Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1034 - Q&A: Making Siblings BFF's & Emotional Expression

Transcript

#1034 - Q&A: Making Siblings BFF's & Emotional Expression · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:02
Speaker 1: It's their Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers me out. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the Happy Families podcast. Every Tuesday. On the pod,
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Speaker 1: I answer your questions about making your family happier. If
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Speaker 1: you would like to submit a question, please go to
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Speaker 1: happy families dot com dot auclick on the link for
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Speaker 1: the podcast page and then push the record button. It's
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Speaker 1: easy to use. Make sure you know what you're going
0:30
Speaker 1: to say, and you could end up on the podcast.
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Speaker 1: That's Happy Families dot com dot you and click on
0:36
Speaker 1: the podcast page if you would like to submit a
0:39
Speaker 1: question like this one.
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Speaker 2: Hi, Justin and Kylie. I love the podcast and really
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Speaker 2: appreciate all your advice, and I'm hoping you can give
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Speaker 2: me some advice on my current worry. I have two
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Speaker 2: kids of my own, a three year old boy and
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Speaker 2: a one year old girl. I also have two sisters
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Speaker 2: who are my best friends. I want my kids to
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Speaker 2: grow up to be best friends as well, but I
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Speaker 2: don't know how to facilitate it. Currently, the one year
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Speaker 2: old loves the three year old and longs to play
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Speaker 2: and engage, but the three year old is not a
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Speaker 2: fan of his little sister, especially when she goes anywhere
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Speaker 2: near him. I know it will be a long journey,
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Speaker 2: But it sounds like your girls are best friends. What
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Speaker 2: can I do to help build a good relationship between
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Speaker 2: them from the get go?
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Speaker 1: So I love this question, and I also I don't
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Speaker 1: know if I love or am a little bit embarrassed
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Speaker 1: by the fact that you'd think that my kids have
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Speaker 1: best friends. You know, sometimes they are sometimes sometimes they're
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Speaker 1: really great, but sometimes they are not best friends at all.
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Speaker 1: And I think this is the thing with sibling relationships. Okay,
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Speaker 1: I love the question. Such a challenge. I mean, the
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Speaker 1: best way to not have sibling conflict is to not
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Speaker 1: have siblings. You've got two kids already, it's too late
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Speaker 1: for that. The other thing that I always say is,
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Speaker 1: I mean, we don't want the kids to fight. But
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Speaker 1: let's be honest, if you're lucky enough to be in
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Speaker 1: a partner or married relationship, this is a person that
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Speaker 1: you swore you would cherish and love for your entire life,
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Speaker 1: and sometimes you can't stay side of them. Well, hopefully
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Speaker 1: it's not that bad, but you know what I mean,
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Speaker 1: Sometimes you really do get on each other's nerves and
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Speaker 1: you need some space. So if we can just be
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Speaker 1: real about the fact that relationships rupture and repair and
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Speaker 1: rupture and repair. And if we can keep in mind
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Speaker 1: that our central goal for our kids is to teach
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Speaker 1: them to repair well, to really get that right, and
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Speaker 1: to minimize the ruptures in their relationship, I think that's
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Speaker 1: a really great standard to work towards, and it's also
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Speaker 1: fairly realistic, because relationships are tricky. Regardless of that, let's
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Speaker 1: talk about this, okay. From a statistical and research point
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Speaker 1: of view, the majority of kids around the world have
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Speaker 1: at least one sibling, and this is a particularly unique relationship.
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Speaker 1: It's the one that is likely to last longer than
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Speaker 1: any other relationship that we have in our lives. It's
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Speaker 1: longer than the relationship that we have with our parents.
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Speaker 1: They pass ononhe where in our I don't know, fifty
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Speaker 1: sixty seventies. It's longer than the relationship that we have
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Speaker 1: with our kids for the same reason we pass on
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Speaker 1: when there's a twenty or thirty year gap between us,
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Speaker 1: whatever it might be. But our siblings, we've kind of
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Speaker 1: got them from the time we or they are born
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Speaker 1: right through to the very very end of our lives.
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Speaker 1: Longest lasting relationship of our lives and obviously therefore have
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Speaker 1: the potential to plan an integral part in our families. Yet,
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Speaker 1: and this is what's curious to me, it's a tricky
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Speaker 1: thing to study. Compared to the abundance of studies that
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Speaker 1: we have on parent child relationships and peer relationships, there's
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Speaker 1: a fairly small amount of research devoted to the role
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Speaker 1: of siblings and how we develop. So here's what we
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Speaker 1: know in early childhood. There are four main characteristics of
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Speaker 1: sibling relationships that are, let's use the word prominent. First,
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Speaker 1: sibling relationships are emotionally charged, and they're defined by really strong,
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Speaker 1: uninhibited emotions of both positive and negative and sometimes ambivalent quality. Now,
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Speaker 1: a lot of this comes down to neurological development. The
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Speaker 1: more neurological development you've got, the better you can regulate
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Speaker 1: your emotion and your behaviors, and therefore the less likely
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Speaker 1: it is that you're going to have emotionally charged relationships
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Speaker 1: when you're little growing up with somebody, of course, there's
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Speaker 1: going to be explosiveness, and there's also going to be
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Speaker 1: extreme delight. Second thing, sibling relationships are often characterized by intimacy,
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Speaker 1: a beautiful, delightful, innocent precious intimacy. Because kids get to
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Speaker 1: spend a lot of time together, they get to know
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Speaker 1: one another really well. And this is a beautiful intimate
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Speaker 1: knowledge that translates into all kinds of opportunities providing emotional
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Speaker 1: and instrumental support for one another. And also for just
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Speaker 1: that time and that intimacy, it means lots of time
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Speaker 1: for pretend play, and lots of time for conflict, and
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Speaker 1: lots of time for learning how to understand another person's
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Speaker 1: point of view or their thoughts or their feelings, lots
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Speaker 1: of time to just have fun. The third major characteristic
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Speaker 1: of sibling relationships during childhood is that they are characterized
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Speaker 1: by large individual differences in the quality of relationships that
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Speaker 1: kids have with one another. Fourth, and finally, the age
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Speaker 1: difference between siblings is a source of fascination for me.
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Speaker 1: Got issues of power, issues of control, issues of rivalry
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Speaker 1: and jealousy, all sorts of contention that kids can get
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Speaker 1: involved in together, but also lots of positive complementary exchanges
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Speaker 1: like teaching or helping or caregiving and pro social behavior.
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Speaker 1: The age of one child to another has a big
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Speaker 1: bearing on this, and it seems that bigger gaps lead
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Speaker 1: to more pro social behavior, and smaller gaps can often
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Speaker 1: lead to more conflict. There's more competition for resources, there's
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Speaker 1: less neurological development, it's harder for them to communicate. Well,
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Speaker 1: all that kind of thing. But I'd say, broadly speaking,
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Speaker 1: the characteristics of sibling relationships mean that we as parents
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Speaker 1: have a lot to worry about because it can be
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Speaker 1: so emotional and it can be so highly charged. Okay,
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Speaker 1: So with that said, let's just bear this in mind.
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Speaker 1: Most children, based on the research that I've discovered, are
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Speaker 1: positive and really eager to help their siblings, especially when
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Speaker 1: they're the older sibling caring for a younger sibling. By
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Speaker 1: early childhood. The data that I've found indicates that siblings
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Speaker 1: have more positive and friendly interactions, which outweighs any negative interactions,
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Speaker 1: but they are still going to occur. What we've got
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Speaker 1: with siblings is wonderful opportunities for moral and emotional and
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Speaker 1: social and cognitive development, and the opportunity to inject themselves
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Speaker 1: into the worlds of somebody else's social and emotional and
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Speaker 1: moral and cognitive development world Like, it's just it's so
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Speaker 1: good for them. So where do we go with this?
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Speaker 1: If we want our kids to really like each other.
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Speaker 1: Let's talk about this particularly important area of research. There's
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Speaker 1: not much there, but from what I have found, there
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Speaker 1: is some evidence that there are better and worse ways
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Speaker 1: for parents to intervene when kids disagree. Because sibling conflicts
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Speaker 1: are reasonably frequent, because they're usually poorly resolved, and because
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Speaker 1: they can sometimes be highly aggressive, parents will often be
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Speaker 1: really emotional. They'll employ harsh and punitive discipline, and this,
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Speaker 1: according to research, is associated with more conflict between siblings
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Speaker 1: and less friendly interactions even before the child, the younger
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Speaker 1: child in the pair is even one year of age.
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Speaker 1: So essentially, when we jump in and we're coercive, when
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Speaker 1: we're aggressive, when we're punitive, it teaches the kids exactly
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Speaker 1: that coercive and frequent sibling conflict or even bullying in
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Speaker 1: the family in childhood understandably and unsurprisingly is associated with
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Speaker 1: poorer adjustment both as kids and also later in life.
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Speaker 1: We know that this is going to be a really
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Speaker 1: big problem, particularly when sibling warmth is absent, and so
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Speaker 1: we just want to help our kids to love each other. So,
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Speaker 1: based on these findings, here's what I'd be recommending parents.
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Speaker 1: If you can step in in a loving and kind way,
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Speaker 1: if you can mediate gently where you have to, and
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Speaker 1: then structure the negotiation process so the kids are resolving
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Speaker 1: things primarily with their own solutions, but with your gentle guidance,
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Speaker 1: they're going to do better. In other words, explore, explain, empower,
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Speaker 1: Try not to intervene unless you have to. If you
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Speaker 1: do have to intervene, intervene with explicit teaching where you
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Speaker 1: need to, but to the extent that you can stay
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Speaker 1: out of the way or highlight that there's a problem
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Speaker 1: and help them guide them to solve themselves in pro
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Speaker 1: social ways. Lastly, i'd say this be a model. Just
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Speaker 1: be a model, Be a genuinely good person. Kids will
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Speaker 1: learn those characteristics from you, love and patience and kindness
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Speaker 1: and generosity, good luck. There's no way that you're going
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Speaker 1: to stamp out the sibling rivalry. It will exist, what
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Speaker 1: especially with a three year old and one year old.
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Speaker 1: But these skills can be learned, kids can learn to
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Speaker 1: be pro social. And I think that our second question
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Speaker 1: about emotion regulation will probably be helpful here as well.
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Speaker 1: Let's take a look at question number two.
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Speaker 3: Hi justin. My name's Rachel and I'm from perth wa
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Speaker 3: I just wanted some advice regarding my eleven year old son. Lately,
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Speaker 3: he's just been crying a lot and unable to control
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Speaker 3: his feelings. Mainly happens at school if the teacher asks
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Speaker 3: him a question and he's not sure of the answer,
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Speaker 3: he'll just burst into tears. At sport events, if things
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Speaker 3: don't go as well as he'd hoped, he'll just start crying.
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Speaker 3: A few weeks ago, he was involved in an engineering
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Speaker 3: competition with three other boys from school and things didn't
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Speaker 3: go as planned, and towards the end, he just became
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Speaker 3: overwhelmed and just started crying uncontrollably. We always tell our
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Speaker 3: children that it's okay to feel angry or scared or
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Speaker 3: upset and to voice those feelings, but now that he
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Speaker 3: is eleven and getting older, I'm just worried that in
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Speaker 3: school situations he might start to get bullied or teased
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Speaker 3: because he's crying so much. And I just wanted some
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Speaker 3: advice that we could give him to try and control
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Speaker 3: his feelings at school so he's not crying every day.
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Speaker 1: Thanks Okay, Rachel from Perth. I think this is more
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Speaker 1: of a youth thing than a him thing. He will
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Speaker 1: figure this out for himself and make it work generally
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Speaker 1: is probably the way that I'd be approaching this. Stay
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Speaker 1: out of the way and let him work it out.
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Speaker 1: Emotions are an essential part of human functioning. We're trying
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Speaker 1: to help our emotions to be adaptive. They are just
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Speaker 1: passing on information to us that give us information about
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Speaker 1: about the environment, about the people who are entering our orbit,
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Speaker 1: and they predispose us to act accordingly. A research on
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Speaker 1: emotional variables and specifically emotional regulation is one of the
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Speaker 1: fastest growing areas of psychological research and has been for
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Speaker 1: the last twenty years or so. This really is a
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Speaker 1: booming area of research. Your eleven year old son is
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Speaker 1: struggling to regulate his emotions, so let's get clear on
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Speaker 1: what emotional regulation is. A research by the name of
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Speaker 1: Thompson defines emotional regulation this way, and I'm quoting here
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Speaker 1: the external and internal processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and
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Speaker 1: modifying our emotional reactions to meet our goals. So let's
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Speaker 1: put this in the context your eleven year old son.
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Speaker 1: He's got a goal. He wants to appear competent. He
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Speaker 1: wants to do well, whether it's an activity or whether
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Speaker 1: it's a sport. He's involved in, or it's an exam
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Speaker 1: or whatever it might be. He's got this goal he's
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Speaker 1: trying to meet. If something happens and it's external to him,
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Speaker 1: or perhaps it's going on inside him and he's monitoring it,
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Speaker 1: he's evaluating it, and then he's modifying his behavior accordingly
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Speaker 1: because he believes that doing what he's doing is going
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Speaker 1: to move him in the direction of his goals. Now,
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Speaker 1: as he gets older and more neurologically mature, he's going
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Speaker 1: to realize that some of these things are more adaptive
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Speaker 1: and some of them are less adaptive. But basically, this
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Speaker 1: whole idea of emotional regulation is can I express or
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Speaker 1: contain my emotions appropriately for the situation so that I
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Speaker 1: can achieve my goals in a socially appropriate way. Now,
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Speaker 1: at the moment, you're feeling that it's not socially appropriate,
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Speaker 1: and as eleven year old, it's probably not consistent with
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Speaker 1: the norm. So here's what I want to highlight in
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Speaker 1: terms of what norms are. If we look at age
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Speaker 1: and emotional regulation, studies seem to show that during childhood
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Speaker 1: and adolescence, the acquisition of those skills to modulate those
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Speaker 1: emotional responses is really closely related to the neurobiological maturation
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Speaker 1: that our children are going through, so we see it
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Speaker 1: begin to really develop and take off from about the
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Speaker 1: age of three and by nine ish. Most researchers would
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Speaker 1: agree that the majority of kids are doing okay with
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Speaker 1: their emotional regulation most of the time. That is, they're
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Speaker 1: expressing or containing emotions in a socially appropriate way in
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Speaker 1: the pursuit of their goals. But there are big differences
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Speaker 1: between girls and boys. Essentially, expression of emotions in boys
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Speaker 1: much more likely to be externalizing, girls much more likely
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Speaker 1: to internalize those emotions. There was a twenty thirteen meta
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Speaker 1: analysis by a couple of researchers, Chaplain and al Dao
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Speaker 1: who found that there were significant, enduring, small differences in
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Speaker 1: gender roles in the expression of emotions. So girls tend
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Speaker 1: to express more positive emotions and more negative internalizing emotions
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Speaker 1: likeness and anxiety. Boys they express more externalizing emotions like anger.
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Speaker 1: And that's what we're seeing with your son. So let's
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Speaker 1: have a look at some maladaptive strategies for dealing with
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Speaker 1: big emotions. We've got giving up, that is, I don't
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Speaker 1: want to do anything anymore. We've got withdraw I'm just
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Speaker 1: going to hide out in my bedroom. I don't want
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Speaker 1: to see anyone. There's rumination where they just keep on
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Speaker 1: thinking about it, can't get it out of their head.
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Speaker 1: Self devaluation. It's my fault. I'm an idiot, I'm a loser.
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Speaker 1: And aggressive actions. I'm going to fight you. I'm going
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Speaker 1: to blow up about this. I've had enough. So those
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Speaker 1: are all maladaptive strategies, and that's what I'm hearing from
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Speaker 1: your son. What I'm wanting you to do is have
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Speaker 1: some conversations with him about adaptive strategies. Let me give
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Speaker 1: you six or seven adaptive strategies. Just one line is
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Speaker 1: for each. So the first one is if we can
14:45
Speaker 1: move away from the emotion focused coping and move into
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Speaker 1: what's called problem focus coping, we start to make progress.
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Speaker 1: So a problem solving approach would be something like, if
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Speaker 1: I'm angry, I'm going to try and change what it
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Speaker 1: is that's making me angry. I'm going to do something
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Speaker 1: differently to move my environment or do something so that
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Speaker 1: I can adapt effectively to the thing that's driving me nuts.
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Speaker 1: There's distraction, so I'm feeling like this, I'm going to
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Speaker 1: go and do something fun. Ideally, we need to be
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Speaker 1: careful with boys. They tend to seek out risk or
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Speaker 1: sensation when they want distraction. We want something that's healthy
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Speaker 1: and safe if they're going to do something fun. Another
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Speaker 1: adaptive strategy is forgetting or I guess acceptance with an
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Speaker 1: acknowledgment that it's going to pass, or accepting that this
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Speaker 1: thing is making me angry. So both forgetting and acceptance
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Speaker 1: can be helpful. Humor enhancement think about things that make
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Speaker 1: you happy. Cognitive problem solving, think about what you can do,
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Speaker 1: and revaluation, telling yourself that it's not really that important,
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Speaker 1: getting some perspective around it. Those are adaptive coping strategies.
15:48
Speaker 1: You might want to sort of press rewine, grab a
15:50
Speaker 1: pen and paper and drop them down. I'll actually have
15:52
Speaker 1: my team put this into the show notes for you
15:55
Speaker 1: because I think that you'll find that really really helpful. Fundamentally,
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Speaker 1: what I want you to do is have a conversation
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Speaker 1: with your son about the different strategies and ask him
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Speaker 1: which ones feel good to try. And then your job
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Speaker 1: is just to be a gentle support wherever you can. Now,
16:11
Speaker 1: because this is mainly happening at school, it's a bit tricky.
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Speaker 1: You probably want to role play things a little bit,
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Speaker 1: work things through with him, and let him have a go.
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Speaker 1: But the one thing that I'm reminded of as I
16:21
Speaker 1: listened to this particular scenario is something that Lisa to
16:25
Speaker 1: Moore said to me when we were recording a podcast,
16:28
Speaker 1: maybe about a year ago now. Lisa to Moore is
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Speaker 1: one of America's most loved and trusted child and adolescent psychologists,
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Speaker 1: and she said this. She said, emotions belong on your
16:39
Speaker 1: cognitive board of directors, but they don't share the board.
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Speaker 1: What I think she's really getting at here is that
16:46
Speaker 1: if you've got a range of inputs that are magnifying
16:53
Speaker 1: or amplifying emotions, you need to pay attention to that. However,
16:57
Speaker 1: you've got to be able to switch that emotion center
16:59
Speaker 1: of the brain down so that the planning strategy center
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Speaker 1: of your brain, what we call the prefrontal cortex, can
17:05
Speaker 1: take over and make the decisions. That's what should be
17:08
Speaker 1: chairing the board. And when you've got an eleven year old,
17:12
Speaker 1: eleven year old boy, lack of neurological maturation, lack of inhibition,
17:17
Speaker 1: lack of regulation means that there might have been a
17:19
Speaker 1: hostile takeover here. It's time to restore some order. Ah.
17:23
Speaker 1: So please remember, sometimes kids are going to regulate their
17:25
Speaker 1: emotions by expressing them. We don't need to manage every emotion.
17:28
Speaker 1: We don't need to stamp every emotion out. We don't
17:31
Speaker 1: need to help them to control their emotions all the time.
17:34
Speaker 1: But we also don't need to elevate their emotions and
17:37
Speaker 1: make them king. Sometimes it's just fine to let the
17:39
Speaker 1: kids have their emotion. It's like that train going into
17:42
Speaker 1: a tunnel. Some tunnels are long and dark and deep,
17:45
Speaker 1: but guess what, the train always comes out the other end.
17:48
Speaker 1: It will calm down. Other than that, what I'm going
17:53
Speaker 1: to suggest is that you're help them to practice some
17:55
Speaker 1: basic skills that can improve what we'd call his vagual tone.
18:00
Speaker 1: Vague theory of polyvagel theory essentially says that if you
18:03
Speaker 1: can have a really nice, high vagueal tone, that you're
18:05
Speaker 1: going to be well regulated. The way you do that
18:08
Speaker 1: is with nature and with cold water, and with deep
18:11
Speaker 1: breathing and with support seeking. Through doing those things, your
18:15
Speaker 1: son will develop frustration tolerance and he'll get better. He'll
18:18
Speaker 1: become more patient. But I think really this is about time.
18:22
Speaker 1: This is about you being patient, helping him to develop
18:25
Speaker 1: some skills. He's only eleven. He'll get better at it
18:28
Speaker 1: as time goes on, especially with you being a great model.
18:31
Speaker 1: Good luck. That's all we've got time for today. If
18:33
Speaker 1: you would like to submit a question, I'll do my
18:35
Speaker 1: best to answer it. Just jump onto happy families dot
18:37
Speaker 1: com dot au. That's happy families dot com dot au.
18:40
Speaker 1: Click on the podcast's link and then push the record button.
18:45
Speaker 1: It's that simple, easy to use. If you'd like more information,
18:48
Speaker 1: you can visit us at happy families dot com dot au.