Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Best of 2023 #5 - #706 Gentle Parenting: Is It a Fad or Fabulous?

Transcript

Best of 2023 #5 - #706 Gentle Parenting: Is It a Fad or Fabulous? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Now, Hi, and welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. I'm
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  Speaker 2: doctor Justin Colson. This year, we have had so many
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: people get so much out of our podcast and we're
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: so grateful for that.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening. This week, we're playing down the.
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  Speaker 2: Top five podcasts of the year, the podcasts that had
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  Speaker 2: more impact on people than any others, based on the
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  Speaker 2: number of downloads we've had, the number of people.
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  Speaker 1: Have been checking in.
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  Speaker 2: Our fifth most downloaded episode of the year was a
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  Speaker 2: conversation with doctor Mona Della Hook.
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  Speaker 1: She was talking about Gentle.
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  Speaker 2: Parenting and her brand new book, Hope you enjoy this one.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Today.
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  Speaker 2: A guest on the podcast that I have been following
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  Speaker 2: from a distance for ages, I'd like to say a decade.
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  Speaker 2: It may be something like that, a bit more, a
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  Speaker 2: bit less, but this is somebody who I just.
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  Speaker 1: Think gets it when it comes to parenting.
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  Speaker 2: And I finally pluck up the courage to get my
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  Speaker 2: team to send an email through and I got an
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  Speaker 2: instant yes, A warm and enthusiastic, a positive instant yes,
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  Speaker 2: which was such a thrill doctor Mona Dela Hook is
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  Speaker 2: an author, a psychologist, and has written a book called
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  Speaker 2: Brain Body Parenting when it comes to compassion and kindness
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  Speaker 2: and helping parents to get this stuff right in ways
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  Speaker 2: that we can all feel good about. I don't know
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  Speaker 2: anyone who does this as well as doctor Dellahook. So Mona,
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  Speaker 2: welcome to The Happy Family's podcast, and thank you so
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  Speaker 2: much for joining me for this conversation today.
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  Speaker 3: Oh justin, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you
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  Speaker 3: for inviting me.
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  Speaker 2: I want to start off by talking about your book,
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  Speaker 2: because it really is beautiful, but it ignited something of
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  Speaker 2: a controversy.
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  Speaker 1: Around the idea of gentle parenting.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I know that your ideas on this are kind
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  Speaker 2: of well, quite similar to mine, but can you tell
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  Speaker 2: me a bit about the controversy and what the deal
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  Speaker 2: is with this whole gentle parenting thing that, thanks to
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  Speaker 2: tea talk primarily, has just exploded around the world in
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  Speaker 2: the last eighteen to twenty four months.
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  Speaker 3: Yes. Well, it's so interesting to see people's reactions to
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  Speaker 3: books that talk about compassion first right, and how relationships
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  Speaker 3: are like the foundation, the bedrock of child development. So
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  Speaker 3: when certain people heard the word gentle parenting. And it's
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  Speaker 3: not just my book. There's been quite a few books
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  Speaker 3: in the last you know, five or so years on
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  Speaker 3: this kind of new way of parenting as opposed to
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  Speaker 3: maybe what we would think about as traditional parenting. Right,
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  Speaker 3: So we might think of traditional parenting as more authoritarian,
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  Speaker 3: and that would include maybe the parents as the ultimate experts,
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  Speaker 3: and it might include punishments or or rewards, but it
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  Speaker 3: would kind of focus on behaviors, on surface behaviors, and
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  Speaker 3: parents kind of judging behaviors is good or bad and
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  Speaker 3: then having a certain response to those behaviors. And so
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  Speaker 3: the word gentle parenting really doesn't describe a certain parenting style.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's more of a catch all phrase for
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  Speaker 3: this new type of parenting. And as you know, coming
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  Speaker 3: out of the positive psychology movement in the nineteen nineties,
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  Speaker 3: positive parenting has come on board. And that is I
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  Speaker 3: think a reaction that parents have to maybe the way
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  Speaker 3: they were raised or their grandparents were raised, right, which
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  Speaker 3: wasn't very steeped in a knowledge of child development and
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  Speaker 3: emotional literacy and all that good stuff. One article that
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  Speaker 3: was written about gentle parenting said something like, so are
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  Speaker 3: these gentle parents never saying no. And are these gentle
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  Speaker 3: parents letting their caids throw rocks at cars as they
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  Speaker 3: drive by, you know? And there is I think this
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  Speaker 3: misconception that gentle parenting is parenting that is coddling or
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  Speaker 3: never or doesn't have any sort of boundaries, and that's
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  Speaker 3: really not the case. But people I think who are
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  Speaker 3: concerned that parenting approaches don't have a level of boundaries
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  Speaker 3: and parents as the guide and as the authority, mistake
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  Speaker 3: that word. So it's not coddling in my opinion. And
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  Speaker 3: the research that I'm particularly interested in and wrote my
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  Speaker 3: book about is actually I sub a topic of gentle parenting,
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  Speaker 3: which is responsive parenting that's linked in the literature to
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  Speaker 3: a lot of great things, a lot of great pieces
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  Speaker 3: of development, especially resilience.
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  Speaker 2: When we look at this idea of gentle parenting, people
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  Speaker 2: seem to push against it because of the concept of permissiveness. Right,
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  Speaker 2: if you're going to be gentle, that means you can say, oh,
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  Speaker 2: that's okay, sweetheart, it's just fine.
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  Speaker 1: Don't worry about it.
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  Speaker 2: You can do whatever you like, and I look after
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  Speaker 2: you don't worry about that. And I like this distinction
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  Speaker 2: that you draw between the concept of being a gentle parent,
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  Speaker 2: which I also chafe at. I don't find that helpful
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  Speaker 2: and this idea of being.
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  Speaker 1: A responsive parent.
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  Speaker 2: Can you describe a little bit more about responsive parenting
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  Speaker 2: and what that looks like, what that means.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, And I'm glad you brought the word up permissive
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  Speaker 3: because that's another that's another myth I think that's around there,
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  Speaker 3: that if you're a gentle parent, that you're permissive, that
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  Speaker 3: you don't say no, right, so, yeah, and absolutely you
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  Speaker 3: know if you don't say no, that would be a
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  Speaker 3: problem because children, obviously toddlers can't raise themselves, and children
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  Speaker 3: do need guidance. The world of responsive care and responsive
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  Speaker 3: parenting has to do with customizing our interactions to what
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  Speaker 3: each child needs in real time. What does that mean.
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  Speaker 3: It means reading a child's cues, looking at what we
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  Speaker 3: call their nervous system, which is your brain and body
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  Speaker 3: are always creating behaviors. Behaviors don't come out of nowhere.
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  Speaker 3: They're very meaningful and they mean something. And what challenging
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  Speaker 3: behaviors are with many parents are concerned about behavioral challenges
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  Speaker 3: or oppositional defiance, those kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: What we know.
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  Speaker 3: Now is that those kinds of behaviors are generally stress
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  Speaker 3: responses in the nervous system. So responsive parenting looks thinks
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  Speaker 3: of behaviors as the tip of the iceberg, and we
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  Speaker 3: go below the waterline and we really understand. We take
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  Speaker 3: time to understand what's the child experiencing right now, what's
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  Speaker 3: driving this behavior, and then we go for that supporting
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  Speaker 3: that at that level, not just saying, oh, you're misbehaving.
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  Speaker 3: You know, you have to go to your room, or
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  Speaker 3: you you know, you lose out on dessert tonight, something
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  Speaker 3: like that.
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  Speaker 2: When I talk about these kinds of ideas with parents, Mona,
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  Speaker 2: and I'm sure this happens to you as well, parents
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  Speaker 2: will say, well, that's all well and good that there's
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  Speaker 2: some sort of unmet need driving the behavior. You're telling
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  Speaker 2: me that I'm supposed to figure out what the need is,
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  Speaker 2: but I don't want to meet the need because this
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  Speaker 2: is not going to reinforce the bad behavior. A lot
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  Speaker 2: of parents will actually see this as being another form
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  Speaker 2: of permissiveness or a form of reinforcement. What's your response
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  Speaker 2: when parents say that kind of thing.
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  Speaker 3: I don't actually believe that all misbehaviors are unmet needs.
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  Speaker 3: So I very much appreciate the work of Ross Green,
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  Speaker 3: and he says that all misbehaviors are unmet needs. But
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  Speaker 3: here's a different lens for that. Agitated behaviors and extreme
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  Speaker 3: misbehaviors are evidence of nervous system distress and are not
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  Speaker 3: purposefully chosen by the child. So they are subconsciously driven,
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  Speaker 3: meaning those behaviors are instincts and they're automatic. Those are
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  Speaker 3: called body up or bottom up behaviors, And so we
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  Speaker 3: have to understand that there's a difference between top down behaviors.
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  Speaker 3: Like if a child sneaks into your bedroom and takes
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  Speaker 3: your iPad and lies about it, Okay, that's a top
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  Speaker 3: down behavior. But a tantrum or a child running out
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  Speaker 3: into the street, or a child spitting or kicking or
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  Speaker 3: hitting or say I hate you, You're the worst, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I want you to die? Those are guess what, They're
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  Speaker 3: not purposeful. They're instinctual and the child doesn't know it.
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  Speaker 3: So this is kind of the paradigm shift I'm talking
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  Speaker 3: about in brain body parenting, is that we have to
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  Speaker 3: understand what we're dealing with. If we're dealing with a
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  Speaker 3: purposeful misbehavior, then that takes us down one road. If
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  Speaker 3: we're dealing with an automatic stress response that takes us
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  Speaker 3: down another road. So when parents say I don't have
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  Speaker 3: the time to become a detective, that I get it.
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  Speaker 3: You don't have to be a detective. All you have
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  Speaker 3: to do is stop and observe what's happening on your
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  Speaker 3: child's body. We call them behavioral biomarkers, and that's going
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  Speaker 3: to give you a clue. You can do that in
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  Speaker 3: three seconds or less.
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  Speaker 1: So give me a practical example.
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  Speaker 2: I've got a child who's screaming, I don't want to
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  Speaker 2: go to bed. I'm not taught, you don't know anything.
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  Speaker 1: I hate you.
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  Speaker 2: You're the worst pairing in the world because they're they're
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  Speaker 2: three and they're excited to hang around with their eight
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  Speaker 2: year old brother or sister who's having all the fun
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  Speaker 2: and staying up an extra thirty minutes. What's the responsive
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  Speaker 2: parenting approach? What's the response to a bottom up nervous
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  Speaker 2: system explosion that's leading this challenge because it's so different
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  Speaker 2: to that traditional way of having so different.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so we really quickly take into account three things.
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  Speaker 3: Number one is that development of self regulation. So we
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  Speaker 3: know that this three year old does not have something
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  Speaker 3: called self regulation, and.
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  Speaker 1: Plenty of adults that struggle with that.
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  Speaker 3: So and plenty of adults that's a steep learning curve.
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  Speaker 3: So first of all, there's something called the expectation gap,
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  Speaker 3: and we think that little ones, just because they can
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  Speaker 3: control themselves some of the time, that they should be
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  Speaker 3: able to do it easily all of the time. Completely wrong.
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  Speaker 3: So self regulation is not there. That's your background information.
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  Speaker 3: So what do you do. Okay, a toddler that's screaming
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  Speaker 3: in their jammys, they're not going to go upstairs. The
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  Speaker 3: more you ask them to start, you know, or to
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  Speaker 3: their bedroom, the more they walk to their bedroom, all
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  Speaker 3: of a sudden, they have a red face. They may
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  Speaker 3: be their heart's beating really fast. They are moving fast.
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  Speaker 3: The faster the child's body or mouth is moving, the
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  Speaker 3: more stressed out the nervous system is. So a three
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  Speaker 3: year old screaming and crying, tell yourself, first of all,
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  Speaker 3: you calm yourself down, because we can't calm down a
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  Speaker 3: revd up nervous system unless we are calm ourselves. I
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  Speaker 3: know that's hard, but we take a breath. If we're
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  Speaker 3: okay enough, we proceed. If we're not, we get help
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  Speaker 3: or we stop because when we are in that what
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  Speaker 3: we call red zone, and the child's in the red zone,
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  Speaker 3: that's when bad stuff happens. That's when we say or
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  Speaker 3: do things that we regret later and things don't turn
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  Speaker 3: out well. So steady yourself, tell yourself, this is a
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  Speaker 3: self regulation problem. This is not a misbehavior. And then
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  Speaker 3: we go to calm the nervous system. And it you know,
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  Speaker 3: for a child who is again if they're moving super
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  Speaker 3: super fast. The general idea is that we reduce stimulation.
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  Speaker 3: We talk less, we turn the lights down, we get
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  Speaker 3: the background noise out of the way. We might have
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  Speaker 3: the other children, you know, go into another room, and
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  Speaker 3: we focus on helping the child calm. Now. In Brain
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  Speaker 3: Body parenting, I help parents develop a little toolkit for
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  Speaker 3: each child based on the child's something called the child's
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  Speaker 3: sensory systems. So our sensory systems is, if you know
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  Speaker 3: how through our you know what we what we hear,
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  Speaker 3: what we see, what we feel the movement. Each person,
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  Speaker 3: each child has a different toolbox that's needed to calm
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  Speaker 3: them down. So we use those techniques from our toolbox
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  Speaker 3: to help calm the child's nervous system till they get
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  Speaker 3: to a place where they can talk to us. Again,
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  Speaker 3: that's called the green zone. So we go from the
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  Speaker 3: red zone to the green zone. And once you know
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  Speaker 3: your child and once you get the steps right, you know,
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  Speaker 3: check with your child, what color are they? You know,
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  Speaker 3: if they're red, you go one way. If they're green,
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  Speaker 3: then you can start to talk to them and to
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  Speaker 3: read a book and to reason with them and put
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  Speaker 3: them down for sleep when they're calm. Again, the calm
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  Speaker 3: body is what we're going for.
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  Speaker 2: I feel calm just listening to you talk through the process.
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  Speaker 2: Something that I talk to parents about all the time
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  Speaker 2: is that when emotions are high, intelligence tends to be
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  Speaker 2: kind of low. And also that emotions are contagious. So
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  Speaker 2: we catch our kids chaos and they're cranky in their craziness,
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  Speaker 2: and they also that from us. So everything that you're
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  Speaker 2: saying there is really beautifully in harmony with the approach
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  Speaker 2: that I'd normally share with the parent.
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  Speaker 3: So true emotions are contigious.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and this idea, I'm fascinated by the work
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  Speaker 2: that you've done in brain body parenting. I know that
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  Speaker 2: resilience is something that parents are really worried about at
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  Speaker 2: the moment. Some parents will say, but if I'm if
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to respond to my child like this all
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  Speaker 2: the time, Number One, I don't always have the time
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  Speaker 2: for it. Like if we've got to get out of
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  Speaker 2: the door to school, They've just got to get in
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  Speaker 2: the car, and I'm not going to sit down and
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  Speaker 2: try and calm their body down. I'm going to be
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  Speaker 2: late for work. So there's the practical realities of it
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  Speaker 2: that a lot of parents will will struggle with, and
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  Speaker 2: I want to ask you about that. But I also
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  Speaker 2: want to talk to you about how this affects the
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  Speaker 2: resilience of the child in terms of working through hard things.
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  Speaker 2: I know that's an area that you've really concentrated on
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  Speaker 2: in the book. I know that's a double barrowed question.
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  Speaker 2: It's two questions in one, But I wonder if you
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  Speaker 2: can first of all talk about the time constraints issue
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  Speaker 2: and the practicality of always being responsive, but then also
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  Speaker 2: what that does for resilience, if you can just sort
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: of have one flow into the Well.
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  Speaker 3: Let's first talk about the practical, because I think that's
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  Speaker 3: so important because the I'm sure neither of us want
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  Speaker 3: parents to be listening to this and thinking, well, I
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  Speaker 3: don't have time to do it right, you know, and
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  Speaker 3: don't want more parent guilt. We are burdened enough as parents, right.
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  Speaker 3: We don't want to be beating ourselves up. We want
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  Speaker 3: so much self compassion, so I don't have time. Yes,
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  Speaker 3: you're right, and our collective cultures aren't set up to
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  Speaker 3: develop resilience very well. So I'll just say that one big,
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: you know, meta view of this, of the whole question
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: of parents saying like, how do I do this? That's
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: a really good question. And parents are parents in isolation
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  Speaker 3: more now than ever before the industry of revolution was
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: only several hundred years ago. We were parenting in groups
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  Speaker 3: only several hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. In
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  Speaker 3: our phylogenetic history, it wasn't like this, parents, You were
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  Speaker 3: not as alone as you are now. Our cultures are alone.
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  Speaker 3: Our Western cultures were doing too much, and that's why
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  Speaker 3: our children's resilience is suffering. We're expecting them to do
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  Speaker 3: regulate their little bodies too much too soon. So it's
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  Speaker 3: a societal question number one. But number two, I think
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  Speaker 3: the parents that I've worked with, this doesn't necessarily take longer.
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  Speaker 3: Once you get into the hang of it, it actually
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: helps children develop more cooperation. So while it sounds like
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  Speaker 3: labor intensive in the beginning, the main thing is our
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: mind shift. Because when a child sees a soft look
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: on your face when they're refusing to put their shoes
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  Speaker 3: and socks on, and they see you go from saying
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  Speaker 3: hurry up, we gotta go out the door where you're
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  Speaker 3: gonna be late to school, to oh, sweetheart, these getting
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: these shoes and socks on, and then now we got
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: to we're rushing so fast mommy or daddy. I'm being
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  Speaker 3: really really rough right now. I'm really kind of yelling
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  Speaker 3: and I'm upset. You know what, Let's slow things down
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: for a second and then look at them with care
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  Speaker 3: and concern. It's amazing how that emotional contagion of calmness
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: helps children calm. So it's not doesn't necessarily take more time,
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  Speaker 3: but I think it also takes a mind shift.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what I practice, like sometimes we try it
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  Speaker 2: and we're like, oh, I got it totally wrong.
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  Speaker 1: None of that worked at all. It is one of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: those things that we really have to practice. Monta.
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  Speaker 2: I feel like a conversation with you is this is
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: going to sound teally really cheesy, but it's kind of
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: how it feels like a great, big, warm hug. I've
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: loved talking with you. I wish we could keep on chatting. Unfortunately,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: time is going to get away from us just now.
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  Speaker 2: But if people want more information about the work that
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: you do, we're going to link to your book Brain
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  Speaker 2: Body Parenting in our show notes. But if they want
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: to follow you and get to know you a little
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: bit more and obviously improve their parenting and their interactions
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: with their kids, where would you send them?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, it's just such a joy to connect with you, Justin. Yeah,
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  Speaker 3: my website is Monadellahook dot com and I'm on Facebook,
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Mona Dellahok, PhD, Instagram, linked In and at this point
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: still Twitter Doctor Mona Della Hook. So yeah, find me anywhere,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm just I would love to connect with people
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: on social media. I post interesting studies, tips and kind
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: of neuroscience based information as I translate it for parenting
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: as every day is, whenever I can.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate it so very much. Lovely to talk
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: with you on the Happy Families Podcast.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Thank you again, likewise, thanks so much.
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: The Happy Families Podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and for
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: more information about making your family happy at check out
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: Mona's website, her Facebook page, and also visit happyfamilies dot com,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: dot a