, you know, the evening will be this way we'll wake up the next day and be like, you want to ask your sister anything, you know, you know how she's doing if her back still hurts and I know you know like and so so I'm not sure, I think you might be asking me the opposite direction like if you know or or even like really disengaged from the event.

Laura: Yeah, super disengaged from the event. And then the other piece too is that you know what I found with working with individuals of all ages with this issue? This is a lifespan like social emotional skill that takes the lifespan to develop. And so one of like having like reasonable expectations for a six year old to, you know, so personal, Taking, putting yourself into someone else's shoes is a is a cognitive skill that develops in the 6-8 range for typically developing kids.

And that range of course we know it's a bell curve, right? And so they give us the age ranges that is at the top, but then there's kids who are normal and typical who are either end of those curves too, you know? And if we have a really emotionally intelligent older kid and then the younger one is, you know, a little bit slower on those things that can even look wider, like my kids really behind in this and that's not necessarily the case at all. So one thing that can be really helpful in these circumstances is to validate and empathize with the one who did the hurting first to clear out there, hurting this like there because you know if we like just think about like if you hurt your husband's feelings or your partner's feelings, sorry, I didn't mean to assume you hurt your partner's feelings and you didn't mean to and they're upset and some defensiveness flares up in you right?

You have to do a little bit of soothing in yourself, right? A little bit of comforting like oh you know you didn't mean to do that and you know it's okay that you hurt your husband's feelings, you're still a good person, you still love him, You do a little bit of soothing before you then go and make the apology, right? So we kind of like the kids can't always do that inside themselves. So a little bit of soothing like oh man, it must have really hurt to hurt your sister's feelings. You said something and it landed wrong on your sister and you didn't mean to hurt her feelings and then suddenly everybody was mad at you.

Everybody was thinking that you did something mean and you didn't even mean to I must have really been hard, you know like so that kind of empathizing on that piece of things, right? So that he's not, he gets that empathy, that validation of like yeah I'm a good kid, I didn't mean to hurt my sister's feelings. I didn't I didn't mean to do this thing wrong and it really feels like everyone's against me, kind of, validating that perspective can help get some of his stuff cleared out of the way and allow him the space to be more apologetic. You know, when we give forgiveness were more in return, we're more giving with our, you know, responsibility taking. I don't know if that's helpful at all.

Lindsey: I love that. It's something I've never thought about.

Laura: Yeah, Okay, good. And then the other thing that it's sounding to me, like, he has some scripts and some narratives bubbling under the surface. You know, we all tell ourselves stories about ourselves all the time and I've never seen him and I've never heard him, but I'm guessing, and you could probably even tell me like, what do you think he's thinking about himself? Like, when he's stuck in these moments.

So when we get stuck in feelings, we are often rehearsing thoughts about ourselves or about the people around us over and over in our minds. And it can be really helpful to find out what he's thinking about. And so that we if once we know then we can speak to those narratives and start gently reshaping and helping them re script those things before. They get too entrenched. He's sixties, you know, like these still very malleable these scripts and narratives are still very easy to work with, you know, when they're six. Do you know what he's thinking about himself or think about his family, like what his story is.

Lindsey: Yeah, I think you're bringing up a really good point and I think you nailed him in the sense that, like, he's the kind of kid, like, even if he gets hurt physically, he won't say something well, kind of like, maybe hear a noise and go back to the house and he's like, you know, holding it and it's like, well, gosh, like, come to us, you know, Whereas his sister were used to that kind of behavior. So, I do think he's the type of person who's got a lot going on thinking, thinking things. So, I think you hit the nail on the head, I'm gonna have to think about what his script would be. I think you're absolutely right that he's got one.

Laura: Yeah. And so like, in these preventative and proactive times when you are like, it's been a while been a couple of days, maybe something like this has happened, then you can sit down and say, hey, you know, you remember the other day, you know, when when this happened, you know, it seems like you got a little stuck in feeling bad about yourself and I was kind of curious about like, if there were any, like, thoughts in your heads, if your brain was telling you anything about yourself or about your family, about maybe how we feel about you.

I'm just I was just curious if your brain was telling you anything about those, about yourself and about and and just see what he says, you know, and you can also model this for him to awareness of your thoughts. So, like, I'm just in like, everyday situations, so, like, let's say you were getting a cup of coffee and you spilled it on the counter, you know, maybe you're like, first thought in that moment is like, I'm such a klutz.

So you may even say like, oh, my brain is telling me that I'm clumsy, but I know I'm human and everybody makes mistakes, you can say that out loud, like, not like to him, but to yourself, but just kind of have that like self coaching happening, you know, that we do, I don't know if you do this, but I do this all the time. Like, I have the script that I developed in childhood, you know, where I need to be perfect in order to be loved comes out and then I self correct, you know, like

Yeah, yeah, it is hard to make mistakes, but you're human and everybody does, and you know, and so sometimes doing that out loud can be really helpful to just as modeling the thought process and there's a book that I really like, I'm gonna go grab it, so you can see the cover, I don't know if you would call him an overly anxious kid, but he is what you how you're describing him as making some anxiety like bells pop up in my head. because sometimes anxiety when it's internalized looks different than what we think about a kid who, you know, like he bumps himself, he gets hurt and he doesn't tell you, he probably also isn't telling you when he's having worries or fears sometimes too, you know.

so this book anxiety relief for kids is basically a manual that teaches parents how to do cognitive behavioral therapy techniques with their kids. And it's lovely and what I was just talking about is basically what this book teaches. So this is something that you can, you can grab and there's little just little things in there to help them become aware of their thoughts and start working with their thoughts and thought work.

You know, recognizing that just because the neuron fires in your brain giving you a thought doesn't mean it's true that your brain will say things that are, that are random and not true all the time. And just cause you're thinking, it doesn't mean it's true recognizing thoughts that are unhelpful and then starting to work with them and make different kind of actively choose different thought. Those things can be really helpful skills for everybody to have everybody in the house, but especially for a kid who maybe is getting stuck in their thoughts and in in the story that they're telling themselves about about themselves.

Another one that I really like that I don't have here because it's in my daughter's room because she likes it. My oldest is like your son in this way, but it's called Sam and the Negative Voice and that's a book for kids that basically teaches you about how we all have an inner critic and an inner coach and that sometimes our inner critic can be really loud, but when we let it be loud, it stops us from enjoying life. yeah, so I like that one.

And then there's another book that my kids like to around kind of perfectionism and making mistakes and being graceful with yourself. it's called The Girl Who Never Made mistakes. So I like that book too if you're looking for kids books for for them, the concept of an inner coach in an inner critic can also be helpful to teach to kids. It's helpful for parents too. I mean, my inner critic is extremely active and loud sometimes and knowing that kind of Externalizing it, giving it a little bit of distance from me knowing that that negative voice inside my head isn't me, but it's just, you know, the negative voice, you know, that's something else and then being able to talk back with it and have a conversation with it is also just a helpful skill for kids to learn.

And then one other practice that you can be engaging in is engaging in recognizing like as a, as a exercise as a family, recognizing when you've made a mistake and how you can be kind to yourself when you've made a mistake because that's really what's getting in his way, right? So he makes a mistake and he's hard on himself, so hard on himself that it prevents him from seeing, you know, being able to be there to repair the mistake that he's made, right?

And so 11 daily practice that we do in our family um as we go around the table saying that, like, one thing that we did well today that we're proud of, one thing, mistake we made, and then one way that we were kind to ourselves about the mistake and so that's just like model, like modeling, noticing that every day we do things well, every day we make mistakes and every day we have a chance to be kind to ourselves, you know, okay, I feel like I'm giving you a lot of information. Can do you wanna, like, give me your feedback, let me know what you're thinking questions. I did like overwhelm me, I'm so sorry.

Lindsey: No, no, no, it was, it was perfect and like you weren't joking when you said we were gonna get a lot done, but like, it wasn't an overwhelming way, it's just like you gave me something and I was like that, okay, you can't really top that and then you gave me something else. I was like, well, yep, she sure can for the third time or fourth time. So no, that was that was beautiful, I love that. I do have a question going back to the one of the first things you said, which was you know, when providing empathy at that time, when you know, wow, you you hurt your sister, you didn't mean to do that. And that must have been really hard, that whole thing. Like what, what do you suggest a step after that would be?

Laura: Yeah, okay, so first of all, just framing that, don't do that in front of your daughter. So that's something that happens privately with your son. We don't always have to subject our kids to our empathy for the other person. That's when it starts to feel like we're taking sides, right? So if we're going to be super empathetic, really coming alongside, really kind of on one kid's side, do that in private, so that you can also be on the other kids side, this is part of being having multi directed partiality is some sometimes you need to do things privately so that they feel fully supported by you.

So then after that so first of all, when you go in with that empathy, you can't go in with the goal of making them want to apologize, you have to go in with the mindset that regardless of what they just did, they are also hurting, right? So holding space that a person can hurt someone and be hurting at the same time and that your only goal, your only agenda is to help them feel seen and supported and unconditionally loved in that moment. And so if we go in with the goal of like I'm only validating so that you will apologize, we'll rush it and they'll feel it, they'll feel it's not authentic, not real. So your mindset is super important and then afterwards, you know, sit, sit for a minute, how you feeling?

Yeah, Okay. All right. What do you think we should do? So getting curious and inviting, their instinct is the next thing. So you know, what do you think we should do about this? Okay, we're feeling better now. What should we do? You know, what do you think we can do? Because you know, I can hear your sister still crying. What do you think? So you can maybe just get a little curious with just some little nudges and see what they do.

Sometimes they have really good ideas for ways to apologize or make up that we would never think of and that allow them to save face, you know that allow them to to repair and apologize in ways that are authentic and true to them. you know, I think adults sometimes have ideas about how you know how a repair an apology is supposed to look and kids often need very different things. So like one of the things that my five year old does in these moments like this is that after we have our talk.

She very, she almost always grabs a piece of paper and draws a picture of her and her sister together holding hands and slips that to her. And that is the apology and that's all the apology her older sister needs. And so it's tempting as an adult to force, you know, saying the words I shouldn't have said that, you know, I can see how that hurt your feelings. And often we don't always have to do that. We might say that to our own kid kind of for the one, you know, we had a chance to talk and man, he feels so bad about the way he said that he didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but he sees now how it could have, you know, and sometimes sometimes it's just modeling for for them the words to say because they don't always know the language, but also giving them the ability to just do whatever it is, that's their own language.

My kids often give each other little gifts as apologies, you know, like little stones that they found out on a rock or you know, or my eight year old often allow, you know, when she's apologizing in those moments, she will offer the younger one a chance to sleep with one of her stuffed animals that she doesn't normally get to sleep too, you know, And those are, those are beautiful, childlike, heartfelt apologies that are more effective than anything. We can make our kids, do you know? Yeah, totally helpful. Does that answer?

Lindsey: Yeah, that's um that's that's really helpful. Would you, would you recommend in the moment like separate like going and having that private like right away like right when it happens.

Laura: You know, your kid best. I'm guessing that he like, he will need practice proactive practice with some of the self soothing, some of the thought work stuff before he's ready for you to immediately go there with him. He may need some time to just get some big feelings out. Especially like if he is like when this is happening, he's feeling vulnerable. So this is about vulnerability. He feels vulnerable when he makes this mistake, he feels badly about himself. I am guessing that he's having lots of thoughts about, you know bad thoughts about himself or thoughts about like I'm all alone, no one gets me, whatever it is, you know, he maybe needs a little bit of time with those feelings before he's ready.

You know him best. Like if you went in with nothing but empathy buddy, Oh you must be really upset. You didn't mean to hurt her feelings and you did and you feel so bad and now it seems like everyone's mad at you like you do you know like how he would respond to that.

Lindsey: I don't but I'm really curious to find out.

Laura: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean give it a try like the worst that could happen would be like he'd be like get out, go away you know and slam the door you know like that might happen

Lindsey: like just want to go into his room and like he will be in there for an hour if I let him reading whatever and like fine like not angry, not throwing stuff just like hey I I'm being in here, I really don't want to see anyone right now.

Laura: Yeah, I mean I think that you know, I think often in the peaceful parenting community we get the idea that we're not supposed to let our kids do that, that we're not supposed to let our kids be alone with their feelings but some kids need to be and if that's what they're telling you that they need in that moment like I would respect respect them, you can always circle back circling back as always an option, let them regulate, let them come down, you know, let them, you know soothe so that they are open and available for to our, you know to our guidance, you know, I think it's okay but you can also ask him to so this is another thing that can happen in some of those proactive conversations, you know like hey, you know when you make a mistake just like everybody makes mistakes and you're really hard on yourself, what do you want me to do?

You know? Because I know I know you're really upset, I want to be able to be there for you, but sometimes it seems like you just want to be alone. So what would be helpful when that happens? You know what, what could I say to help you? What could I do? I'm getting curious with them on those things and then just trusting them, you know, trusting them to know what they need. I do think that too though, like separating can, can be helpful. Like, I mean often they do it by themselves I think, I don't know in your family, but they take themselves away from the situation. But sometimes separating needs to happen even just for the vulnerability of being able to fully empathize with one kid without the other kids seeing it, you know,

Lindsey: Because you bring you bring up something in my mind which I didn't didn't even realize I was gonna think about today, which is like I always have a hard time in that moment because she's hurt and not being even able to validate her or give her give her like that attention that she deserves because I'm so on him because he's that problem or he's the person that requires the attention or the skill or the lesson where she's just hurt and I feel so.

Laura: yeah, absolutely and so like in those moments, like we don't need to teach him a lesson first of all, he like he is the kind of the natural the consequence of his sister crying as the most beautiful teacher available, but his own like sense of shame or blame or self judgment is likely getting in the way of him being able to learn that lesson right?

Because we, when we're in a place of shame or blame or judgment are learning centers in our brain are turned off right, so he can't even learn a lesson when he's there. And so yeah, when he's, you know like I mean something similar just happened last night in my own house. My my youngest daughter was making a face and we all thought that it was a joke face but she was actually upset and she got even more upset and we all like the three of us were like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry right away, she was accepted my husband's and my apologies for kind of reading the situation wrong, but my eight year old lost it about like just lost it and went off to her room and ran ran off and like that we just let that go, you know, cause she was just in a tender place of having accidentally hurt her sister's feelings and then feeling as if she was bad and wrong, you know.

So I mean and we eventually made all made all that up, you know? But yeah, sometimes like we got to go to the one who's hurting, you know, while understanding that the other one is likely hurting too just in a little bit different way. But yeah, if like someone gets is physically hurt or have their feelings hurt, a little bit of soothing is not a, you know, for them and knowing that the lesson, nothing will be lost in the time in our meaning, you know, the lesson is always going to be available there for them to learn.

Lindsey: It's a good reminder because I think I feel that in the moment I'm like, I've got to, you know, this is the time when I've got to do this. It's fresh in our mind, but actually it's probably not even a place where they're able to take in.

Laura: Exactly. And you know, we like, we also like have this pressure of like they need to know it's not okay. They know that they wouldn't be upset if they didn't know it wasn't okay, they would not be upset right then. So like the fact that he's upset tells you, like, he knows this isn't okay and if he could be doing better handling this better right now, he would be, you know, he would be doing better if he could in that moment say like, oh wow, I screwed up and I'm so sorry, He would do that 100%, he would do that. And I bet there's times at school where he does that with his friends or whatever and just for some reason at home in that moment, he can't, he doesn't have that skill available to him and it's not because he's a bad kid or because he's un empathetic or anything, just he just didn't wasn't able to write then

Lindsey: Yeah, this has been so awesome. You're amazing.

Laura: Thank you so much Lindsey, this was so much fun.

Lindsey: Thanks for your time. Your perspective is really special. Thank you again.

Laura: Thank you. You take good care you are there so lucky to have you as their mom. They're so lucky.

Lindsey: Thank you.

August 16, 2022

Episode 131: Keeping Kids Safe with Jen Szeghi

August 16, 2022/ Laura Froyen

In this episode I am joined by a special guest, Jennifer Szeghi. She is a parenting expert and the founder of Successful Parenting.
Here's a summary of our conversation:

What we can do as parents to keep our kids safe
Having a conversation with kids on developing a healthy relationship with their bodies
Protecting Your Child from unsafe adults (and who is responsible for their safety)
Keeping our kids safe in the social media space

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.

Laura: Hello everybody, this is Dr. Laura Froyen. And we are recording this episode of the Balanced Parent Podcast, live in my group, the balanced parenting community on Facebook. This is the first time I've done anything like this and I'm so excited to do this new thing with my special guest Jennifer Szeghi. And she is a parenting expert, she has a background similar to mine and she's going to be talking with us today about how to keep our kids safe. Jennifer, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the show and my group and please will you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Jen: Sure, well thanks for having me. Well, I guess a good place to start would be to think back on a day that changed the whole trajectory of my life. I found out in June of 2003 that I was accepted to graduate school, but I also found out that I was pregnant on the same day I moved away from anybody knew more than 350 miles away and I was a single parent. So being a single parent doing this on my own, a lot of people, you know, especially my parents and some family members were thinking I wasn't, you know, I was going to fail, but I took that as an opportunity to just dive right into what psychology had to offer and focus on child development, adolescent development.

And I was determined to be prepared for anything parenting threw at me that I knew what was normal, what did I have to help my child through etcetera. And it was so helpful. I'm so glad I, you know, had that experience and I had that education not only for my personal goals but to help my child develop in a healthy manner as well. After graduate school, I was able to continue with my career goals and I became a child adolescent mental health therapist, which was very exciting.

And I loved all the kids that I worked with. I even called them my own kids and that confused my son because he's like, you have other kids can go to work, but I just really loved what I did and I also found that I feel in a society we're waiting too late, we're waiting too late where kids are having anxiety and they're having depression and they're having extreme behavior problems and a lot of what I had learned, you know, in my master's program as well as I was actually teaching at the time in college child and adolescent development that really parents just needed this information, you know, unfortunately, there's not instructions that are handed to us when we have the kid, but it would be so helpful.

So I changed what I did and I opened my own business called successful parenting to where I'm a parent-child coach, where I educate parents on what are the child's developmental needs and what are simplified parenting techniques that parents can do to make sure their kids stay on track and you know when are the signs and symptoms to identify if their child is starting to get off track and we can get them easier back on if we address the problem right away instead of letting it go for longer periods of time.

So I find, you know different ways, what are some different ways that I can help parents, not only just, you know behaviorally and mental health-wise, but what else is going on in our society that it can cause developmental issues for our children. And you know, that brings me to why I created this training of keeping our kids safe.

And I know as parents, we were just appalled and horrified about what was going on and wondering, you know, what can we do next? And that experience had me reflect on when I was a mental health therapist and working with kids who were sexually abused and how often, you know when I first started and Doctor Laura, I don't know if you can relate to this, but you know in school they tell us, you know, you're a mandated reporter and you think, okay, you know, occasionally there's gonna be things that I'm gonna have to report, but unfortunately, like abuse happens so often in our society.

So you know, I reflected a lot on how often it was happening with neighbors that was happening with aunts and uncles, you know, brothers and sisters. So you know to help educate parents, unfortunately how often this happens and how we can protect our kids. And it also made me reflect back on my childhood, on how there were some close calls that I had as a child. I actually learned to swim because of a pedophile. I was in Dallas Texas with my mom on vacation. I was gonna be a flower girl in a wedding and she was teaching me how to swim and she was in the deep end and I looked up on the balcony and there was a man who had his pants down and he was fondling himself. I swam. I didn't even think about it.

I didn't even have the anxiety. I swam so quickly out to my mom and she turned me around and pushed me back because she was thinking I was doing such a good job and I didn't want to attract any kind of attention. So I swam back really fast and then swam back to her and she turned me around again and I couldn't take it anymore and I had to tell her what was going on.

Laura: I'm so glad you had a relationship where you could tell her that you.

Jen: Yes, absolutely. You know, I knew once I was in our arms that like I would be protected. You know, I didn't know too much about what was going on at the time, but my parents had educated me to say, you know, this is not appropriate behavior, this is bad behavior when somebody touches themselves in front of other people or if they asked to see you or any of those kind of things.

So the education really did help and you're right, that relationship that I felt safe with my mom to tell her that had happened. Another instance that was a close call was about a year later when I was riding my bike to the park with my dad. And of course, when you're young, you're like carefree, don't think of any kind of consequences.

And I got going so fast that I got around a corner and a car stopped and opened up its door, started to step out and reach for me when my dad came around the corner on his bike and they jumped back in the car and drove off. So as I was seeing these things on that were going on and you know, the whole issue of sexual abuse and kidnappings coming up how close this really is to us and how much it is happening around us. And as parents, we just have to make sure that we are vigilant and know how to keep our kids safe.

Laura: Thank you for sharing those stories with us. I think it this is something that, you know, I think as parents were so scared of happening, many of us have had things like that happen to us. And so for some of us were hyper-vigilant trying to keep our kids safe. And for some of us were, it's so scary that we don't even want to look at it or think about it or think that it could happen. I would love if you could, if you wouldn't mind like sharing some of the, like the things that you think we as parents can do to help keep our kids safe.

Jen: Okay. First of all, I think the foundation for so many things is to have that good relationship. Like you pointed out Doctor Laura that you know, I did feel safe with my parents, so having that quality time with your child, having open communication, letting your child voice things even when you disagree, you know, as long as it's in a respectful manner that they're allowed to say, you know what I don't feel like talking about that or I, you know, having some good boundaries up and developing that trust instead of getting mad or judgmental from what our children are saying and sometimes when we're stressed as parents, it's easy to go in that direction, but then we create obstacles for ourselves in the future that our kids are just gonna shut down and not want to come to us. So the very first thing is having that, you know, foundation that relationship with your child to make sure that they do come to you if something were occurring another thing.

Laura: Oh God, you know, you're fine. I just, one of the things that I was thinking of as you were saying that too is that part of building a trusting relationship with a child is understanding what's normal, like what's developmentally appropriate, like what the trajectory of sexual development for young kids and we don't like that's a weird phrase for most adults to hear. It doesn't mean what you think it means. But you know, we as psychologists, you know who are training, we know that that means just like kind of the typical normal development of a young child and having that knowledge I think is helpful to so that you know what's normal so you can normalize it for your child and so that they can carefully hone their sense of what's normal and okay and have it like open dialogue with their parents about it. You know.

Jen: Absolutely. And you know that starts and I think it's important for our parents to know that starts as young as two or three years old to where they start, you know, discovering private parts and you know what feels good And even little boys, it's very typical. I have this to where parents sometimes get very concerned about little boys like to compare their penises and show each other and you just have to, you redirect that behavior and say it's, you know, that's appropriate. We, don't show other people are private.

You know, if you touched it, you do it in the privacy of your room. That's also important too because you know, I've seen cases in which sexual development was repressed and when that's repressed, then it goes to the extreme and really does cause sexual problems and you know, in the future. So I think that was hard for some parents to understand that these are typical behaviors, but we need to put some boundaries around that too, you know, to keep them safe and developing. But yeah.

Laura: It's hard to do that if we ourselves were ashamed as young children or engaging in typical normal exploration of our bodies of our genitals like those. I mean many of us were punished or shamed for that and it's hard to do something different with our kids. But we really need to again, so that they are developing a healthy relationship with their body, a healthy comfort with the topic so that they can keep coming back to us and talking about us and knowing that were the source of information and safe for them.

Jen: And you just pointed out something else that is so important is that we do need to be aware of what our feelings are. And so if you have a child, you know, actually at any age, it's a good time to you know, tune into what your feelings are about sex and talking about sex with your child. Because if you come across where you feel shameful about it or you feel embarrassed, kids are very emotionally intelligent, they can pick up on that.

And if they sense this is a topic that mom's embarrassed about their like, no thank you, I won't talk about that and then they'll end up talking to their friends about it later in middle school and high school and they're gonna get the inaccurate information. And so it's one of those things just to touch base with yourself and be self-aware as a parent, How do you feel about it? Make sure you're resolving your feelings so you can talk to your child in a very, you know, direct and it's just part of human development and you know, have a normal conversation about it.

And I agree with you when I first learned that wait a minute we're supposed to, you know, it's okay for children to touch themselves. And I was a little bit perplexed by that too. But then when I looked at the research on how that can cause shame and how that can interfere with healthy sexual development, I was very that was another area and parenting. That I was able to have more of that open dialogue.

Both my sons come to me still even in high school about sexual questions that they have and I'm very thankful that they feel comfortable because I could see if they had that question and they asked one of their friends, I don't know what kind of answer they would have got. But also if they would have spread that rumor of like, oh, you know, AJ thought this, you know, I'm glad that, you know, they feel comfortable. So.

Laura: And I mean, and we're talking about keeping our kids safe and this conversation might be seem like it's a little hand gentle, but it's not right, because that's how you build trust and safety and that's how you get information from your kids. Having that open line of communication gives you more influence and more ability to know what's going on in their lives. If you, you've always been a safe person to come to a trusted adult to come to then when things are not right, you know, they tell you, they let you know and you know them too, you're better able to be attuned to what's going on for them. You're more in sync with them, You're looking and watching and observing them too. Like that's part of conscious, respectful parenting is really knowing your kids, so that then, you know, if something is off right?

Jen: Absolutely, Yes. You know, our kids, it is normal that our kids are gonna have some bad days and I start counting them happened recently, of course I have teenagers to where they're just kind of like, you know, they're not really engaged, We don't have disrespectful moments, but they're not really engaged. They kinda want to be on their own. So I give them a little bit of time, but it also when it reaches a certain point, I'm like, okay we've done this enough and I feel like we're moving in the wrong direction.

So now we need to figure out, you know, ways to re-engage. So having that, you know, self-awareness of, you know yourself and what your child is going through helps divert and like I said, as soon as they start going off path a little bit, you can give them a little bit of leeway, but we can't let this continue. If it continues, then, you know, could lead to something like depression or anxiety, you know, that's self-isolation, so able to kind of I've caught it a couple of times with both my boys, like we've done this a little bit too much, we need to come up with a plan to get you back on track. So the normal ups and downs of teenagers but not letting it get out of control.

Laura: Yeah, I think that that's a key piece of like, of balancing, right? So, I mean, and that's part of what attachment is like as kids grow older too, is that the moving away and moving towards starts shifting and changing and we just kind of keep an eye on that, you know, they know that where they're secure base that they can always come back to us even when their teams and you know.

Jen: When they're adults and they need somebody to talk to, you still want to have that good relationship. I could go off on so many tangents, all of this, but, you know, just to let your listeners know, you know, just taking the time and having those conversations, having those conversations about the small things that you think might be annoying or don't matter, that's where they start to open up.

So you have to have those small conversations for them to open up about the big things. I can not only speak for what research says, but I've gone through it too. So it works, it's great, but definitely, you know, when it comes to such a sensitive issue and something that is going on and it's so common in our society, we want to make sure as parents that we are meeting their needs as well, because what these pedophiles are doing is they're preying on the weaknesses and when a child's needs are not met, then they start meeting those needs.

And if you think about it, we have a need to eat, you know, so often, and if we were to starve ourselves for so long and we were offered something that we knew was, you know, severely not healthy for us, but it would, you know, fulfill our hunger for that moment, like we go for that, right, we eat that cheeseburger, you know, and it's the same way with our emotional needs. Like if you're starving for emotional affection and quality time and the parents are not providing this, then somebody over here.

That's exactly the way they work and they actually cause they have a name for it's called the Romeo technique to where they start to develop a friendship and give our children attention and start to create that relationship. And again, it goes back to 90% of the children who are sexually abused know their abuser 60% of those abusers are trusted by the family. So as parents, we have to make sure we're meeting all these needs. So our children aren't going someplace else in an unhealthy way to try to get those needs met and being taken advantage by others.

Laura: Yeah. And pedophiles, not only groom children, they groom families too, they groom families to trust them so that they can be in that 60%. So what are some things that we can as parents look out for? So you're saying that one piece that we can do is make sure that our children like emotional needs are being met, that their cups are being filled by us. Like a true loving, healthy 1-to-1 relationship, a connection-based relationship. So that's one thing we can do. What can we be looking out for?

Jen: There is a long list of symptoms anytime there is any kind of significant changes in your child's behavior. If they're great, start dropping if they, you know, their appetite significantly increases or decreases if your child, all of a sudden it wants to be more modest than usual. If, you know, older kids may use drugs and alcohol to try to cover up for some of the, you know, emotional response that they have, you know, there could be physical symptoms such as bruises, even choking marks.

There's any kind of like sexually transmitted diseases pregnancies, those are some of the other physical symptoms. So depression and a lot of times in children and adolescent depression actually comes more across this irritability if there's increased fear, hopelessness or helplessness, increased anxiety, regress behavior. So if a child has achieved some milestones such as, you know, potty training and then all of a sudden they start, you know, having accidents again, this is, you know, assigned to be aware of, they have panic attacks, feel more paranoid, especially around a certain person, easily startled flat affect, which means that they don't really have much of emotional expression on their face

Laura: Liability, you know, up and down kind of.

Jen: Yeah, if they're deleting social media comments, trying to cover up if they, you know, had some, if there is some kind of relationship, there increased time on social media.

Laura: One of my questions like as we get into the social media piece of this too, is that things have changed for families right now. We're not seeing the people that we used to see, we're not out in the world really and our kids really aren't out in the world without us most of the time right now at least those of us who have younger kids and you know, 14 and under really like we're spending a lot more time together, but kids are also spending a lot more time online too and I know like we spoke that you are not a tech safety expert, but I loved what you had to say about what we can do in terms of technology and keeping our kids safe because I hear from parents all the time, how their kids were on Youtube kids and they went down a rabbit hole and found things that they should not have been on there that shouldn't like got through the tags, got through the filters like so what can we do to be keeping our kids safe in this kind of digital age where they are online and using tech way more than ever before.

Jen: The only thing at this point in time. Again, not having the knowledge of how technology works is just being right there with your child as they are using the electronics and checking in, like you said, there's a big scandal on Youtube last year in which pedophiles were commenting and having conversations with children on videos that were for children that we as parents would approve and you know, they're spending hours days that they're making this their career, the pedophiles in order to try to figure out how to get to our children.

So you know right now is making sure that you are supervising your, especially young children, I do have confidence in, you know, older children to knowing what the appropriate boundaries and coming to us, you know, as long as you have that relationship with them and discuss, you know, here's some different ways that pedophiles work but still keeping some of those, you know, apps that monitor your child's, what they're doing online.

Laura: Yeah. And so I think you raise a really good point that there are certain places where our kids go where they need supervision. If we were out like going to the mall, we might let our kids go to the mall and hang out but we might stay close by and shop nearby so that we can see them, you know, like a little bit of supervision. Youtube is one that my kids are not allowed to use without us sitting right next to them.

We don't do anything else. The parent doesn't have their phone on them, we sit right next to them. Youtube is an app that like we don't use very often cause it's really scary to me, thank you for that. I think it's so important that like let our kids know like privacy is okay, especially as our kids age that's natural for them to want to keep things to themselves. It's natural for them to want to have privacy, but privacy and secrets aren't the same thing and they also deserve the gift of a parent who cares to monitor them, right? They deserve that as a child even if they don't always want it, what do you think about that?

Jen: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And even though they don't, I mean they say that they don't want it. But I've seen kids who don't have that kind of care and those kind of boundaries and those kids do want the authoritative parents. And later on in life, the kids who did have the authoritative parents who gave them the, you know, the boundaries and you know, didn't let them to do everything they wanted. They appreciate that. And they actually have a better friendship with their parents as an adult because there was that respectful relationship and they understood why there were rules to keep them safe even if they didn't like them at the time.

Laura: Yeah. Just like my three-year-old, you know, when my kids were three, they didn't like me stopping them from running into the street. They were annoyed by that. They wanted to run down into the street and I held their hands and held them while they cried and flailed and Said to them, it's my job to keep you safe. Like that looks different at 14 or 15 when we aren't letting them, you know, like saying like Tiktok needs to stay on the family iPad and not on your phone, you know, or whatever it is. Like they don't have to like all of our limits. And it's a conversation with older kids, right? Like we can collaborate to make the limit, you know, set the limits that allow for safe.

Jen: Yeah. And when they get older, it is more you got to think of adolescence as a transition. It's a transition that they should slowly be getting some more freedom as they prove that they have the responsibility. So by the time they get 17 they should be Having, you know, making a lot of decisions again, as long as they're staying within those boundaries because at 18 and if they plan to go off to college, we want to make sure that they're making good decisions when we're not there supervising them in college too, Even though it's only our responsibility to, you know, keep them safe till they're 18, we really want them to, you know, do well stay safe later on in life too. And that's how you set them up for success as you let them have, you know, a little bit of space and, and as they prove themselves, you can get grant them a little bit more freedom.

Laura: Yes, exactly, Jennifer. I so agree. I grew up like with tight reins on me and when I got to college, hundreds of miles away from my parents, like the kind of, the training wheels were off and I was a little bit of a wreck for a while while I figured it out, you know, and I mean, and that's lots of people's stories. So I, I so agree with you on that. Okay, well, so I wanna be respectful of your time. I've loved having you here with us.

We have had quite a few people here watching. No questions have come in yet though. So I guess what is like if we had to sum up like thinking about taking a balanced approach to keeping our kids safe, Like thinking about like, okay, so we need to have well-educated kids because kids who know their body parts who are savvy are not good targets. Right? So we have well-educated kids, well-connected kids because those kids aren't good targets either. When people, you know, who are potential predators, see a kid with attentive parents connected parents, they move on to a different family. So, so like those were the two, like two big takeaways I feel like we got. And then one is another one?

Jen: as we're trying to juggle every piece of parenting and there's so many different things. Last week in my group, I did a training on how to help your child, like understand the signs of suicide and how to help your child with those. I think every month there should be a day, just like we have every month we pay bills every month. You know, there's a day that we pay bills. I think as parents, it's helpful to commit to a day to say, I'm gonna go over this list of symptoms here and make sure you know, my child is my child having any of these.

So we are checking in every month to make sure that you know our child is staying on track and our child is not being abused and if they are, you know also having that direct conversation giving them permission because even though we tell them like, oh you can come to us from the perspective of a seven-year-old, it's still very nerve-racking to think, I have to tell my mom that somebody did something that they weren't supposed to do and am I responsible for this at all?

But with the parent directly asking and saying, you know how we have this conversation about you know staying safe, you know, has there been anybody who touched you lately or you know and just giving that you can identify a lot sooner if it ever does happen. So I think having once-a-month check-ins at least with your kids, I would recommend more, but you're gonna save your kids from going off the rails too far.

Laura: I love that idea of like a regular kind of almost like a habit check in like, like a family culture piece and like in our family, we check in with each other, we check in on ourselves and we check in with each other, I think like helping kids to like learn to check in with themselves, like we can help them learn that really important skill that many of us don't have because many of us, we're so kind of numbed by our childhood.

We got the message that our big feelings weren't important. We got the message that, like, if we were bumped our toe, like stubbed our toe and started crying, we heard like, that doesn't hurt. It's no big deal. Like, many of us were trained to not listen to our bodies to not listen to our feelings. So I love this idea of kind of proactively teaching kids to check-in.

You know, were there any times when you were talking to someone and you got an icky feeling in your tummy? Like, like those types of questions can be really helpful and just to check in, like, and not even just for the abuse piece, but the, like, just the normal, like, how's it going? You know, many of us don't check in with ourselves, right? And all of a sudden were depressed or anxious and our hearts are racing and we're having a panic attack and if we had just been checking in along the way, maybe wouldn't have gotten to that point, right?

Jen: Absolutely. You know, processing those feelings like it's okay, feelings are very normal and just acknowledging this is how I feel, it's normal that I feel this way and sitting with your feelings for a little bit and then it can be relieved instead of it stuffed on top of each other to where we eventually explode, exploding, you know, with anger outbursts or depression or anxiety and in our culture, especially with children and teens, we have more of those psychosomatic symptoms to where they can make themselves physically sick because they have so much stress. So they're getting a tummy ache or the headaches and so those are so important. Yeah, If we can just, that's my approach, let's just be proactive for humans. You know, there's things we have to do to take care of ourselves. Just as you know, when we were growing up, it was all about physical health and exercise and diet. It's like, what happened to mental health, you know, why aren't we taking care of our mental health proactively? You know.

Laura: I love that. I think that that's so important. And, and again, like that brings us back to this idea that kids who have invested interested parents who are savvy, who and kids themselves who are savvy and who have deep, like good connections with their parents, a healthy relationship. Those kids are safer. They are, they're not good targets. And so we can kind of protect our kids by building those things, right?

Jen: Yeah, absolutely. You know, you've just spoken up about, you know, feeling more controlled and you know, when we were young, we weren't allowed to speak up as much and my husband kind of gets mad at the kids sometimes because you know, I'll say, you know what you think about dinner and he's like, oh, my son might say, you know, it wasn't your best or something like that and he's my husband gets so mad, I'm like, no, he's being honest, it wasn't my best, I'm okay with that.

But those are the types of things I see that he's more, they're both of them are more willing to speak up for themselves outside of the home because they felt comfortable just saying no peers where I'm at, here's how I'm feeling about it. And so I think that's something as parents, we have to remember to of like we're conditioning our kids on how they're gonna respond to others. So we allow them to say, you know what I don't like when you tickle me so that way it's and we respect that they can say that when the uncles tickling them or something, you know like that. So we have to remember that our interaction is the foundation for what they're going to be doing out in the world.

Laura: Yes, absolutely. And not just on the big stuff, but on the very little like day to day, we are teaching them what it means to be in a consensual, respectful, authentic relationship each and every day, each and every interaction and sometimes like I was just talking with my girlfriend this weekend about like how like mind-blowingly big that is like we were both talking about things that we've kind of said like off the cuff that our daughters like bring back to us and they're like, mom remember when you said that, I was like, whoa! And luckily most of these times they were good things, but you think like they're listening, they're learning, they're watching us and they're learning from their experience with us about like, means to be in a mutually satisfactory and you know, respectful relationship as they grow. It's the biggest, most important job we've ever had, right?

Jen: Yes. The toughest, but the most rewarding for sure.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for being here with us. Jennifer has a deep dive training on this topic and it sounds like other really cool monthly trainings in her Facebook group because it takes a village and the link to that is in the show notes, if you're listening to this on the podcast and she also has a book that you can get on amazon that looks amazing and I'm downloading it as soon as we get off here, Jen, thank you for being with us and sharing your wisdom with us. I really appreciate it.

Jen: Thank you so much for having me. We just need to make sure parents mean the absolute best, but again, they weren't given instructions with the baby with the hand of the baby. So it's our jobs in our mission just to make sure they have this information so that they can keep their kids safe and we can keep more and more kids safe.

Laura: Absolutely, yes. And speaking of that. So if you are in my balancing you membership community, which is my paid membership for members who are in like my courses, Jen is also going to give us like 1 to 1 deep dive training on these topics too. So yes, I will be looking forward to talking with you again, Jen in the membership and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and very like, I don't know, comforting information, like I think sometimes when we start talking about this topic it can feel really scary, but when we realize how much power and influence we have to keep our kids safe, that feels empowering to me and this was a very empowering, like comforting conversation, so thank you for framing it in that way for us.

Jen: Well thanks for having me.

August 09, 2022

Episode 130: Helping Your Child Get Comfortable With Going To Therapy with Jamie Edelbrock

August 09, 2022/ Laura Froyen

If you are a parent to a kiddo who is struggling with behavior issues, anxiety, or ADHD, my heart goes out to all of you. Please know that you are not alone. There is support available to you and that is why for this week's episode, we are going to talk about what we can do when one of our kids need help. This is something I have coached a few moms through in my membership, and if you'd like to listen in, those replays are available inside.

To help me in this conversation on the podcast, I brought in a mom who has been right where you are, Jamie Edelbrock. She is married to her high school sweetheart and together they have three daughters. She has worn many hats, some of which include a homeschool mom, preschool director, family ministry director, blogger and author of the children’s book “Tangled Up.” She wrote this book after her starting therapy with her child.

Here's a summary of our conversation:

Importance of children’s mental health (anxiety, ADHD) and how we can support them
How to deal with parenting guilt
Relationship VS dictatorship in parenting

If you want to learn more, visit Jamie's website www.jamieedelbrock.com and follow her on Instagram @tangledupbook.

August 02, 2022

Episode 129: Supporting Anxious Kids without Making Things Worse with Dawn Friedman

August 02, 2022/ Laura Froyen

For this week's episode on The Balanced Parent Podcast, we are going to dig in into childhood anxiety and specifically delve into the most common missteps that well-meaning parents of anxious kids make that actually end up increasing anxiety in the long run. As a parent to an anxious kiddo, I've found myself caught in a few of these traps and I think my conversation with Dawn Friedman, therapist and child anxiety expert will be so helpful. .

Here's an overview of what we talked about:

What to do when your anxious kiddo is always coming to you for reassurance
Getting clear on your roles with your kid’s anxiety (what's "yours" and "theirs")
Knowing when it’s time to seek support for your kiddos and yourself

If you are looking for more support, visit childanxietysupport.com and follow Dawn on Instagram @dawnfriedmanmsed and on her Facebook page, Child Anxiety Support.

RESOURCES:
Anxiety Relief for Kids by Bridget Flynn Walker (book)
Just Breathe by Julie Bayer Salzman & Josh Salzman (video)
Worry Jar

Laura: Hello, everybody! This is Dr. Laura Froyen. And on this episode of the balanced parent podcast we are talking with Dawn Friedman and we're gonna dig into childhood anxiety and how to help our anxious kiddos actually cope with being anxious from a place of respect and compassion but without enabling them.

So we're gonna dig into this conversation. This is actually something that comes up for me a lot in my clinical practice, you know with my clients and in my own home, I've got an anxious kid in myself, so don I'm really excited to have this conversation. Welcome to the show. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about who you are and what you do?

Dawn: Well, thank you so much for having me. I am a therapist in Columbus, Ohio. I work with little kids, big kids, teens and adults, but I don't really get to work with kids very much because of Covid, I had to shut my office and I also run childanxietysupport.com, which is a membership and psycho education support group and course for parents of anxious kids.

Laura: Amazing. I think that's so needed. The way that I see anxiety is that it's this for some people, they're kind of anxiety meter is turned up and it will likely be that way their whole lives that they will, you know, they, it's just the way we're wired and we have to learn to cope with it and the earlier the better understanding how the brain works, how anxiety works its role in our lives and but what I see a lot with folks who are in the respectful and conscious parenting world, you know, these really beautiful, well intentioned family members, parents who are really looking to support their kids. They want to make sure that their kids feel seen and heard and validated, not dismissed and in doing so they lean into the anxieties and the worries. Do you see this too ?

Dawn: I do. And because that's really who my clients come from here in Columbus, Ohio we have a couple of really great, wonderful respectful preschools and they send a lot of clients my waste a lot of anxious kids my way. They're really good at catching those kids in their programs and figuring out those kids need extra support.

And I have found that those of us in the respectful parenting community are so attuned to our children that we tend to get lost in our kids anxiety. And I think there's a couple things that are going on there and one is that high intensity parents like us who care very deeply about doing a good job are often coming to it from an anxious place ourselves often because we are trying to re parent through, we're trying to do something differently than was done in our own family. And so we tend to project our own fears and worries onto our kids a little bit.

And also if we're high intensity, high sensitive people, it's no wonder that our kids inherit our brains and they are also high intensity, high sensitive kids. And I think those two things make us sometimes get stuck in anxiety loops with each other and I am absolutely anti parent blame. I do not do that. I know and trust that the parents who come to my office are doing their best and just need a little support to tweak it a bit so they can figure out how to support their kids' anxiety instead of accommodating their kids anxiety.

Laura: Yeah, I love this supporting instead of accommodating. I think one of the things that is so important for us to understand is that for like you said many of us who have anxious kids were anxious kids ourselves and that was my experience, I was an anxious kid, nobody saw that are recognized that, that what was happening, you know, I had tummy aches you know all the time like and they took me to doctors, no one saw it for what it was, it wasn't a thing in the eighties you know that we were looking for at least not in the midwest and I know blame to my parents but I think that for lots of us we who experienced anxiety as kids that are coming, you know, coming to the realization of like oh that's what it was now, how do I do it differently for my kids and we're but we're still thinking about like what we think we wanted as kids and then we go and do that for our kids.

So like the you know six year old anxious Laura wanted someone to comfort her and see her and validate her and so then I go and do that to my own anxious kid and give those things and that's actually not what I necessarily needed. I needed more cognitive tools to start working with my thought process is working you know, playing around with the thoughts and the worries that were coming in into my head and so I think we have the best of intentions, we never want to dismiss our kids feelings, we want to be fully present with them and but at the same time we didn't know what we needed as kids, we knew what we thought we needed, but we didn't actually know what we really needed.

Dawn: I feel like I know it's totally making sense and I also have an anxious kid and I get stuck in a reassurance loop with her because she keeps coming to me for reassurance and then she's reliant on me to reassure her. Yeah, really, what I need to do is sometimes walk away, which is really difficult because I think the thing is about respectful parents is we're really good at talking and so sometimes we talk too much instead of saying you've got this and now I need to go away from you which is

Laura: Anxiety provoking for us because the last thing we want to do is feel like that we are making our kids feel abandoned by us too. Right.

Dawn: Yes, abandoned. Yes, always. And and the thing I tell parents though is when you're coming in from this because we cannot take any particular parenting decision or choice or behavior out of the context of the big, beautiful relationship we're building and if you have a big, beautiful, respectful relationship, then there is room for you to push back on them a little bit that's going to be okay saying to your child, you've got this, you can handle that is not the same thing as taking them out into the woods and say good luck, get home on your own kid. But it feels like that sometimes to us that that's what we're doing.

Laura: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So I had this moment that came up this morning, my own family with my own anxious kiddo, my husband and I are both anxious. My daughter got a double whammy, a double dose of it. She has some mask acne popping up and she's nine and she went to her dad about it because she had noticed it and he kind of said like, oh it's probably nothing and just dismissed it and then she came to me crying that her dad had just dismissed it, that she, so she had this big worry about her skin and then this other, you know, feeling of being dismissed.

So I know what I did in that moment, but it's really tempting to get into one of those reassurance loops, you know, and so I'm curious about like what do we do with that when our anxious kid is coming to us for reassurance and we desperately want to give it to them, especially when it's their worried over something small or nonsensical, what do we do, especially if we've kind of unknowingly and with the best of intentions, notice listener that dear sweet listener that Dawn and I both think you're wonderful parents with the best of intentions. We've created some of this reassurance loop pattern. I love that phrase. What do we do with that?

Dawn: Well, first of all, we're going to validate that they're upset right? Like you said, that's really what they're looking for. But now they're kind of looking for us to fix it and understand that the anxiety is all about avoidance. How can I avoid this yucky feeling? How can I avoid the risk of this yucky feeling. So maybe she's worried somebody's gonna make fun of her, maybe she's gosh, that's a tough age and maybe she's just feeling bad about herself and I'm not sure what's going on with her, but there's some avoidance in there that she's trying to help ask you to avoid this yucky feeling that she's having right?

Laura: For her, it's the fear of the unknown. She just wants to know what it is like if I just say it's a pimple, you know, it's fine, but if I say I don't, I'm not entirely sure what that is or why that's there, then that amplifies her anxiety. Just.

Dawn: So I would say validate, which is not validate that the fear is real validate that she's having the fear, which again is tricky sometimes when we start like getting ahead, I'm going to try to make sense of this and if I don't tell me about that. So your child comes and says, I'm worried about this on my face and you start, oh it's probably not that you might be getting ahead of it and you haven't heard the validation. And first you just seem to say, I hear you're worried about this.

Laura: Yeah, I just want to hold to the light what you're saying. So it is our instinct to jump to the reassurance that they don't need to worry about this thing. Oh it's fine, it's gonna be okay and then we need to stay in validating. Not that they have every right to be concerned about it, but validating that they are concerned, right? You about this a lot. Right now you're worried about that you noticed this bump on your skin, you picked it and made it bleed and now that it's got you concerned. Just that's what it sounds.

I think it's really helpful for people to hear like what that sounds like versus like, oh you're really worried about that. Going to like, oh yes, I mean, gosh, we don't know what that is. You know, and that's really scary to not know what it is. You know, there's a difference between those two things. Like you can almost hear it in the tone of the voice. One is can amplify the unknown. And we also like you said, don't want to skip the step of validating where they are, their current emotional state.

Dawn: So we're just stating it, right, stating stating it and then we have to stop, which again is hard for us because we love to talk, we're really good at it and then we need to not go towards solving it because that can feel dismissive and again, this is what we tend to do because we're really good at it, we emphasis and validate so much that again, exactly what you were saying, then we are making it worse, like Yes, so what we need to do for ourselves is notice that we're getting caught into their anxiety.

Personal anxiety is super super, super catching. It needs to be because as a species we need to catch when somebody in our environment is anxious for our own safety. So if a kid is anxious we're gonna feel anxious, they're gonna catch it and we're just are ratcheting each other up

Laura: It's like a ladder. Like where you're climbing up the anxiety ladder together when really what we wanna do is notice what wrong of the anxiety ladder the kid is on, meet them there and then help them down the ladder.

Dawn: Yes, because they're gonna borrow our brain, you have to calm our brain down before you rush to be with your kid, be with yourself and notice that you feel yucky, make sure you're breathing for me. I always notice my shoulders go up to my ears, I have to drop them and then we can be neutral with so what would you like to do about it or would you like to try this? Like then we might go towards problem solving depending on the child's age Because at a certain age we want to scaffold their own problem solving.

So how you respond to a three year old who's anxious is obviously really different than how we respond to a 13 year old, but we need to be cognizant of that because sometimes we're we're forgetting that it's our child's job to move themselves through discomfort to a solution or even there's not a solution, they just need to figure out how to calm their own bodies down.

Laura: Yeah, how to sit in the kind of the uncomfortableness of whatever it is that's going on for them. There was like a glimmer of something in what you just said that was, I think so important for parents to here too is that we have to get clear on who owns the anxiety whose anxiety is it like you were saying before that it's really catching and I think that we take on responsibility for our kids anxiety that it is our job to soothe airworthy, It's our job to help them not, you know, make them not have the worry anymore or get rid of the worry.

So I'm kind of curious about that, like what are some things that parents can do to kind of help them feel really settled and firm in like this is my child's worry, this is my child's anxiety talking, not mine. And it's their job to manage it. And it's my job to teach them tools like how do we get clear on our roles with our kids anxiety?

Dawn: I love that you asked that because I have been thinking about it a lot and I've been thinking that we as parents would really help us if we just gave ourselves a chance to sort of run with our anxiety for our kids, gave ourselves a safe space away from our child with someone, maybe that's a therapist, maybe that's a partner, maybe that's with a friend, maybe it's just with our journal that we wrote down all of our fears and worries and just gave them space because we're running from that too.

And I noticed when I was teaching parenting classes, we would be talking about a problem and the model of the parenting classes I thought was that we would list the problem and then we would explain why it was a problem and we'd often dig into it and maybe the problem was my child, I won't put on their shoes in the morning that every single group I taught there would be a five year old who wouldn't put this and reel down.

Often the parents would spiral all the way to, I'm afraid that they won't be able to get a job because they won't be able to get their shoes on and then they'll be homeless and no one will love them and I think we need to have space to acknowledge that things feel that big so that we can start recognizing this is coming from an existential fear that I want my child to have a good life, It's not just about acne under a mask, it's I want them to be loved, and I want them to love themselves. And because when we recognize the way that we spiral in a safe place, then we can start seeing when it's happening in other places too. And I know this sounds so big, but I think these big existential worries really drive our everyday worries with our kids.

Laura: Yeah, I think so too. You know, I'm just as you were talking about this, like, is there a space and room for that too? For doing some of that kind of like going down the worry path with our kids to giving them space for, you know, kind of taking the worry far as far as it goes.

Dawn: I think there can be. I think with very young children, there isn't so much of a need. Their worries are pretty clear, like, I'm afraid of monsters under the bed, I'm afraid they will eat me.

Laura: And that abstract thought, that kind of existentialism, you know, for the younger kids isn't as there. Although I think I do think that young kids, I feel like at five, I feel like is when existential crises start coming up for kids, you know, big questions.

Dawn: And then so I see kids in my office, they show up at five, they show up at eight and then they start showing up in their teens and I think you're exactly right. I think five is an age where those things start coming up

Laura: When did the universe said there’s a big existential question?

Dawn: You know, it's a reason why five year olds are all afraid of robbers because they realize there's a world out there. So I think it depends because with some kids, I think running with that spiral might be too much. And so I think, you know, it's very, very individual. But especially as kids get older, I think that is a really good CBT tool, is to say, let's make an appointment for your anxiety or to say to your child when they come home from school, You can go off on all of your anxious things and bad things that happened for 15 minutes. We're going to set a timer and because what they need is to learn how to contain those worries, that container.

Laura: Okay, so a lot of parents who come to me feel ill equipped to handle their children's anxiety, most of them are in therapy themselves for their own anxiety for the first time in their mid thirties and they're learning these CBT tools. So CBT stands for cognitive behavioral therapy, it's one of the best approach is the most well researched approaches for working with anxious thoughts, it doesn't cure anxiety, it helps you live and cope with it and it kind of be partnered with it and work alongside it.

Right. And so for parents who are in this situation where they're noticing like their kids, they're in this may be a reassurance sleep where their kid is coming to them with a lot of worries or they're noticing some anxiety symptoms. How does a parent know when it's time to seek support for themselves and helping their kids versus getting their kid into into a therapist's office? And I have a follow up question to that question too.

Dawn: Okay, I always tell people the time to ask for help and get help is when you feel stuck. So if you feel stuck then that's a good time to get help period. There doesn't have to be a particular point, although I will say as I'm thinking about this, so I get a lot of parents and I bet you do too that what is bringing them to therapy is in our community.

A lot of co sleeping and the kid is 89, 10, 12, and the parents are ready to be done with co sleeping or the child is ready to be done with co sleeping in the continuum of co sleeping, maybe they're still laying down with their 11 year old and they want to be able to not do that. I have no, I say whatever parenting works for you. Great, so I don't co sleeping is working. I don't think it's a problem if you're co sleeping with the bigger kid unless you don't like it, or they don't like it.

Laura: And then 100%, yes, yeah, 100% agree that, like, if it's not broke, don't fix it and yes, families all over the world sleep with their kids, it doesn't work just until it doesn't work for one of them, then it changes. So yes, 100% agree.

Dawn: So basically, if you feel stuck whether it's in something like co sleeping or getting out the door from school or you just feel overwhelmed what's going on for your child, then it is time to get help. And that is different for every family.

Laura: Wonderful. Good. I think that lots of parents think like, oh, it's not so bad or oh, we're doing okay. And so they wait until it is more, I think earlier can be better. Even it's just getting support for yourself and kind of getting ahead, get building your toolkit so you can help them if you're noticing some stuff coming up for your kids.

But yeah, I still agree with you now, I feel the problem I'm seeing in my community is in the families who are coming to me because I'm not an active practicing therapist at this point in time. I do, I focus on coaching in courses, the wait lists are sometimes a year long to get in. And so if we're waiting until you're really stuck, then you've got another six months, seven months, eight months before you get to actually see a therapist. That can feel like a long time.

Dawn: That's true. Especially right now because very few of us who see kids in my community, we are offices aren't open and so the very youngest children are not being seen And it's hard to do virtual with a five year old. Yeah, I think the youngest I work with is 9,10 depending on the child and I've got a couple of colleagues. They're pretty burned out though, where they're they're not going much younger either. But also, and this is to be reassuring, the research shows that what is more effective than just therapy with the child is parent training. Yeah.

Laura: I just did a big yes listener you can't see me.

Dawn: Yeah, she did a fist pump. So which is why I did my program and I know there are other people doing programs too and it's just like finding a good therapist, you find somebody that you click with, there's a lot of us who have switched to virtual work right now. Find someone who you click with and yeah, start working with them. Start learning, as you said, anxiety is a lifetime thing. We need anxiety to keep us safe and to make sure that we meet our deadlines and all of those things, we just need to learn how to cope with it and and that since that's a lifetime thing, we can always be learning new stuff, I love doing the research because then I go, oh here's something I can try with my kids now.

Laura: Yeah, I love that and but not everybody has, you know, like I look at my desk right now in front of me out of view of the camera and it's got 10 parenting books on it, not everybody, you know, can can spend time reading all those books, it's so wonderful to have folks like you and your colleagues who work in the anxiety world who are distilling the information down into bite sized pieces that parents can quickly go and implement and I fist pumped because I was, you know, leading you to that place of really understanding, helping parents come to understand that truly you're the best person for this job in helping your kids and that's what all the research says and there's a really good reason for it because you already have an attachment relationship with these kids, you know.

And attachment relationships are beautifully healing there and the ideal context for for doing good work with kids, there's lots of wonderful tools that parents can learn and start using with their kids now, some kids, my kids know that I'm a feelings doctor and sometimes they don't like it when I slip into that role and so sometimes, you know, there's certain dynamics where you do need outside help or you need someone else and you know, there's school counselors that are usually well trained in CBT to can help. But one of my favorite books for this topic that I recommend to my clients all the time is Anxiety Relief for Kids by Bridget Flynn walker. Have you seen that one?

Dawn: I'm looking up to see if it's on my shop with my kindle,

Laura: So that one is one of my favorite ones and it basically just teaches the parrot how to do CBT. I love it, but not everybody likes to work in learning from books. So when you're working with families, what is like three of your favorite kind of anxiety stopping tools or anxiety, you know, tools that you, that you're quick and easy that parents can implement, I want you to give away all your secrets. But,

Dawn: I was gonna say it's so hard because it's so depends on the kids, every kid who comes in my office already knows how to breathe. In fact, they're pretty sick of it. So stick with the breathing. You guys don't give it up, but understand that has a limit and very often the kids don't understand why they're breathing. So there's actually a great video and I think it's just called breathe and it's specifically about anger, I can see you're googling, I'm gonna see if I can google for it.

Laura: I'll put it into the show notes, my team will put it into the show or if you send me the link will pop it in.

Dawn: Yeah, it's Just Breathe by Julie Bayer Salzman, Josh Salzman. Yes, it's terrific. And I show that to kids because it's kids actually explaining brain science and talking about breathing and it's specifically about anger, but I show it in all of my trainings, it's so terrific. So that is one of my favorite things. The other thing is we were talking about.

Laura: Wait, hold on, just a second. I love that. I think kids want to be in the know they want to know their how their brain works. And I think so often times when we use like take a deep breath the and beautiful, wonderful, well intentioned parents, you know? Yes, but I think when we, we say that to our kids, they interpret it to mean calm down a little dismissive or a little bit like don't be this way anymore.

It feels like put a lid on it, stuff it down kind of, you know, I know that that's not the intention that most parents have when they tell their kids to breathe, but I think that's the way it gets interpreted and there's lots of ways that miscommunication can happen between parents and children, I know exactly what you mean. So many kids, I feel like come into my practice and they're like, if I get told to breathe one more time but I love that idea of having them, you know what the breath is doing for them, That's beautiful. Okay, alright and then you would talk video.

Dawn: That's a great one. And then with about containers. So one of the things that I did in my office off and I have a sand tray and the kids would build their worries in the sand tray and then we would put a lid on it and they would leave it at my office and you can do that at home. So you can that can look like a lot of different ways with an older kid that can journal their worries. Like I was saying we can and then shut it that we can draw pictures of it and we can crumple up those pictures or tear up those pictures.

You can even you're outside, you can put them in the fire pit depending, you know people but there are ways to build containers. You can even have a worry jar where kids put in their worries and then screw the lid on it. It's gonna look different for every kid. But it does give them the idea that you can have worries. You don't need to solve them. You can visualize that container. You can give them a literal container to help them with that visualization. I remember when I was in fifth grade and I was having trouble with multiplication and up all night worried about it.

And of course again we didn't know it was anxiety and I created a visualization for myself where I would put them the multiplication tables in a shoebox, put the shoe box on a shelf, shut the door to that room and it was the only way I could go to sleep. So sometimes I tell kids about that and invite them to think about.

Laura: Aren't kids brilliant. I think kids are amazing. You came up with that, you know that that was something that you just intuitively knew how to do. I think we got to trust our kids to in this process of helping them figure out.

So teaching kids that that worries can be contained and put away and then helping them come up with what do you think is the best way for your worries to be contained or put away? Some kids are worried that they'll forget about the worries, They don't want to burn it. Some kids want the worry gone and sent away. I think kids are brilliant. I think we can trust them to know those things. They just, sometimes a little nudge in the right direction, you know around this piece. I love that making the container for the listeners who follow me on Instagram.

I do have a highlight on my Instagram page where my daughter and I made her worry jar together. So if you, you know, if your listeners are looking for like a visual of what that can look like. Hers has a dragon in the bottom who guards her berries because she gets very concerned that she'll forget to worry about something.

And so she has a dragon and her worry jar who guards it? Another one that my clients love on Amazon, you can get this paper called flying wish paper. It's kind of just like tissue paper and you can draw or write your worry on it and then you roll it up into a cylinder and light it on fire and it flies up into the air and it's safe to do inside, which is super cool. Okay, so container, that's number two.

Dawn: Let's see what's another one. I'm trying to think of something because I use those with even younger kids and I'm trying to think of something that I do with older kids. Well this is less about anxiety in particular, but I think it's really helpful is I am a great believer, like you said, kids want to know how things work. And so one of the things and I just talked about this on my Instagram is so I'm holding this up for you to see, I have these really short, these are child development, like one page, this is what your eight year old does is what your 10 year old does.

And of course I have a lot of child development books on my bookshelves and I will invite kids to read those with me to talk about what's going on for them. So, Oh, I can't remember what age it is, I can't remember if it's eight or nine, but there's an age where kids are terrible tattletales. 6-7 is a tattletale. 7-8 is nobody likes me, I'm going to run away.

But also this is they worry about cheating, but they'll cheat themselves to win and they feel bad about themselves. I remember this, I remember feeling like there is something wrong with me, I can't do these things and so I often tell kids you are not supposed to do these things. Look in this book, this is actually what you're supposed to be working on. You are growing, you're going to get better at this. We have that vision or at least sometimes we need help having that vision for our child because we are afraid for them.

But if we can hold that for them, you are growing, you are getting better all the time. This is not always going to be that scary. And we can show them, we can literally sit down and say, look eight year olds worry about that. It's okay, you're not always going to be this undone by your worry. And that is, I find so many kids have such relief, you know, the latter age, so older, elementary and early teens, it's all identity formation.

So we don't want them to become so identified with their anxiety that to give it up would be to lose a piece of themselves. So we want to let them know that they are growing and anxiety may be a part of their experience but it is not who they are. And for those of us who have anxiety, we can appreciate how much that can make us feel stuck. So we can help them not be stuck about it.

Laura: Oh my gosh, yes. This who am I without my anxiety, who would I be? Yeah, it can be scary to let go of piece of your identity. So if we've got young kids and we are starting to feel like they're anxiety is very close to who they are, like they feel like they are their anxiety or they are their worry, how can we go about helping them get some distance kind of right from the beginning, objectifying and you know, moving it outside of themselves so that they can really look at it and see it as this is I have an anxious part of me, I have worries in me but they're not me, do you know what I mean? Like how can we help them with that from the beginning?

Dawn: I think there's a couple of ways and again, your mileage may vary with your child and I think you made a really good point too that if you sort of have an anxiously shaped brain, if you have a brain that's prone to anxiety, your brain is going to be a part of you all of your life and so you're gonna need to learn how to come alongside it.

Right? So I think part of it is letting them know that there are many aspects of their brain so that the kind of people who tend to be anxious temperament traits, they tend to be high intensity so we can let them know you're a big feelings person, you feel things big, you feel joy big, you feel worry big because then it's not just anxiety, it's these other wonderful qualities. High sensitivity is a temperament trait associated with anxiety and we can say you're a pretty sensitive person, you're gonna need to take care of yourself.

And that might be particularly worrisome day, you need to wear your squishy pants so you feel a little more comfortable in your body. And the other thing is a temperament trait that is highly associated with anxiety is negativity and and all this negativity gets a bad rap because it's so negative. But the truth is negativity as a gift. If I'm being operated on by a surgeon, I want a surgeon who is able to spot worries who is able to say I need to double check, I didn't leave my sponge in my patients.

That's a negativity trait, negativity trade is somebody who can spot concerns and plan for them. What a great quality, we just don't want to be run by those. So it's terrific if you remember to pack an umbrella because it might rain. It's not terrific if you're so worried about rain, that you can't fall asleep the night before the picnic. So helping them understand this is a temperament trait. It has wonderful qualities, but you're the boss of it. It is not the boss of you. So, so that's part of it for younger children. What is sometimes useful?

And actually my 17 year old daughter has found this useful, is naming the anxiety because that helps make it more like a companion and her therapist. And I thought this is great. So I hope that he doesn't mind that I'm sharing this. You can also feel it is he said, I'm gonna call your anxiety Nicholas Sparks because it always makes you cry. And so she'll say Nicholas Sparks is going off in my head right now, but it helps her separate herself from that feeling she's having.

Laura: I love that. Yes, okay, those are beautiful things. I asked you for those kind of three things. Right? So, breathing. Really understand why you're breathing, containing it, normalizing. It was that third one. They're really helping them understand that this is a normal part of development and that they are not alone in it.

This kind of this common humanity that they are. It's very developmentally appropriate for them to be concerned about these things. And then this last piece of taking a look at it. Kind of befriending it coming alongside it and seeing it outside of yourself, I think that those are beautiful. So you mentioned your daughter's therapist helped her come up with the name Nicholas Sparks cause her anxiety always makes her cry and it just reminded me that sometimes anxiety can present in other ways too, right?

So some kids get really worried and and tearful with their worries, but often times for kids, anxiety can look like anger and angry outbursts, big dis regulation and so can we just closing in on our time. But for those parents who, I think it's just really important that we can start seeing some of those anger hitting yelling, I hate you through an anxiety lens. Can you talk for a minute on that too.

Dawn: You know, I always say that the kids who come to my office either anxious or angry and all the angry kids are anxious, I think that's actually incredibly, incredibly common because anger or anxiety is either inward and that often looks like depression or its outward and that looks like behavior problems and so I think that is, yes, that is incredibly important to see and it makes sense because it's fight flight or freeze, right?

And so some of those kids are fighting if you have a kid who is angry, what I have noticed is those parents are actually accommodating it a lot more because the anger is scary and the anger is a kid who trashes their room who hits parents or and this really scares parents is hitting themselves or is saying things like I hate myself, I want to die, you hate me, you don't love me. Those are really scary.

If that's happening then I think that is a clear sign that you need and deserve help and support because that is really tough stuff and you need someone who's not gonna be blaming, who's not going to be say saying oh it's because you've given him too much leeway, I wouldn't let my kid get away with that. Those are not helpful comments, I understand how parents get there and you need to find someone who understands how you got there and it's going to help you start getting out of it and I say this with great love and concern, it will get worse before it gets better because they have learned to amp up and so when you are no longer accommodating they're going to try what works which is amping it up a little further but we can plan for that. We can plan for that while we're helping them learn how to manage their anxiety.

Laura: Okay Yes, I love everything you just said and it just made me think of another question so what does it look like to no longer accommodate your child's anxiety? I feel like a classic one that I hear parents in the respectful community, parenting community get caught up in is my child is scared to go to the bathroom alone or my child is scared to go to you know upstairs alone when we are no longer accommodating things like that. What does it look like?

Dawn: We're gonna take little tiny bites, little tiny steps. We're not just going to throw your kid to the world's parents are always worried about that. So the parents were going to choose where is the place that you want to stop accommodating and it has to be comfortable for you. So parents often come to it and say I don't think my child will be able to do that but we're not talking about your kid yet. We're talking about your accommodation.

So where is it that you feel most comfortable stopping that accommodation or what are you most tired of doing? So if you really want to pee with the door shut then that's a good start. That's that can be what it is. You're not going to do all the separation anxiety, you're not going to try to to make them go to the birthday party themselves, you're just going to try to pee by yourself. Yes, I say I love you very much and I know you can handle this and I'm going to pee by myself and then you're going to do it and they're gonna wail and cry and bang on the door and you're gonna feel guilty and you might be in there crying while you pee but you know what then you're both gonna have done it and you're gonna have tolerated your child's discomfort with it. And your child is gonna realize they can do it. Now.

You may make a particular plan for that child. Like would you like to do this thing while mommy pee’s? I would say don't do anything that is going to make your life harder. Like mommy will put on a show for you because maybe you don't have time to put on a show every time you go pee, right? But it's about you learning to tolerate your child's discomfort so your child can learn to tolerate their discomfort and then big celebration for everybody because you did it lots of hugging lots of cheering, lots of bragging about what a great job your kid did. So they can brag about themselves.

But it is those baby steps because as your child learns to tolerate discomfort in small ways, they can start bringing that to other things and you start pointing out to them, you're a really brave person. You can do these hard things. Remember how you let me pee with the door shut, you're a hero. So I wonder what you can do next.

Laura: Yeah, I love that. And I think that anxious kids also like to hear like I knew you could do it do that. I like that kind of that like assurance that like my parents knew I could do this. Yes, we are worried, we weren't worried that you could do this. We knew you when you were ready. You would you would be able to do this.

Dawn: And that is the really hard thing to because again, as wonderful loving parents and I see parents do this a lot. They undermine without meaning to. So they'll say to their child, okay, you're gonna do the thing and the kid goes great and then the parent goes, so you're gonna do the thing, right? So you've got this right? Like they don't realize they think they're being reassuring, but actually they're sending the message of their kids. I don't think she thinks I can do this. So you can have a lot of those feelings. I always say I can go to my husband with all of my fears and all so that I don't visit them on my kids, right? So I say to the kids, you got this, what's going on? You need to have an outlet. Have an outlet and a place for your own fears too. But don't visit them on your kids

Laura: And project that confidence.

Dawn: Oh, it's hard work. We can we can do hard things.

Laura: We can. It is so, oh my gosh, don this was such a great conversation, thank you so much for this. I want to make sure I have your links already. We'll put them in the show notes. But I do just why don't you let people know where they can find you because some people like to hear it verbally where they can find you on Instagram and figure out how to get to work with you. Your membership sounds amazing.

Dawn: I'm pretty being excited about this membership. So you can find me on Instagram at Dawn Friedman MSED. And you can find me on Facebook at child anxiety support and my website is childanxietysupport.com. If you go there you can download an anxiety assessment and once you've done that you can schedule a 20 minute call with me if you want to talk about the assessment and I'm not always gonna tell you that the membership is a good fit for you. Sometimes I'm gonna recommend you do something else first because I want you to do, it's going to be most effective.

And then if the membership does seem like a good fit, It's 30 days free because we're parents were busy and I wanted to give you lots of time to forget to log on to the membership and then remember to log on to it. And then the Child anxiety Support program has a course called Strong Kids Strong Families, which is about managing accommodations, turning those into supports and CBT Family, which is a library of resources, of ways to bring CBT learning to your family and a bunch of other stuff too. Plus people who understand where you're coming from and I'm always available in the membership.

Laura: I love that. I think community is really important. I think that parenting these kiddos can feel really, really lonely, especially like it's lonely enough when we're doing things differently than the mainstream parenting anyway. And then to add in this extra layer of having an anxious kiddo, it can be really lonely. I think that community is so beautiful and, and Dawn I really appreciate the the integrity that you just spoke about this with. I think so many people, you know, just want more people in their programs. I really appreciate finding someone who I can share with my community who is going to have integrity.

It's not the right fit for everybody, and I want you to find the right fit for your family and that there's lots of options out there and I will work for some people and I won't work for others. I feel the same way I have a membership as well, and it's not for everyone. Our goals aren't always aligned and it's okay to find I know that, you know, some of the guests that I've had on here, people who listen, go and work with them and take their courses, and that's wonderful instead of mine, I really appreciate finding people who feel the same that

Dawn: I love when I'm able to refer somebody to a better fit therapist like that.

Laura: Yes, I think it speaks to that. I don't know about how it is for you, but for me, I really just love parents and kids and I really just want them to find the home and the support that's right for them. That's really all I want.

Dawn: Yes. I want to say my favorite client is a struggling mom, an unhappy mom. She's my favorite client.

Laura: Okay, well, so this was so wonderful. Don I so appreciate you sharing all your wisdom and knowledge with us. Thank you.

Dawn: Thank you. I had so much fun.

Laura: Me too.

Laura Froyen, PhD

Laura Froyen, PhD

Balanced Parent Podcast

Laura Froyen, PhD

Welcome to the home of The Balanced Parent Podcast!

Episode 145: How Gratitude Can Change Your Life with Stef Tousignant

Episode 144: Re-Parenting Ourselves in the Here and Now with Christine Dixon

Episode 143: Fed Up: How to Balance Emotional Labor in Your Relationship with Gemma Hartley

Episode 142: Learning to Trust Yourself as a Parent with Cathy Adams

Bonus: Live Coaching - Helping a Child Take Responsibility after a Mistake

Episode 141: What You Need to Know about Childhood Substance Use with Richard Capriola

Episode 140: Shifting Focus from Behavior to Seeing the Whole Child with Shani Mandel

139: How to Support your Sensory Kids with Laura Petix

Episode 138: Creating Success for Children w/ Learning Differences with Victoria Waller

Bonus (Group Coaching Call): The Power of Mindset When Big Kids Meltdown

Episode 137: How to Help Your Child With School Struggles with Philip Mott

Episode 136: Language Development: What You Need to Know with Leanne Sherred

Episode 135: Why Coming Home Can Be So Hard, and How to Make It Easier

Episode 134: The Sneaky Double Standards of Parenting with Blimie Heller

Episode 133: Break the React & Regret Cycle to Reclaim Your Power w/ Christian de la Huerta

Episode 132: Parenting as a Spiritual Journey with Mary Van Geffen

Bonus: Live Coaching - How to Help A Kid When They Are Stuck In Their Big Feelings

Episode 131: Keeping Kids Safe with Jen Szeghi

Episode 130: Helping Your Child Get Comfortable With Going To Therapy with Jamie Edelbrock

Episode 129: Supporting Anxious Kids without Making Things Worse with Dawn Friedman