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Transcript

Phone Boundaries: The Operational Playbook · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right, welcome back to the Parentat.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Today we have Ashley Poklar.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: She's a psychologist who actually understands the reality of the living room.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: We need her to translate high-level clinical theory into a typical Tuesday night execution.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Clinical psychology sounds great on paper, right?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: But it usually falls apart when your toddler is melting down in the kitchen.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Dr.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Ashley Poklar is a psychologist and an educator who specializes in bridging the gap between the clinical theory and actual parenting.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: So today we are extracting the exact framework to build resilient kids without the fluff.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Ashley, you bridge psychology and parenting.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Where is the biggest failure point between what clinical psychologists recommend and what parents can actually execute?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that gap is in both sides.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the gap from the psychologist looking to the parent is forgetting that the parent is coming in with not the same level of understanding of child development, but also coming in with their own stuff.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're carrying their own backpack, their own experiences, and their own emotional exhaustion.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So you work all day, you come home to crying children using all of those psyched um one-offs or tips and tricks, just it doesn't work in that moment.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then from the parenting side, we just don't know what we don't know as parents.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so after sitting through years and years of developmental psychology, there's things that if all parents just knew about, we would see our children through a different lens and be able to separate the child as a person from the child at their developmental stage, if that makes sense.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's helpful to know that I am also a parent.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So while I'm a psychologist, I also am a mother of four.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I have the I had four under four for a month.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: So my kids are close in age and everywhere from 11 to 15 currently.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I homeschool.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I am around them all of the time.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then I come and I'm around other people's children all of the time.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked in all of the child-serving places you could possibly think of, everything from hospitals to community agencies to schools.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I started out as a special education teacher.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So again, living in that space of what's developmentally appropriate versus what's not has kind of been that sweet spot that I've done most of my work in.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I've fallen into the space of trauma and particularly child sexual exploitation and trafficking.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the dangers online and that kind of thing is also a space that I'm living in currently.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And understanding kids' brains, teens' brains, make a big difference in the discussion around cell phone use and social media and those kinds of things.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I kind of want to, you know, this wasn't even on the question sheet, but now that you mention it, like those heavy topics of, you know, trafficking and online safety.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: What, you know, you have teenagers right now, or you know, a couple that are teenagers and a couple about to be teenagers.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what safety nets or prevention methods are you using with your own kids?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I do not get paid by this company for saying this.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but maybe I should.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: We use the bark phone.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: They have the phones or they have the app that you can use on any types of phones.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: We did do flip phones for the longest time.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: We just switched to smartphones this past Christmas and got the kids bark phones.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I love it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can set the limits and it tells you I get red alerts pretty much every day.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Are they actually a concern?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Are they not?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's for me as the parent to decide.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I like being able to just quickly look through and say, okay, yeah, they're listening to my 90s alternative rock.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not as concerning to me as maybe this text message where somebody was trying to love bomb them and they were responding in a way that seemed like they were open to something.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: I can track where they are.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I get to choose who they get to have as contacts.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: I get to choose what apps they're on, and I can also choose which contacts are allowed to be used at different times, as well as which apps are allowed to be used at different times, which is really helpful when you think of the fact that most of those sex tortion schemes and things like that happen when the parents go to bed and when the child's on their phone in the middle of the night.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love BARC.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's number one for managing it in the moment.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: But honestly, the best piece of advice that I have, and the thing I'm glad I did, is talking to your kids about the dangers early and often.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: The average parent talks to their kids for about 45, 47 minutes in a child's entire life about online safety with as much as kids are online.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not enough time.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So you really have to have those conversations regularly.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as parents, it's hard because you don't want to start a conversation about something that you think they haven't seen, but chances are they've seen more than you could ever imagine.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: The average age of coming across pornography is 11 or 12.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to have had those conversations with your child before they hit that age.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So regular conversations, regular check-ins.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I saw this on a news story.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: You want to talk about it?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And building the norm of having these open conversations.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's a that's that's such a wealth of knowledge there.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: I I had no idea about the bark phone.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have two toddlers, so we're not quite in that stage yet.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I want to prepare myself and prepare other parents that are, you know, perhaps not right quite there or perhaps are in it, you know, just like you are, with all these dangers.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say like you did you do get a notification, um, something, you know, objectable is noticed.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you handle that?
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know we want to like avoid the shame.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: We want to avoid the like, oh, I know what you did kind of thing.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: I guess there's this is a very hypothetical question, but how do you handle that with your child?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's easier if you've been doing it from the start, but having open, honest conversations, I have made the mistake of in one of those days where I'm rushed and I'm making dinner and all the kids are around, calling them out in front of each other.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't recommend that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ten out of 10, don't recommend, but I have made that mistake.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: But finding a time to pull them aside separately.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Gemini just got Gemini's AI just got put into their phone just as part of their online search history.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been getting a ton of alerts from that.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been having to have these conversations with each of my kids separately.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I Gemini came on and now the phone's sending all these alerts.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Were you looking up this word?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, I don't even know what that word is.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're just having those open conversations.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, tell me more.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Big open-ended questions, leading with curiosity instead of judgment, not threatening to take the phone, talking about understanding child development with a teen brain.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of losing their phone, losing that connection to their friends has the same areas light up in their brain as if they were physically dying.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so that that big emotional reaction that teens have when you take away their phone, it's not them being dramatic.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's them, their brain is saying, if you take away my belonging, you take away my ability to move to the new tribe and to and to be able to find success long term.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so their brain can't separate the two and legit thinks my future is ruined because I can't connect with my new tribe.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that is incredible.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I can kind of relate in a way.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: I remember having uh, and this is a little bit different, but it reminds me of this similar feeling.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I went to a new school for eighth grade after being at the same school from first to seventh.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: So like knowing in a very private school, so 100 students per grade at most.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: So very small.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went to a very big public school in middle school.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember like sitting at the lunch table, getting on the bus, not knowing anybody, feeling like, oh my God, my social life is over.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the loser, like I'm never gonna recover from this.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I can imagine that, you know, kind of when you're when when parents take phones or punish kids from shutting them down from their friends, it kind of maybe feels the same way, where it's like, oh my God, like you're this in this, this, like your brain is going on, you know, panic about like what is gonna happen in the future, and everyone's gonna think I'm like a loser.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what I mean?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like all that stuff that is really hard to formulate as a teenager because your whole life live and die by like your social network, you know what I mean, in that in that age group.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I can imagine that's that's crazy and that's hard to deal with, but uh I'm so interested in like how parents and not only are you a parent, but you're a psychologist.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you have like that extra expertise how you handle it.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know that sometimes I don't handle stuff my kids, like obviously they're not doing online stuff, but like just in general.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was a teacher, so it's like calling the student up, that's passing the note, read it out loud to the class, like that kind of thing.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like it sounds great, maybe in theory, but it's like it's it's not.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: We we're realizing like it's not the best approach now, and like just because it happened in the 80s or whatever, doesn't mean we should continue that behavior.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard because there's there's what we learned, what we saw, what was modeled for us, and then there's our own emotional reaction.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're hit with something surprising, that emotional reaction, it's hard to think clearly when you're an emotion brain.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think of a situation, my son was listening to a podcast.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: We were sitting down for dinner, he's my youngest, sitting down for dinner, and I was like, bud, what are you listening to?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he made like a face like that, like sidewalk side eye.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband's like, No, let me see.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a super inappropriate podcast, and it was on his computer, so I wasn't getting the bark alerts for it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in that like moment of seeing the title that was like like over 18 joke title, super inappropriate.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: I am in that moment of stress, I was like, dude, no.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And my older daughter's like, what is it?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And she would get the joke because she's uh in high school, and I showed it to her.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I like looking back, I'm like, why did I do that?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, I wanted to share the frustration and the surprise with somebody else.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it it was super embarrassing to him.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he runs upstairs and cries, and then I have to repair the relationship as well as manage the situation.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: I yeah, that's that's a lot to do with, and you know, I I don't know how you honestly personally do it with that much going on in your household and those kids, like your kids are so close and aged.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I mean, it, you know, and again, like there's kids know how to skirt stuff, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like they know how to get around filters, they know how to like even that loophole of, oh, it's a podcast, but you know, it's not, it's not, you know, it's not the parent's app.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's, you know, it's it's an inappropriate, you know, podcast.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so I I get what you're saying.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I wanna I want to talk a more about the meaning making with youth.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and maybe if you just explain this to us and maybe give us an example of how like, you know, a parent would handle this during a high stress conflict with our kids.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea of meaning making is that we all do something for a reason, whether or not we're aware of it.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so for adults and for kids, it's really helpful to help them understand what the reason is.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that requires us having these conversations with them.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, something that I found really helpful with my own family is talking about values, talking about the things that matter to us and trying to tie the behaviors that we're having, the arguments that we're having to those values that we say that we agree to.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: For example, a constant argument that we have in our house.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: My oldest daughter and my middle daughter, they butt heads all the time.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And really it boils down to they both assume the worst of the other.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: They assume that everything the other one is doing is to hurt them.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very much, well, she doesn't trust, she doesn't respect me.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So why should I respect her?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so instead of just saying, well, we're gonna do it because mom said to do it, and you're gonna get along, you're gonna stop fighting because mom said to, helping them to understand it from each other's perspectives and to understand it from their own perspective.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just that their feelings are hurt, it's that they feel disrespected, they feel like they don't matter as much, and they feel like the other one is out to get them.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so taking it a step beyond just this behavior's okay and this one's not, and into this behavior's good because for me and for that person, or this behavior's not good because, and really getting to the to the why of what is okay in the family and what's not okay in the family.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: It reminds me of like, you know, pulling somebody over for going 20, you know, maybe 20 over the speed limit.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: But then they're like, well, that guy was going like 50 over the speed limit.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of like justifying their behavior.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I could totally see how kids, especially that close of age, teenagers being like, I could kind of like downplay them and be like, well, at least it wasn't like so-and-so is doing or this and that.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And like, so like how to maneuver through that as a parent, you know, especially with four kids like basically the same age.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that just has to be like a whack-a-mole kind of situation where you're constantly like just handling it can feel that way.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think again, I'm a big fan of prevention as opposed to having to whack-a-mole.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'd rather like, hey, when and this is what I talk to with parents of toddlers, it's what I talk to teachers about, honestly, it's what I talk to cops about when I train them too.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: This idea that uh if you let people know what the expectations are ahead of time and what the consequences will be ahead of time, then when things go sideways, you're not being the mean one, you're not being the unreasonable one, and you don't have to be the upset one because they already knew what the consequence would be before they chose to make that behavior.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally, totally.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned uh, you know, schools.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like, what is one thing parents expect the school to handle, but it's actually like the parents' responsibility?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, all things social and emotional.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of schools have taken responsibility for that because parents maybe can't.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, once we turn to both the mom and the dad are working full-time all the time, who is going to provide that, especially as we move away from grandparents and from that village raises the child thing.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the schools have taken responsibility for that, but that's tied so much to values and different families have different values.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so having that value-driven social emotional character education, I think parents have started handing that off to schools, or schools have started taking responsibility for it and like leaving parents out.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we are seeing the consequences of that.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: For example, a theme that I'm seeing across all schools that I've worked with have been that teenagers just are not as resilient as they used to be or as we would expect them to be.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as they have a hard situation, they don't know how to manage it because all the adults in their life, both in school and at home, have been protecting them from hard feelings.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they have a hard feeling and they don't know what to do with it.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then we see those high levels of depression and of anxiety because there's no coping strategies to manage it.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And you think back, even like babies, that's how babies learn to stop crying, is they learn to self-soothe.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we just are not giving kids, younger kids, space to learn that, which means by the time they hit teenagerdom, they don't have the strategies they need.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that leads right into my next question.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, like high-performing parents, they want to fix their kids' problems.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: They, I wouldn't say it's probably even more than want to.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: They do fix their kids' problems, right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, like clinically speaking, how damaging is that?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you kind of alluded to it a little bit already, but I mean, is it how deep does it go?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty deep.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I worked in the so I taught in alternative schools.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: So kids with severe trauma, really bad histories, behavioral concerns, but honestly, they dealt with the day-to-day stressors better than the kids I worked with in uh in a super fancy prep high school because they've had they had to figure it out.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm seeing these kids in high schools and then going off to college and the number of college kids I see coming home and having to take a leave of absence during their freshman year of school because the stress is so much and they don't know how to handle it because it's the first time that mom and dad aren't there to bail them out or aren't able to bail them out.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so they can't, they can't make it through the normal stressors of freshman year of college again because they've never had to figure it out, or they can't hold their first job because there's expectations of the job, and mom and dad can't call up and fix it when things go sideways.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and they're holding so much pressure, alternatively, from mom and dad telling them that they have to do all these big things.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So they're their internal dialogue is that they have to be the best at everything all the time.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So there's super high anxiety to begin with, and then any little stressor just fills their their emotional and mental availability, basically.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it kind of reminds me of like, I don't know if you watch the TV show Shrinked, but there's there's a part where it's like he's talking about like one of the characters was talking about like kicking their their their son out of their house because he was like maybe like 24, kind of just like unmotivated, wasn't uh really doing anything with his life.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it kind of comes to the put to the point where it's like the parent, like, when do you kind of because I know you want to you want to take care of your kid, you want to be there for them, but it's also to the point where it's almost a detriment and it's almost like you're setting themselves up for failure if you don't kind of like stop solving their problem.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like, where's the delicate balance between that?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like as parents, we want to do what's best for our kid.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: We want to protect them and fix their knee when they fall off the scooter, you know, all that stuff.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like also we don't want to deprive them of their own ability to solve problems and to have resilience and to bounce back from tough situations.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, where's the, you know, where's the delicate line?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Start early, like I've been saying throughout.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Start early so that little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let them learn how to fix their problems when they're little, when they come to you because big brother was mean, or because the friend down the street didn't want to play with them.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let them figure it out to get and figure it out.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Be a sounding board for them.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ask about what they're thinking.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do they think a good response would be?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: What do they think the other kid's perspective is?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: How might how they behave made that happen or change how that happened?
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: But don't pick up the phone and call the neighbor's mom and fix the problem between you two.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let them figure it out.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Encourage them to have those hard conversations, those awkward conversations.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: The number of teenagers who won't have boundary setting conversations or difficult conversations with each other because it feels awkward is astronomical.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So make feeling awkward okay.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: Make make them like my kids broke a broke an outdoor game at a at a local brewery.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I made them go inside and tell the people that they broke it.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I could have done it, but I made them do it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: Take, have them take responsibility, have them have those hard conversations.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean they're doing it unsupported.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: It just means that you are truly being support only.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You're not guiding it, you're not directing it, you're just listening to their thoughts and feelings on it.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're stuck, providing suggestions on what they might be able to do with it, but not leading the conversation.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: And how you you made your kids actually take responsibility and ownership for what they did.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, obviously it wasn't nefarious, but you know what I mean?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like breaking something and how awkward that would be.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I do I remember even throwing a ball over the fence and you know, as a kid, and it's like you would usually like ask your parents to go get it for you, right?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: So even just making maybe you go ask the neighbor, like, hey, can you go get that ball?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because that would be awkward for me to do.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean, like, I love how you put that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: So do you feel like you're you know, I'm thinking back to your household.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like, you know, with your kids growing up, uh, four kids and around the same age, like you were just the mediator a bunch of times?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because again, you're trying not to solve all their problems, right?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that the siblings have conflict, like I have two, you know, toddlers, and it's like there's always like he took this toy, or she, you know, she's in my room, or that kind of thing.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like, is it did you just feel like like you were a mediator so much time because you're trying to have your kids solve their own problems?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is that maybe how describe it?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times, yes.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: As long as I wasn't emotionally taxed.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Once I'm too busy, I have a lot of work due, or I'm like tapped out.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I'm like, everybody, just stop.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just everybody in separate rooms.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to hear you for 15 minutes.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: But when I'm in a good space emotionally myself, a lot of what we would do would be like, actually, when they were toddlers, it was, is anybody bleeding?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is everybody breathing?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is anybody asleep and you can't wake them up?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: All right, go figure it out yourselves.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I wouldn't even be a part of it.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: It would just be like, go back downstairs and figure it out unless somebody's bleeding, not breathing, or can't wake up.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Kids handle it.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna need that checklist because I think that that's, you know, that's definitely gonna help a lot of parents out there, you know, kind of how to mediate that and how to go about handling those situations.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because we do, like, like you said, the reality is we do get overextended and tired because of all the extra extra, you know, work and just relationships and everything else that parents have to do beyond just being a parent.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So totally get that.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is one outdated psychological rule parents need to s to drop immediately?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Being in control all the time.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's hard.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I like being in control because when I'm not in control, my anxiety goes crazy.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I get that, but that's that we need to stop that.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's hard to do.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like when I sent my first child off to daycare for the first day, you want to go check on them, right?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or whatever.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you you're not sure about the safety, or you're not sure like how they're gonna handle the day, or and so maybe that's like how I'm thinking about it is like you kind of have to let go.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: You have to trust that they're gonna be okay.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: You got to trust that the people you put in charge of them are gonna take care of them, and then you can't always be there for them constantly.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like they need there's a great book called Um Good Enough Parent Good Enough Is Good Enough, or something like that.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's by Donald Winnicott from.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Back in like the 50s, best parenting advice ever.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Good enough parenting is good enough.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it and if you read it, he explains why being a perfectionistic parent actually harms your child.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_01: Being a perfectionist in general is just like, yeah, I've tried to live by that mantra.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Honestly, good enough is good enough.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I don't know if I would have phrased it that way, but I'm gonna go check that book out because that that seems like, man, that's that's cool.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because for me, I want to be the perfectionist, but I realize that like the more I try, the more I just end up failing because I can't like I there I can't be everything.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like I try to be everything, but I can't.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And especially when it comes to our kids, we can't be everything to them.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is the fastest way to de-escalate a deregul a dysregulated child?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Model deep breathing, just those mirror neurons, no words, no nothing, just breathe and they'll slowly come down with you.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: My approach usually is like calm down or you know, stop, cry.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: I know that part of the brain's not working, they're not even hearing you.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why are you ignoring me?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't okay.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll try a different approach there.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what is the most misunderstood aspect of childhood anxiety?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: That the child can control it.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's they probably can't even like describe, right?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have the words to even not without lots of uh support.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, wow, that's great.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: This has been absolutely awesome.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you uh Ashley, Dr.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Ashley Popler, do you want to tell our viewers, our audience, where we can find out more about what you have to offer, where you're at on the internet, how we can follow you?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I definitely want to just throw this out there.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to have you back in the future because I feel like we could just do a whole segment on online safety.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I I know I'm not there yet, but I'm one of those paranoid parents that's like, I hear stuff on the news, I put myself in those parents' shoes, and I'm like, that's not happening to me.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: I need to do as much preventative action as possible and maybe even starting now.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so that I'm just throwing that out there.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I would love to just do kind of a full segment, maybe in the future, on just like how do we put the safeguards on because all the all that, you know, trafficking and the stuff that's out there right now scares me to death.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I just even though my kids are four and one, like, I'm just like, no, but it's not too young to start worrying about that and and preparing myself and them for that uh reality that the world is just not nice.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would love to.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I I'm much rather have you thinking about it now than looking back, being like, I missed so many opportunities.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: As to where you can find me, I have my website at apoklarponders.org.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: You can find some handouts for parents that are free.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can follow some of my blog posts that kind of talk about my parenting philosophy and how it plays out.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then my work in the anti-trafficking space is at Sentinel Foundation Sentinel.org is the website foundationsentinel.org.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to the trainings tab, there's uh a couple of training links to one for parents and one for teens that really goes through the online safety space and gives parents the words to use to have those conversations, as well as a self-care one that, as a parent, is really helpful for keeping you in that like calm space or for finding quick interventions to get out of a space of being super stressed.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can always find me on LinkedIn, communicate with me on LinkedIn, and follow all my work across all of the places through that LinkedIn.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: My website and my LinkedIn also have access to my book that's tied to that self-care piece.