Speaker 1: This is Teddy t Pot. Hi you guys, welcome back
Speaker 1: to Teddy Teapod. I am super excited about this week
Speaker 1: one we have on Leslie and Bruce, who is a
Speaker 1: number one New York Times bestselling co author of the
Speaker 1: book You Are an Awesome Mom, Which how great is
Speaker 1: that I've got Leslie with me right now. Hi, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me. I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: be here and we are going to be talking all
Speaker 1: things children's anxiety. So I struggle with anxiety myself, and
Speaker 1: then also my son has a form of anxiety that's
Speaker 1: really just kind of cropped up in the past year
Speaker 1: where he all of a sudden decided he could no
Speaker 1: longer sleep in his own room. He didn't want to
Speaker 1: go in public bathrooms, like all of these started kind
Speaker 1: of changing in our life. And for about four and
Speaker 1: a half months he was my husband in my roommate,
Speaker 1: like we set up a full bed in our room
Speaker 1: like for him, he camped out with us, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't really until his teacher said to us, um, Teddy Edwin,
Speaker 1: before the baby comes, you need to move him out
Speaker 1: because you don't want to do it once the baby comes,
Speaker 1: and then him feel like, oh, you're getting the boot
Speaker 1: because you have a little sister that just arrived, and
Speaker 1: then we'll have all these feelings towards her. So we
Speaker 1: started doing our research on figuring out the best methods,
Speaker 1: and the biggest thing that has worked for us has
Speaker 1: been meditation with him. And I am like a terrible
Speaker 1: meditator myself, like, but he craves it, loves it, is
Speaker 1: obsessed with it, like sits there and it's like every
Speaker 1: single night before we go to bed, he's like, Mom,
Speaker 1: can we get Andy. That's the guy's name that speaks
Speaker 1: on headspace. And he's become like our best friend. I
Speaker 1: think we're at like minutes meditated in the last couple
Speaker 1: of months. So really that's worked for us. And as
Speaker 1: we've been doing Andy slash Headspace, everything else has kind
Speaker 1: of shifted. He started being able to go back into
Speaker 1: the public restrooms. He's not as frightened of certain things,
Speaker 1: and I've started to learn that if I manage his
Speaker 1: expectations in advance, we have less like chaos when it
Speaker 1: comes down to it, right, did you notice is it
Speaker 1: like a separation anxiety with with you or is it
Speaker 1: like what is it? What? What kind of anxiety. Do
Speaker 1: you think it is? We don't really know, because it's
Speaker 1: it really has been changing so often, and you know,
Speaker 1: at first, I'm like, is it even anxiety? Is it
Speaker 1: when I'm working a lot? Is it when? But it
Speaker 1: it didn't shift in regards to like, it wasn't like
Speaker 1: when I was filming the show or not. You know,
Speaker 1: it was kind of just but I had gotten pregnant,
Speaker 1: right right, So I think that thing may have had
Speaker 1: a way, a way bigger effect than I could have imagined,
Speaker 1: right right. I definitely saw that with my I have
Speaker 1: two kids. My daughter is five and my son is
Speaker 1: now twenty months, and I definitely saw that, and it
Speaker 1: was it's just change in general. I think with my
Speaker 1: daughter and she has I mean, my husband and I
Speaker 1: both have anxiety. I had horrible postpartum anxiety after my
Speaker 1: son was born. UM, but during my pregnancy it was
Speaker 1: a really it was a high risk pregnancy. I was
Speaker 1: on bed rest bunch and um, so it sort of
Speaker 1: manifests in the house, right And I feel like there's
Speaker 1: like this uh like spillover effect. And so I saw
Speaker 1: with my daughter any time that there's like major change,
Speaker 1: any time that we're we're shifting her dynamic. It can
Speaker 1: it can feel tense for her. And when I got pregnant,
Speaker 1: we had that, and when we moved, we had that
Speaker 1: new school, all of that, and it's just in the
Speaker 1: key for our family. I think it's just the communication,
Speaker 1: really setting expectations, this is what's going to happen. She
Speaker 1: works well under kind of a a controlled controlled chaos. Right.
Speaker 1: That's funny that you said that, because the same exact
Speaker 1: kind of thing happened with me. I was with my
Speaker 1: other kids. I was on a you know, partial bed
Speaker 1: rest on and off. I started getting terrible postpartum anxiety
Speaker 1: as well. So as you're as I'm hearing you say that,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm having complete flashbacks. But
Speaker 1: then you know, I have my son who has you know,
Speaker 1: for the last eight months kind of struggled with it.
Speaker 1: And then recently my daughter um our dog passed away,
Speaker 1: and she had a totally different form of I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was anxiety at all. I thought maybe she
Speaker 1: was sick until I took her to the doctor where
Speaker 1: she kept saying, mom, I can't catch my breath. And
Speaker 1: it happened, and it was all through the holidays and
Speaker 1: she kept saying, I can't catch my breath, like, and
Speaker 1: so I took her to the doctor and we've been
Speaker 1: you know, I thought maybe it's acid reflux. I was
Speaker 1: like doing research on what to give kids for USID reflux, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And we went into the doctor and I'm like, these
Speaker 1: are her symptoms, and she like puts her on a
Speaker 1: breathing machine, has a conversation with her, and then she
Speaker 1: looked at slate and she goes, Slate, has anything been
Speaker 1: bothering you recently? And she goes, yeah, my dog died,
Speaker 1: and it's I've just been really sad. And I was
Speaker 1: like immediately trying to reel it in because I wanted
Speaker 1: to like break down at that moment. And the doctor goes,
Speaker 1: you know, you're not sick, right, You're okay that whatever
Speaker 1: you're feeling right now, it's just emotional. And she didn't
Speaker 1: say just I said, jes, but she's like, it's emotional.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe do some breathing, or you can do
Speaker 1: some yoga with your mom or some meditation or different
Speaker 1: things like that, but you are not sick. You are fine, right,
Speaker 1: And I'm not kidding. The next day there was she
Speaker 1: was fine. So it's such a different thing, like she
Speaker 1: just needed someone to tell her you're okay, right, Whereas
Speaker 1: my son, it's like we do this every night, we
Speaker 1: do headspace. We're constantly you know, discussing things that you know,
Speaker 1: walking into the dark room or walking into you know,
Speaker 1: different spaces. But it's crazy how how different our kids
Speaker 1: are and how they handle things completely different, even though
Speaker 1: we're all in the same house, right, I feel like,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like that goes across the board
Speaker 1: with parenting, Like having how I raise one child it's
Speaker 1: going to be completely different from how I have to
Speaker 1: raise the other, and you know, same general guidelines and
Speaker 1: morals and all that. But my daughter responds so differently
Speaker 1: to things than my son does. And to have to
Speaker 1: I mean, for me having to like figure out parenting
Speaker 1: in general and then having to figure out parenting too,
Speaker 1: different kids in two different ways. It often, um, it
Speaker 1: can feel like a lot, but you realize that they
Speaker 1: just respond so differently and so well to different things,
Speaker 1: so you've got to, like, you gotta be flexible, flexible.
Speaker 1: I know. Even the doctor was like, maybe you should
Speaker 1: start meditating with slate as well, and we did it
Speaker 1: that first night when we came home from the doctor,
Speaker 1: and I go, let you want to do Andy, you
Speaker 1: know with Cruise and I and she goes okay, And
Speaker 1: then night to she goes, Mom, I don't need to
Speaker 1: meditate anymore. I'm fine. I'm not having the breathing issue anymore.
Speaker 1: Like she has wants nothing to do with it, and
Speaker 1: she hasn't brought up the breathing thing again, whereas Cruise
Speaker 1: is like, Mom, can we do three Andy's tonight, for
Speaker 1: Andy's tomorrow? Back to three the next day? Like he
Speaker 1: is so regimented. I love that. Do you think with
Speaker 1: your daughter that it was did have anything to do
Speaker 1: with like I feel like with my my daughter, I'm
Speaker 1: having to explain death to her, and that's a really
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out how to do it in
Speaker 1: a way that's like appropriate for her age. I think
Speaker 1: she was because she didn't properly. It wasn't like the
Speaker 1: dog was sick, like a tragic thing happened to the dog.
Speaker 1: We had dropped it off at a doggy daycare place
Speaker 1: and the woman had an accident with the dog and
Speaker 1: the dog passed away, and like we were out of
Speaker 1: town and we came back and the dog was gone,
Speaker 1: like there was no goodbye, there was nothing. And the
Speaker 1: first week we were all emotional about it, like we
Speaker 1: were on and like Leaky Faucett's like crying one day, laughing,
Speaker 1: you know, like grieving. But then she didn't talk about
Speaker 1: it anymore. So then I was like, oh, maybe she
Speaker 1: this has past for her. But then it just creeped
Speaker 1: back in and I think she didn't know how to
Speaker 1: express it and I and I should have asked, you know,
Speaker 1: And in hindsight, I should have been like, how are
Speaker 1: you feeling? But I was like, oh, she's not talking
Speaker 1: about it. Maybe maybe we don't need to talk about
Speaker 1: it anymore, because then I don't break down and not
Speaker 1: you know. But it was probably avoidance on all of
Speaker 1: our part, and you know, she was internalizing it somehow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So before we take a break, I
Speaker 1: want to introduce our next guest who's actually going to
Speaker 1: help us dig into all of these anxiety and stress
Speaker 1: questions when it comes to kids. Her name is Susansen.
Speaker 1: She is a psychotherapist um She works in California and
Speaker 1: New York. She has a private practice and she specializes
Speaker 1: in working with teenagers, a young adults, and families. So
Speaker 1: I am so excited we had. I can't even tell
Speaker 1: you how many listener questions. This topic was above any
Speaker 1: other with questions like my inbox was flooded. So let's
Speaker 1: get to it right after we take a break. So
Speaker 1: here we are. We are back with Susan and Leslie,
Speaker 1: and we are talking all things anxiety. So I mean, selfishly,
Speaker 1: I want to ask about my own kids first, my parenting,
Speaker 1: so I want to dig kind of right into this.
Speaker 1: So something that's kind of gone on with my son,
Speaker 1: which I gave a little backstory before you came in,
Speaker 1: but he was having trouble going into his own room.
Speaker 1: So for a while, my husband and I kind of
Speaker 1: just let him sleep with us in our room. We
Speaker 1: called him our roommate. And then we've recently transitioned him
Speaker 1: to his own room because we didn't want to do
Speaker 1: it right when the baby came. So we are a
Speaker 1: about a month into it. But it truthfully has to
Speaker 1: be one of us at night doing meditation for at
Speaker 1: least twenty minutes why he falls asleep. We have a
Speaker 1: reward chart for him in the morning every night, you know,
Speaker 1: after you know wakes up, then we praise him we
Speaker 1: give him that, but I mean it is a constant
Speaker 1: battle because he's extremely scared about his dreams. So I
Speaker 1: was wondering if you had any other advice for us
Speaker 1: and things that we could do. We also talk you know,
Speaker 1: we have faith, so we talked about like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're being you're protected, everything's good, but he's like I prayed,
Speaker 1: it's not helping. I think it's so important to normalize
Speaker 1: their behavior and what's happening in their nervous system. Kids
Speaker 1: also love science, so to really kind of have them understand, oh,
Speaker 1: this is normal for you to feel like going into
Speaker 1: your room without mom and dad, maybe something scary when
Speaker 1: he's five, right, Um, is really important. UM. And so
Speaker 1: I think you're doing a great job of really working
Speaker 1: with a reward system and kind of getting him to
Speaker 1: a routine and habit of how to go to sleep
Speaker 1: and actually feel safe. But UM, you know, keep talking,
Speaker 1: just like as you talked about with your daughter, is
Speaker 1: normalizing this behavior, um, And so he can kind of
Speaker 1: keep gaining that skill of really kind of feeling, um
Speaker 1: that he's capable of going to sleep and capable of
Speaker 1: actually mastering the skill on his own, which is going
Speaker 1: to give him a great sense of agency, right, that
Speaker 1: confidence that he can do it. Yes, I mean in
Speaker 1: that same to a girlfriend of mine her daughter has
Speaker 1: recently just started bedwedding again. Could that be a form
Speaker 1: of anxiety? Yes, for sure. And the thing is is
Speaker 1: that we with children, we don't really um. They don't
Speaker 1: have the maturity to really understand oftentimes what their emotional
Speaker 1: states are and to be able to articulate them. So
Speaker 1: they come out and behaviors and actions, and so it's
Speaker 1: really up to us as parents in order to help
Speaker 1: them to correlate the language with what's actually going on,
Speaker 1: being curious about it, being curious about certain actions that
Speaker 1: are happening during their day that may be resulting in
Speaker 1: an action um. And also not shaming we take back
Speaker 1: steps as children, we take forward steps. It doesn't always
Speaker 1: have to be kind of on this sort of linear
Speaker 1: trajectory of doing everything perfectly. UM. So I think it's
Speaker 1: really just about being calm and being able to connect
Speaker 1: with our children, um, and being able to help them
Speaker 1: with language to understand what's happening. Well, how do you
Speaker 1: as a parent, how are you able to figure out
Speaker 1: if it's something is a behavior or if they are
Speaker 1: developing or suffering from an anxiety. How can you figure
Speaker 1: it out in order to help them? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the first step is always going to your pediatrician and
Speaker 1: making sure that there isn't any medical issue that's coming up. Um.
Speaker 1: But the other issue that I'm super passionate about is
Speaker 1: I think that we're limiting our language for this generation
Speaker 1: and for our children of their feeling states. They are
Speaker 1: allowed to be happy, they are allowed to be sad,
Speaker 1: they're allowed to be anxious, and they're allowed to be depressed.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how we talk about language with
Speaker 1: kids with feelings. We label so many things as anxiety
Speaker 1: when they actually might be excitement. Right, because in our
Speaker 1: feeling state, anxiety, love and excitement feel exactly the same.
Speaker 1: We get the hard palpitation we get, we might even
Speaker 1: get sweaty, we might get excited, um, but we limit
Speaker 1: that and UM, I think it's really about expanding out
Speaker 1: feeling states for our children, to really give them a
Speaker 1: range and be able to kind of connect with different
Speaker 1: things that are happening. They may be frustrated, they may
Speaker 1: be annoyed, um, they may be super excited, but they
Speaker 1: have a hard time kind of connecting those things, and
Speaker 1: that's really what our job is. Should we be avoiding
Speaker 1: using the word anxiety in front of our kids? I
Speaker 1: actually think so. I think that we overuse it in
Speaker 1: our society and they do too. I mean, we love
Speaker 1: to label things in order to understand them in our brains, right,
Speaker 1: But UM, I think that being expansive on kind of
Speaker 1: what different feelings are so important. There's actually a great
Speaker 1: book called the Human Emotion UM Book, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a UM. It goes through just the various types
Speaker 1: of emotional states and there's some really crazy ones that
Speaker 1: you haven't even ever thought of. And I think kind
Speaker 1: of exploring that with our children, of um, can we
Speaker 1: really expand these out is super important because the popular
Speaker 1: thing that is coming up for pretty much everyone I
Speaker 1: know is how do you help learning slash identifying I
Speaker 1: mean other than going to your pediatrician. But like if
Speaker 1: as somebody who struggles with anxiety, I am hyper focused
Speaker 1: when I think it might be anxiety, So how do
Speaker 1: you identify it with your child without creating a bigger issue? Right?
Speaker 1: I think that what you're talking about is so important
Speaker 1: because you have to really look at what is yours
Speaker 1: and what's theirs? Right. So first I'm packing that the
Speaker 1: fact it is is, oh, am I feeling anxious about this?
Speaker 1: Am I feeling anxious that they're not transitioning? Am I
Speaker 1: feeling anxious that Cruiz is not in his bed and
Speaker 1: we're having a baby in a month? Or is this
Speaker 1: really about him right? Or is he ready for it too?
Speaker 1: That's also a big part of it. Um you know,
Speaker 1: he's not going to go to college sleeping in your bed.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, those morning hugs are pretty great.
Speaker 1: It's funny that you say that because actually, my um
Speaker 1: my sister went through a divorce in her eleven year
Speaker 1: old still is now with my brother out of the house. Uh,
Speaker 1: he's he's developed an attachment to her where he has
Speaker 1: to be in bed with her. And now he's eleven,
Speaker 1: and she has the guilt of not letting of the
Speaker 1: change that's happened, and so she's allowing him to kind
Speaker 1: of be in the room and but she doesn't know
Speaker 1: when it's what's a healthy amount of sort of uh
Speaker 1: time time and cuddling and all of that, and then
Speaker 1: when does it get to the point of, Okay, now
Speaker 1: it's time to transition into our next chapter, Like, how
Speaker 1: do you navigate because it feels like it's such like
Speaker 1: a it's a tight rope. You don't want to say no,
Speaker 1: you don't want to say yes, you know, you want
Speaker 1: to do the right thing. I think that's the hard
Speaker 1: part about parenting, right. It's all individual and we all
Speaker 1: love to judge one another. Two um. So it's really
Speaker 1: when it's starting to interfere either with their functioning or yours. Right.
Speaker 1: So the fact is, if it's interfering with your life,
Speaker 1: are your sleep or whatever it may be, then that's
Speaker 1: the time to actually really work on transitions. If it's
Speaker 1: not and it's working for the family, then it's embracing it.
Speaker 1: And also when it comes to kids, oftentimes you'll see
Speaker 1: a child say, oh, I hurt my arm or my
Speaker 1: foot or my toe or my whatever. I can't go
Speaker 1: to pe or I don't want to go to dance
Speaker 1: class today because my leotard hurts my you know arm,
Speaker 1: you know whatever it may be. Is that a form
Speaker 1: of anxiety or is it attention or what is that? Right? Again,
Speaker 1: I think this goes back to the question of overusing
Speaker 1: that word anxiety, But it's also really about being attuned
Speaker 1: and being curious about what's going on with a child
Speaker 1: and impacking that because it may be a fear base.
Speaker 1: And the fact is is our our nervous system does
Speaker 1: what a nervous system should do UM with anxiety, which
Speaker 1: is keep us alive and keep us safe. And so
Speaker 1: oftentimes it missfires right. And so the fact is is
Speaker 1: that going to the dance class may feel terrifying to
Speaker 1: a child, which causes them anxiety, or it may be
Speaker 1: something else that actually is really going on. But I
Speaker 1: think for us to really kind of move into our
Speaker 1: child and explore, so, why do you get a stomach
Speaker 1: ache every single time you're going to dance class? What's
Speaker 1: going on with that? UM? Is there something that I
Speaker 1: can help navigate with you and really bring down UM
Speaker 1: to their level their understanding of what's going on with
Speaker 1: them internally. But a lot of times your kids will
Speaker 1: say nothing, no, not if if you get to that,
Speaker 1: then what's your next question? What's your next plan? Right? UM? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Because they oftentimes don't know, and so it's really up
Speaker 1: to us to kind of be able to UM investigate,
Speaker 1: to be curious, to be talking to the teachers, maybe
Speaker 1: to other parents, to observe and see what's going on
Speaker 1: that may be causing our child conflict and then moving
Speaker 1: into asking them about those specific issues. Is there a
Speaker 1: certain time a day or a certain situation where you
Speaker 1: think is the best time to talk to your kids
Speaker 1: about those kind of things in the car? In the
Speaker 1: car um, I think oftentimes when there's too much focus,
Speaker 1: that's really when it gets into those feelings of moving
Speaker 1: back and maybe I'm embarrassed about this, or maybe I'm
Speaker 1: feeling shameful. So when they're coming home from school and
Speaker 1: you're driving them home from school, or maybe they're having
Speaker 1: a snack, or maybe it's before bedtime, um, whatever it
Speaker 1: may be, when they're actually really calm, is to moving
Speaker 1: into having them to have that conversation about out dropping
Speaker 1: down and and and what's what's going on with them
Speaker 1: and during their day, just the communication. I had heard this,
Speaker 1: and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I had
Speaker 1: heard the statistic or the study that said that as
Speaker 1: a parent, if you can connect twenty five minutes uninterrupted
Speaker 1: every day with your kid, no phone, no outside anything,
Speaker 1: and just be in front of your child, that there's
Speaker 1: not a lot that can get past you. That you know,
Speaker 1: whether it's depression or bullying or whatever it is, that's
Speaker 1: going on in their life. If you're connecting with them
Speaker 1: for twenty five minutes a day, UM, that that that
Speaker 1: you'll be able to catch anything that's going on. And
Speaker 1: that felt like a really attainable number to me. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I could do that. Yeah, do that. I think it's
Speaker 1: really about also teaching them how to be present, right, UM,
Speaker 1: So because with all the social media and being overscheduled, UM,
Speaker 1: and the meadow commitments that we all have. Now you know,
Speaker 1: we're teaching our children how to be competitive at very
Speaker 1: young ages. UM. There's a lot of pressure on them
Speaker 1: to achieve, both in school, sports, whatever it may be. UM.
Speaker 1: Really giving them that gift of presence is so important.
Speaker 1: So if you have that twenty five minutes to really
Speaker 1: connect with them, really be curious about what's going on
Speaker 1: with them, really ask them the questions to know them,
Speaker 1: you're doing a great job as a parent. What verbage
Speaker 1: would you give our listeners to somebody who's their child
Speaker 1: has a big game or a big test, because a
Speaker 1: lot of the times you hear about a child will
Speaker 1: go in and become paralyzed. We even take a test
Speaker 1: because they're so nervous about not doing well in it
Speaker 1: or they you know, don't even try and practice because
Speaker 1: they're so frightened that they might have to go into
Speaker 1: the game. So like, what is the verbage we should
Speaker 1: put around it so that we take the pressure off.
Speaker 1: But we're also you know, we're there for them, right.
Speaker 1: I always go back to science when we're talking to
Speaker 1: our kids, right because they understand it from a very
Speaker 1: young age. But their brain is doing what a brain does.
Speaker 1: And but the problem is isn't misfires all the time,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't know the difference between a test and
Speaker 1: something really exciting. UM. So I think realizing that behavior
Speaker 1: and going look, this could feel really scary for you
Speaker 1: to be going into but you've got it. You've trained,
Speaker 1: you've you've done the work, You're ready for this, UM
Speaker 1: and now it's just about breathing and calming down your
Speaker 1: nervous system in order for you to be able to
Speaker 1: do the best of you can. How do we how
Speaker 1: do we communicate that to like younger children, like to
Speaker 1: like the four or five six year old where maybe
Speaker 1: the talking of the science might be a little bit
Speaker 1: over their head. How do we help them to sort
Speaker 1: of get their you know, wrap around their emotions. I
Speaker 1: actually disagree with that. I think they get it at
Speaker 1: a very young age. I think you can name it UM.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's even really great to call their magdalumas firing
Speaker 1: as something Amy or Joe or whatever it may be, UM,
Speaker 1: in order to give them a language around that for
Speaker 1: them to feel more agency and control. So the earlier
Speaker 1: that you're actually really teaching them that UM, that they
Speaker 1: can feel safe in their bodies UM and this is
Speaker 1: just their brain misfiring. UM. We get out of that,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about anxiety and talking about fear bees
Speaker 1: and talking about lack of safety, and we get it
Speaker 1: really into feeling more in control. And I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: I did this wrong, but Cruz has been having a
Speaker 1: little bit of a tough time with his letters, and
Speaker 1: so I said to him, Hey, Bud, if every day
Speaker 1: this week we work on the letters in the morning,
Speaker 1: we'll do a little check mark, and then you can
Speaker 1: get a gift at the end of the of the
Speaker 1: week because you you know, you're committing to do the time.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. Within two minutes he was like a
Speaker 1: basic big So I'm not kidding. For months, I've been
Speaker 1: worried about this, like he's not getting the letters, they
Speaker 1: brought it up to meet blah blah blah. But the
Speaker 1: second I did the reward, But then am I also
Speaker 1: pressuring him? See it? Like it's conflicting? So then I
Speaker 1: as a mom, I'm like, well, am I always going
Speaker 1: to have to bribe him to show me what he knows? Like?
Speaker 1: What is happening? I mean, we talk about motivation all
Speaker 1: the time, right, and so he was super motivated to
Speaker 1: learn his letters to get that reward. Like three minutes.
Speaker 1: I was like, you've got I mean, he but then
Speaker 1: I'm curious is he fibbing to his sisters and I
Speaker 1: because I'm not getting thirty twenty minutes before, we were
Speaker 1: all kind of playing around on his board and he
Speaker 1: could not do it, and he was like kind of
Speaker 1: playing around, and then he was like, I don't know
Speaker 1: is that a jay? Is it a j? You know,
Speaker 1: like all that type of stuff. But then the second
Speaker 1: reward came in. He knew all of it, But then
Speaker 1: how do you get it when it actually counts? Because
Speaker 1: he's doing that at school as well. For him, I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't go walking around with like the Amazon pulled
Speaker 1: up on my phone like hey, here you go, buddy.
Speaker 1: He's hussling. He's hussling. Well, it's also teaching our kids
Speaker 1: about internal and external reward, right, Um, So the goal
Speaker 1: is as a parent right now, you're giving him external
Speaker 1: reward to hopefully kind of start building the internal um.
Speaker 1: And that's what makes a self reliant and uh child
Speaker 1: later on and what are really gold as a parent
Speaker 1: is But I think that, um, each kid is different
Speaker 1: and trying to find that motivation. Um, whether they're feeling
Speaker 1: sort of that sense of confidence that they can master
Speaker 1: something which is amazing, or they're needing some kind of
Speaker 1: push from a parent in order to kind of get
Speaker 1: them there. But you can't kind of measure every situation
Speaker 1: as being the same either. So as a mom, you've
Speaker 1: got to give yourself a little bit of a break,
Speaker 1: um and not think that every single situation that he's
Speaker 1: going to learn is going to actually need to seem
Speaker 1: exact formula. I'm really bad at that. I'm really hard
Speaker 1: on myself when it comes to the kids because I want,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I guess I have this fear of
Speaker 1: like making a mistake that will do damage. You know,
Speaker 1: even though I know you trust, you trust your instincts
Speaker 1: and you you know all of those things. But I
Speaker 1: think also because I'm pregnant that like, I just want
Speaker 1: kind of them to feel happy, and so when those
Speaker 1: types of little things happen, then I'm like, what am
Speaker 1: I doing wrong? What I take? I take it personally right.
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned something really important there is you
Speaker 1: just want them to be happy. Well, we're never one
Speaker 1: constant emotional state. They're going to feel different ranges of
Speaker 1: emotion and you have to be okay being uncomfortable as
Speaker 1: a mom that they're not always going to be happy.
Speaker 1: And that's actually really teaching your kids important things too,
Speaker 1: that they don't have to chase these constant states which
Speaker 1: causes anxiety. Well, speaking of that, what is the answer
Speaker 1: to temper tantrums? If your child is prone to having
Speaker 1: major temper tantrums? Like what, in your opinion is the
Speaker 1: best way to handle it. Each child is really different,
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes not focusing on it is the
Speaker 1: most is the best way to go, because when we
Speaker 1: hyper focus on anything, it can either give them a
Speaker 1: reward right because they're getting that they're getting the attention
Speaker 1: that they want, or they're feeling a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: shame about not being able to have the control over
Speaker 1: their emotional states. UM, and children really need to learn that.
Speaker 1: They need to learn how to control, um, how they're feeling.
Speaker 1: They need to learn how to have the coping skills
Speaker 1: in or to sort of they're manage their emotional states. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's really kind of coming up with them together about
Speaker 1: figuring out how to get in front of it. Because
Speaker 1: when they are having a tantrum, it is actually they've
Speaker 1: flown the coop. There's nothing that's coming back. You just
Speaker 1: have to let them kind of work it out in
Speaker 1: order for them to come back, because there's no prefrontal
Speaker 1: cortex actually working for them to give them any sort
Speaker 1: of ability to think through, thinking through logical ways of
Speaker 1: coping with what they're feeling. At this point, they're just
Speaker 1: reacting in a really really big way. UM. So, really
Speaker 1: strategizing up front, coming up with routines, coming up with
Speaker 1: a structure ahead of time in order to manage the
Speaker 1: things that you realize that do tend to cause the
Speaker 1: tantrums is super important. What about for a child who
Speaker 1: becomes violent with their parents, that is really kind of
Speaker 1: bringing in professional help when they do become violent from
Speaker 1: the very first time. Yes, um, because they are so
Speaker 1: out of control with their emotional state that they can
Speaker 1: actually calm themselves down. And you're really going to need
Speaker 1: their party in there to give you to help you
Speaker 1: as a parent with the coping skills and the tools
Speaker 1: in order to manage. And there may be other factors
Speaker 1: that are going on for them to be feeling that
Speaker 1: they have to be that violent, uh, in order to
Speaker 1: sort of express their feelings or to be able to
Speaker 1: manage what's happening. And I would recommend getting either counseling
Speaker 1: from school or professional help in in order to to
Speaker 1: help you, because it's just too difficult as a parent,
Speaker 1: is too much pressure for you and you don't want
Speaker 1: to be in conflict with your child in that way.
Speaker 1: Can we define violence? Because when I took my daughter
Speaker 1: to Disney on ice before the holidays and I got
Speaker 1: her a k CD instead of a Hamburger, and her
Speaker 1: frustration was like so real that she bit my hand
Speaker 1: because she didn't know how to commune. She's like, mom,
Speaker 1: I asked for hamburger. I asked for hamburger. You got mad,
Speaker 1: like whatever and she bit my hand. Is that is
Speaker 1: that violence that we go to? I think as a parent,
Speaker 1: you've got to be able to judge right. So if
Speaker 1: it was something that she has room more straight afterwards,
Speaker 1: you're you work it out and and so much of
Speaker 1: conflict that you have between your child is really about
Speaker 1: teaching them communication and repair. So for her for you
Speaker 1: to say to her, you can't do that, you can't
Speaker 1: actually bite me when you're that frustrated. You've got to
Speaker 1: be able to talk about your feelings. We've got to
Speaker 1: figure out how to cope with things and manage things
Speaker 1: together is a better way. Um. But if you're finding
Speaker 1: that she's repeatedly biting you every time she gets frustrated
Speaker 1: or angry, that's really when you need professional help to
Speaker 1: step in, right, And what iss your daughter? Again? She's
Speaker 1: five five? Because you'll sometimes see you know, I'll be
Speaker 1: at the park and you'll see a kid like kick
Speaker 1: their parents or you know, but they're frustrated. But if
Speaker 1: it becomes a pattern exactly, or the parents are not
Speaker 1: managing it well too so exactly, or being emotionally or
Speaker 1: verbally abusive, that's the other factor that fuels it, and
Speaker 1: then we're just bringing in that cycle of shame. Could
Speaker 1: you give our listeners some sort of idea like things
Speaker 1: they could be said that are verbally abusive, that they
Speaker 1: don't realize. There's so many different ways that we do that. UM.
Speaker 1: I think that really it's about UM comparing our children
Speaker 1: to other people, UM, and saying, well, you know, Johnny
Speaker 1: does them a lot better than you do, and and
Speaker 1: really kind of shaming our child into something. UM. I
Speaker 1: think that we can talk about their behavior as being
Speaker 1: something really negative or bad or evil. UM. We can
Speaker 1: talk about them being insufficient or lacking in some capacity. UM,
Speaker 1: anything that's going to really knock a child self esteem
Speaker 1: or confidence. UM, that's going to sort of prey on
Speaker 1: their insecurities as they're sort of developing who they are
Speaker 1: as human beings. I feel as emotionally abusive and really tough. Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we have to take a little break,
Speaker 1: but UM, we'll come back and really a little more. Okay,
Speaker 1: now we're back, and since we've asked all of our questions,
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, not all of ours, but all
Speaker 1: we have time for our questions. I want to kind
Speaker 1: of rapid fire do some of our listeners questions. You're ready, yes, Okay,
Speaker 1: Why do kids bite their nails? Kids bite their nails
Speaker 1: for various reasons, it can be from boredom um to
Speaker 1: to really managing stress because it is a self soothing
Speaker 1: mechanism UM. And so fifty of children bite their nails
Speaker 1: and a lot of parents just ignore it. But um,
Speaker 1: when if it becomes problematic or you're finding that the
Speaker 1: behavior is becoming too too problematically, some kids actually bite
Speaker 1: them down to there's actually sort of to their cuticles
Speaker 1: and it's actually becomes painful, then you really need to
Speaker 1: kind of start to come up with different tactics, whether
Speaker 1: it's putting nail polish or varnish on or manicure um
Speaker 1: in order for them to sort of create different ways
Speaker 1: to manage their their their stress than actually through nail biting. UM.
Speaker 1: One listener had written in that there's six year old
Speaker 1: granddaughter saw an image of a man who was shot
Speaker 1: on TV and has had anxiety ever since. How do
Speaker 1: we help our children if there's you know, when they're
Speaker 1: hearing the news or the things on the outside. Right,
Speaker 1: The hard thing with media now is that they have
Speaker 1: so much exposure to it, and our brains don't know
Speaker 1: the difference between reality and fiction. So when a child
Speaker 1: is actually going to see a horrific image, it actually
Speaker 1: feels as if it's something that's happening to them now. UM.
Speaker 1: And so it's a really kind of normalizing that behavior
Speaker 1: with that child and sort of have them understand that
Speaker 1: this is the world is unsafe and unfortunately this is
Speaker 1: something that they saw way too early and too soon. UM.
Speaker 1: But just to reinforce their their a feeling of safety
Speaker 1: in the world is going to be so important for
Speaker 1: that child in order for them to start link calm again. UM.
Speaker 1: And I really am a big believer and understanding what's
Speaker 1: appropriate media for children at what age? Um. And if
Speaker 1: if a child is experiencing any sort of anxiety or trauma,
Speaker 1: it's a no no for any type of violence, um,
Speaker 1: anything that's going to kind of cause their bodies to
Speaker 1: sort of to to misfire in that way. UM. So
Speaker 1: I like to say, lots of rainbows and ponies that
Speaker 1: they get to watch. In the same token, loud noises
Speaker 1: really upset my toddler. What are some ways I can
Speaker 1: keep him calm? Right? There's there's separate ways to really
Speaker 1: think about it. And one of the things we have
Speaker 1: to really think about is what type of personality does
Speaker 1: a child have? Um? And sometimes that kids could be
Speaker 1: on the spectrum, or they could be more of an
Speaker 1: introverted child that loud noises and lots of people tends
Speaker 1: to upset them more So, Again, it's being curious about
Speaker 1: who your child is is um, but to figure out
Speaker 1: how much they can tolerate coming up with a plan
Speaker 1: ahead of time. I know you love routines and schedules,
Speaker 1: but this would be really about if you're going to
Speaker 1: a family function, how much can they actually manage? Um,
Speaker 1: Putting them in situations that they may be able to
Speaker 1: tolerate for shorter periods of time, then to kind of
Speaker 1: keep them there and keep them hyper aroused or overwhelmed
Speaker 1: the whole the whole time is really important. While you
Speaker 1: said spectrum, what are what is something a parent should
Speaker 1: do or like, what are signs that maybe your child
Speaker 1: is on the spectrum and what are the steps they
Speaker 1: should take right. Um. Again, I think this is a
Speaker 1: term that we're overusing in our culture at this point
Speaker 1: about talking about people being on the spectrum, because we're
Speaker 1: all different and we all have kind of a range. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really important to be working with a professional at
Speaker 1: the point if you should just suspecting anything out of
Speaker 1: the norm is going on with your child with spectrum
Speaker 1: issues rather than misdiagnosing or are getting into kind of
Speaker 1: a language around to right. But you said a loud
Speaker 1: noise would possibly be a child being on the spectrum.
Speaker 1: So for a parent hearing that, if all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I heard this, then I would go, oh, well,
Speaker 1: my daughter is afraid of loud noises. So I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to give them some sort of range of other
Speaker 1: things to keep an eye on before you rush to
Speaker 1: the doctor, because you know that can also be they
Speaker 1: have sensitive ears or you know, there's so many different things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. Is really kind of
Speaker 1: sensory issues. See difficulty time with connecting with other peers
Speaker 1: or within the school, ability with eye contact, UM, feeling withdrawn,
Speaker 1: I'm not engaging, not seem to be paying attention. Um,
Speaker 1: there's there's a there's a big there's a big range
Speaker 1: of it. But it's really kind of seeing that they're
Speaker 1: not able to kind of connect in the way that
Speaker 1: maybe other children are. UM. And also to that high
Speaker 1: social anxiety being around certain individuals or situation is causing
Speaker 1: them a tremendous amount of stress. Those would be signs
Speaker 1: that we would start to really need to pay more
Speaker 1: attention to You talked to a few moments ago about
Speaker 1: UM the importance of reassuring our children in their safety,
Speaker 1: especially when seeing medium images. So what about a child
Speaker 1: who has fear at home, who is so worried at
Speaker 1: night that she's checking doors to make sure that they're locked,
Speaker 1: making sure that she's safe or he's safe in her home.
Speaker 1: How can we reassure safety for our children Right when
Speaker 1: a child is going through repetitive behavior like that and
Speaker 1: it's becoming something that's really compulsive, I'd really be curious
Speaker 1: about what else is happening. There may have been a
Speaker 1: traumatic event, There may be in something that happened UM
Speaker 1: that there needs to be further exploration around, because they're
Speaker 1: trying to feel agency and control of safety by checking
Speaker 1: the locks ten times uh in order to break the
Speaker 1: pattern once we understand what's causing it. In order to
Speaker 1: break the pattern really is just about getting them to tolerate.
Speaker 1: So may you're taking that down from ten to nine
Speaker 1: to seven to six over time in order to really
Speaker 1: allow them to stay calm, in order to feel the
Speaker 1: sense of agency and control in their family. But I'd
Speaker 1: be really curious about what's going on in order to
Speaker 1: cause that kind of problem. Does the same go for
Speaker 1: like ticks, Yes, yeah, I'm normally triggered by something that's happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and and the and the fact is ticks usually
Speaker 1: go away. But the more that we hyper focus on them,
Speaker 1: the more attention we bring to them, and the more
Speaker 1: that usually the tick actually happens as well. So um,
Speaker 1: but it's children don't always have the language to communicate
Speaker 1: what's going on, so we it comes out in behaviors.
Speaker 1: And same thing for self harm. Yes, yeah, when you
Speaker 1: can't tolerate the emotional state becomes so overwhelming that the
Speaker 1: only way for you to manage it is by harming yourself. Um.
Speaker 1: And whether that's cutting, or whether it's over exercising, eating disorders,
Speaker 1: whatever it may be. And uh, that's really important to
Speaker 1: get a professional involved if there's any suspecting any kind
Speaker 1: of self harm is going on with your child in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, what things that we can do
Speaker 1: to offer our children support beyond um, beyond just the communication,
Speaker 1: to do something like a weighted blanket. Can that help
Speaker 1: with anxiety with children? I am a huge believer in
Speaker 1: weight to blankets. I have probably five in my house. Um. Yes.
Speaker 1: The one. The one issue to really worry about is
Speaker 1: coming from a trauma lens, which I'm always going to
Speaker 1: come from, is if there was any sort of situation
Speaker 1: where a child had suffocation or felt like there was
Speaker 1: something that happened where a weighted blanket could actually cause
Speaker 1: them to feel more unsafe and could cause more anxiety. Um.
Speaker 1: But what it really does is that they were designed
Speaker 1: for children on the spectrum with sensory issues in order
Speaker 1: to calm down their nervous systems so they weren't flaring
Speaker 1: around at night. And it's the same thing with anxiety.
Speaker 1: If we're moving around the whole night. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: having some weight on our body is really going to
Speaker 1: allow us to calm down, and don't of a system
Speaker 1: to calm down. I just got a way to blanket
Speaker 1: over the holidays. I've never slept so good in my life.
Speaker 1: They're amazing. I like it, well, I like one now
Speaker 1: because I tried it and it has like a cooling
Speaker 1: thing in it. Before it didn't and I was getting
Speaker 1: very hot. But now with this one, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: I like this and my son likes it as well,
Speaker 1: but only some nights he'll tell me he's like, I
Speaker 1: don't want the blanket tonight, and he can also not
Speaker 1: have his feet covered. Sometimes it was what I find children,
Speaker 1: so they just have a partial. They also have smaller
Speaker 1: ones they can just put on their chest, or they
Speaker 1: have stuffy animals, so they'll find if kids have a
Speaker 1: hard time traveling in the car, or maybe it's transition
Speaker 1: going to school and they have their way to blanket
Speaker 1: on the or their weighted stuffy animal as they're going
Speaker 1: to to uh to school and they find a lot
Speaker 1: of comfort in that. Do you think anxiety is a
Speaker 1: learned or inherited trait? That's nature versus nurture. Right, we
Speaker 1: know about epigenetics. We know that in utero what gets
Speaker 1: transmitted trauma gets transmitted to a to a child. So
Speaker 1: there is a factor of that if there's been any
Speaker 1: stress or trauma um how that gets transmitted to a
Speaker 1: child's brain. But there's also in the environment. If if
Speaker 1: you if you are of a parent that is struggles
Speaker 1: with anxiety, there's going to be certain behaviors that you
Speaker 1: really that that that the children are going to learn
Speaker 1: around you. So it is both it's not either or
Speaker 1: are there certain like supplements or I know a lot
Speaker 1: of people talk about oils or something like that to
Speaker 1: help our children cope with these with these feelings. I'm
Speaker 1: not a doctor to actually prescribe, but there are things
Speaker 1: that I do really love and my probably my favorite
Speaker 1: is Holy basil. So it's it helps with adrenal health
Speaker 1: and so especially with anxiety. What we wanted to do
Speaker 1: is we want to calm down our journals. UM. So
Speaker 1: they have it in tuh, they have it in little
Speaker 1: droppers that you can put in water. UM. I often
Speaker 1: recommend it to parents. What about CBD or E M
Speaker 1: d R. I hear a lot about those things. So CBD,
Speaker 1: I would say, now, there's not enough science. We don't
Speaker 1: we don't really know what's going on around it. We
Speaker 1: love to market anything that's new. There's plenty of data
Speaker 1: to support various various issues that it has supported. But
Speaker 1: as a general practitioner at some point, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: recommending that for anxiety at this point. But to each
Speaker 1: their own right. UM, E M d R are various
Speaker 1: modalities for to help children or families. There's UM internal
Speaker 1: family systems, there's havening technique, there's somatic experiencing E m DR.
Speaker 1: These are all great modalities to help with trauma, to
Speaker 1: help with anxiety, but it really just depends on the individual,
Speaker 1: so it's not just one thing that actually is going
Speaker 1: to help everyone. Um it would try them out and
Speaker 1: work with your practitioner and see what actually works for you.
Speaker 1: I'm a big believer right now in having technique. I
Speaker 1: really love it Havening technique. I don't know that please
Speaker 1: shed some light. We have no idea. I mean what
Speaker 1: it what it really does is it helps to um
Speaker 1: interrupt that neural network that happens when we do experience
Speaker 1: trauma or we're experiencing anxiety, because we wire things together,
Speaker 1: we wire patterns together, and so it didn't interrupted by
Speaker 1: actually kind of teaching really simple things like you know,
Speaker 1: doing the alphabet A to Z with animals, or doing
Speaker 1: cities and countries at counting steps in your mind, doing
Speaker 1: imagery because our brains can't be hyper aroused and feel
Speaker 1: that we're in a threat straight state and being actually
Speaker 1: doing higher level thinking at the same time. So it
Speaker 1: really helps with that and I've seen so many people
Speaker 1: really get tremendous amount of results that I've struggled with anxiety,
Speaker 1: struggled with trauma and it's it's something I'm super excited
Speaker 1: about right now. Maybe this is going way over my head,
Speaker 1: but like, what is an example, sa mom brain, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is like having? Is it a practice then that
Speaker 1: you're it's it's a it's a it's a therapy practice
Speaker 1: that we teach our clients, but it's something that you
Speaker 1: can teach haven. I'm like, I've got to go to
Speaker 1: Google dot com my professional that I deal with on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. I'm happy to talk to you more
Speaker 1: about it too. No, it sounds cool, and I know
Speaker 1: this is going to sound a little bit weird, but
Speaker 1: like I've also noticed when kids are on electronics a lot,
Speaker 1: they almost become like zombies and so therefore you can't
Speaker 1: even tell their actual behavior because it's like a detox
Speaker 1: right after they get off of it. Do you think
Speaker 1: it's all tied hand in hand? Do you think that
Speaker 1: there should be a limit, like what is the limit? Um?
Speaker 1: I love custodio apps that you can be tracking what
Speaker 1: your kids are doing UM and how much time they
Speaker 1: are on you can set all those limitations for it
Speaker 1: and what they can see and what they can and
Speaker 1: to your point, yes, their brains do not know the
Speaker 1: difference between reality and fiction, and when they're getting into Fortnite,
Speaker 1: they're feeling the same way as if they were actually
Speaker 1: going to be a drone operator. I just looked at
Speaker 1: Leslie like this. I mean my son, actually he's never
Speaker 1: played Fortnight except he went to one point we were
Speaker 1: at like somebody's house and they he saw him playing.
Speaker 1: And he has asked me every day just watching one boy,
Speaker 1: much older boy play Fortnite for fifteen minutes. He's now
Speaker 1: asked me for probably over six months, can I have Fortnite?
Speaker 1: Can I have for like, what do they put in
Speaker 1: there that like gets into kids brain. I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: you cannot have Fortnite. That stop asking. It's not going
Speaker 1: to happen. But like for it to have that big
Speaker 1: of an impact from just watching somebody else play a game,
Speaker 1: I don't even get it. Well, a jacks are nervous system, right,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get We're going to get adrenaline rush
Speaker 1: from it. Um. So there's a part of it that's
Speaker 1: really exciting, the fact is that you're shooting things and
Speaker 1: you're feeling all exhilarated, but to your point is getting
Speaker 1: them off it's it is, it's addictive. Um, there's a
Speaker 1: social currency around it too. That's really really hard and
Speaker 1: these are hard things to navigate. And that's what I
Speaker 1: love about that website because I think she really does
Speaker 1: a great job explaining from the from the brain science
Speaker 1: of what actually is going on with our children that
Speaker 1: we can't argue with and and they can't argue with.
Speaker 1: It's not kind of Johnny gets to do this or
Speaker 1: or someone else is doing it. It's really kind of understanding, Hey,
Speaker 1: this isn't good for you, and this is why we're
Speaker 1: not doing it as a family. This is a decision
Speaker 1: that we've made, even though it's a hard one to do. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think it's all talking about moderation and what
Speaker 1: your child can tolerate and what they can't. What what
Speaker 1: does moderation look like? Because sometimes if I'm trying to
Speaker 1: cook a meal and I have two kids running around
Speaker 1: the house, like I just need a thirty minute episode
Speaker 1: of like Pop Patrol too so I can get to
Speaker 1: take the edge off. Yeah, I think that's a great
Speaker 1: h that's a great time frame to you're not it's
Speaker 1: not two hours, it's not you know, all day they
Speaker 1: have unlimited amount of time. You're giving them a finite
Speaker 1: period of time. There may be even a reward system
Speaker 1: around it, and maybe once you get your homework done
Speaker 1: then you get this reward um. But giving them a concrete,
Speaker 1: finite period of time that you're consistent is so important
Speaker 1: around media for children and really again monitoring it, know
Speaker 1: what's going on. There's a lot that's happening that so
Speaker 1: many parents don't know how is happening, and then it
Speaker 1: creeps up on them and then you have a really
Speaker 1: big problem. So it's based on like an hour, like
Speaker 1: the the amount of time like I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out because I feel like just in practicality, like what
Speaker 1: is a good with a good time frame to to
Speaker 1: help parents? I mean parents tend I tend to sort
Speaker 1: of say, like do thirty minutes of chunks. But it
Speaker 1: really depends on you, um that because sometimes when you
Speaker 1: get into an hour, then it's the snowball of transitioning
Speaker 1: out of is so difficult, depending especially depending on the
Speaker 1: age of a child, and you really have to look
Speaker 1: at where their maturity is. Five year old is going
Speaker 1: to be very different than as sixteen year old, and
Speaker 1: how if if you have a bunch of kids, and
Speaker 1: you have one child who's really struggling behaviorally, how do
Speaker 1: you we we know now we've kind of talked to
Speaker 1: you about what to do for the child that's struggling,
Speaker 1: But what about the other kids? Yeah, that's such a
Speaker 1: hard thing that I see in my practice a lot too,
Speaker 1: is just the focus and the hyper focus on the
Speaker 1: child who's struggling, and then the child who is not
Speaker 1: or the children that are not I feel ignored or
Speaker 1: their needs are not really met, and then later on
Speaker 1: it it kind of creeps up on the family. Um
Speaker 1: So I think it's so important to constantly be checking
Speaker 1: in with them to know what's going on, seeing what
Speaker 1: the impact is. Even having other people if you don't
Speaker 1: have the time or capacity because your child's needs, one
Speaker 1: of your child's needs is so great. That's really where
Speaker 1: you're kind of bringing resources of your child's your your
Speaker 1: children's teachers or their after school activities, of their coaches. Hey,
Speaker 1: can you just check in with them to make sure
Speaker 1: that they're doing Okay. I'm really stressed about this one
Speaker 1: particular child, and I really need to help. We have
Speaker 1: to work together as a community and as a tribe
Speaker 1: and really nor to support our kids. And you know
Speaker 1: a lot of times her mom's I'm just saying moms,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it's parents say, like, the only way
Speaker 1: that I can get my kids to listen to me
Speaker 1: is when I raised my voice. What are your thoughts
Speaker 1: on that? Like, what are your thoughts on actually snapping
Speaker 1: at your kids or even if it's plan a planned snap,
Speaker 1: what are the repercussions of that? I mean, we've come
Speaker 1: to a time where things have shifted so much from
Speaker 1: like how I was raised that that was like, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot different. But I'm just curious because what
Speaker 1: is the okay way now? Right? I think it's so
Speaker 1: important to teach our kids about repair and saying sorry
Speaker 1: and apologizing and accountability and we're and that we're human
Speaker 1: and as a parent, we're going to make mistakes all
Speaker 1: the time, and to really communicate that to our children
Speaker 1: is you know what I messed up. I should have
Speaker 1: said something different, I should have acted different. This is
Speaker 1: a way I wanted to do it. I just got
Speaker 1: really frustrated. Um, you're going to make mistakes, and I
Speaker 1: think to be kind to yourself as a parent is
Speaker 1: so important. The other factor, though, if it becomes sort
Speaker 1: of a pattern that the only way you feel that
Speaker 1: you can get your child to do something is by
Speaker 1: screaming about them. Is what you're really teaching them as
Speaker 1: a vowed dominance and control, and that's not healthy for
Speaker 1: a child, is a fact, as in order to be
Speaker 1: louder and bigger you have to in order to get
Speaker 1: what you want is not a great way to be parenting.
Speaker 1: So to really be checking in with that and maybe
Speaker 1: working with someone in order to support how to communicate
Speaker 1: with your children differently. One question that I think is
Speaker 1: interesting is when do you push your kids to and
Speaker 1: through a new situation or a situation that might feel
Speaker 1: a little scary for them versus not forcing them into it.
Speaker 1: I know my daughter with like rides and stuff, I
Speaker 1: get Disneyland, certain things they're really scary to her when
Speaker 1: they shouldn't be. When do you sort of encourage it
Speaker 1: and when do you back off? Yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: looking at the situation. Um, if it's something that's going
Speaker 1: to feel terrifying and their nervous system and you it
Speaker 1: makes sense to you why they would be fearful of
Speaker 1: doing it. Maybe it might not be age appropriate for
Speaker 1: them at that time. Maybe that ride is she's just
Speaker 1: too young for at this time, and maybe when she's
Speaker 1: ten she'll be super psyched to go on the roller coaster.
Speaker 1: But I think it's also about setting it up for success.
Speaker 1: We talked about it ahead of time. We set up
Speaker 1: the goals, we set up what's going to happen. We
Speaker 1: love imagery in our brains, and so if they can
Speaker 1: imagine what's going to happen, it's going to calm them down.
Speaker 1: And then it's going to really make them feel excited
Speaker 1: and and and feel so proud when they actually are
Speaker 1: accomplishing it. And then it's just doing the repetition. Once
Speaker 1: they've got it down, Let's do that again. Let's do
Speaker 1: that again, and keep doing it until it becomes something
Speaker 1: that they've self mastered. Because I know I've fallen too
Speaker 1: fault to that. When it's like they don't want to
Speaker 1: try it's something from like the new slide at the park,
Speaker 1: like I don't want to try it, I'm like, let's try.
Speaker 1: Let's try it with mommy. First, boom we go. There's
Speaker 1: crying at first, and then okay, I want to do
Speaker 1: it again. But then I'm like, did I just push
Speaker 1: them too far? No, you didn't. You taught them about
Speaker 1: that they can actually take risks and they can take
Speaker 1: care of themselves. I mean that's a great parenting, okay,
Speaker 1: But at what point then if my like this ride
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry to make this about me, but if
Speaker 1: there's like ride that she wants to go on and
Speaker 1: that is you know, she's tall enough for her friends
Speaker 1: are going all of this, and now it's sort of
Speaker 1: at what point did she create? Are you creating like
Speaker 1: a monster in their head that oh, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do it, I don't want to do it, and
Speaker 1: you sort of just take them down the slide, like
Speaker 1: Teddy said, and you show them that it isn't this
Speaker 1: big bad thing again. I think that's really about kind
Speaker 1: of doing the imagery with them ahead of time. She's
Speaker 1: seen the ride, she can even look at it on
Speaker 1: the internet. She can talk to her friends about their
Speaker 1: experiences and set that up for success, figure out where
Speaker 1: there may be kind of traps or she's just not
Speaker 1: ready for maybe she's she hasn't kind of worked through
Speaker 1: her feelings yet about it. But I think if she
Speaker 1: can imagine what it's going to be like, then that's
Speaker 1: going to actually encourage her to actually want to take
Speaker 1: those steps in order to do it, and then when
Speaker 1: she does it, I mean it's all array, you know,
Speaker 1: so proud of you. Let's go do that again. And
Speaker 1: she may be on that ride three or four times
Speaker 1: at Disney that day. What about when it comes to
Speaker 1: like a security blanket or toy or stuffy or whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. Now, oftentimes in school, they're not letting
Speaker 1: your kids bring those things in. Yeah, that's really tough
Speaker 1: because you've got school policies. But we were talking about
Speaker 1: children and their development is all going to be different,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna have different life factors. They're going to
Speaker 1: have new babies and brothers, or they're going to have
Speaker 1: a death in the family, and if those things bring
Speaker 1: them comfort and they soothe them, it's tough. Um. So
Speaker 1: I think it's really meaning your child where they're at
Speaker 1: and try to really work with a school. Um. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm a mom and I when we moved to California,
Speaker 1: my daughter was in third grade and was having a
Speaker 1: tough time and we ended up having a hamster in
Speaker 1: the science lab that it really helped her to kind
Speaker 1: of connect friendships and to talk to people. And I
Speaker 1: worked with a school in order to make that happen.
Speaker 1: I mean ended up being like the highlight of the
Speaker 1: third grade as well too. UM. But it's thinking beyond
Speaker 1: just sort of what the structure of the school looks
Speaker 1: like and seeing if they can really work with you
Speaker 1: to accommodate your family. Did you talk to the actual teacher?
Speaker 1: Did you talk to the headmaster? Like what was the way?
Speaker 1: What was your approach to actually make that happen? Um?
Speaker 1: I actually did both. UM. I have an introverted child.
Speaker 1: I gave them Susan Kaine's book on Quiet and talk
Speaker 1: to them about just you know, this is overwhelming for
Speaker 1: her to being kind of a new environment and UM
Speaker 1: and really advocated for her as a as a parent
Speaker 1: to help her and said, hey, you know, how can
Speaker 1: we sort of set this up her success and in
Speaker 1: order to kind of have her connect with people in
Speaker 1: different ways? And so snowball became the popular animal to
Speaker 1: be taking home on the weekends. UM. And it became
Speaker 1: something that was a tradition and people knew that that
Speaker 1: was my daughter's Hamstern really allowed her just to to
Speaker 1: to thrive. We've talked about the about younger children, what
Speaker 1: about teenagers that are kind of suffering um from anxiety, Like, uh,
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old who's not sleeping, or a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old who's moved to a new location and they're
Speaker 1: now having this Like, what are ways that that we
Speaker 1: can help our teenagers, especially when they're like I don't
Speaker 1: like the therapist you took me to and it happens repeatedly. Right, So, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: one third of our teenagers ages thirteen to eighteen are
Speaker 1: going to experience anxiety. We know that college freshmen statistics
Speaker 1: are forty one. We're seeing rates going through the roof
Speaker 1: for our our youth at this point. I mean, anxiety
Speaker 1: is a real problem for them. Um, and it's hard
Speaker 1: because they're around it so much and there's so much
Speaker 1: conversation around it that actually even causes more anxiety. UM.
Speaker 1: So it again, I think it's really about educating them.
Speaker 1: I work with a ton of teenagers and they feel
Speaker 1: so empowered to really understand how their bodies and brains
Speaker 1: are working and learning coping skills in order to kind
Speaker 1: of manage that. So, whether it's pinky breathing in order
Speaker 1: for them to learn abdomen breaths, um, whether it's using imagery,
Speaker 1: whether it's doing various techniques tooling them up in order
Speaker 1: for them to keep grabbing at things in order to
Speaker 1: calm them down. Um. The other really interesting thing that
Speaker 1: I brought up earlier too, is about labeling emotions. Had
Speaker 1: so many kids come in and they're telling me they
Speaker 1: have a panic attack before they're going to their first
Speaker 1: dance or their prom or their first kiss, and they've
Speaker 1: labeled that as something that's scary and terrifying versus something
Speaker 1: that's so exciting. And so we really have to kind
Speaker 1: of shift them to understand that they have a capacity
Speaker 1: to have more feelings than just four and that is
Speaker 1: okay for them to feel exciting, to have heart palpitations,
Speaker 1: and to be nervous about a first kiss. That's a
Speaker 1: good thing. And we've got to kind of start warring
Speaker 1: our brains in that way. How do you know, as
Speaker 1: a parent, though, if your child is just having that nervous,
Speaker 1: excited energy, like I know if I'm about to go,
Speaker 1: like speak to a group of people, or that I'm
Speaker 1: not having anxiety. I'm excited, and that's a good thing,
Speaker 1: and it means that I'm going to deliver well. That
Speaker 1: being said for a kid or you know, a teenager
Speaker 1: who could possibly be having like a true blown panic attack.
Speaker 1: How do you know if that's happening versus the other.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that they're not having a panic attack
Speaker 1: about going to the prom. I'm saying that they have
Speaker 1: actually not allowed themselves to even imagine the fact that
Speaker 1: they could feel excited. They've just kind of limited their
Speaker 1: feeling states to just these few things. UM. That's one
Speaker 1: of the really big issues. But the other issue, to
Speaker 1: your point, is just the amount of pressure we've got
Speaker 1: to take the pressure off for these kids. They have.
Speaker 1: They feel like they have to have everything figure it out.
Speaker 1: They have to be masters, they have to know where
Speaker 1: they're going to college, they have to be experts in
Speaker 1: their sports. Single sports that they're having burnout, um, they're
Speaker 1: having injuries, um. And and we have to kind of
Speaker 1: say it's okay if you're not getting the A, it's
Speaker 1: okay if you're not being the top athlete. It's okay
Speaker 1: if you're not you know, succeeding at everything. They just
Speaker 1: feel this tremendous amount of pressure. So we really need
Speaker 1: to be able to hold the emotions that they're not
Speaker 1: able to carry. That's our job as parents. UM. And
Speaker 1: in order to help them launch and in closing, because
Speaker 1: I know we're running out of time, what would you
Speaker 1: say the key piece of advice you could give to
Speaker 1: any parent out there on anything in regarding this topic,
Speaker 1: like the one takeaway, The one takeaway, it's just really
Speaker 1: about being curious about your children, understanding and connecting with them,
Speaker 1: and being present with them to really to really to
Speaker 1: really allow them to feel like they have a safe
Speaker 1: space that they can really talk about their feelings, they
Speaker 1: can talk about things that are hard um and then
Speaker 1: really trying to teach them how to resource and come
Speaker 1: up with solutions to combat these issues that they're not
Speaker 1: carrying around these nervous states and their bodies all the time.
Speaker 1: That's a good takeaway, absolutely, and I think it's a
Speaker 1: good thing for us to think about too. I mean,
Speaker 1: how often do we think we're present but we're not
Speaker 1: necessarily present as parenting all the time. I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 1: because it has you know, sometimes like I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm putting the phone completely down, it's our time, we're
Speaker 1: doing this, and then my mind will wander and I'm
Speaker 1: not actually fully my body is there and I'm not
Speaker 1: looking up the phone, but I need to, you know,
Speaker 1: continue and I write that down like as like in
Speaker 1: my goals or like my daily goals is like be present.
Speaker 1: And I have the same thing with adults with everything,
Speaker 1: and so I think that's such a huge thing for
Speaker 1: all of us to think about, is like really figure
Speaker 1: out a way that works for you that you can
Speaker 1: be present when you're doing things. If not, we're just
Speaker 1: going through the motions and like not really living the
Speaker 1: life that we want to live. And I think to
Speaker 1: your point, like being present in ways that like you
Speaker 1: feel like you can be present for like I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's like if you're you can sit down
Speaker 1: and play old made with your kids or legos or
Speaker 1: whatever are something that like you can actually in engage
Speaker 1: with as well. So it's it's so it's sort of fun.
Speaker 1: So it's no, like I'm not a craft gal, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not the one that like wins the like our
Speaker 1: kids never win craft day because I'm not the mom
Speaker 1: that's like gonna be killing it at that. But like
Speaker 1: I love to like take my family and like family
Speaker 1: hikes or we play soccer, or we're doing you know,
Speaker 1: bike rides those types of things. Whe we can laugh
Speaker 1: talk about our favorite songs like that for me is
Speaker 1: my like best way to just spend time with the kids.
Speaker 1: But I know some moms who can get down on
Speaker 1: the ground and like they can honestly play barbies for
Speaker 1: two hours. That's not my strong suit. So it's kind
Speaker 1: of knowing your strong suit and formulating around it, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, at least that's what I'm telling myself. I
Speaker 1: think you're making a great point too, because it may
Speaker 1: be that your family is a ping pong family, or
Speaker 1: you may be swimmers, or you maybe having Friday night
Speaker 1: game nights. Um. And also to you, using humor is
Speaker 1: so important for kids. Um, so just laughing. You mentioned
Speaker 1: that it's just so important. So have fun, be present,
Speaker 1: do things together, try not to take ourselves too seriously.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you guys, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on today. I truly appreciate it. And I think
Speaker 1: we I think we got through a lot of the questions.
Speaker 1: I think we we we hammered through. So I hope
Speaker 1: you guys keep sending in your questions no matter what
Speaker 1: the topic is, we will get to it. I love this,
Speaker 1: So thank you guys for listening, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you next week. Thanks for listening. Subscribe to Teddy t
Speaker 1: Pot on I Heart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.