Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1030 - Name It & Tame It

Transcript

#1030 - Name It & Tame It · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:03
Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
0:07
Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
0:10
Speaker 2: Now, researchers think that somewhere around the age of nine
0:13
Speaker 2: or ten is where kids get good at regulating their emotions.
0:17
Speaker 2: This is an eleven year old. He's only just getting
0:19
Speaker 2: a handle on it. And when things blow, I mean,
0:22
Speaker 2: he's got that temperament anyway.
0:23
Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mom
0:27
Speaker 1: and dad.
0:27
Speaker 2: Every Tuesday on the Happy Families podcast, we've been answering
0:30
Speaker 2: your listener questions. You can email them podcasts. That's podcasts
0:33
Speaker 2: with an s at happy families dot com dot au Kylie.
0:38
Speaker 2: One of the most common questions that I get from
0:41
Speaker 2: parents what I'm doing my workshops is the question that
0:44
Speaker 2: has come through on the email all about our kids
0:46
Speaker 2: and their big emotions. Let's hear it.
0:48
Speaker 3: This question is from Sky and she said, I'm a
0:50
Speaker 3: mom of three and I listen to the Happy Families
0:52
Speaker 3: podcast every day on our commute to school.
0:54
Speaker 2: I've got to interrupt with my children. Even better, I've
0:57
Speaker 2: got to interrupt just quickly. I went to pick up Emily,
1:01
Speaker 2: our nine year old, from art class the other day.
1:03
Speaker 2: I'm walking in and this guy is walking past me
1:07
Speaker 2: to go and get his child from art class as well,
1:09
Speaker 2: and he smiles and says, Hi, hey, you going, And
1:11
Speaker 2: I figured I must know him, so I said hi,
1:13
Speaker 2: I'm great, how are you going? And he says fine.
1:15
Speaker 2: I'm like, do I know you? And he said no.
1:18
Speaker 2: But I listened to you and Kylie on your podcast
1:20
Speaker 2: every day as I head to school with the kids,
1:24
Speaker 2: and now we've got Sky doing it as well, and
1:26
Speaker 2: I just love that people are actually having these conversations
1:28
Speaker 2: and listening to this stuff with their kids, except for,
1:30
Speaker 2: of course, for the ones that are for mature. Is
1:32
Speaker 2: only so glad. So, anyway, did he know what you
1:35
Speaker 2: look like? If he's just listening, I don't know. Maybe
1:37
Speaker 2: he saw me on the TV. I mean I'm the
1:39
Speaker 2: one who usually does the drop offs. I've never had
1:41
Speaker 2: anyone ask me. But anyway, let's just carry on. What's
1:43
Speaker 2: guy's question exactly? She says.
1:45
Speaker 3: We also enjoyed watching Parental Guidance together.
1:48
Speaker 2: See That's what I'm talking about.
1:49
Speaker 3: Yes, she said, I have a question. My eleven year
1:52
Speaker 3: old son has always shone big emotions. He often has
1:56
Speaker 3: what we refer to as volcanos where he will errupped
2:00
Speaker 3: into this really big emotion resulting in yelling, screaming, and hitting.
2:04
Speaker 3: He has a problem with authority when it comes to
2:07
Speaker 3: me or Dad, but it never comes out at Scholl.
2:10
Speaker 4: Isn't that always the way?
2:12
Speaker 3: Where he has perfect behavior and is very well liked
2:15
Speaker 3: by all his peers. They've tried everything that they know,
2:18
Speaker 3: she said. The light bulb moment for her was during
2:20
Speaker 3: an episode of Parental Guidance when you justin said, if
2:24
Speaker 3: you can name it, you contain it in regards to
2:28
Speaker 3: teaching emotional regulation, and she said that she's recognized that
2:32
Speaker 3: it's not something that they've actually done a lot of,
2:35
Speaker 3: but since watching the show, she's been really trying hard
2:38
Speaker 3: to kind of put this into practice, and she's noticed
2:41
Speaker 3: a shift. She's noticed that she can often get to
2:44
Speaker 3: him before the emotion explodes, before that volcano erupts. But
2:50
Speaker 3: she recognizes there's lots of work to do, and so
2:52
Speaker 3: she basically is asking, how do I best teach my
2:55
Speaker 3: eleven year old how to regulate his own emotions in
2:58
Speaker 3: the most supportive, healthy and safe way.
3:01
Speaker 2: Okay, so first of all, let's define emotion regulation. This
3:04
Speaker 2: is the ability to either express or suppress your emotions
3:07
Speaker 2: appropriately for the situation. So sometimes it's fine to let
3:09
Speaker 2: them all out. Other times we need to keep them together. Clearly,
3:12
Speaker 2: when we're having these volcanic eruptions, what's really happening is
3:15
Speaker 2: we've got a parent who's saying not quite appropriate for
3:17
Speaker 2: the context. We expect a higher level of suppression in
3:21
Speaker 2: certain circumstances. Is that always right? I don't know. It
3:24
Speaker 2: depends on the circumstances. Our kids do need to be
3:26
Speaker 2: able to control their emotions at the right time and
3:30
Speaker 2: process things effectively.
3:32
Speaker 3: I guess for her a reading between the lines a
3:35
Speaker 3: little We've got we've not only got big emotions, but
3:38
Speaker 3: we've got big physical movement and action.
3:41
Speaker 4: Here, we've got there's hitting.
3:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.
3:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is actually no longer just about me. It's
3:46
Speaker 3: about protecting the people around me as well.
3:49
Speaker 2: So there's a couple of things to bear in mind.
3:51
Speaker 2: I say this all the time, but high emotions equals
3:52
Speaker 2: low intelligence. Now, the people who are pedantic about that
3:55
Speaker 2: statement recognize that it's not perfectly true. And I have
3:57
Speaker 2: people all the time, so you can't keep saying that.
4:00
Speaker 2: Here's what I mean by high emotions equals low intelligence.
4:03
Speaker 2: That's a shortcut for saying when your emotions are high,
4:06
Speaker 2: your capacity to access your intelligence is reduced. It's compromised.
4:11
Speaker 2: And that's because all of the blood, all the oxygen,
4:14
Speaker 2: all of the electrical activity that should be happening in
4:17
Speaker 2: your prefrontal cortex where you think things through, when your
4:19
Speaker 2: plan and your strategize and your work stuff out, it
4:21
Speaker 2: all rushes to the back of your brain, where your
4:22
Speaker 2: olympic system is, where your emotional center is, and your
4:26
Speaker 2: emotions start driving your judgments, your decision making, your attention,
4:32
Speaker 2: your focus, your ability to remember things. Ultimately, what happens
4:36
Speaker 2: is you get tunnel vision. You get really rigid thinking.
4:39
Speaker 2: I mean, Kylie, you know this. Have you noticed that
4:42
Speaker 2: the angrier you are, the more right you are? You
4:46
Speaker 2: know It's true. Every time I say it in a workshop,
4:48
Speaker 2: the whole audience cracks up because they're like, oh, yeah,
4:50
Speaker 2: I'm absolutely right when I'm mad in a totally different
4:53
Speaker 2: context and without the anger emotion.
4:57
Speaker 3: The other day, I was executing a plan.
5:01
Speaker 2: For a party, so glad it was a plan I
5:03
Speaker 2: was wondering about you were executing.
5:05
Speaker 3: And I had fifteen minutes before everyone else everyone was
5:09
Speaker 3: going to show.
5:09
Speaker 2: Up, so the pressure was on the pressure was on.
5:12
Speaker 3: And I needed a ceramic cup. Of course, I didn't
5:15
Speaker 3: want a glass cup. I wanted a ceramic cup.
5:17
Speaker 2: You mean like just a coffee mug or something.
5:20
Speaker 4: Well, no, it was it had to be pretty.
5:22
Speaker 2: I want the details aren't important. You needed a ceramic cup.
5:24
Speaker 2: I'm sorry for going there.
5:26
Speaker 3: And for the life of me, I knew I had one.
5:29
Speaker 3: I just could not think, yes, yes, where on.
5:32
Speaker 4: Earth it was or what it was? I didn't even know.
5:34
Speaker 3: I couldn't have I didn't have a picture of what
5:36
Speaker 3: it was.
5:37
Speaker 4: I knew I had it.
5:38
Speaker 3: I knew I've seen one in the house somewhere, but
5:40
Speaker 3: I could not think.
5:41
Speaker 2: High emotions, low intelligence.
5:43
Speaker 4: And it's that simple.
5:44
Speaker 3: My emotions were so heightened in that moment that I
5:47
Speaker 3: could not, for the life of me, go there. And
5:50
Speaker 3: it wasn't until after the party. I walked into my
5:52
Speaker 3: bedroom into the walk and rawdrobe and there she was,
5:56
Speaker 3: just sitting right there.
5:58
Speaker 2: She wasn't even hidden. Another example exam stress. Right, you
6:01
Speaker 2: sit down, you have no idea what the answer is,
6:03
Speaker 2: but you know that you know it. As soon as
6:04
Speaker 2: you walk out of the examine, the stress is gone.
6:06
Speaker 2: You remember the answers. That's what we're talking about high
6:08
Speaker 2: emotions low intelligence. I mean, you can actually do an emotion.
6:12
Speaker 2: You could do an IQ test when you're emotional and
6:14
Speaker 2: you will score ten to fifteen points lower. That's what
6:17
Speaker 2: emotions do to our brain. All the blood, all the
6:19
Speaker 2: electrical activity goes to a different part of the brain
6:21
Speaker 2: that does not help us to access the stuff. Let
6:23
Speaker 2: me ask you another question though, in that moment, if
6:25
Speaker 2: I had come to you, or one of the kids
6:26
Speaker 2: came to you in that fifteen minutes while you're stressing
6:28
Speaker 2: and you're trying to find the ceramic mug that you
6:30
Speaker 2: don't know where it is and you need it and says, hey,
6:32
Speaker 2: can I ask you a question? I'm struggling with something
6:35
Speaker 2: and I know you can't ask me a question.
6:37
Speaker 4: I don't have time.
6:38
Speaker 2: And that's what's happening with this little eleven year old guy.
6:41
Speaker 2: The emotions hit. He gets myopic with his emotions and
6:45
Speaker 2: it's just rigid thinking. And you can't shift anybody when
6:49
Speaker 2: they're like that. The problem is emotions are contagious, right.
6:52
Speaker 2: We catch, if not the emotion, we catch the energy
6:55
Speaker 2: of the emotion, and so it's really hard for our
6:59
Speaker 2: kids to regulate their emotions. Because they're on their l plates.
7:04
Speaker 2: This is new for them. Researchers think that somewhere around
7:07
Speaker 2: the age of nine or ten is where kids get
7:09
Speaker 2: good at regulating their emotions. This is an eleven year old.
7:13
Speaker 2: He's only just getting a handle on it. And when
7:15
Speaker 2: things blow, I mean, he's got that temperament. Anyway. I
7:19
Speaker 2: love what Lisa the Moore. Doctor Lisa de Moore wrote
7:22
Speaker 2: a book called The Emotional Lives of Teenagers. She's so wise,
7:25
Speaker 2: and in that book she shares actually this is not hers.
7:27
Speaker 2: She shares a friend of hers who I can't remember
7:29
Speaker 2: their name, so I'm just going to give all credit
7:30
Speaker 2: to Lisa. She shares this idea that there is a
7:35
Speaker 2: board of directors in your brain that guide your decision making,
7:39
Speaker 2: and emotions deserve a seat at the table. They're on
7:43
Speaker 2: the board, but they don't share the board. And our
7:46
Speaker 2: job is to explain this to our kids and let
7:48
Speaker 2: them know when you're emotional, it's okay for the emotions
7:51
Speaker 2: to be there, even the ones that we find inconvenient
7:53
Speaker 2: and difficult. But your emotions aren't supposed to be driving
7:57
Speaker 2: the decisions you're making. They're providing some useful infat to
8:00
Speaker 2: the rest of the board. But we've got to bring
8:03
Speaker 2: the front of your brain. That's the chairman of the board.
8:05
Speaker 2: We've got to bring that back online. And sometimes emotions
8:07
Speaker 2: are so big that they keep on telling the chairman
8:09
Speaker 2: of the board to sit down and be quite and
8:11
Speaker 2: listen to me, and that doesn't help. The chairman of
8:13
Speaker 2: the board has to actually stand up and say, emotions,
8:16
Speaker 2: I know you're strong, I know you're feeling this, but
8:18
Speaker 2: let's take the advice and work on this together.
8:24
Speaker 3: A few days ago, we had a family meeting, yes,
8:27
Speaker 3: and we called everybody together, and Miss nine had decided
8:31
Speaker 3: she wanted to go to her friend's place. She did
8:34
Speaker 3: not want to be involved in this family meeting, and
8:36
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, the emotions exploded.
8:39
Speaker 4: She was screaming at the.
8:40
Speaker 3: Top of her lungs volcanic. I would even say, literally,
8:44
Speaker 3: I hate family meetings. They're so boring, they don't do.
8:48
Speaker 4: Anything like She lost it.
8:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was big, and I just had to sit
8:53
Speaker 3: down with her. I gave her a big cuddle and
8:55
Speaker 3: I said, as soon as we've finished, you can go
8:57
Speaker 3: and spend time with your friends, but we just need
8:59
Speaker 3: to have this conversation. It was so funny because she
9:02
Speaker 3: actually was the main contributor, yeah, to our meeting. She
9:07
Speaker 3: was completely enveloped, but she just had to get to
9:10
Speaker 3: the point where her emotions weren't taking over.
9:14
Speaker 2: Now there's a really interesting thing here. Sometimes we just
9:17
Speaker 2: need to let people have their emotions. Sometimes it's not
9:19
Speaker 2: worth trying to stop the emotion or cut the emotion out.
9:21
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's okay to just say, have you scream, have
9:24
Speaker 2: your shout, just carry on like a pork chop. That's fine,
9:27
Speaker 2: just let it out. Especially with younger kids, even with babies,
9:31
Speaker 2: sometimes they just actually have to scream. You can pick
9:33
Speaker 2: them up and hold them and they scream. You put
9:34
Speaker 2: them down, they scream. You're exhausted. Sometimes you're looking to
9:37
Speaker 2: scream five or ten minutes and then they go to
9:38
Speaker 2: sleep or whatever. Now am I advocating that we do
9:41
Speaker 2: that all the time. Of course not, But sometimes that's
9:44
Speaker 2: just what needs to happen. The problem is as our
9:47
Speaker 2: kids get old, especially with an eleven year old, we
9:49
Speaker 2: start trying to get logical with them. We start trying
9:52
Speaker 2: to reason with them, We start trying to talk to them,
9:54
Speaker 2: help them to know that we understand and that it's
9:55
Speaker 2: going to be okay and all that stuff. And what
9:57
Speaker 2: we're trying to do is we're trying to go through
9:59
Speaker 2: the front of their brain, and we need to go
10:00
Speaker 2: through the back door because the emotions are back at
10:02
Speaker 2: the back door. The front of the brain is the executive,
10:05
Speaker 2: but it's been switched off. So our job is not
10:07
Speaker 2: to go through the front of the brain with all
10:10
Speaker 2: the big explanations. It's just to slow it down and
10:12
Speaker 2: say what we see. You seem really frustrated. You hate
10:17
Speaker 2: it when this happens. Life doesn't feel fair right now.
10:20
Speaker 2: Your sister you kind of wish she hadn't been born
10:23
Speaker 2: right now, don't you like it's okay to say what
10:24
Speaker 2: they're feeling. It's not that you agree with them. You're
10:27
Speaker 2: just saying I get it, that's how you feel and
10:31
Speaker 2: what tends to happen. I mean, think about it from
10:33
Speaker 2: an adult to adult perspective. When you're having a bad
10:36
Speaker 2: day and I tell you to calm down, sit still
10:38
Speaker 2: and listen to me, Kylie, I'm your husband, I've got
10:40
Speaker 2: the PhD in psychology. If you would just listen to me,
10:42
Speaker 2: you wouldn't be in this situation. Let's talk it through.
10:46
Speaker 2: Do you ever look at me and say, oh, honey,
10:48
Speaker 2: you are so well educated and you do know so much.
10:51
Speaker 2: Why don't you share your wisdom with me? I need it?
10:53
Speaker 2: Have you ever ever ever done that?
10:57
Speaker 3: No, I might have said a few choice words and
10:59
Speaker 3: told you to go away.
11:01
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, to be clear, we don't do course language
11:03
Speaker 2: in our family. But those choice words might have been
11:04
Speaker 2: don't give me all that psychology rubbish. But when I
11:09
Speaker 2: say to you something along the lines of, honey, it's
11:14
Speaker 2: been horrible, Today's been so hard, and you are so
11:17
Speaker 2: so tired, and me being here feels good, but it
11:20
Speaker 2: also feels confusing and you're over it all, do you
11:24
Speaker 2: ever look at me in and say stop giving me
11:26
Speaker 2: that psychology rubbish? What do you do instead?
11:30
Speaker 4: I usually burst into tears and fall into your arms.
11:32
Speaker 2: That's right, and that then gives you an opportunity to
11:35
Speaker 2: just let the emotion out in a safe way. And
11:38
Speaker 2: what do I normally ask? At that point?
11:42
Speaker 3: You ask me if you want if I want you
11:45
Speaker 3: to hold me, or if I want space, or whether
11:49
Speaker 3: I want to talk about it, or whether I just
11:51
Speaker 3: want to be here.
11:52
Speaker 2: So when I give you those choices, do you want
11:54
Speaker 2: to talk? Do you want some space? Do you want
11:55
Speaker 2: to hug. What does that do for you and to you?
12:00
Speaker 2: What's going on inside your brain? Right then?
12:03
Speaker 3: I just I feel seen, heard and valued. I feel
12:06
Speaker 3: like I can choose any of those things.
12:09
Speaker 2: Yeah great, I'm going to add something here. I think
12:12
Speaker 2: that what you can also then do is, well, what
12:14
Speaker 2: it forces you to do is it forces you to
12:15
Speaker 2: step out of the emotion because now you've got a
12:18
Speaker 2: decision to make. In other words, I'm re engaging the
12:21
Speaker 2: top of your brain, the front of your brain. I'm
12:23
Speaker 2: now I've gone through the back door via the emotions,
12:25
Speaker 2: and now I'm squirreling my way all the way through
12:27
Speaker 2: to your forehead, where your decision making is. And as
12:30
Speaker 2: I ask that question, you have to step away from
12:31
Speaker 2: the stuff that's troubling you so you can work out
12:33
Speaker 2: what you do want. And that's where the power of
12:36
Speaker 2: it is. So for Sky, it's the same process I'm
12:39
Speaker 2: asking you about it, Kylie. But the process is the same.
12:42
Speaker 2: When you're having a big emotion, you don't try to
12:44
Speaker 2: fix everything. You don't try to make it all better.
12:46
Speaker 2: I mean sometimes you do. As a parent, You've got
12:48
Speaker 2: to decide do I step in, do I just fix
12:50
Speaker 2: this or not? But quite often what we can do
12:54
Speaker 2: instead is we just say what we see. We give
12:56
Speaker 2: the kids a chance to work through it. We ask
12:58
Speaker 2: them a question like do you want me here or
12:59
Speaker 2: do you want some space? And then once they're come
13:03
Speaker 2: it's really easy to solve the problem. You just say
13:05
Speaker 2: to them, what do you reckon we should do now,
13:07
Speaker 2: and they'll give you an answer. It's literally that simple.
13:10
Speaker 2: We really hope Skuy, that that answers the question, that
13:12
Speaker 2: you find some value in that and it makes your
13:14
Speaker 2: family feel happier. If you'd like more information about what
13:16
Speaker 2: to do around this stuff, I really strongly would point
13:19
Speaker 2: you to my book. It's called Ten Things Every Parent
13:22
Speaker 2: Needs to Know. Of all the books that I've written,
13:25
Speaker 2: and that's the one that steps through the emotional guidance
13:28
Speaker 2: and coaching better than any I actually reached out to
13:31
Speaker 2: the team at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and
13:34
Speaker 2: they provided me with four or five pages of documents
13:36
Speaker 2: that I've included in the book to help you step
13:39
Speaker 2: through the system. It makes such a difference. The Happy
13:43
Speaker 2: Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from Bridge Media.
13:46
Speaker 2: Create Bruce is our executive producer. We appreciate them so
13:50
Speaker 2: much and we appreciate our Happy Families members. If you
13:53
Speaker 2: are not a Happy Family's member, can I tell you
13:55
Speaker 2: about it real quick. Our members are the ones who
13:57
Speaker 2: provide us with the resources and and essentially the membership
14:02
Speaker 2: funding so that we can provide free content for you
14:05
Speaker 2: in the podcast and on our social media, in our newsletter.
14:08
Speaker 2: It's our members that really do support the vitally important
14:11
Speaker 2: work that we do to strengthen families. If you're not
14:13
Speaker 2: a member, it's only eighteen bucks a month. You can
14:15
Speaker 2: get an entire year for one hundred and eighty. We
14:17
Speaker 2: give you two months for free, and as part of
14:20
Speaker 2: that membership you get a monthly webinar with Me, a
14:23
Speaker 2: monthly Q and a with me where I answer your questions,
14:27
Speaker 2: and a whole lot more value. There's so much in it.
14:29
Speaker 2: We'd love for you to check it out at Happy
14:30
Speaker 2: Families dot com dot au. A huge thanks to our
14:33
Speaker 2: Happy Families members. If you're not one, please consider becoming
14:35
Speaker 2: one today.