Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1038 - Managing Emotional Dysregulation

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#1038 - Managing Emotional Dysregulation · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:02
Speaker 1: It's their Happy Family's podcast. It's the podcast for.
0:06
Speaker 2: The time poor parent.
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Speaker 1: They just once answers mew.
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Speaker 3: Parents are increasingly telling me that their children are disregulated.
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Speaker 1: So today a conversation about what it means to be.
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Speaker 3: Regulated or disregulated emotionally. Hello, I'm doctor Justin Cole, someone
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Speaker 3: who with my wife and mum to our six sometimes
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Speaker 3: regulated and sometimes not so regulated, slightly disregulated children, missus
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Speaker 3: Happy families Kylie lots to talk about with emotions today.
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Speaker 2: Well, why do we start with emotions? What are they?
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Speaker 3: Emotions are data, emotions are information, and sometimes we use
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Speaker 3: that data really well. Other times though, either the data
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Speaker 3: is faulty or our response to the data is faulty,
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Speaker 3: and we take it to some kind of eternal truth
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Speaker 3: and we live and die by those emotions. And sometimes
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Speaker 3: that's functional, other times it's not. Sometimes it's quite maladaptive.
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Speaker 3: But ultimately we see emotions as the way things really are,
1:03
Speaker 3: which is problematic because when we become more and more emotional,
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Speaker 3: we see things more and more myopically, and that leads to, well,
1:11
Speaker 3: it leads to looking at the world through some very
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Speaker 3: emotional glasses that don't always reflect the reality that's in
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Speaker 3: front of us. The etymology of the word emotion. I
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Speaker 3: love this, the etymology that is where the word comes
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Speaker 3: from from French emos mvoir, which means to excite, but
1:28
Speaker 3: like traditionally it was Latin which meant and I don't
1:31
Speaker 3: speak Latin, but muver e e m o v e r,
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Speaker 3: which basically means to move. So emotions literally are to move.
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Speaker 3: So there's this psychological movement. And I really love that
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Speaker 3: Latin root of the word emotion, because when we feel emotional,
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Speaker 3: we feel moved, if you know what I mean. I
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Speaker 3: guess the one other thing that I would say in
1:56
Speaker 3: answering your question what is it to be emotional? Some
1:58
Speaker 3: researchers look at emotion on two dimensions. They look at
2:01
Speaker 3: the pleasantness dimension and also the energetic dimension. So you
2:05
Speaker 3: can have high high pleasant emotions and low pleasant emotions
2:09
Speaker 3: or unpleasant emotions, and you can have high energy and
2:12
Speaker 3: low energy emotions. And you can put that into a
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Speaker 3: little two by two with energy and emotion as the
2:16
Speaker 3: X and Y axis, and all of a sudden you've
2:18
Speaker 3: got this really cool way of grouping emotions. So if
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Speaker 3: I was to say to you, what's a highly pleasant,
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Speaker 3: highly energetic emotion, you would say excitement, absolutely. And if
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Speaker 3: I was to say, what's a highly unpleasant, highly energetic emotion, anger, great, okay, livid,
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Speaker 3: being hostile, just blowing up, explosiveness. Conversely, we could look
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Speaker 3: at low energy, low pleasantness sadness, yeah okay, And we
2:44
Speaker 3: can also have low energy but high pleasantness peace. Oh nice. Yeah,
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Speaker 3: I like that one. I was thinking of a bliss,
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Speaker 3: but either I'll take either of them. They're the kind
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Speaker 3: of once you get into your thirties, forties, fifties, they're
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Speaker 3: the ones.
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Speaker 1: That you really like energy highly pleasant kids.
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Speaker 3: On the other hand, they really like the high energy
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Speaker 3: I want to see all the time.
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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's highly unpleasant or highly pleasant.
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Speaker 3: Just as long as it's high energy, they're happy. So
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Speaker 3: that's that's kind of what emotions are. I guess would
3:15
Speaker 3: be my definition of them. I guess one other thing
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Speaker 3: to highlight is that every emotion serves a purpose, so
3:21
Speaker 3: we don't have good emotions and bad emotions. A lot
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Speaker 3: of people will say, oh, that's just a bad emotion.
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Speaker 3: I just I'm really uncomfortable with that language.
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Speaker 2: It's not okay to be angry.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, But context is everything because sometimes an emotion is
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Speaker 3: out of place, it doesn't belong where it is, so
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Speaker 3: it might be really maladaptive. Will give you a really
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Speaker 3: simple example, the kids being hyper excited right before bet.
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Speaker 3: It's just not the right time to have that emotion.
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Speaker 3: It's still a healthy emotion, but it's not adaptive, it's
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Speaker 3: not functional. There's a time and a place. And one
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Speaker 3: of the challenges that we have with emotional expression and
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Speaker 3: emotional regulation, and this regulation is helping kids to be social.
3:59
Speaker 3: I mean, ultimate emotions are about being socialized. Sometimes people
4:02
Speaker 3: are like, you shouldn't have to suppress your emotions. But
4:05
Speaker 3: when we had a trip to the Gold Coast a
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Speaker 3: few months ago, Kylie, I don't know if you were
4:09
Speaker 3: with me, as I was walking through will Worth picking
4:11
Speaker 3: up some groceries.
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Speaker 1: I think you were with the kids.
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Speaker 3: But there was a lady in Ale six who was
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Speaker 3: being her authentic self. She was not suppressing her emotions
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Speaker 3: at all. She was letting the entire supermarket know exactly
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Speaker 3: how she felt.
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Speaker 1: And it was not appropriate.
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Speaker 3: Like it was everyone got out of Aisle six.
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Speaker 1: No one wanted to be near her.
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Speaker 3: It was dysfunctional, it was disregulated, it was maladaptive, and
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Speaker 3: it obviously came at a cost.
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Speaker 2: So you're using these words dysregulation and regulated emotion. What
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Speaker 2: is it exactly? What does it mean to be regulated?
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Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I'm glad you want to know about regulation first,
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Speaker 3: because that's the goal. That's what we're really working towards
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Speaker 3: with our children. Emotional regulation is the ability to control
4:54
Speaker 3: your emotional state in service of your goals. I want
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Speaker 3: to say that again because it matters a lot, not
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Speaker 3: just about controlling your emotions, because sometimes you want to
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Speaker 3: control them and suppress them, and other times you need
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Speaker 3: to express them. But what we really want to consider
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Speaker 3: is what am I working towards here in terms of
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Speaker 3: the quality of the relationship that I have with the
5:15
Speaker 3: person I'm engaging with or with myself? What am I
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Speaker 3: working towards in terms of work or getting the house
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Speaker 3: organized or getting kids.
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Speaker 1: Into the car?
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Speaker 3: How is my emotional expression going to serve me and
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Speaker 3: getting to my goals? Do I need to suppress or
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Speaker 3: do I need to express and in what way? So,
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Speaker 3: emotion regulation is controlling your emotions in such a way
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Speaker 3: that you can use them healthily and adaptively in service
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Speaker 3: of your goals.
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Speaker 2: I'm curious about the concept of controlling your emotional state
5:44
Speaker 2: in service of your goals. You've said that, right, So
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Speaker 2: I had a situation where somebody decided they needed to
5:52
Speaker 2: speak their truth.
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Speaker 3: Oh sorry, tangent, speak their truth. What that means is
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Speaker 3: I'm going to say something that you're not going to like.
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Speaker 3: It's got nothing to do with truth. It means I'm
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Speaker 3: feeling emotional about something, and my choice is to not
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Speaker 3: suppress that in service of my goal to have a healthy,
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Speaker 3: happy relationship, but rather to express my opinion my emotion
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Speaker 3: because I think I'll feel better once I've got it out.
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Speaker 2: And that's exactly what it was.
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Speaker 3: And it's a real lack of emotional intelligence because nobody
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Speaker 3: I cannot think of a single time anyone has expressed
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Speaker 3: their truth to me, expressed my truth, like Capital T
6:26
Speaker 3: truth or Little Tea truth anyway, I've never gone, Oh
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Speaker 3: I really needed that truth, Thank you so much. Like
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Speaker 3: I feel so much better as a person about myself
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Speaker 3: right now, come on, like, just we've got to stop
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Speaker 3: saying stuff like that, seriously, anyway, go on.
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Speaker 2: But that's my point. She wanted to speak her truth,
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Speaker 2: and the service of her goal is honesty.
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Speaker 1: Ah, okay, okay.
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Speaker 2: Right, So her goal is I'm an honest person, and
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Speaker 2: in order for me to be able to move forward,
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Speaker 2: I actually need to be honest with you about this situation.
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Speaker 2: But the reality is, whether I knew the truth or not,
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Speaker 2: in that situation, it had nothing to do with me
7:01
Speaker 2: and everything to do with her.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: So how does that play out when we're as adults,
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Speaker 2: we're trying to be emotionally regulated.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, so maybe another definition that's often used when it
7:15
Speaker 3: comes to the idea of emotional regulation is simply the
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Speaker 3: ability to control your emotional state. Now I add the
7:22
Speaker 3: in service of your goal's element, because I trust that
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Speaker 3: most people are working towards having civil and social and positive, energizing,
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Speaker 3: life giving interactions with the people around them, and that
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Speaker 3: they want to do well.
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Speaker 2: Gus, it is generous, generous of you.
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Speaker 3: I'm a capacious kind of guy. But some people are
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Speaker 3: the opposite. Some people are capricious and their goals even
7:43
Speaker 3: there though, a person who is not thinking about the
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Speaker 3: long term, they may feel that if they just share
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Speaker 3: their quote unquote truth, if I just share my truth,
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Speaker 3: it's going to make everything better. The goal is still
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Speaker 3: to make things better, it's just that the goal is
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Speaker 3: misguided it's misaligned and therefore it's not going to it's
8:01
Speaker 3: not going to be successful.
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Speaker 2: If that's what emotional regulation is, what is dysregulation and
8:07
Speaker 2: what does it look like? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: So disregulation is when your emotion.
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Speaker 3: Is fair idea, when you're not controlling your emotional state.
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Speaker 3: I mean, that's kind of it, but I want to
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Speaker 3: go a bit deeper on it because the more I've
8:18
Speaker 3: thought about this idea of dysregulation, and I don't know
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Speaker 3: if you'll find this in a textbook so much, but
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Speaker 3: the way I look at it is it's when your
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Speaker 3: emotions are stronger than your ability to act with autonomy. Yes,
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Speaker 3: And the keyword there for me is.
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Speaker 1: And that's why I've added it.
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Speaker 3: You don't find that in the textbooks, but the ability
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Speaker 3: to act with autonomy around your emotions. When you are disregulated,
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Speaker 3: you've stopped choosing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I love that. And one of our daughters
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Speaker 2: would actually say to me when she would get to
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Speaker 2: a point where her emotions were so big, and we
8:52
Speaker 2: kind of looked at it like Jack Wull and heigh.
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Speaker 2: She was so calm and controlled most of the time,
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Speaker 2: and then she would just have this massive explosion. And
9:00
Speaker 2: after she'd had the explosion. Then she had all of
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Speaker 2: the guild associated with it because it was so not
9:04
Speaker 2: who she was, and she would say to me, I
9:07
Speaker 2: just don't have any control in that moment. It would
9:10
Speaker 2: overpower her. So I love how you've articulated that because
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Speaker 2: I've seen it and I've obviously lived it in my
9:17
Speaker 2: own life.
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Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
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Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm just such indity. Right, I'm a parenting expert.
9:22
Speaker 3: I've got a PhD in psychology. I'm supposed to know
9:23
Speaker 3: all this and get it right. But last week on Friday,
9:26
Speaker 3: we were talking about how we had this trip. It
9:28
Speaker 3: was overseas and on the way home we ended up
9:31
Speaker 3: getting stuck. We had three transfers to do anyway right,
9:35
Speaker 3: but then the airline diverted from Brisbane because of fog
9:38
Speaker 3: and we had to go into Sydney and then into
9:41
Speaker 3: Canberra before we could finally get back to Brisbane. It
9:43
Speaker 3: meant that we spent approximately forty two hours in transit
9:46
Speaker 3: and I only got about three hours sleep. So I
9:47
Speaker 3: don't sleep on planes now. My ability to choose my emotions.
9:52
Speaker 3: By the time we got to Thursday night or Friday
9:54
Speaker 3: night or whatever it was, I was an absolute mess.
9:58
Speaker 3: I was a disaster, and I actually got explosive. And
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Speaker 3: that's what a disregulated brain does. It moves into fight
10:03
Speaker 3: or flight. It becomes completely dysfunctional. Response is completely disproportionate
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Speaker 3: to the context or to.
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Speaker 1: The goals that we have.
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Speaker 3: I wanted to have good relationships with my family, but
10:12
Speaker 3: something happened and I just blew up. And what I
10:14
Speaker 3: blew up, Well, I was so emotionally disregulated because I
10:17
Speaker 3: was so physically disregulated.
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Speaker 1: It was just the worst.
10:26
Speaker 3: So disregulated brains tend to be explosive or withdrawn right
10:31
Speaker 3: go into the bedroom and hide and not talking to anybody,
10:33
Speaker 3: which probably brings us to parenting and us and our
10:37
Speaker 3: kids and big emotions.
10:38
Speaker 2: You started the podcast saying that more and more parents
10:42
Speaker 2: are saying that their kids are struggling with emotional dysregulation.
10:47
Speaker 1: Yeah.
10:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, And a lot of parents that I talked to
10:49
Speaker 3: about this are blaming it on resilience. They're saying, Oh,
10:51
Speaker 3: if my kids were more resilient, then they wouldn't be
10:53
Speaker 3: so emotional, and you're.
10:56
Speaker 2: Obviously suggesting that that's not the case.
10:58
Speaker 1: Well, sometimes they're right.
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Speaker 3: Sometimes it is a resilience issue, and in some way,
11:02
Speaker 3: it's just the ability to exert that control comes down
11:04
Speaker 3: to how we're able to control our environment and be resilient.
11:09
Speaker 3: But I think often this is a misdiagnosis.
11:13
Speaker 2: I'm thinking about when our kids have been the most disregulated,
11:18
Speaker 2: and more times than not, it's when they're young.
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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, Absolutely, emotion regulation develops across time. It starts
11:26
Speaker 3: at around about the age three, like two year olds.
11:28
Speaker 3: Anyone who's ever had a two year old knows they
11:30
Speaker 3: struggle so much to regulate their emotions. Once they get
11:33
Speaker 3: going or once something doesn't work out their way, just kaboom.
11:37
Speaker 3: They don't have the capacity to regulate.
11:39
Speaker 2: So they actually need us to be the calm influence
11:43
Speaker 2: so that they can kind of borrow that calm.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, they catch out predictability safety exactly, they catch our calm.
11:50
Speaker 1: What age do you reckon?
11:52
Speaker 3: That developmental process starts to get to a point where
11:55
Speaker 3: kids can, in most situations regulate their emotions.
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Speaker 2: I was going to say, does it ever happened?
12:01
Speaker 3: Okay, so I mean, obviously I'm nearly fifty years old,
12:03
Speaker 3: and it happened to me last week because I was
12:04
Speaker 3: tired and jet lagged or whatever else.
12:06
Speaker 2: But look, I would say anywhere between, depending on the child,
12:09
Speaker 2: But between eight and ten, okay, is where you'd start
12:13
Speaker 2: to see some good control.
12:15
Speaker 3: When I'm talking to school teachers and I asked this question,
12:17
Speaker 3: they all kind of go, yeah, the first couple of
12:19
Speaker 3: years of school are really hard, but by around grade
12:22
Speaker 3: two or grade three they get it together. And most
12:24
Speaker 3: research points to somewhere around the age of nine. But
12:28
Speaker 3: there's a whole lot of other stuff going on, Right,
12:30
Speaker 3: They're supposed to get better at regulation as they get older,
12:34
Speaker 3: but they'll still have plenty of struggles, just like adults.
12:36
Speaker 3: And you can probably think of a few reasons why.
12:39
Speaker 2: We've go tired, hungry, stress, still, lonely, bored.
12:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And then there's medical conditions or just
12:46
Speaker 3: being jet lagged, or maybe they've got ADHD or there's
12:48
Speaker 3: some other kind of neurodiversity going on. And what happens
12:51
Speaker 3: is kids, when they get dysregulated, they ENTI file flight mode.
12:54
Speaker 3: They struggle to cope, they do not listen to reason.
12:57
Speaker 3: Because I've said this for years, high emotions intelligence, Right,
13:00
Speaker 3: we're in a different part of the brain.
13:02
Speaker 1: Now. When children experience acute stress.
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Speaker 3: They usually are just really really highly reactive, just like
13:08
Speaker 3: your I as an adult. No pause, not considering anything logical,
13:13
Speaker 3: not considering long term goals. Why disregulated, So you end
13:16
Speaker 3: up with biting and the kicking and the swearing and
13:18
Speaker 3: the spitting and the crying and the clenching fists and
13:20
Speaker 3: the slamming of the doors. That's classic fight mode.
13:23
Speaker 2: So, you know, I've never actually thought about it. But
13:26
Speaker 2: toddlers obviously are a perfect case study of this. But
13:30
Speaker 2: I've never thought of it as fight mode. But when
13:33
Speaker 2: they get really worked up, they do.
13:36
Speaker 3: They just want to fight, right, That's exactly what it is.
13:39
Speaker 1: What's really going on is the front lobe shuts down.
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Speaker 3: That's the part of the brain that does the thinking,
13:42
Speaker 3: the planning course with the toddle that don't even really
13:44
Speaker 3: have a frontal.
13:45
Speaker 1: Lobe, it's barely there.
13:47
Speaker 3: The amygdala that triggers survival mode, and so canborm.
13:51
Speaker 1: It all happens.
13:52
Speaker 3: The brain's alarm system sends out a false alarm, triggers
13:54
Speaker 3: survival instinct, and then it's fight or flight, and kids
13:57
Speaker 3: just don't access the higher cognitive function like reasoning and
14:01
Speaker 3: decision making. It just doesn't happen. So as parents, we've
14:05
Speaker 3: got some really big challenges when it comes to children,
14:08
Speaker 3: and they're disregulated emotions, but so much of it is
14:11
Speaker 3: developmentally appropriate, and our job is to help them through
14:15
Speaker 3: those years from three to nine to slowly, very slowly
14:19
Speaker 3: develop the emotional regulation they need.
14:22
Speaker 2: But big emotions, they're normal and healthy. It's really important
14:28
Speaker 2: for us to be able to express our emotions.
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Speaker 3: We are first and foremost emotional beings. Now that's not
14:35
Speaker 3: necessarily in our best interest, but first and foremost we're
14:38
Speaker 3: emotional beings, and then we are rational beings.
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Speaker 1: Second.
14:41
Speaker 3: I love it's quote from Brenne Brown. She says, when
14:43
Speaker 3: something difficult happens, emotion is at the wheel. Cognition and
14:48
Speaker 3: behavior are bound and gagged in the trunk, and emotion
14:52
Speaker 3: is driving. And that's kind of what's going on. I mean,
14:56
Speaker 3: it's such a really I love the metaphor. When we
14:58
Speaker 3: spoke with Lisa de Moore on the Happy Families podcast
15:00
Speaker 3: a little while ago, in the episode that we shared
15:03
Speaker 3: with her, she said two.
15:04
Speaker 1: Brilliant things about emotions.
15:06
Speaker 3: Number One, sometimes our kids and sometimes us as well,
15:09
Speaker 3: become regulated by expressing emotions in a disregulated way. So
15:13
Speaker 3: we've got to work through the disregulation. And I remember
15:16
Speaker 3: when we had young kids, Kylie, every now and again
15:19
Speaker 3: you would just say, this baby will not go to sleep,
15:20
Speaker 3: and it pained both of us, but you would sometimes
15:23
Speaker 3: just put the baby in the cot for five or
15:24
Speaker 3: ten minutes and they would scream their lungs out, and
15:27
Speaker 3: we'd sit there going, oh, my goodness, what are we doing.
15:29
Speaker 3: But once they'd had a big scream, we'd pick them up.
15:32
Speaker 3: They felt safe and secure, they'd have a feed, and
15:34
Speaker 3: they would go to sleep perfectly. Now we're not recommending
15:36
Speaker 3: that you do that every night or anything like that,
15:37
Speaker 3: but from time to time you would say, sometimes they
15:41
Speaker 3: just need to scream. And that's that wholely said to
15:43
Speaker 3: more thing. Sometimes when you disregulated, you just have to
15:45
Speaker 3: be disregulated to work through the disregulation.
15:48
Speaker 1: And pull it back together.
15:50
Speaker 3: And the second thing she said is that, and this
15:52
Speaker 3: is picking up on the whole Brene Brown idea. Emotions
15:55
Speaker 3: should have a seed at the table of your cognitive
15:58
Speaker 3: board of directors. But they don't chair the board. That's
16:01
Speaker 3: our job to make sure that they're not chairing the board.
16:04
Speaker 2: Recently, you were having some Spanish lessons.
16:07
Speaker 3: Ah see, see.
16:09
Speaker 2: You came across you wanted to say.
16:12
Speaker 3: I'm hungry, yes, yes, And.
16:14
Speaker 2: When you looked at the translation, it wasn't I am hungry,
16:19
Speaker 2: it was I have hunger.
16:21
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the difference between associating the emotion with who
16:27
Speaker 2: you are and the acknowledgment that what you have is
16:32
Speaker 2: an emotion is a really important differentiation. Yes.
16:37
Speaker 3: So instead of saying I am hungry in Spanish, they
16:41
Speaker 3: would say tengo hungry, and tengo means I have So
16:45
Speaker 3: if I was to say no, tengo pisos, I'd be
16:47
Speaker 3: saying I don't have any pesos. So I would say,
16:50
Speaker 3: tengo hungry. I'm hungry, but it's not actually I'm hungry,
16:53
Speaker 3: it's I have hunger. In other words, I don't I
16:57
Speaker 3: am not this emotion. I'm not angry or I'm not sad.
17:00
Speaker 3: I have sadness. And I love that because it means
17:03
Speaker 3: that it comes and it goes. It's not always with us.
17:06
Speaker 3: And that idea of tengo hungri, I just I think
17:09
Speaker 3: it's beautiful. Anyway, we need to wrap up, so let's
17:12
Speaker 3: share just a couple of quick ideas about what we
17:14
Speaker 3: can do if we want the kids to regulate well.
17:17
Speaker 3: First thing, recognize the developmental realities. If they're age between
17:20
Speaker 3: three and nine, the younger they are, the harder it
17:22
Speaker 3: is for them to do the emotional work of regulating
17:25
Speaker 3: their emotions. They're going to spend more time disregulated when
17:27
Speaker 3: things aren't working out. Number two, be regulated yourself.
17:34
Speaker 1: You're laughing.
17:35
Speaker 3: I don't know if you're laughing at me or laughing
17:36
Speaker 3: at you, but you're thinking about last week when I
17:38
Speaker 3: lost it.
17:39
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm laughing about it all because the reality is
17:43
Speaker 2: probably the hardest thing we do as parents when our
17:46
Speaker 2: children's emotions are massive is actually being self regulated.
17:51
Speaker 3: Right, Because emotions are contagious.
17:53
Speaker 2: So you make it sound like it's just a really
17:55
Speaker 2: easy checkpoint.
17:56
Speaker 1: We just need to be Just regulate yourself. You'll be fine.
18:00
Speaker 3: Okay, their kids, they're going to lose it. Your job
18:02
Speaker 3: is to go you're a kid, you're losing it. I
18:04
Speaker 3: get it.
18:04
Speaker 1: It's not a problem. That's the job, right.
18:07
Speaker 3: Number three, The more that you can create a predictable
18:10
Speaker 3: and safe environment, the better it is for your kids.
18:12
Speaker 3: If the environment is unpredictable and unsafe, your why your
18:15
Speaker 3: kids for stress, which means that they're highly reactive. They
18:17
Speaker 3: spend more time just regulated. Now, that doesn't mean that
18:20
Speaker 3: we need to make the environment completely safe all the time.
18:22
Speaker 3: Research shows that kids do need to have some unpredictability,
18:26
Speaker 3: and they especially need to do stuff that's risky. It
18:28
Speaker 3: helps them to manage their emotions really well when they're
18:30
Speaker 3: involved in risky play, really healthy for them.
18:33
Speaker 2: But I think that it's different. It's about being emotionally safe.
18:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, it is.
18:41
Speaker 2: So One thing that I've really really noticed since we've
18:44
Speaker 2: brought Emily home from school and she's now homeschooling, is
18:49
Speaker 2: that she's so much karma. She is so much calmer
18:54
Speaker 2: and the reality is I'm not doing things perfectly by any.
18:58
Speaker 3: Stress and feels so much more safe and predictable for her.
19:02
Speaker 2: She feels so much more connected to me, but calmer
19:07
Speaker 2: because there's predictability in the emotions within our space.
19:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:11
Speaker 3: We expect so little of our kids physically in twenty
19:14
Speaker 3: twenty four and so much of our kids emotionally, and
19:18
Speaker 3: we've got it the wrong way around. We should expect
19:20
Speaker 3: a little less of them emotionally because they're kids and
19:22
Speaker 3: they're still regular learning how to regulate, and we should
19:25
Speaker 3: be letting them go and do so much more physically,
19:27
Speaker 3: like get outside and take risks and have fun and
19:29
Speaker 3: climb trees and ride skateboards and go to the park
19:31
Speaker 3: on your own because you eight like, go and do that.
19:34
Speaker 1: Now.
19:34
Speaker 3: I know context is everything, So please don't have a
19:36
Speaker 3: heart attack if you live in a place where you
19:37
Speaker 3: couldn't let you right year old do that.
19:39
Speaker 1: But we can let it anyway. I digress.
19:41
Speaker 3: Last thing, hold the line. We need to be We
19:43
Speaker 3: need to really be compassionate, but we've got to hold
19:45
Speaker 3: the line, have boundaries, but be really kind to our kids.
19:48
Speaker 3: And if we can do those things, then they're going
19:50
Speaker 3: to get better and better at emotional regulation. Over time,
19:53
Speaker 3: they'll be less disregulated. And most parents are going to
19:55
Speaker 3: be saying to me, my kids are so disregulated, what
19:57
Speaker 3: do I do? I think you've left something off the list,
20:00
Speaker 3: pot if I've forgotten.
20:01
Speaker 2: Well it's not. It is actually on the list.
20:04
Speaker 1: Okay.
20:04
Speaker 2: But you talk about us needing to be regulated ourselves,
20:09
Speaker 2: it has so much to do with how we model
20:12
Speaker 2: what it looks like to be emotionally regulated to allow
20:17
Speaker 2: them to see us with our big emotions working through it.
20:22
Speaker 2: They don't need us to be happy and cheerful all
20:25
Speaker 2: the time. That doesn't help them at all. They actually
20:29
Speaker 2: need to see us working through some really big emotions.
20:32
Speaker 3: Because in a regulated way where we're taking autonomy and
20:35
Speaker 3: control and looking after ourselves.
20:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, they need to see that because they need to
20:40
Speaker 2: know number one, it's okay to have those emotions, and
20:43
Speaker 2: number two, there is a better way to get through
20:46
Speaker 2: it than kicking and screaming.
20:47
Speaker 3: I hope this has been a helpful conversation. The Happy
20:49
Speaker 3: Families Podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from Bridge Media.
20:52
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