Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1087 - The Secret to Regulating Emotions [R]

Transcript

#1087 - The Secret to Regulating Emotions [R] · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: once answers Now.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Kylie, we received an email from Danny who is having
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: a hard time with the child who's having big emotions
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  Speaker 1: emotional regulation stuff. She said, I'd love to hear a
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  Speaker 1: podcast topic on dealing with kids with big emotions, emotion
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  Speaker 1: regulation challenges that lead to them hitting themselves in the head,
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  Speaker 1: and moments of emotional overload and what can parents do
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: in the moment, because sometimes meltdowns seem to happen out
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  Speaker 1: of nowhere, so the best prevention strategies often don't work.
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  Speaker 2: So the thing that stands out to me the most
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  Speaker 2: with this question is the reality that often there is
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: actually very little we can do in the moment. We
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: talk about high emotions and low intelligence and this idea
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  Speaker 2: when we're emotionally flooded, our thinking part of our brain
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  Speaker 2: doesn't work.
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  Speaker 1: It just switches off.
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  Speaker 2: And a really, really clear case in point was when
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  Speaker 2: I taught our eldest daughter to drive. First day, she
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  Speaker 2: was driving straight for a brick wall and I could not,
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  Speaker 2: for the life of me think of what needed to
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  Speaker 2: happen in order to stop that.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, you needed to say stop. I did.
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  Speaker 2: I was screaming stop. But at no point did my
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  Speaker 2: thinking brain go pull the handbrake.
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  Speaker 1: Up right, I didn't. I couldn't.
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  Speaker 2: And it wasn't until after that and everything blew up
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  Speaker 2: in smoke that it was like, why didn't I pull
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  Speaker 2: the handbrake? But I couldn't think of that in that
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  Speaker 2: moment because I was so emotionally flooded with the fear
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  Speaker 2: of the fact that we were about to eat a
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  Speaker 2: brick wall.
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  Speaker 1: I can't remember the name of the podcast listener. I
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: think her name was Jess. I sent us an email
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  Speaker 1: one time and said, you know that high emotions low
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  Speaker 1: intelligence thing. I don't like it because you're still intelligent.
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  Speaker 1: It's just that you're not accessing it. And I think
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  Speaker 1: that that was I mean, it's a new moonic, right,
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  Speaker 1: But you can't think straight in the high emotion state,
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  Speaker 1: is what she said. Let's get people understanding that when
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you're on the brink, you need to stop and think.
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  Speaker 1: But what Danny's saying in her email is when you're
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  Speaker 1: over the brink, it's too late to stop and think,
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  Speaker 1: which is what happened with you. When our daughter wrote
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  Speaker 1: the car off on her very first driving lesson ever,
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  Speaker 1: airbags everywhere. I mean, it was just it was a disaster.
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  Speaker 1: So how do we help Danny with this? If you
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  Speaker 1: had asked me this question a little while ago, maybe
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: a year or two ago, I would have said, once
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  Speaker 1: the kids are in that high emotion state where they're
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: blowing up, where the meltdown is just going absolutely bonkers.
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  Speaker 1: At that point, you can't do anything. You just have
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  Speaker 1: to wait. And I still think that in many cases
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  Speaker 1: that may be the case because as parents, we've got
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: to have the skill set to respond to that. So
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: sometimes my answer is still going to be you can't
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  Speaker 1: do anything. But over time I've become increasingly convinced that
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  Speaker 1: there are things that you can do, and that's what
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  Speaker 1: I think we should talk about in today's podcast episode.
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  Speaker 2: Being at a household of girls, there are huge emotions
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  Speaker 2: on a regular basis.
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  Speaker 1: So much emotion, so much emotion.
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  Speaker 2: And as I've been learning more about how to deal
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  Speaker 2: with my own emotions, which has been so powerful for
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  Speaker 2: me then being able to help our children. One of
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  Speaker 2: the things that I found really eye opening is I
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  Speaker 2: just have a sheet with all of the different emoji
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  Speaker 2: emotions on it, and the other day our thirteen year
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  Speaker 2: old was displaying some huge emotions, but when I tried
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  Speaker 2: to talk to her about it, she completely shut down.
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  Speaker 2: And as our kids get older, we often find that
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  Speaker 2: instead of their emotions getting bigger, they actually hold them in.
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  Speaker 1: It's probably worth highlighting and interrupting, just briefly in their story.
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  Speaker 1: Emotion regulation is not just the ability to hold your
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  Speaker 1: emotions in. It's the ability to express or suppress appropriately.
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  Speaker 1: And when children are emotionally disregulated, like our thirteen year
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  Speaker 1: old was here, she's suppressing that emotion, but she's not
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  Speaker 1: doing it in a healthy way. It's in a dysregulated way.
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  Speaker 1: But she's holding it in because she doesn't want to
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  Speaker 1: be explosive. And she also knows that, like a wave
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  Speaker 1: on the shore, that emotion is coming in and eventually
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  Speaker 1: it is going to go back out and she'll be
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  Speaker 1: able to process it and deal with it appropriately. But
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  Speaker 1: right here, right now, she's blowing up, and rather than
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  Speaker 1: blowing up and making it worse, she's now suppressing it.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes healthy, sometimes not. Just wanted to jump in with that, and.
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  Speaker 2: So I pulled out the emotions chart and I just
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  Speaker 2: said to her, I said, I feel like there's a
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  Speaker 2: whole heap of emotion you're feeling at the moment, I said,
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  Speaker 2: do you actually know what you're feeling? And she looked
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  Speaker 2: at me and she said, ah. I said, maybe we
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  Speaker 2: can use the chart, and one by one she handpicked
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  Speaker 2: about eight different emotions like that is a lot of
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  Speaker 2: emotion for anyone to be going through, but especially as
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  Speaker 2: a young teenager who's trying.
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  Speaker 1: To work life out. And it's even harder when you've
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  Speaker 1: got a five or a six year old, or a
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  Speaker 1: or a three year old who's experiencing all of those
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  Speaker 1: emotions and it doesn't know I mean, it doesn't even
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  Speaker 1: have the words, doesn't have them labels, the names. There's
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  Speaker 1: so much happening inside them, and they just think there's
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  Speaker 1: something wrong with them.
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  Speaker 2: And that's how our daughter was feeling specifically this day.
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  Speaker 2: So when I realized how many emotions we were dealing with,
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  Speaker 2: I said, if you had to hand pick maybe the
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  Speaker 2: top two that are taking up the most emotion in
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  Speaker 2: your body, what would they be? And she pointed to
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  Speaker 2: two and I went great, Now I actually, as a
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  Speaker 2: parent have something to work with, because until that point
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  Speaker 2: I had no idea really what was going on. But
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  Speaker 2: now she's given me a really beautiful, vivid picture of
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  Speaker 2: this is what I'm feeling now.
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  Speaker 1: I want to break this down for Danny and everyone
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  Speaker 1: else who's saying, how am I supposed to do this?
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  Speaker 1: Number One, we've got a child who we're stepping in
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  Speaker 1: with a tool. In fact, I think I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: get the Happy Family's team to develop a tool and
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  Speaker 1: we'll make it available in the shop. I think that
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  Speaker 1: we just need to help people with this. You put
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  Speaker 1: the tool in front of your child and say, can
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  Speaker 1: you just point to these emotions because no matter how
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  Speaker 1: angry they are, gentle distraction that's emotion focused and problem
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  Speaker 1: solving focused. It will bring them back to the here
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  Speaker 1: and now, and it gets their logical brain working again.
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  Speaker 1: It gets them out of that emotional brain into their
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  Speaker 1: logical brain. It's kind of like when you say, can
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  Speaker 1: you draw your emotions for me? You can do this
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  Speaker 1: with little kids, right and they pull out the black
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  Speaker 1: texture and scribble all over the page and you say, wow,
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  Speaker 1: that is a lot of.
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  Speaker 2: Until they take that tool to school and they draw
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  Speaker 2: all over the carpet the.
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  Speaker 1: Text and you get a focal from the teacher. But
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  Speaker 1: the important part about your story, Kylie, is the way
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  Speaker 1: that you've stepped in with compassion and gentleness and a
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  Speaker 1: tool so that a child can identify an emotional state.
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  Speaker 2: I'm forty plus years old, and for so long I
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  Speaker 2: just thought there was angry, mad.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, that angry. It's that angry, scared, stress, and happy.
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  Speaker 2: I really struggle to recognize that I could feel a
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  Speaker 2: whole heap more, and so for our kids it's the same.
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  Speaker 2: They just think they're angry. That's why we have these
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  Speaker 2: big emotions. They think they're angry, but helping them to
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  Speaker 2: recognize that actually, no, underneath that anger, there is On
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  Speaker 2: this particular day, it was shame, it was embarrassment, it
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  Speaker 2: was feeling alone, it was feeling isolated. There were so
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  Speaker 2: many emotions that weren't actually angry at all, but anger
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  Speaker 2: is how we express them.
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  Speaker 1: So in the moment, that's your big idea. Let's sit
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  Speaker 1: down with the tool and let's talk through the tool,
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  Speaker 1: because that's going to build the emotional awareness and the
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  Speaker 1: emotional regulation in the child. I want to share, I
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  Speaker 1: guess and more advanced, not not that that's not advanced.
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  Speaker 1: I can't believe, no, no, no, no, Honestly I said that
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  Speaker 1: I was wrong. What I'm trying to say, is I
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  Speaker 1: want to share? So, I mean, you've you've got great
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  Speaker 1: parenting happening here, but I want to share the kind
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  Speaker 1: of parenting for the parent who really wants to take
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  Speaker 1: on a really big challenge in dealing with really really
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  Speaker 1: mega emotions. In some other ways that could also work.
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  Speaker 1: But what you said was really great, and I think
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  Speaker 1: that it should be encouraged to stop talking. I'm just
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  Speaker 1: going to stop talking. Should I just share my story?
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  Speaker 2: She's okay.
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  Speaker 1: I did actually share this on the podcast a little
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  Speaker 1: while ago. I said that all wrong. I'm so sorry.
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  Speaker 1: So I shared this a while ago. We had one
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  Speaker 1: of our adolescent daughters lose the plot recently. It was
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  Speaker 1: several months ago now, absolutely going off, really really psyching
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  Speaker 1: at her sister. And when I walked into the room
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  Speaker 1: and asked her if she could please step out, she
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  Speaker 1: defied me, said she wasn't going anywhere. I mean she
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  Speaker 1: was just her eyes were on fire. So after two
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  Speaker 1: or three more requests and me standing my ground and
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  Speaker 1: staying very soft, very gentle, but also being very clear
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  Speaker 1: that there was a boundary that had been crossed and
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  Speaker 1: she needed to step out.
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  Speaker 2: So before you go on, that's actually such a key point.
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  Speaker 2: If we're not taking care of ourselves emotionally and making
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  Speaker 2: sure that we're on point, when our kids are losing
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  Speaker 2: their plot, more times than not, we lose the plant
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  Speaker 2: them in the cave. We actually create more chaos. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: So key to this story working out was that you
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  Speaker 2: were in a good space and could hold your ground
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  Speaker 2: in being really scented emotionally.
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  Speaker 1: Probably want to highlight just on this though, and this
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  Speaker 1: is so important for Danny's question if we're going to
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  Speaker 1: step in and help our children regulate that whole idea
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  Speaker 1: of regulation, being able to express or suppress appropriately. I
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  Speaker 1: was furious with this daughter the way she had treated
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  Speaker 1: her sister. I was furious, So I had to regulate
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  Speaker 1: my emotion. I had to suppress that, keep it together
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  Speaker 1: and politely, compassionately and gently see that she was going
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  Speaker 1: through a struggle.
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  Speaker 2: This is and that's a tool in in and of itself, right,
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  Speaker 2: recognizing that when our children are showing big emotions, it's
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: actually getting to a place where we can have compassion
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  Speaker 2: for what they are experiencing in that moment.
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  Speaker 1: So I held my ground because she was very, very
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  Speaker 1: defined and explained a couple of times she just needed
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: to leave the room and I would be with her
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  Speaker 1: soon and we'd work this out. And it was very
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  Speaker 1: much oriented towards I'm here to help you. I'm just
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: going to look after your little sister first. Anyway, she
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: stepped onto our little tidal decking area next to the
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  Speaker 1: car port and waited for me. When I stepped outside,
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  Speaker 1: having checked that her sister was okay, I expressed to
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: her that perhaps perhaps we could go for a walk
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to the front gates to get some fresh air. Now
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: front gates only about eight meters from the front door,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: but she agreed to do it, and so we walked there,
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  Speaker 1: and it wasn't nearly far enough. She was still hostile
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  Speaker 1: and fuming, and so I convinced her to walk to
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  Speaker 1: the corner with me. There's something about nature, There's something
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  Speaker 1: about being outside when your children are having a meltdown.
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  Speaker 1: We always try and deal with it in the living room,
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  Speaker 1: and I just I really recommend getting outside. The kids
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  Speaker 1: don't respond the same way outside as they do in
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  Speaker 1: the four walls the home.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: We talked about this in our Witching Hour episode last week.
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  Speaker 2: This acknowledgment that our baby calmed as soon as she
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: was outside. We learned this lesson very early on, and
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  Speaker 2: it has paid endeavored ends every time we've used it
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  Speaker 2: with our children.
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  Speaker 1: So when we got to the corner, I put my
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: arms out to her and said, can I hug you?
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  Speaker 1: And she said no because she hated me right then,
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  Speaker 1: and she was really really angry. And I just said
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to her, very very gently and quietly, I I just
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  Speaker 1: want to share one thing with you, just one and
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  Speaker 1: once I've shared that with you, I won't talk again.
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  Speaker 1: And the one thing that I shared with her was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: that no matter how many doors she slammed, no matter
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: how many insults she shared with her sister, no matter
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: how many challenging moments like this we went through, that
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  Speaker 1: I loved her no matter what. Those three key words
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  Speaker 1: not I love you, but no matter what. And when
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: I shared that with her, all of the big emotions
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  Speaker 1: she'd been feeling dissolved, and a new big emotion came
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  Speaker 1: over her instead, and she burst into tears and me
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: for a few minutes down on the corner before we
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: walked home and we resolved things. The reason that I'm
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: sharing that as an advanced parenting strategy, Kylie, the reason
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  Speaker 1: that I said what I said before is because our
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: capacity to hold our emotions in check, to have and
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: hold compassion for children who are being horrible, and then
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: to express unconditional regard and love for them at the
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: right time, in the right place, in a way that
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  Speaker 1: makes them receptive to it and brings them back to
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a place where they can then move forward with finding solutions.
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  Speaker 1: It's a really hard thing to do. But when we
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  Speaker 1: get our heart right towards our child, when our heart
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: is full of compassion and gentleness, I think that's really
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the key when our kids are having the meltdown, Danny.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: It's really about the state of our heart, and if
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: we're oriented towards compassion and helping, then we get better outcomes.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: They do stop hitting themselves in the head. They do
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  Speaker 1: stop beating up their siblings. They do stop saying I
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  Speaker 1: hate you or I hate this world and I want
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: to die. They stop saying those things, and they respond
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: to our unconditional love.
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  Speaker 2: Will Just for the record, I didn't really like our
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: thirteen year old that day either.
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  Speaker 1: You regulated very well I did. We really hope that
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: this has been useful, Danny. Thanks so much for the email.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: You can email your questions podcasts at Happy Families dot
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: com dot au. That's podcasts with an s at happy
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: families dot com dot au. Thank you so much for
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: listening to the Happy Families podcasts. We hope that it
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: makes your family happier. The Happy Families podcast is produced
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: by Justin Rouland from Bridge Media. For more information about
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: making your family happier, please visit us at happyfamilies dot
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: com dot au