Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #1075 - Are Emotions Too Important?

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#1075 - Are Emotions Too Important? · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast.
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  Speaker 2: It's the podcast for the time poor parent who just
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  Speaker 2: wants answers. Now. Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson on
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  Speaker 2: the Happy Family's podcast. I'm doing it on my own today.
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  Speaker 2: I missus Happy Families. Kylie, my dear wife and mum
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  Speaker 2: to our six kids, just couldn't be here because sometimes, well,
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  Speaker 2: that's life. I've done a house to say it. When
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  Speaker 2: you're homeschooling a couple of kids and running a busy
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  Speaker 2: household and all that sort of stuff, sometimes you just
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  Speaker 2: can't show up for work. And somehow Kylie has managed
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  Speaker 2: to not be here today. So we're going to have
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  Speaker 2: a conversation without Kylie. I think we can still manage it.
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  Speaker 2: The discussion that I wanted to have with you is
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  Speaker 2: actually a really important one, and it revolves around emotions
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  Speaker 2: and the way that we respond to our children's speak emotions.
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  Speaker 2: Over the last fifteen years since I've sort of started
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  Speaker 2: doing parenting workshops through to today in twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 2: what I've noticed is that there's been a really big swing.
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  Speaker 2: When I first came on board and started talk to
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  Speaker 2: parents about their kids and their emotions, what I was
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  Speaker 2: saying was revolutionary, this idea that we should pay attention
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  Speaker 2: to our children's emotions, that we should be responsive to them,
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  Speaker 2: and to take a leaf out of John Gotman's book,
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  Speaker 2: that we should work on this thing called emotion coaching
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  Speaker 2: with our kids. Now, this overall is a good idea,
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  Speaker 2: and my position hasn't changed. However, thanks to the rise
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  Speaker 2: of mummy bloggers and instamums and the TikTok parenthood craze,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know what else to call it. There's so
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  Speaker 2: much TikTok and going on around parenting. What I've noticed
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  Speaker 2: is that parents of the last fifteen years have gone
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  Speaker 2: through nothing short of a revolutionary change in the way
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  Speaker 2: that they respond to their children their big emotions, so
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  Speaker 2: much so that well, I don't believe that my position
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  Speaker 2: has shifted at all. I believe that the rest of
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  Speaker 2: the world has gone from nowhere near what I was
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  Speaker 2: talking about to going well beyond what I was talking
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  Speaker 2: about and actually making emotions too important.
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  Speaker 1: Now.
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  Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this and talking about it for
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  Speaker 2: at least a year now, including in a conversation that
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  Speaker 2: I had with doctor Lisa Damore. Lisa D. Moore is
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  Speaker 2: a New York Times best selling parenting author. She's had
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  Speaker 2: three books on that New York Times bestseller's list. She
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  Speaker 2: and I have had a couple of really great conversations
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  Speaker 2: on Instagram and on this podcast, and what I wanted
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  Speaker 2: to talk about today is this swing to a really
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to say, a hard core version of gentle
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  Speaker 2: parenting if you can handle the juxtaposition a hard core
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  Speaker 2: version of gentle parenting and the impact of the TikTok
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  Speaker 2: generation of parent influences. This swing to making emotions too important,
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  Speaker 2: making too much of kid's emotions is something that I'm
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  Speaker 2: worried about. I asked doctor Demore the same thing, and
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  Speaker 2: here's what she said.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps I will tell you what your question reminds me of.
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  Speaker 1: It reminds me of a conversation I had literally almost
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  Speaker 1: twenty years ago when I was enormously pregnant with the
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  Speaker 1: kid who just finished her first year of college, my
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  Speaker 1: oldest daughter, and so I was about to become a
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  Speaker 1: parent for the first time, and I was with a
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  Speaker 1: senior clinical colleague and we were wrapping up a meeting
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  Speaker 1: and it was the last time I was going to
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  Speaker 1: see her before I went on maternity leave, and I
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  Speaker 1: was almost out the door and she was like, Lisa,
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  Speaker 1: do you want me to tell you how psychologists mess
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  Speaker 1: up their kids? And I said yes, And she said
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  Speaker 1: they talk about feelings too much. They talk about them
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  Speaker 1: too much that when the kid is having an upset feeling,
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  Speaker 1: the psychologist parent might be saying, oh, you're having a
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  Speaker 1: mad feeling, let's explore that mad feeling. And what she
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  Speaker 1: said is there comes a point where you say, you've
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  Speaker 1: been upset for a while. What's going to help you
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  Speaker 1: feel better?
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  Speaker 2: So I really love this. When I was out on
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  Speaker 2: a walk one time with my eldest daughter, I think
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  Speaker 2: she was probably thirteen at the time, I was talking
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  Speaker 2: to her about her emotions and what was going on,
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  Speaker 2: and she said, Dad, I don't need you to be
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  Speaker 2: a psychologist. I just need you to be my dad.
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  Speaker 2: Our kids do need us to respond to their emotions,
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  Speaker 2: they need us to be engaged with their emotions, but
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  Speaker 2: they don't need us to make their emotions king. I
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  Speaker 2: just love the way doctor de Moore shighlights that in
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  Speaker 2: her previous conversation with me Now a couple of weeks ago,
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  Speaker 2: on The Happy Family's podcast, I was talking about Abigail
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  Speaker 2: Schreier's new book Bad therapy. I was not backwards in
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  Speaker 2: saying I don't love it, and in fact, there are
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  Speaker 2: some really majors that I have with aspects of the book.
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  Speaker 2: But what I also said is she got several things
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  Speaker 2: bang on. It's just that there's a whole lot of
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  Speaker 2: half truths that are mixed in there, and she ignored
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  Speaker 2: so much research that could have been helpful to make
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  Speaker 2: of points, especially the stuff that I usually talk about.
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  Speaker 2: But she said this now, now, she was taking a
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  Speaker 2: swipe at what happens in schools, but I think it
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  Speaker 2: applies more broadly to what's going on with parents as well,
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  Speaker 2: she said, and I quote, for well over a decade,
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  Speaker 2: teachers and school counselors have assumed the mandate and curricula
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  Speaker 2: and use of instructional time to play shrink indiscriminately with kids,
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  Speaker 2: often styled as social emotional learning. Parents stopped trusting their
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  Speaker 2: own judgment and family traditions regarding child rearing, instead relying
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  Speaker 2: on shrinks to guide their parenting. And we all allowed
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  Speaker 2: our kids largely normal bad feelings to be pathologized by
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  Speaker 2: those in the bad feelings business. Generation Z is receiving
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  Speaker 2: unprecedented levels of mental health treatment. They seem only to
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  Speaker 2: be getting worse. My take on this, when we go
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  Speaker 2: too far and responding to feelings, we do the same thing.
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  Speaker 2: Is it true that there are some children whose feelings
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  Speaker 2: are really big and need a lot of attention. Absolutely?
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  Speaker 2: Is it up to parents or school teachers or counselors
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  Speaker 2: to look after that. Not. Really, This is a job
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  Speaker 2: for people who are trained in psychology. And the reason
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  Speaker 2: for that is when we respond by going too far
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  Speaker 2: in terms of feelings, what we actually do is we
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  Speaker 2: marinate in the feelings. We ruminate and chew over the feelings.
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  Speaker 2: We don't get out of the feelings. And that's where
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  Speaker 2: you need somebody who's trained to help you to not
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  Speaker 2: only work through the feeling, but get past the feeling.
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  Speaker 2: I look at it as a train going through a tunnel, right.
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  Speaker 2: Your emotion goes into this deep, dark, long, scary place sometimes,
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  Speaker 2: but sometimes you give it the time, it will come
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  Speaker 2: out the other end. Unfortunately, too often, when we sit
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  Speaker 2: down and we try to validate and sit in the
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  Speaker 2: feelings of our kids without the appropriate training, what we
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  Speaker 2: do amplify and magnify the feelings. Now, please don't get
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  Speaker 2: me wrong, I'm not suggesting I'm not suggesting at all
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  Speaker 2: that we should ignore our children's feelings. They need to
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  Speaker 2: be acknowledged, they need to be validated. It's what we
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  Speaker 2: do after that. In my chat with doctor Lisa Demore,
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  Speaker 2: one more thing that's worth highlighting. She said this beautifully.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes kids regulate emotions through expressing them, talking about them,
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  Speaker 1: getting them out physically, weep, being listening to music that
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  Speaker 1: catalyzes the experience. And sometimes kids regulate emotions by teeming
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  Speaker 1: them by finding ways to quiet them, so seeking comforts,
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  Speaker 1: temporary distractions, problem solve and gaining a new perspective, taking advice,
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  Speaker 1: you know, like there's that sort of in that group
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  Speaker 1: of regulatory strategies.
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  Speaker 2: I just want to repeat that sometimes kids regulate their
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  Speaker 2: emotions through expressing them. If we constantly get so uncomfortable
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  Speaker 2: with our kids having feelings that we feel like we
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  Speaker 2: need to step in and coach them through those feelings
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  Speaker 2: and be there through the feelings and validate and allow
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  Speaker 2: them to have their feelings, and we're not sensitive to
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  Speaker 2: what our child needs, we step into the role of
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  Speaker 2: therapist rather than parent. My take on this is pretty
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  Speaker 2: short and simple. Really, validation matters. I don't want anyone
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  Speaker 2: to think that I'm moving away from recognizing that somebody
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  Speaker 2: is having a hard time as an adult male when
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  Speaker 2: I'm having a rough time. There's nothing I love more
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  Speaker 2: than when my wife Kylie says to me, it sounds
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  Speaker 2: like you've had a rough day. That's the validation that
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  Speaker 2: I need. She says, what she sees, you look like
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  Speaker 2: you're really frustrated. Did things not go well earlier with
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  Speaker 2: that meeting? That kind of thing? And we can do
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  Speaker 2: the same thing with our kids. Wow, you've walked in
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  Speaker 2: the door, and I can tell by just looking at
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  Speaker 2: you that today did not go the way you hoped.
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  Speaker 2: And then you give them time to process. So, if
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  Speaker 2: Kylie's talking to me, here's what I want from her.
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  Speaker 2: I want her to say something like this, do you
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  Speaker 2: want to talk about it? Or do you just want
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  Speaker 2: some space? Do you need a hug? What do you need?
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  Speaker 2: And So, what Kylie's doing is she's giving me some
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  Speaker 2: agency over what's going to happen next. She knows that
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  Speaker 2: I've been seen and heard in valued, that she's validated me.
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  Speaker 2: And now she's saying, so what do you need now?
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  Speaker 2: Do you need some space or do you want a hug?
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  Speaker 2: Or do you want to chat, and I find the
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  Speaker 2: exact same line works with children brilliantly when you look
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  Speaker 2: at your child and say, it looks like you had
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  Speaker 2: a rough day. Do you need some time to figure
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  Speaker 2: this out? Or do you want me to be close
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  Speaker 2: to you? Like, do you want to chat or have
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  Speaker 2: a hug? And the kids will pause and it gives
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  Speaker 2: them a little bit of distance from what's going on
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  Speaker 2: and they can say, yeah, I need a hug, or
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  Speaker 2: yeah we can chat, or often those shrug their shoulder
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  Speaker 2: and say no, I'm okay. But once they've had that time,
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  Speaker 2: we just check in, I've missed you. Are you ready
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  Speaker 2: for a hug now? And you give them a hug
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  Speaker 2: or you get consent for a conversation, and then instead
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  Speaker 2: of saying, why don't you tell me all about it,
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  Speaker 2: let's dive deep into what's going on here, let's marinate
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  Speaker 2: in the problem. We move towards action and solutions. So
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  Speaker 2: it sounds like you had a tough day. Now that
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  Speaker 2: you've thought about it, have you got a play for
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  Speaker 2: how to move ahead? Is everything okay? Do we need
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  Speaker 2: to discuss things? Are you all good? And then you
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  Speaker 2: get to move into a much more productive and action
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  Speaker 2: oriented place. If they need to spend time in the emotions,
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  Speaker 2: of course spend time there. But once again, our job
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  Speaker 2: is not to make the emotions king. It's to understand
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  Speaker 2: the emotions so it can be processed and then we
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  Speaker 2: can move on. So I hope that's helpful. If you
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  Speaker 2: want to have a listen to the least it of
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  Speaker 2: more conversation about kids and their emotions, we'll link to
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  Speaker 2: that in the show notes and you can link through
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  Speaker 2: to that and have a listener. It's a great discussion.
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  Speaker 2: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rouland from
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  Speaker 2: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer, and for
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  Speaker 2: more information about how you can make your family happier,
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  Speaker 2: please visit us at Happy families dot com dot you