Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Helping Kids Manage Big Feelings

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Helping Kids Manage Big Feelings · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: This is the Happy Families Podcast, the place you come
0:08
Speaker 1: when the kids are having big feelings, because that is
0:12
Speaker 1: what we do. We help you to navigate those. Picture
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Speaker 1: it your six year old having a meltdown because their
0:18
Speaker 1: toast broken half, Your nine year old sobbing because their
0:21
Speaker 1: friend didn't sit with them at lunch. Your teenager has
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Speaker 1: just slammed the door because you asked them to put
0:27
Speaker 1: the phone down for dinner. How dare you? And somewhere
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Speaker 1: in the back of your mind, you're kind of thinking,
0:31
Speaker 1: why can't they just manage their emotions like a normal person.
0:34
Speaker 1: So here's the plot twist. They're not supposed to. In fact,
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Speaker 1: expecting your children to regulate their big feelings is kind
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Speaker 1: of like expecting them to drive a car before they've
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Speaker 1: learned to walk. Today, we're busting the biggest myth in
0:47
Speaker 1: parenting that kids should be able to handle their emotions
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Speaker 1: on their own, and we're going to give you the
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Speaker 1: science backed strategies that actually work when your child's emotional
0:57
Speaker 1: world explodes. Stay with us, could they Welcome to the
1:04
Speaker 1: Heavy Families Podcast, Real parenting solutions every single day. My
1:07
Speaker 1: name's Justin with Kylie, my wife and mum. Do our
1:10
Speaker 1: six kids. The most popular topics in terms of downloads
1:13
Speaker 1: on this podcast ADHD and emotion dysregulation. Today we tackle
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Speaker 1: the latter big emotions with some quick reminders and some
1:23
Speaker 1: useful tips for your child's next temper, tantrum, or emotional moment. Kylie,
1:29
Speaker 1: you're looking at me with a strange look on your face.
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Speaker 1: It looks like you're about to have a big emotion
1:32
Speaker 1: because your microphone has been switched off. I just realized
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Speaker 1: you're not saying anything. It is because I haven't turned
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Speaker 1: your mic on. I'm so sorry.
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Speaker 2: I find it curious and I fall into the same
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Speaker 2: trap that we're asking our children, yes, with their lack
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Speaker 2: of experience, lack of developmental progress, and just.
1:53
Speaker 1: A lack of time in the world. Yeah yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: to be able.
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Speaker 2: To regulate their emotions when even us as the big people,
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Speaker 2: really struggle from time to time.
2:01
Speaker 1: And when you say from time to time, you mean
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Speaker 1: most days.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, most days.
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Speaker 1: So let's start with the reality. I think that's just
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Speaker 1: this may be a sanity saver. Kids aren't supposed to
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Speaker 1: manage their big feelings. I mean, we want them to,
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Speaker 1: and eventually they will, but their brains are their brains
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Speaker 1: are wearing l plates, alplates, as in like a learner
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Speaker 1: plate that you put on the back of the car
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Speaker 1: that says, I still don't really know what I'm doing here.
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Speaker 1: Even more practically, kids start to develop some sort of
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Speaker 1: emotion regulation. Let's get clear on the definition of emotion regulation,
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Speaker 1: the ability to either turn your emotions up or down
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Speaker 1: based on the context and consistent with your long term goals.
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Speaker 1: Like three year olds don't have long term goals. They
2:46
Speaker 1: have immediate goals. They want instant gratification. They don't understand
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Speaker 1: the idea of frustration tolerance, and it's inappropriate developmentally for
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Speaker 1: us to be trying to teach them that in any
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Speaker 1: meaningful way.
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Speaker 2: But I also think that as a society we actually
3:00
Speaker 2: looked down on big emotions. If someone's overly excited, it
3:05
Speaker 2: makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable. Often, if somebody's
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Speaker 2: overly angry, that leaves everybody definitely feeling uncomfortable. So in
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Speaker 2: some ways it's a little bit counter to what we're
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Speaker 2: actually wanting our children to do. We're wanting them to
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Speaker 2: experience their emotions and understand them, but we're also going
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Speaker 2: just make sure it's not too much.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's appropriate that we want to help them.
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Speaker 1: This is called socialization, right, That's what our job as
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Speaker 1: parents is to socialize our kids. But they don't start
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Speaker 1: to get this until the age of three in a
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Speaker 1: really rudimentary way. And on average, most kids will be
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Speaker 1: able to have their emotions reasonably well regulated most of
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Speaker 1: the time.
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Speaker 2: By I love how you're sliding down, I would have.
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Speaker 1: Put a thousand caveats in here, because it depends on
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Speaker 1: how hungry and how tired, and how stressed and how
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Speaker 1: worked up and all those things. They are, right, I mean,
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Speaker 1: I'm saying nine. But one of my favorite things to
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Speaker 1: do when I'm teaching this stuff in my workshops and
4:01
Speaker 1: my presentations, I mean schools or corporations, and I'll talk
4:05
Speaker 1: about emotional regulation. I'll say, put up your hand and
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Speaker 1: tell me how old do you think the average child
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Speaker 1: is when they can regulate most of their emotions most
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Speaker 1: of the time under fairly standard circumstances. And usually the
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Speaker 1: first response from somebody who thinks they're so funny is
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Speaker 1: they'll say forty three, and then everyone will guff or
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Speaker 1: because it is just naturally it's hard to do this.
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Speaker 1: We are, as Brene Brown says, emotional beings first, and
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Speaker 1: when something happens, our rational brain has been bound and
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Speaker 1: gagged and stuck in the boot, and the emotions are
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Speaker 1: driving this down the highway. If that's the case for
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Speaker 1: us as adults, because we haven't understood principles of stolicism,
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Speaker 1: for example, we don't know how to regulate ourselves. Well,
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Speaker 1: what chance do our children have at the age of three,
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Speaker 1: or four, or five, or at the age of sixteen
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Speaker 1: when their brain's going through that second brain explosion. So
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Speaker 1: I guess there's one of my that I want to
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Speaker 1: pick up on now that you've pulled me up on that.
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Speaker 1: With all of my caveats, I did say most of
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Speaker 1: the time, and I did say on average, because even
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Speaker 1: when we're regulated, forty three year old still going to
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Speaker 1: have moments with emotions overwhelming the capacity.
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Speaker 2: You know, you're not forty three anymore.
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Speaker 1: I'm not talking about me. If I was talking about me,
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Speaker 1: i'd say almost fifty year old. I had this happened
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Speaker 1: to me the other night. I'm going to share it
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Speaker 1: on them. Oh, this is a hard thing for me
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Speaker 1: to say. But I walked into the house and we've
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Speaker 1: got a twenty two year old, an eighteen year old,
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Speaker 1: a fifteen year old and an eleven year old, and
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Speaker 1: they're all doing stuff all and the house looks like
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Speaker 1: a bomb's gone off, and they it's like they're oblivious
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Speaker 1: to the fact that there's work to be done. And
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Speaker 1: I feel like I work pretty hard, and I feel
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Speaker 1: like you work pretty hard. We don't stop. And I
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Speaker 1: didn't regulate particularly well. I'm just saying, I mean I
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Speaker 1: didn't lose it, but I was not as regulated as
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Speaker 1: they're used to seeing me. I had some congestions for
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Speaker 1: them as to what might happen and when it might happen,
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Speaker 1: and why it shouldn't be me or you that was
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Speaker 1: doing it. Anyway, let's move on with this. In twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty five, we talk about dysregulation, we talk about neurodevelopmental
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Speaker 1: challenges and trauma. But what I want to emphasize here
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Speaker 1: is it's normal and natural to struggle to manage big feelings.
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Speaker 1: And a lot of the time what we're dealing with
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Speaker 1: is a stage, and a lot of the time we're
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Speaker 1: dealing with humanity and being a human And we just
6:28
Speaker 1: need to trust our kids in eate development and trust
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Speaker 1: that we are setting a good example. And when you
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Speaker 1: understand that that's when everything changes. Instead of thinking why
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Speaker 1: can't you just calm down and why can't you be
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Speaker 1: like everybody else's children, what you do is you start thinking,
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Speaker 1: all right, how can I help my child to get
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Speaker 1: through this while their brain is learning how to do
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Speaker 1: it on their own.
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Speaker 2: I'm thinking back to my experience as a young mum,
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Speaker 2: young Kylie, dealing with young children and specifically a future
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Speaker 2: and with really big emotions, and those emotions would often
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Speaker 2: present themselves at the most inconvenient time. They were, you know,
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Speaker 2: as we're walking into the school ground and parents were everywhere,
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Speaker 2: or we were in the grocery store buying groceries, and
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Speaker 2: there's people everywhere, and my initial thought was not for
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Speaker 2: the care of my child. My initial thought in those
7:24
Speaker 2: moments was everybody's looking at me. They're wanting me to
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Speaker 2: do X, Y and Z, and if I don't do
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Speaker 2: the right thing, then I'm a bad parent.
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Speaker 1: Ego and pride and comparison and there's.
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Speaker 2: So much pressure around that and we're well meaning, but
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Speaker 2: so often the comments that we make to other parents
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Speaker 2: in those moments, or the looks that we give them
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Speaker 2: just feel judgmental. What they actually need is a pat
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Speaker 2: on the back and say it's okay, today's going to
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Speaker 2: be okay, or can I help, or any number of
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Speaker 2: things than what we often say. But if we can
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Speaker 2: turn our attention not to how we're feeling, but to
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Speaker 2: have compassion for our child with the big emotions and
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Speaker 2: recognize that this is part of the human experience, we're
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Speaker 2: going to present ourselves differently. We're going to show up
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Speaker 2: differently for our kids in that moment.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we are. So after the break, we're
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Speaker 1: going to talk about a couple of things that you
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Speaker 1: can do when the kids are having really big emotions
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Speaker 1: so that they can and you can navigate it in
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Speaker 1: a way that everybody can feel good about, and somehow
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Speaker 1: you can look beyond the upturned nerveses and what we
8:34
Speaker 1: might perceive as judgment from other parents. I reckon most
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Speaker 1: parents are not actually judging you. They're quite compassionate because
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Speaker 1: they've been there, and the ones that are you don't
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Speaker 1: need to worry about it anyway, because they're not the
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Speaker 1: kind of people that you want to hang around with.
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Speaker 1: Let's talk about solutions in just a sec Stay with us.
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Speaker 1: We're back with the Happy Families podcast Real Parenting Solutions.
8:59
Speaker 1: Every single day. All right, Kylie, we need to talk
9:02
Speaker 1: about how we're supposed to guide our children through their
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Speaker 1: really big emotions. I want to go through a couple
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Speaker 1: fairly quickly. Feel free to chuck anything in that you've
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Speaker 1: got in your mind. Here the first one I want
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Speaker 1: to talk about as the solution to big emotions. This distraction.
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Speaker 1: Distraction works. It gets a bad rap because we think
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Speaker 1: it's avoiding the problem, and if we use distraction consistently
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Speaker 1: then that's what it might be doing. But here's the neuroscience.
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Speaker 1: Child's emotional brain gets activated, thinking brain goes offline. You
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Speaker 1: can't reason with a disregulated nervous system high emotions, low intelligence,
9:35
Speaker 1: can't think straight in a high emotion state, all those
9:37
Speaker 1: things that we talk about on the pod all the time.
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Speaker 1: Distraction works because it gives the emotional storm time to
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Speaker 1: pass and it engages a different part of the brain.
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Speaker 1: So when your toddler is having that melt down over
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Speaker 1: the broken toast, pointing out the bird outside the window
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Speaker 1: is not a dismissal of their feelings. It's just giving
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Speaker 1: their nervous system a chance to reset. Some people will think, oh,
10:00
Speaker 1: you're rewarding bad behavior. I don't think so I think
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Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're giving a child the best
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Speaker 1: chance possible to pull it together. Distraction buys you time
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Speaker 1: for their system to calm down enough that they're thinking
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Speaker 1: brain can come back online.
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Speaker 2: What I love about this particular strategy is the fact
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Speaker 2: that it doesn't leave my child in distress for long
10:21
Speaker 2: periods of time. When our granddaughter shows up and she
10:26
Speaker 2: spends some time with us and she might hurt herself,
10:29
Speaker 2: she will get really upset, and especially because Mum's not here,
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Speaker 2: and she, you know, kind of naturally is drawn to
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Speaker 2: go to Mum. And I'll just start singing with her,
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Speaker 2: and it's amazing how quickly she kind of shuffles away
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Speaker 2: from that massive emotion to a joyful moment.
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Speaker 1: Even with our bigger kids, like in their teens, having
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Speaker 1: a bad moment, Let's go for a walk like nature
10:50
Speaker 1: is great, by the way, as a way to regulate
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Speaker 1: your emotions. Being in nature really really helps a lot.
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Speaker 1: But just going and doing something different, shifting your brain
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Speaker 1: into a different space, playing a game. I'm not big
11:02
Speaker 1: on this, but even watching TV for half an hour
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Speaker 1: just to bring it all back down, you still will
11:07
Speaker 1: usually need more than that. If you're going to use
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Speaker 1: a screen as a distraction. It's not particularly effective and
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Speaker 1: it gets used as an escape too much. But anyway,
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Speaker 1: that's my first one. Let's talk about the second one, coregulation.
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Speaker 1: If your child will allow it. So remember high emotions,
11:20
Speaker 1: low intelligence. You might try to be close to your
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Speaker 1: child with their emotional and they're kicking and punching and
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Speaker 1: screaming and saying leave me alone, leave me like really
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Speaker 1: losing it when they're doing that. Give them the space
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Speaker 1: that they want. One of my favorite lines has always been,
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Speaker 1: do you want me to be with you and give
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Speaker 1: you a heart good? Just want some space?
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Speaker 2: Yeah?
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Speaker 1: I love that one, and I know I use it
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Speaker 1: with you all the time because it doesn't just work
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Speaker 1: with kids. I think coregulation is an incredible web. It's
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Speaker 1: a secret weapon, but that crucial caveat is really at
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Speaker 1: the heart of it. Some kids don't want to allow it,
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Speaker 1: and that's okay. You've got to respect their need for space.
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Speaker 1: For the kids who will let your help, the magic
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Speaker 1: formula is really simple. You say what you see and
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Speaker 1: then you listen. So it might be I can see
12:01
Speaker 1: really frustrated right now, and then just stop talking, or
12:04
Speaker 1: sometimes your sister really bugs you, doesn't she and then
12:07
Speaker 1: stop talking. You want to jump in with solutions, you
12:10
Speaker 1: want to jump in with explanations, you want to jump
12:12
Speaker 1: in with life lessons. But instead I heard somebody use
12:15
Speaker 1: this phrase, just bear witness. Just bear witness to their
12:19
Speaker 1: experience and their challenge, and let them know that you
12:22
Speaker 1: can see it. Because when you are calm, you will
12:26
Speaker 1: help regulate their nervous system. But only if they're not
12:30
Speaker 1: feeling crowded or controlled. And if they say leave me alone,
12:33
Speaker 1: then honor that some kids need to process things internally
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Speaker 1: before they can connect with others. You can say, hey,
12:40
Speaker 1: I'm here when you're ready. I've often said to our kids,
12:42
Speaker 1: you can come and get a hug from me in
12:45
Speaker 1: the next five minutes, or I'm going to check in
12:47
Speaker 1: with you in two minutes and see how you're going,
12:49
Speaker 1: and then you just give them the gift of space.
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Speaker 1: Cod regulation is not forced connection, it's offered connection.
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Speaker 2: The acknowledgement that our whole experience is not supposed to
13:00
Speaker 2: be done alone in this world, We're actually supposed to
13:03
Speaker 2: do it together. And the idea that we can utilize
13:10
Speaker 2: someone else's calm, we can catch someone else's calm when
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Speaker 2: we're having these really big emotions. Is so powerful. I
13:17
Speaker 2: love that there are a couple of safe places that
13:20
Speaker 2: I can go to when I'm feeling really, really stuck
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Speaker 2: in big emotions.
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Speaker 1: So that's the critical thing. You're talking about what you
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Speaker 1: want as an adult when you're feeling emotional, and the
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Speaker 1: kids are the same. It's just that we don't give
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Speaker 1: it to them.
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Speaker 2: We as because we find their emotions they're inconvenience. They
13:36
Speaker 2: never happen when we've got the time and the energy
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Speaker 2: and the space.
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Speaker 1: You know, it happened when we're not in the middle
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Speaker 1: of a really important email or a really important game,
13:43
Speaker 1: or stirring the sauce but on the stove, or try
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Speaker 1: to get somewhere and do something that's that's that's reality.
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Speaker 1: It's just a pain.
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Speaker 2: But isn't that parenting. There's nothing convenient about it?
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Speaker 1: Really, Yeah, that's right. I was going to say, if
13:56
Speaker 1: you wanted to be convenient, get a dog, but even dogs, No, no,
13:59
Speaker 1: just don't do it. And I don't have a pet either. No,
14:02
Speaker 1: but you don't have kids because you want a convenient life.
14:04
Speaker 1: They give you that meaning, that purpose. All right, our
14:06
Speaker 1: time is all but up. We need to wrap this up.
14:08
Speaker 2: Well, what's the last one.
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Speaker 1: Well, there's a million more that we could talk about,
14:11
Speaker 1: but the last one that I wanted to talk about
14:13
Speaker 1: today was just the natural inclination that we had to
14:16
Speaker 1: try to fix things, Like when the kids are having
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Speaker 1: big emotions, we want to fix it, we want to
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Speaker 1: calm them down, we want to get everything sorted out.
14:21
Speaker 1: And I think the ability to stop and not try
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Speaker 1: to fix things immediately might be the hardest, but probably
14:30
Speaker 1: the most important when it comes to kids. In emotional regulation,
14:33
Speaker 1: the rules as follows, no problem solving until emotions are stable.
14:39
Speaker 2: If we go back to your original conversation around distraction
14:44
Speaker 2: actually works, especially when we're dealing with older children, we
14:49
Speaker 2: don't just because you've distracted them in the moment doesn't
14:52
Speaker 2: mean that you can't revisit it. But once their emotions
14:55
Speaker 2: are calm, that's when you're actually able to do the
14:59
Speaker 2: heavy lifting when it comes to processing emotion.
15:02
Speaker 1: If you're trying to problem solve during emotional dysregulation, aslect.
15:06
Speaker 2: Or even speak logic to an illogic.
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Speaker 1: No, it's like trying to have a board meeting during
15:11
Speaker 1: a fire drill. The alarms are sounding and everyone's running
15:14
Speaker 1: out of the building. You're saying no, no, no, But we
15:15
Speaker 1: need to sit down and have this conversation about these
15:18
Speaker 1: finances and the rest of the board's going not now,
15:21
Speaker 1: this is not the time for it. No one can
15:23
Speaker 1: think clearly. Everyone's in survival mode. We just need to
15:26
Speaker 1: wait until emotions to return to baseline, because then we
15:29
Speaker 1: can have a conversation without the emotional charge, and that's
15:32
Speaker 1: when you get to move into problem solving.
15:34
Speaker 2: And I love the way that Disney movie Inside Out
15:38
Speaker 2: depicts what's going on up inside a brain when these
15:42
Speaker 2: big emotions are being felt. And the thing that stands
15:46
Speaker 2: out to me is that often there's not just one
15:48
Speaker 2: emotion that's trying to take control of the situation. There's
15:52
Speaker 2: multiple emotions, and so that's where these big feelings come from,
15:56
Speaker 2: because you're trying to understand what it is you're feeling,
16:00
Speaker 2: but there's too many emotions to kind of work it
16:02
Speaker 2: all out in that moment.
16:03
Speaker 1: So there's some ideas that should be helpful. I mean,
16:05
Speaker 1: we could talk about this for hours. There's so much
16:07
Speaker 1: more that we could have discussed. I do want to
16:08
Speaker 1: highlight this though. Sometimes sometimes you just need to let
16:11
Speaker 1: them have their tantrum. Sometimes nothing you can do is
16:14
Speaker 1: going to make any different. Sometimes they're just upset and
16:16
Speaker 1: they're going to blow their top. And the interesting thing
16:19
Speaker 1: about emotions is they're just like waves on the beach.
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Speaker 1: They come in and then they go out. Some ways
16:25
Speaker 1: is bigger than others, and some ways kind of knock
16:26
Speaker 1: you down, but they always go back out and you
16:29
Speaker 1: can get back up and dry off and work things out.
16:33
Speaker 1: You're the parent, make the call if they need to
16:35
Speaker 1: have that moment, let them scream, just give them the
16:38
Speaker 1: space and go back to them when things are level
16:40
Speaker 1: and balanced. Really hope that some ideas here have helped
16:44
Speaker 1: with your children and their big emotions and the stages
16:46
Speaker 1: they go through. If you know somebody who would benefit
16:48
Speaker 1: from this podcast, please share it. The more we share
16:51
Speaker 1: the pot, the more you share the pod, the more
16:52
Speaker 1: families we get to help in the bigger influence we
16:54
Speaker 1: get to have on the world, which is what we're
16:56
Speaker 1: looking for. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
16:59
Speaker 1: Rulin from Bridge Media. Mimhammonds assists with research, admin and
17:03
Speaker 1: other support, and there's a whole lot of resources to
17:05
Speaker 1: help you with all of these challenges and more at
17:07
Speaker 1: happy families dot com. Dot au