Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 39. Figuring out how to raise resilient children with Kathleen Sullivan

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39. Figuring out how to raise resilient children with Kathleen Sullivan · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

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They found that even just having kind of 1 supportive adult
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figure helps provide a supportive relationship can make
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a huge difference and then also by building secure attachments
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you build resilience in your children to be able to handle
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these challenging things to go through.
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Hello and welcome back to the All Figured Out Podcast.
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I'm your host, Andrea Barr. That clip was from the wonderful
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Kathleen Sullivan, who is my guest for today's episode.
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I invited Kathleen onto the show to help US parents figure out
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how to raise resilient children. Regardless of what life
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inevitably throws at them, and this includes overcoming trauma,
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creating a secure relationship with your children, and how we
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can walk alongside our children as they learn to overcome
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obstacles. Kathleen Sullivan has almost a
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decade of experience as a nurse working with children, so very,
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very helpful. And we chat through her career
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pivot, which was really interesting, and how she became
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a nurse practitioner. And her work now at a clinical
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practice that supports youth, mental health and substance
1:00
abuse. So she is doing the good work.
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Kathleen is also on an Adverse Childhood Experiences provincial
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working group with the Doctors of BC, British Columbia.
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And they're really doing incredible work on bringing to
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light the huge impact that childhood Adverse experiences
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can have on a person, both physically and psychologically.
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And we talked a little bit about this with Kathleen in the
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episode. So whether or not you or someone
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you love or your children have experienced trauma, I just
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wanted to bring Kathleen on to kind of flip the script and
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actually talk about how we can raise resilient, happy and
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secure children. So we will talk a little bit
1:39
about trauma and adverse childhood experiences.
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So if this is an episode you want to skip.
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For your own mental health and wellbeing, please do that so
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there is no better person to learn from on this topic, and I
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hope you get as much out of this episode as I did when
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interviewing Kathleen. I hope you enjoy.
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You're listening to the All Figured Out podcast.
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I'm your host, Andrea Barr. As a career coach for parents, a
2:06
mom and entrepreneur, and someone who spent 10 plus years
2:09
in the corporate world, I still don't have it all figured out.
2:12
And maybe you don't either. In this podcast, I'll share
2:15
tools and strategies that I use as my clients and in the many
2:19
areas where I don't have things figured out.
2:21
I'll be bringing you some amazing guest experts to help us
2:23
fill in the gaps. So TuneIn each week as we
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explore how to make career and life decisions that truly work
2:30
for you, your family, and your big goals.
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Let's make moves. Kathleen Sullivan, thank you so
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much for joining me on the All Figured Out podcast today.
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I'm so pumped to have you here. I'm so excited to be here.
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Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming.
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So Kathleen, you and I have known each other for, I'm just
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thinking about it six, maybe seven years.
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We met through our mutual pal Melissa when we both moved out
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here. Both from Ontario.
3:00
Both now live in BC Didn't know each other before.
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And I have got to bear witness to a really incredible career
3:07
journey that you've had. So for those who want to learn
3:10
more about your career journey, there's been some twists and
3:13
turns and it's all just been heartwarming.
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Give us the story. OK, perfect.
3:18
So I think when I met you so I have moved out here.
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I started out as a nurse and I worked in Pediatrics.
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So I have two major Children's Hospital and when I met you was
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kind of around the time that I was looking at my what was next
3:34
and what education I wanted to pursue.
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And and I believe actually at that time when you were going
3:39
through your schooling for coaching one of your classmates,
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I worked with a bit just to figure out what direction I
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wanted to go into. I forgot about that, which was
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so helpful and she's actually the one that.
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So I was looking at different options that nurses had
3:56
available and trying to figure out what the best path for me
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would be. And she was kind of, she was a
4:02
pharmacist by trade I believe and doing the punching program.
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And we kind of went through and we talked a lot about the
4:09
Michaels were and what I was really interested in.
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And one of the big themes was that I really wanted to maintain
4:16
clinical practice and stay involved clinically and everyone
4:19
wants to do that until we started looking at the nurse
4:21
practitioner program and I applied shortly after and was
4:24
accepted and started that. So actually you're a big part of
4:30
why I am where I am now, which is.
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Really. So cool.
4:35
So you did? Yeah.
4:36
So you went back to school. So you were in your, what, late
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20s? Yeah.
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And made a big career pivot. How was that experience?
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Absolutely. So I think I, I initially was
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kind of humming and hawing about it because nurse practitioners
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are newer in BC and they're newer, newer overall.
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And so it's a role that was still evolving and but it was
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something that I, I don't know, I was very interested in because
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I I loved nursing. Nursing, I actually also
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accidentally fell into, I knew I wanted to do some type of
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healthcare, but I wasn't sure what.
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And I remember thinking in high school my mom was like, well,
5:14
you have to apply for a third thing and I really want to go to
5:16
Queens and she's like, you have to apply for a third one.
5:19
Anyways, why don't you apply for nursing?
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And I was like, oh, I'm not sure and I didn't apply for it.
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And then part way through school, I was like, hey.
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I heard about the school program and I'd already started Bachelor
5:30
of Science and you do the nursing program in a condensed
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format and thought it was really I don't know, thought it was
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interesting because he did clinical placements and spent
5:37
time with patients and got accepted and did that.
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So I kind of fell into it a bit unconventionally and and I think
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it was a really great fit for me and my personality and and I
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worked with children for many years and in really high
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intensity areas and I met some of the most incredible people
5:57
and had great experiences. And then yeah, I was just
6:00
looking at how I wanted to advance my career and what was
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next. And the nurse practitioner
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program, because it was evolving too, had a lot of really neat
6:07
components in it for me. And so I decided to go back to
6:10
school. And so there's a few different
6:12
ways you can do it. But the full time route, which
6:14
is what most people tend to do, is you go back and you do your
6:17
master's degree along with your nurse practitioner certificate
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and it's two years fairly intensive.
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And so I completed that in British Columbia and started
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working as an MP. Oh, my gosh, incredible.
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And if anybody, those who know Kathleen know that you were,
6:34
it's funny that you did not set out to become a nurse from the
6:37
day you were born because you are a nurse through and through.
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I picture you to be on like the news one day and be like the
6:46
head nurse of Canada, that's just like that's who you are to
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be. I'm like you.
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You are the nurse. You are.
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But now you're the nurse practitioner.
6:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was one of those things
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that when I started placements and then I started my first job,
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and my first job was back in Toronto and I I loved it and it
7:04
was such a great fit and I feel very lucky that I came across
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it. And yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And it's, I don't know, nursing. There is nurses.
7:13
It's been a tough few years for nurses, I think, with
7:16
everything, but I still think as a profession it's incredible and
7:19
can lead you so many different ways and there's so many roots
7:21
and there's kind of a path for everyone.
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And I like how you're kind of talking about it from the
7:27
perspective of you actually really enjoyed the career that
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you had, but you keep saying like, but I wanted to see where
7:33
I could go next. And clearly growth and
7:35
development is a huge value of yours.
7:37
So you were like, it's not that I.
7:39
Hated the work that I was doing. I just wanted to continue to
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move forward and you probably hit your plateau a bit in the
7:45
area you were or or maybe just didn't want to become your
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boss's boss's boss in that line. Yeah, absolutely.
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And I think, yeah, that was kind of it where I was looking at.
7:53
Yeah just different and just kind of future planning and what
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I what I wanted and there's I love my job before I went into
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MP school and I love the people I worked with in our patients
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and but it was it was hard too because we saw really
8:08
challenging and and hard things and there's a lot of development
8:12
that you can have within a hospital or within the area that
8:15
I was in. But I really liked the path of
8:18
going to be a nurse practitioner.
8:20
A really good friend of mine had started school a few years
8:23
before, so I got a bit of insight though.
8:25
But the schooling was like in the training program and just
8:28
different job opportunities that were coming up and they seemed
8:31
really neat. And I think one of my other big
8:34
things too is I've always been interested in leadership and
8:37
education, and I was hopeful that I would be able to find
8:42
something where I could fuse the two and yeah.
8:47
And you did and I did, yeah. So now I'm so I'm halftime
8:51
clinical. And the other part of my time,
8:54
I'm in a leadership role now. So I get to focus on developing
8:58
education programs. So we're making a residency
9:01
program for urgent care and peace.
9:03
And so I'm working on that right now and I'm supporting our
9:07
different nurse practitioners. And yeah, and I'm, I'm just
9:09
starting in the role, but it's been great so far.
9:13
Wow, Congrats. And I know that the work that
9:15
you do, you said it on a clinical side is with youth in
9:18
mental health and substance abuse, which is incredible work,
9:22
I imagine. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
9:24
And yeah. And so I feel like I'm, I'm
9:27
newer in this area in the last few years and it's to me it's an
9:32
area that's very impactful. And a lot of these young people
9:36
that we see have been through extraordinarily challenging
9:39
circumstances and they're developing a lot of resources to
9:44
help out these young people. And there's a lot more that kind
9:47
of development in the area of how we can support these young
9:50
people. And it's everyone I think
9:53
remembers what it's like being a teenager or a young adult.
9:56
And there's so many changes and it can be a really tough time.
10:00
And then add on what some of these people have also been
10:04
through these experiences and can be an incredibly difficult
10:07
time. And so being able to kind of
10:10
support them and try and help them through that is it's really
10:13
meaningful. Yeah.
10:16
Trauma, trauma, Big T, little T trauma, trauma.
10:21
We hear the word a lot. As a a layperson I'm yeah like I
10:27
think I know what trauma is but I would say that my immediate
10:31
reaction when if we were to be talking about.
10:34
Trauma. And I'm bringing this up because
10:35
you have special interest in trauma and it's kind of shaping
10:38
what we're going to discuss today around building resilience
10:40
for children and what happens if, you know, adverse childhood
10:43
experiences come into play. So if we were just talk about
10:48
trauma, you know, in a general sense, when I hear that word, I
10:52
think like blunt force trauma to the head or like, you know, God
10:55
forbid a car accident or something like or a really.
10:59
You know, horrific experience as a child, like in an abuse
11:02
setting or something like that. These are the things that come
11:05
to mind. What is is that what trauma is?
11:07
Are there different? Is there a spectrum, which I
11:10
kind of imagine is maybe what you're going to say?
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What is it? Yeah.
11:13
And so it can definitely be a spectrum.
11:15
So it can be that kind of. So it can be a car accident that
11:20
happens or a type of abuse and it can also be it can show up in
11:25
my neglect or being around mental illness.
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And so it's essentially it's an experience, not all.
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So it's an experience that is challenging, that has lasting
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impacts. Not all challenging experiences
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are going to be traumatic to each person, but every
11:40
challenging experience has the ability to become something
11:43
traumatic and it can be small things that can cause trauma
11:47
overtime. So it's not necessarily one kind
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of landslide event or it could be a landslide event.
11:52
So trauma is kind of anything. So any how I try to phrase it to
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my patients is and generally people are pretty comfortable
12:02
with the idea or definition of trauma, but something that feels
12:05
traumatic and it's had a lasting experience on you with residual
12:08
impacts or a really significant event in your life.
12:13
Okay, that's like that way. That seems like a.
12:17
Really easy, palatable way to understand.
12:20
Yeah, yeah. And even with, I mean with
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everyone's human experiences. So I I don't know exactly what
12:27
all my patients have gone through.
12:28
And there are many experiences that I don't know and don't
12:32
understand that might have happened to them that could have
12:35
lasting impacts in the turmeric. Keeping it kind of open I think
12:40
is important. Okay and then so.
12:45
Really. But the reason why we decided to
12:47
frame up this conversation today and to to tee this up is because
12:51
you have recently joined a working group with the doctors
12:54
of BC specifically related to adverse childhood experiences
13:00
which kind of play in conjunction with trauma as you
13:03
were just defining it. So ACES is the acronym that
13:08
that's a cool. That's a powerful, that's a
13:10
really powerful acronym there, Adverse Childhood Experiences.
13:15
That means trauma or or what does that mean?
13:19
Yeah. So, yeah, so the the working
13:22
group that I'm in, so it's formed by doctors at BC and
13:24
they're they're looking at childhood trauma and how that
13:26
impacts health and what we'll get into it a bit more about the
13:29
impacts that that can have and then what some of the protective
13:32
and supportive factors are against trauma and how we can
13:36
prevent. And so for the working group,
13:40
their, their ultimate goals are to kind of spread the word to
13:43
make sure that people are well informed about this and then
13:46
make sure that people also know the different resources that are
13:49
available and that are out there.
13:52
And so with that, so we they were speaking with Med students,
13:56
with MP students at various conferences.
13:59
And yeah, so they're they're doing quite a bit of work and
14:03
trying to, you know, just get the word out there a little bit
14:05
more and educate people more about what what the impact of
14:09
adverse childhood experiences are.
14:11
So where adverse childhood experiences originated from was
14:15
a study that was done by Doctor Vincent Folletti.
14:19
It was in 1998. And so it was a study that was
14:23
initially done with Kaiser Polanche staff.
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So it's in California and they looked at about 17,000 people
14:30
and this the study originated, they were working with patients
14:34
on obesity initially. And as they were going through
14:37
the study, they realized that a lot of the patients had also
14:41
experienced significant trauma and they thought it was a way
14:44
higher percentage than what they would have expected for the
14:47
general population. And the initial study was also
14:50
done on middle to upper class Caucasian people.
14:53
So that they were pretty surprised by the amount of
14:55
people that were reporting trauma.
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So they decided to study it. And so they looked at 17,000
14:59
people and they found that. And they looked at traumatic
15:03
experiences. And like they found out over 60%
15:05
of people had experienced at least one average childhood
15:08
experience. So over half had experienced
15:11
this and about 25%. So 1/4 had experienced 2 or
15:16
more. And then 12, 1/2 percent had at
15:18
least four average childhood experiences.
15:21
So they initially collected all the information on what what
15:26
they thought the most common average childhood experiences
15:28
were, and they came up with 10 that were included in the
15:31
initial study. Now it's been broadened since,
15:33
but the initial time were emotional abuse, physical abuse,
15:36
sexual abuse and emotional neglect, physical neglect,
15:41
witnessing domestic violence in the household and having a
15:44
family member or someone in the home with substance abuse and
15:48
having someone in the home with mental illness and having
15:51
someone in the home as part of the criminal system or
15:55
witnessing criminal activity. And then the other one, which is
15:57
a very common one as well, is divorce.
16:01
And so those were the initial of 10 that they looked at.
16:04
However, since they've broadened this, so the I mean the the list
16:10
is inclusive now of poverty, of bullying, A traumatic loss of a
16:15
loved one, serious accidents, life threatening, childhood
16:20
illness or injury, natural disasters and being in refugee
16:24
camp, terrorism, war. And it's not a that list isn't
16:29
all-encompassing of everything. That can be traumatic, yeah.
16:33
Right, because you said previously that.
16:35
You could have something that would be deemed by society
16:38
potentially as something just a small thing that happened to
16:41
you, but you internalize it as traumatic.
16:43
Yeah. It can be.
16:44
Yeah. Absolutely.
16:45
Yeah. And and even, I mean, that can
16:47
be smaller events that happen in a household of.
16:52
Yeah. Just not having emotional needs
16:54
being met over and over. Yeah.
16:57
And So what they found is they looked at all these average
17:00
childhood experiences and they realize there was a dose
17:03
dependent relationship. So the amount of trauma that you
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endure affects your likelihood of getting different health
17:08
conditions over a lifetime. And when we look at all the
17:12
different health conditions that they noticed a correlation to,
17:15
it's a lot of the common ones that we see later on in life.
17:18
So people that I've experienced for more adverse childhood
17:23
experience were almost two times as likely to get diagnosed with
17:26
diabetes, two times as likely to have cancer, two times as likely
17:29
to have heart disease, over 2 times more likely to have a
17:33
stroke, almost four times as likely to have COPD, which is
17:38
respiratory disease that we generally see later in life.
17:40
It's usually associated with smoking, but can be from mine
17:44
exposure. Working over large stoves, they
17:47
found a large correlation in those that had experienced
17:51
trauma and mental health issues later on.
17:53
So depression and anxiety had four full increase.
17:56
The chance of becoming dependent on or having issues with alcohol
18:01
use was 7 times more likely and significant increases in
18:07
learning and behavioral difficulties, especially if the
18:09
trauma occurs before the age of five.
18:12
So. Wow, so it's a lot of
18:14
significant health impacts and so the interesting thing too.
18:20
So as this was coming up, so I first I think I came across this
18:24
when I was in school and I did my Capstone project on it in
18:28
school. So I spent a lot of time reading
18:30
about it and researching it and then in the areas that I
18:33
practice and now a lot of a lot of my patients have significant
18:37
trauma from their past. And so initially when the study
18:40
came out and people were recognizing Aces, there was a
18:45
thought that we should be screening every patient for Aces
18:47
and knowing what their ACE score was.
18:48
So having people do a questionnaire that establishes
18:51
what the score was. But now the thought is, and that
18:55
knowing someone's score isn't always as helpful, but knowing
19:00
kind of the resources and the preventative measures and those
19:03
instead and directing patients in that way can be more helpful
19:07
and also a bit of an understanding too.
19:09
So if we know that someone's had a really strong history of
19:13
trauma, then, and you're their primary care provider being more
19:17
aware that they're more likely to be have diabetes or have
19:22
heart disease. And so being really good about
19:24
different screening measures and prevention measures for that can
19:27
be important as well. So we're.
19:29
And we're not just talking about mental health here like this.
19:32
My mind is blown. And yet I've talked about this
19:34
before, but this is really just like this is actually blowing my
19:37
mind. And so they actually found, they
19:39
found that as you go through these traumatic experiences.
19:43
So our stress responses are wired that we see and we live in
19:48
BC so we see a bear and our, you know, our heart rate goes up,
19:53
our blood pressure goes up or more alert, the blood is
19:56
redirected from our stomach. So we're not focusing on you
20:00
know the the less important bodily functions aren't the
20:05
focus of our body and we're alert.
20:07
You know we're ready to take action.
20:10
We're ready to run away or hide or whatever is we.
20:12
Need to fight or flight? Exactly.
20:13
So the fight or flight response, but then if you look at someone
20:16
that's experiencing trauma, then that.
20:19
Fight or fight response is happening over and over.
20:21
So instead of you know it being an appropriate increase in all
20:25
those important epinephrine, your Norepinephrine an increase
20:29
in all of those when you're in an well, not always abnormal for
20:34
BC people, but you know you see it there and that happens in
20:38
that instance to help you. But then if you're in.
20:41
An experience where that there or that scary thing is in your
20:45
home, your mom is constantly going to be going through that
20:48
fight or flight response and you're going to have that stress
20:50
response. So they found that they can
20:52
actually having traumatic experiences.
20:58
Has physiological effects, so it can shrink your hippocampus,
21:02
which can impair your memory and emotional regulation.
21:06
Your amygdala, which is also part of your brain, also has
21:08
dysfunction, so you are more likely to have impulsive
21:10
behavior. It affects your fear response
21:13
center so it can hide in your fear response, your synaptic
21:17
connection. So in between your neurons, you
21:20
have fewer of those, so your brain isn't communicating as it
21:23
should be. And there's epigenetic changes.
21:25
There's changes that can actually be passed down in
21:28
between generations. So if someone's maternal grandma
21:33
experienced trauma, some of those changes and the likelihood
21:36
for these health risks can also get passed on to an offspring
21:40
that wasn't born at that time. And there's this regulation of
21:44
your metabolic system, You might have issues with your your gut
21:48
and your GI system as well. And so.
21:52
Yeah. And they also, they looked at
21:54
and for children, they looked at people that had asthma and they
21:59
were less responsive to conventional treatments, and
22:03
with trauma, they're more likely to experience treatment,
22:06
refractory depression. But there's one study that they
22:08
looked at a. So they did a randomized control
22:11
trial of orphans living in Romania, and they looked at
22:14
their EE G, which is so an EE G. Is essentially a lot of stickers
22:20
that get placed on the brain and it looks at the brain waves and
22:23
they use it a lot in seizure disorders.
22:25
So they found that on the children in this orphanage that
22:29
have been exposed to adversity had immature EE G patterns, so
22:33
they weren't as developed as they should be for their age.
22:36
And they also found that the longer they stayed in
22:38
institutionalized care, part of their brains, their white
22:41
matter, matured slower. And they they found they could
22:45
actually predict someone's family income to their needs
22:49
ratio by based on examining the white and Gray matter and what
22:52
the difference was based off of the age for the children.
22:55
And then they did a study where they assigned these children,
23:01
the orphanage to high quality care, so high quality foster
23:05
parents and that provided kind of loving, supportive homes.
23:09
And then. They compared it to those that
23:11
had stayed in the orphanage and that didn't have that.
23:14
And they found that those that had high quality care before the
23:17
age of two and their EE G's which is the brain patterns that
23:20
they looked at, those actually looked completely normal
23:24
compared to their peers that had not subjected any trauma early
23:27
on in life and so. Experiencing trauma has huge
23:31
impacts on health. I think from the role of a
23:34
healthcare provider knowing exactly, I mean if if someone is
23:38
willing or wants to speak about that and what's been traumatic,
23:42
we can listen to that. But I think what's more
23:43
important is trying to prevent trauma and then also supportive
23:47
resources for those that have experienced trauma and how we
23:49
can kind of prevent the cycle of trauma continuing to go.
23:53
And a lot of that comes down to social resources that are
23:56
available. Oh my gosh, okay.
23:58
So that's so thank you for explaining all of that.
24:01
Sometimes mental health can be a hard thing to maybe wrap your
24:04
head around, especially for those who have not experienced
24:06
anything with health, mental health, whether with themselves
24:09
or others. But sometimes when it's like
24:10
this could really have a negative impact on your mental
24:12
health. I just find sometimes it's not
24:14
compelling enough for some people.
24:16
But you are stating some really, really important and kind of
24:20
scary physiological like outcomes of this.
24:23
Now if we like, just slam our hand down and say, OK, sometimes
24:29
unfortunately this has happened and somebody might be listening
24:32
who feels like they have experienced an adverse childhood
24:34
experience trauma or God forbid their children have already in
24:39
their life. Can you reassure us?
24:43
Can you reassure us that we can break the cycle that there is
24:47
treatment for trauma? Like what can be done?
24:49
And then I want to get into protective factors, but let's
24:51
just like, yeah, let's just like squash.
24:55
The fears that I know are popping up in people's minds
24:57
right now as we talked about this, because it's heavy and we
24:59
talked about this before, We're like, this is going to be a
25:00
heavy topic, but how can we look forward and find the light in
25:04
the situation? Yeah, absolutely.
25:05
And so, and it's with, I mean, especially with.
25:09
Traumatic experiences and challenging experiences are
25:12
almost inevitable, even for someone that's in a home that
25:16
has has all of the good social things.
25:18
If parents get divorced, that can be a traumatic thing.
25:20
Or if you know there's a natural disaster, there's a fire,
25:23
there's something could happen or bullying happens, right?
25:27
There's a lot of things that are out of control.
25:29
So as human beings, most of us will go through some challenging
25:33
experiences, right? Some of us go through a lot of
25:36
challenging experiences and some people have.
25:39
Kind of an unfair hand that's still to them, but they found
25:42
that not every parent or biological parent is going to be
25:45
the one that's going to be supportive or that's going to be
25:48
able to meet the needs of the child at the time.
25:50
But they found that even just having kind of 1 supportive
25:53
adult figure helps provide a supportive relationship can make
25:56
a huge difference. And then also by building secure
25:59
attachments, you build resilience in your children to
26:01
be able to handle these challenging things to go through
26:03
now if trauma has occurred and so.
26:08
There's different types of therapy, psychotherapy.
26:09
So talk therapy or conventional therapy can be really helpful
26:12
for some, but it's not helpful for everyone.
26:14
And for trauma it's can be helpful but not always.
26:18
And there's a new type of therapy called well, not new,
26:21
It's I think it's becoming more popular now.
26:23
It's called EMDREMDR. So it's movement desensitization
26:28
reprocessing and how it works is they and there are certain
26:32
clinicians that are. Able to conduct this, but it's
26:36
through eye movements and it helps your brain kind of
26:38
reprocess what's happened to kind of move on from the trauma
26:43
and have it be less triggering. So there's different types of
26:45
therapy that are available. And then, yeah, the big thing is
26:51
having making sure that children have a secure adult that they
26:55
can rely on and that they can depend on.
26:58
And so with that, if you so say a child has experienced
27:01
something essentially traumatic and say they're a 5 year old or
27:05
something like that. And you talked a lot about some
27:08
of the scary things that can kind of happen later in life,
27:11
like the likelihood of XY&Z, say a traumatic, like maybe there's
27:15
been a neglectful parent or neglectful set of parents in
27:18
this child's life. But then somebody does come into
27:20
their life and provides that support and the nurturing home
27:24
or care or just is a really great figure.
27:26
Can you start to reduce some of those risk factors?
27:29
Yeah, absolutely. And so, yeah.
27:31
And so kind of providing that, Yeah, Yeah, providing that
27:36
protective, yeah, that protective resource can be
27:40
really helpful for children. Okay, okay, okay.
27:45
So that's not a loss. And then I also have to ask for
27:48
somebody who's listening, who's like, well, I'm, you know, 35
27:51
years old at this point. And I did have, you know, some
27:54
crap happened to me when I was younger.
27:58
And I know that sometimes people can feel a bit of fear around,
28:02
like, is history going to repeat itself?
28:04
Does this mean I'm broken? Can they also, you know, break
28:08
that pattern in that cycle and be reassured that they're not
28:12
broken? Absolutely.
28:14
And nobody is broken and nobody is broken.
28:17
And there is, yeah, there's a lot about now about breaking the
28:20
cycle because a lot of the time and if if you think about it
28:23
makes sense to someone's grown up in a household that had a lot
28:26
of challenges or there is. Abuse or there is alcohol,
28:29
there's something like that and they saw a lot of challenging
28:31
things and they grow up, they feel, you know, they feel
28:36
unsupported and then maybe they turn to substances or alcohol as
28:39
well to help cope with all the challenging things.
28:41
And then that continues on. But there are ways to what we
28:44
call can break the cycle where there is helpful things.
28:48
So getting into so and it depends with every person is
28:51
individual So what every person needs.
28:54
Is going to be unique. So whether that's therapy and
28:56
getting into EMDR&EMDR and whether it's building connection
29:01
within your community and or whether it's finding a different
29:06
way to parent than how you were parented and providing for your
29:10
children that childhood that you didn't have the chance to have.
29:13
And there's a lot now to on there.
29:15
There's a lot of more great resources out there.
29:17
So there's a few books, there's one by it's Ken Hoffman and it's
29:20
on raising a secure child. So there's the different
29:23
attachment theories. And so depending on how you're
29:27
raised can affect the attachment style that you have.
29:30
And this is your attachment to other people and it and it can
29:33
impact your attachment to other relationships further down.
29:36
So depending on what your relationship is like as a child
29:39
and growing up, that can affect your relationship with your your
29:42
partner, your friends, the people later in your life.
29:44
And so it would be for attachment style.
29:46
So there's secure attachment. Anxious Attachment, Dismissive
29:50
Avoidance and Fearful Avoidance. And I don't know, Did you take
29:53
psychology? And this is ringing about.
29:56
And so they talked about this, and they looked at a study of
29:59
where they had toddlers, and the parents stepped out of the room,
30:02
and then they looked at house, and the toddlers behaved, and
30:04
depending on the attachment styles and what their
30:07
relationship was like, that toddlers would behave in
30:09
different ways. And and so the best attachment
30:13
style is a secure one. And there's a quote from the
30:16
Kent Hoffman book. A secure attachment is
30:18
confidence and trust in the goodness of me, you and us.
30:21
So they feel good and confident and like they can rely on that
30:26
other person. And then that in turn leads them
30:29
to feel like they can rely on themselves and trust themselves
30:33
and get through things so. Through a lot of that.
30:36
So some of the tips from this book are so showing interest in
30:40
your and your child or your children and what they're doing
30:42
can be really supportive and validating their feelings as
30:46
well. And then building confidence
30:49
that they can go through and do hard things.
30:51
And offering freedom to explore and engaging in creativity.
30:54
Making sure that there's no conditions on the love that I
30:58
don't just love you because you're smart and you're good at
31:00
soccer, but because of who you are.
31:02
And yeah, Oh my goodness. OK.
31:04
It's so good to get back to some of those just basics.
31:07
Like as you know there's so much information out there and it
31:10
gets complicated and confusing and it's kind of like when you I
31:14
listen to tons of podcasts, obviously.
31:15
And you know it's always like get kids like when you're
31:18
talking about just health. Like I could sleep drink water.
31:20
It's it all seems so basic but but it's helpful to be reminded
31:23
like it's helpful to be reminded that validate your kids feel
31:28
that just yeah you're in the throes of it you're not
31:29
sleeping. You're having a bad day yourself
31:32
and you're like, how do like what do I come back to you?
31:35
What's my life raft for being a good parent?
31:37
The foundational pieces, it's just helpful to to hear those
31:40
again. Also with it, with developing a
31:42
secure attachment you don't have to be perfect and nobody's
31:46
perfect and you're not going to be on 100% of the time and but
31:50
if you you know are are short with your child which everyone
31:53
is going to be at some point and if you are or you know if you
31:58
snap at them, just the ability to apologize and apologize and
32:01
quickly. So that they know and then they.
32:04
And that also gives your child a sense that it's okay to not be
32:09
perfect and how to handle that because that's a huge part of
32:12
being a human and getting different life.
32:15
And how can. Yeah.
32:16
And it's how can we constantly nag our kids about manners when
32:20
they don't see that modeled. I find that so funny.
32:23
Like there's a lot of yeah, it's interesting.
32:25
It's interesting. Like the I'm not going to admit
32:28
faults. Like if you stepped, like, I
32:29
stepped on my daughter's toe the other day and and she was like,
32:32
oh, mommy. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm
32:33
so sorry. Like, I'm sorry.
32:35
Or, you know, we have to leave the park.
32:37
I'm not apologizing for leaving the park, but I'm validating
32:40
that she's upset that we have to leave the park every single day.
32:43
But, you know, it's it's like, yeah, we had so much fun at the
32:46
park. It's hard to leave.
32:47
And you know, some days I, like, get the wording wrong or I say
32:51
sorry. What?
32:51
I don't mean sorry. You know, they're like always
32:53
playing around with it. But as long as I think the
32:56
intention, it seems to be important as well.
33:00
Resilience. We hear a lot about that word
33:02
and I know that that's a key piece and a lot of it, like a
33:06
lot of this and building, building up children to, you
33:10
know, live their best lives. And it's, you know, we want to
33:13
it's kind of buzzy almost maybe a bit of a buzzword like we want
33:16
our children to grow up with resilience.
33:17
What does How does that play into this?
33:21
Yeah, Is it different than what we're talking about?
33:23
How do we create and build up resilient children?
33:26
Yeah. And I agree with you.
33:27
I feel it like it is. It is a bit of a buzzword of
33:31
resilience, but what does it actually mean?
33:33
And I think, I mean for, yeah, I would say that they have the
33:39
confidence that they can get through hard things and they
33:44
have the tools that are there and they don't necessarily have
33:46
to have all the answers, but that they can get through
33:48
challenging times. And I like that.
33:52
They don't necessarily have to. It's not like we have to give
33:54
our kids all the answers. I don't know.
33:56
But they feel resourceful enough to seek out whether it's, you
34:00
know, that old story about, like, hey, I'll be the fun aunt
34:03
who, like, you can call if there's somebody who's about to,
34:05
like, drive drunk, like, it's like one of the resources, like,
34:08
OK, I'm going to use my brain and be like, this is a terrible
34:11
idea. This is a bad situation I've
34:13
ended myself up in. However, I have the tools.
34:16
I don't know if that's a good example, but like giving them
34:19
tools, not answers. Absolutely.
34:22
And building up, yeah, building up that they are able to start
34:25
to navigate the world because as you're, I mean, when your
34:28
children are young, they rely on you for so much and then they're
34:32
so needy, yes. Dog trainer that we have for
34:39
your massive, massive, massive, adorable dog.
34:42
So she's so funny. So she and I will also say this
34:44
disclaimer too because we I'm not a parent yet.
34:47
We we hope to be someday. But yeah, I'm not.
34:51
I'm not a parent. So a lot of this is just from,
34:53
this is just from my, like my readings and my experience in
34:56
work that's coming here 10 years doing, yeah, you you can, you
35:03
can tell us the things even though you're not a parent, you
35:05
can tell us all the things. The trainer that we have, and
35:09
she's the best. Oh my gosh, she's great.
35:12
And so she when we first got our puppy because we knew he was
35:16
going to be massive, you're like we we want us to be well
35:20
trained. So we brought her in to be one
35:22
one-on-one in our home and she was so funny because she sat us
35:25
down and she goes, okay, do you want to have kids?
35:29
And both my partner and I were like, yeah, we do want to have
35:31
kids, like the next few years, hopefully.
35:34
And she's like, all right, you get this right raising a dog.
35:38
She's like, you'll be excellent parents.
35:40
It's all we're like, OK, all right, well, we'll see anyways.
35:44
But so she was. She was talking one of her
35:46
sessions, so we did all the puppy classes and stuff and she
35:49
was talking. She's like your goal as a parent
35:51
with human children is you want them to leave home eventually.
35:56
You want to build them up and they grow and they're confident
35:58
and they take on the world by themselves.
36:00
You want them to want to leave home.
36:02
That's your goal. And then she turned around.
36:04
She's like, you want your dog to come home, you don't want them
36:06
to run away. That's a big difference between
36:10
this. But a lot of yeah and a lot of
36:14
yeah. The resilience is just building
36:17
them into confidence secure humans that are able to tackle
36:21
the challenges of the world and. There will definitely be some.
36:25
There's there's another book. I don't know if you've read it,
36:28
but it's by Dan Siebel. He's a child psychiatrist.
36:31
I'm in a bunch of this. I don't know where he's from.
36:33
He's somewhere in the States, OK?
36:35
And I'm going to link, I'll link all these resources because
36:37
Kathleen is going to continue to share and I'm going to forget
36:39
everything. So we'll link all the resources
36:41
so you can, people can go and find the master, yeah?
36:44
And one of so, one of my colleagues that's also in the
36:46
working group with doctors at BC, So she was speaking about
36:49
this on a podcast that she had done.
36:52
And I thought it was so great. So it's on the power of showing
36:55
up and it's about parenting. And there's 4S's that they say
36:58
of kind of your goals for parenting.
37:00
So the first one is safe. So you want to keep them safe.
37:04
You want to make them feel safe. And then your second one is
37:09
seen. So making sure that there's
37:10
understanding that you're responding to them and then you
37:14
want to soothe them so your presence so.
37:17
And then they said when challenging things happen as a
37:19
parent. You want to be present.
37:21
You want to have engagement with them and still show them
37:24
affection, calm and have empathy.
37:26
And then your last one is you want them to be secure as they
37:29
grow up. So, safe, scene soothed and
37:31
secure. How do we make our kids feel
37:34
secure in situations where, like, we won't always be there?
37:38
And so I think a lot of that too from it's giving kids the chance
37:43
to explore. Be creative and giving them
37:47
that, starting to give them that freedom and and letting them do
37:50
things on their own because that also builds their confidence
37:52
that they can do these things and start to tackle harder and
37:55
harder things, getting them like a bit of a longer leash if we
37:59
use the dog analogy. Yeah, yeah, I like that.
38:02
Like I was. We were scootering.
38:04
We were scootering. I was not on the scooter.
38:06
Addy was scootering. She's getting really good.
38:08
I mean, there's parents were kind of annoying when they're
38:10
like, Oh my God, my daughter's a genius.
38:12
Eddie's a genius. She is rocking this scooter like
38:15
it's nobody's business. It's like it happened overnight.
38:17
Anyways, man, she bailed so many times on her little knees on the
38:22
asphalt, and I was one of them. I actually caught her midair and
38:25
I was like, oh, that was good cuz I think she was gonna land
38:27
on her head. But I was like, I might actually
38:30
get her knee pads, cuz like her knees are so scraped from the
38:32
summer. But I was thinking about that
38:34
and I was thinking about our conversation coming up and I was
38:36
like, oh, I wonder if this is like kind of part of all this
38:38
where it's, it's giving her these opportunities to fall and
38:42
get up. And we talked about and she's
38:44
like, oh, that hurt. And then she gets back on the
38:46
scooter and it's like, it's OK Yeah.
38:49
And it's hard as the parent, like that's a physical
38:52
situation, but like it's so hard as the parent to like see your
38:54
kids go through stuff. But I just, I I know intuitively
38:59
and also through the work I've done and research and whatever,
39:02
that it's important to let them have those, the little scrapes
39:05
on their knees and but not take, not keep them home from school
39:09
because you're worried about bullying.
39:11
Not preventing them from being in social situations out of fear
39:15
of something happening. But giving them the tools if and
39:18
when things do happen to be like this is how we can get through
39:21
them together. And maybe is it setting up for
39:24
them to have the tools to then be able to get through stuff on
39:26
their own? Yeah, and I think that's such a
39:28
beautiful thing too, of getting through it together, and I think
39:31
that. Exemplifies what they're talking
39:33
about with secure parenting and is that teaching them from an
39:37
early age that we're there with them through this and these
39:40
challenging things. And there's actually one of the
39:43
empties that I did school with. So she was a parent and she had
39:47
two young kids and one of her pretty youngest had issues with
39:51
anxiety. And so we get really, really
39:53
worried about things. And I remember she was telling
39:55
us and she would always sit them down, be like, OK, is this
39:57
something we can like, can we get through this together?
39:59
What's the worst case scenario? And can we get through this
40:02
together? And he reflects and be like,
40:05
know it? Yeah, yeah, we can.
40:07
But I just thought it was so beautiful because it was, it was
40:10
apparent that was like, Yep, this is going to be hard.
40:12
I'm here with and I'll get you through it.
40:14
And then yeah. If you know what I like about
40:17
that is asking them what they it's kind of like she was asking
40:20
him when he needed as well. So it's like.
40:23
No matter what age I guess the kid is at, when you're kind of
40:26
doing a bit of a debrief, instead of being like, okay, I'm
40:28
going to distract you. Let's have a popsicle or okay.
40:31
Here's what we should do next. Like you scrape your knee, let's
40:34
go get a bandaid, blah blah blah.
40:35
What if I, like, maybe Addie didn't want a bandaid.
40:37
We didn't do that. But the reflection, if she was
40:40
super upset, could have been, hey, what do you want to do now?
40:43
Like, what should we do to solve this?
40:45
Or like, how are you feeling? And she like, my knee hurts.
40:47
It's like Okay. Like, how can I support you in
40:50
making it feel better and maybe like, starting to help her come
40:54
up with solutions? Like she's in that space, she's
40:56
only 2 1/2. But like, she's really is
40:57
getting there where she could be like, I want to keep scootering
41:01
versus me pushing a solution on her.
41:03
It's like your friend, It's like asking him like, OK, what do we
41:06
want to do to get through this together?
41:07
And he could be like nothing. I'm actually fine.
41:10
Or like, I want to talk about it or I want to be alone.
41:12
Maybe that's part of it and, like, really honoring where
41:14
they're at. Yeah.
41:16
And I think that's a big part too of them have them being seen
41:20
is you're kind of understanding they and are working because
41:23
she's she's 2 1/2. But she's got this brain that's
41:26
growing like crazy and she's making all these new connections
41:29
and she's developing and she's learning all these new skills
41:31
and so quickly and so really getting curious about what's
41:36
going on inside her beautiful brain.
41:39
Yes. Can I ask you, can I ask you
41:42
advice? I'm putting you totally on the
41:43
spot here. When things happen, what do you
41:46
say If someone's sharing an experience with you and they're
41:48
like, they share, like, a really traumatic experience from their
41:52
childhood? Yeah.
41:53
What's it? What's the first thing that you
41:55
typically say as an acknowledgement, but not
41:58
lessening them, belittling them. Yeah, And I think.
42:02
I think that's a big thing is that what I I try to do is
42:05
acknowledgement about how how challenging that must have been
42:09
and just yeah, like how challenging it must have been to
42:12
share that. And just.
42:13
Yeah. And just try to have kind of a
42:15
quiet moment of. Yeah, appreciation because
42:18
difficult things like that, they're not always easy to talk
42:20
about and it takes a lot of a lot of vulnerability, right, to
42:23
bring that up. And so I think appreciation of
42:26
that and also appreciation too because as a, you know, as a
42:29
healthcare provider, sometimes I'm meeting people for the first
42:32
time or you know, I've only met them a few times.
42:34
So for them to share something big like that, it yes, it must
42:40
have been really difficult for them because new.
42:43
Person that is hard. And now I'm thinking maybe in
42:46
the in a reverse situation with parents.
42:51
It could also be hard because that's the person that you care
42:54
most about. Like your parents say, it could
42:56
be the people that you care most about.
42:57
You care about their opinion. You might be sharing something
42:59
that they really don't want to hear, like, okay, I really
43:02
screwed up here and I'm about to tell you acknowledgement like
43:05
that's interesting. I'm acknowledging how hard that
43:08
must have been for you to share that, so that's cool.
43:12
I like that. The acknowledgement piece is
43:14
huge, yeah. And I think you also, and as a
43:17
parent, as a healthcare provider, you want to make sure
43:18
that people feel safe to come to you again with if something
43:22
really difficult has happened, right?
43:25
Yes, yes. Oh my goodness, we could talk
43:30
forever. And I know we're we're like we
43:32
could go for three hours for sure, Kathleen.
43:36
Yeah, we're going to have to do a Part 2 at some point.
43:39
I've got a million more questions, but this is so
43:40
incredibly helpful. And even just ending all that
43:42
like how do you even acknowledge like how like what are some of
43:44
the things like the 4S is we'll drop all of this stuff in the
43:47
show notes in the in the blog post that he create associated
43:50
with this. This is so incredibly helpful.
43:52
I have to ask what's something that you're trying to figure
43:54
out. I ask everybody on the on the
43:56
podcast. I should have expected this
43:58
coming because I listened to your podcast.
44:00
I'm trying to figure out Oh my gosh I.
44:04
And I think be anything, I think this is going to be my forever
44:07
thing is trying to and if my partner, if my partner listen to
44:13
listen to this is going to a lot and is my.
44:16
I'm always trying to figure out my balance of having a busy job
44:20
and doing things in that job that bring me a lot of joy and
44:23
meaning. And then balancing that with the
44:26
other things that I get a lot of joy and meaning from.
44:28
And you know, because sometimes I can sway too much where I'm I
44:33
end up working really long hours and I'm working too much and
44:35
then I'm not cooking at home or spending quality time at home
44:41
and vice versa if I'm not. And I feel like, you know, doing
44:46
too many social but trying to find the balance of all the
44:49
things that make me feel good and make me happy and make me
44:52
function at my best and I feel like.
44:54
And I can't even imagine what it must be like for you as a parent
44:57
to two young children. But finding that balance about
45:01
where you allocate your time. And I feel like we get older and
45:04
time is going faster and everyone's getting busier.
45:07
But yeah, yeah, balancing that, it's so challenging.
45:13
It's challenging. You know what I will say?
45:15
Maybe to ease your mind from my personal experience, the There's
45:19
beauty in the constraints. Like there's literally a book
45:21
called A Beautiful Constraint, and I always reference it even
45:24
though I've never actually read it.
45:25
But Scotty wrote read it and he always references it, so I feel
45:28
like I've read it. Which is like most books that he
45:30
reads. I feel like I've also read it
45:31
with him and there is beauty in the the constraints that are
45:37
created in parenting where you're like, I only have XY&Z
45:40
amount of time. Which is interesting because
45:42
then it does like I remember hearing people say it makes you
45:45
feel more productive or like you've just got a bit more
45:48
focused because you've got pockets of time.
45:50
So it's interesting. It'll be interesting to continue
45:52
to reflect and we'll have you back on.
45:55
When, when the time comes, making babies, because you'll be
45:59
great and it's cool that you've already acknowledged that, like
46:01
you are aware that it's something that you're working
46:03
on, which is half the battle, right?
46:06
Well. Thank you.
46:07
So first of all, thank you for the work that you do.
46:09
Second of all, thank you for coming and speaking to me and
46:12
us, this audience. And from the lens of parenting
46:15
and cheering your career story to how fascinating I've learned,
46:19
I've honestly learned a lot. And I know there's resources
46:22
that you mentioned. Couple books and there's a
46:24
couple others that you wanted to share as well, so I will put
46:27
those in the show notes. But I so appreciate your time.
46:30
I appreciate you and I have a feeling you will be a friend of
46:33
the podcast and I'll be inviting you back if you will.
46:36
If you will join me would be honored.
46:38
And thank you so much for having me and taking the time to listen
46:41
to me. And it's been, yeah, it's been
46:42
such a treat to to spend the last hour with you.
46:47
The best. Thanks, Kathleen.
46:49
Thank you for listening. You can access all resources
46:52
mentioned in this episode via my website andreabar.com/podcast
46:57
and let's chat on Instagram. I'm at Andrea Barr Coaching and
46:59
I reply to every DM I get. If you love this episode, don't
47:03
forget to quickly hit that button on your podcast app to
47:06
give me a 5 star rating and drop in a review.
47:09
It would truly mean the world. And if you're like me and love
47:13
to share things that you love, send this episode to a friend
47:15
who you think would appreciate this topic.
47:18
Thanks again for listening and I'll chat with you next week.