Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #844 Slow Down & Countdown to Calm

Transcript

#844 Slow Down & Countdown to Calm · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers. Now, the first
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  Speaker 1: week of spring is done. How good is springtime? I love?
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: I love the springtime.
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  Speaker 2: If it was up to be, all of our babies
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  Speaker 2: would have been born in spring and our grand baby.
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  Speaker 1: What do you mean if it was up to you,
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  Speaker 1: all of our babies, what it is?
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's just say some of us had a different time.
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  Speaker 1: It was all up to you. We're not going to
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  Speaker 1: talk about that. That's in the past. That's a long,
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  Speaker 1: long way back. Welcome to the Happy Families Podcast. We
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  Speaker 1: are so grateful that you choose to spend some time
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  Speaker 1: with us. Each day. We hope that we can share
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  Speaker 1: some inspiration to help your family be happier. I think
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  Speaker 1: today's podcast is just teeming with inspiration. Every Friday we
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  Speaker 1: talk about how we're going to be better tomorrow. The
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  Speaker 1: podcast is called I'll Do Better Tomorrow on a Friday,
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  Speaker 1: where we talk about what we did well and what
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  Speaker 1: we didn't do so well and hopefully help you to
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  Speaker 1: be a better parent as we learn about how we
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  Speaker 1: can be better parents. I had this insight. My insight
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  Speaker 1: was I think you need to have at least six
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  Speaker 1: kids so that you can learn how to get this
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  Speaker 1: parenting thing right.
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  Speaker 2: I agree, like fans down, I agree.
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  Speaker 1: We are learning so much with our youngest three. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: our three oldest are adults now, but our youngest three
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  Speaker 1: are teaching us so much about how to be better parents.
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  Speaker 1: I'm astounded. And this week I'm going to go first.
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  Speaker 1: You said, Okay, I'm already going, So I'm going first.
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  Speaker 1: This week, you were out one night and I walked
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  Speaker 1: into the dining room. Our sixteen year old was sitting
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  Speaker 1: at the dining table and she was kind of hyper ventilating. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this one is prone to having some very big emotions
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  Speaker 1: getting caught up in stuff. But I could see like
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  Speaker 1: she was doing the shallow breathing and she was on
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  Speaker 1: the verge of tears. And when I said to her,
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  Speaker 1: you look like you are having a really really rough
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  Speaker 1: time right now. Do you need a hug or do
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  Speaker 1: you want me to just give you some space? And
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  Speaker 1: she looked at me with almost terror in her eyes,
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  Speaker 1: like massive, massive, I'm going to say, fear, anxiety, worry, apprehension.
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  Speaker 1: It was big. Now I've received her permission to sh
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  Speaker 1: this story, so I'm not talking out of school at all.
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  Speaker 1: But as I sat with her, I said, can you
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  Speaker 1: help me to understand what's going on? And she explained
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  Speaker 1: that she just did not know how she was going
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  Speaker 1: to get all her school work done, all of her assignments,
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  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. And so even though I'm
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  Speaker 1: a parenting expert and I'm supposed to know how to
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  Speaker 1: do this stuff, the first thing I did was I
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  Speaker 1: started to get logical with her. What are you worried about?
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  Speaker 1: Let's make a plan school really great ten. I know
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  Speaker 1: it's important to you, but it's not the most important
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  Speaker 1: thing ever, Like, we can figure this out. And that
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  Speaker 1: did not help. Surprisingly. I mean, I don't know why
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  Speaker 1: I thought that getting logical with an emotional sixteen year
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  Speaker 1: old was going to make things better.
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  Speaker 2: Well, just so you have the whole picture, I may
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  Speaker 2: have had that conversation with her in the afternoon, and
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  Speaker 2: that may be why.
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  Speaker 1: That's why she was hyper ventilating. Oh go see, this
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  Speaker 1: is why we do this podcast so that we can
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  Speaker 1: check in with each other. It's got nothing to do
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  Speaker 1: with you listening. It's all about you and me, Kyle.
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  Speaker 1: You're having this conversation on this poor baby girl. So Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: what I want to share here is the how all
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  Speaker 1: of the things that I teach sometimes they're not helpful
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  Speaker 1: all and sometimes you need every one of them, Like
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  Speaker 1: having an expansive toolkit just makes such a difference. So
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  Speaker 1: I sat with her and I said, Okay, right now,
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  Speaker 1: you're taking lots of fast, shallow breaths and it's stimulating
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  Speaker 1: what's known as your sympathetic nervous system, which means that
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  Speaker 1: you're in vit or flight mode, and I can't talk
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  Speaker 1: to you about anything and be helpful, but you're not
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  Speaker 1: going to be able to get any sleep, you won't
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  Speaker 1: be able to rest. This is not where we need
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  Speaker 1: to be. I said, I know that it's hard because
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  Speaker 1: I'm saying lots of words and you're feeling really stressed,
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  Speaker 1: But does that make sense? So I just sort of
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  Speaker 1: paused after that and checked in, and she said, as
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  Speaker 1: she was like welling up, getting ready to cry and big, fast,
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  Speaker 1: heavy kind of panting sort of breathing, I said, so
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  Speaker 1: what we need to do is we just need to
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  Speaker 1: slow things right down. Let's slow it right down, and
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  Speaker 1: if you can just work with me on some breathing
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  Speaker 1: for a minute or so, we're just going to breathe
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  Speaker 1: in through our nose and out through our mouth. We're
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  Speaker 1: going to breathe in for five, hold it for five,
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  Speaker 1: breathe out for five, hold it for five. It's called
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  Speaker 1: box breathing. And she nodded her head and agreed to
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  Speaker 1: do it. So we did it for about two minutes,
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  Speaker 1: and she did sort of calm back down, and I
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  Speaker 1: said to her, Okay, now that you're not in the
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  Speaker 1: big emotion anymore. I might have been a little bit
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  Speaker 1: too early with this one, but now that you're not
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  Speaker 1: in the big emotion anymore, let's just attack what's really
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  Speaker 1: going on here. Grabbed the pen, grab some paper. I said,
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  Speaker 1: what's the number one thing that's stressing you out? And
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  Speaker 1: she told me. We jotted it down. I said, is
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  Speaker 1: there a number two thing that's stressing you out? And
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  Speaker 1: she said yes, and I wrote it down. I said
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  Speaker 1: is there a third thing? And she said yes, and
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  Speaker 1: I said really, So we wrote that down. In the end,
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  Speaker 1: she wrote down four or five things that were stressing
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  Speaker 1: her out, major things. I said, wow, okay, so what
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  Speaker 1: we need to do is because it's already eight thirty
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  Speaker 1: at night and I'm tired and you're tired, trying to
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  Speaker 1: act on all this tonight. It's not going to work.
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  Speaker 1: But let's make a plan for tomorrow. Let's just look
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  Speaker 1: at the first thing, what can we do tomorrow? And
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  Speaker 1: so we started to map out this plan, and halfway
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  Speaker 1: through the plan, I watched this anxiety and this apprehension,
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  Speaker 1: all this stress start to skyrocket again. I said, okay,
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  Speaker 1: we're going back to where we were when this started.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not sure that this plan is helping you. And
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  Speaker 1: she said it's not. It's just making more stress because
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  Speaker 1: I know I've got to do all of this tomorrow
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  Speaker 1: and I can't sleep tonight because of it. I thought,
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  Speaker 1: oh my goodness, parenting is so draining. And I said, okay,
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  Speaker 1: let's just help you to be calm again. Should we
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  Speaker 1: do some more breathing? And she said no, and she
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  Speaker 1: was really really psyching, really really stressed out. I said,
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  Speaker 1: all right, here's what else we're going to do instead then,
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  Speaker 1: and you have the whole countdown to calm that I do.
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  Speaker 1: It's known as a grounding exercise five things you can see.
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  Speaker 1: I decided to do that and I said to her,
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  Speaker 1: just tell me five things you can see and she
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  Speaker 1: looked at me like I think that I'm getting really
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  Speaker 1: cranky at you, dad, And I said, trust me, just
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  Speaker 1: give me five things you can see. And because she's sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: she's able to work through it even though she doesn't
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  Speaker 1: want to do it. And so very very quickly she said,
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  Speaker 1: the chair, the table, my clothes, you the wall unit.
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  Speaker 1: She just bang, bang, bang, my bang. I said, great,
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  Speaker 1: that's five things you can see. Now I want to
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  Speaker 1: hear four things that your body can feel and touch.
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  Speaker 1: And she rattled those off and I said, okay, now
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  Speaker 1: three things that you can hear. And then she slowed
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  Speaker 1: down because she had to really pay attention, and she
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  Speaker 1: said the washing the washing machine was on the spin cycle.
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  Speaker 1: It was going crazy, the washing machine, the fridge, my voice.
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  Speaker 1: I said, great, now the next one might be tricky.
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  Speaker 1: Two things that you can smell, smell and she said,
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  Speaker 1: but I've got a cold. I can't smell anything. She
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  Speaker 1: didn't have a cold, block, nose, whatever. And I said, well,
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  Speaker 1: can you taste anything? And she said, my snot. I'm like,
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  Speaker 1: that's what your little sister says, and then she cracked up.
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  Speaker 1: But it's funny. She didn't want to do it, but
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  Speaker 1: that little countdown to carm with a highly elevated sixteen
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  Speaker 1: year old. It actually worked. It brought her back to
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  Speaker 1: stability again. So we stepped back into the plan and
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  Speaker 1: it just kind of it wasn't progressing effectively, and so
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  Speaker 1: I said to well, you know what, thirty, it's eight
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  Speaker 1: forty five whatever, it's kind of late, but let's just
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  Speaker 1: get out of the house. And so we jumped in
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  Speaker 1: the car. We are very, very fortunate that we only
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  Speaker 1: live about a cane a half from the beach, and
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  Speaker 1: we drove down to the beach, hopped out of the car,
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  Speaker 1: and we just walked along the beach for probably half
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  Speaker 1: an hour, and we didn't talk about all the stressful stuff.
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  Speaker 1: We just talked and then we didn't talk, and then
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  Speaker 1: we talked again. And by the time we got home,
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  Speaker 1: Kylie I had walked through the grounding exercise, the box breathing,
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  Speaker 1: the planning. We've done a whole lot of mind from this.
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  Speaker 1: We've gotten outside in nature, we'd done all of the
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  Speaker 1: big things that I talk about when it comes to
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  Speaker 1: helping your kids to be regulated. And she was. She
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  Speaker 1: was able to go to sleep. She didn't have the
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  Speaker 1: best sleep ever, but she was able to go to sleep,
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  Speaker 1: and we were able to work through it, and I
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  Speaker 1: just kind of thought, well, two things. Number one, pairing
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  Speaker 1: is really really hard, and number two, for us to
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  Speaker 1: help our kids through their big emotions, we have got
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  Speaker 1: to be regulated ourselves. Just our ability to stay calm
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  Speaker 1: helps us to reach into our toolkit and find the
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  Speaker 1: tools that are going to be necessary in that time,
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  Speaker 1: in that space to help our kids through. And it
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  Speaker 1: just it was wonderful. It was such a great experience.
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  Speaker 2: And I missed the whole thing.
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  Speaker 1: Look at you living your best life. I guess the
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  Speaker 1: other thing that's probably worth highlighting here as well, though,
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  Speaker 1: is that our kids, they really do want us to
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  Speaker 1: connect with them, but we've got to spend the time
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  Speaker 1: on the emotional stuff. We've got to do the emotional
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  Speaker 1: labor with them, the compassion and the willingness to be patient,
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  Speaker 1: because I didn't want to be. I just wanted to
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  Speaker 1: tell her how to fix it. I wanted to tell
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  Speaker 1: her to stop being so silly. This is ridiculous, get
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  Speaker 1: on with it. And of course that wouldn't have worked.
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  Speaker 1: So we talked about.
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  Speaker 2: This last week, this idea of creating space for these
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  Speaker 2: spontaneous conversations, and the more space and time we can
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  Speaker 2: provide for our kids to have these conversations, the more
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  Speaker 2: chance we have of connecting in these really intimate ways.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's my older better tomorrow. You need to
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  Speaker 1: have a really expansive toolkit. That's obviously what Happy Families
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  Speaker 1: is all about. Giving parents that's all kit that they need,
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  Speaker 1: but being able to practice it as well. It really
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  Speaker 1: just made a difference. What's your I'll do better tomorrow.
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  Speaker 2: Well, mine's a little bit similar in that we're just
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  Speaker 2: dealing with some really big emotions in our home at
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  Speaker 2: the moment. Being sixteen that's a big deal. Being thirteen,
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  Speaker 2: it's a big deal. And so there's just emotions everywhere.
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  Speaker 2: You've talked a long time about this idea of emotional intelligence,
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  Speaker 2: and as I've started kind of working through becoming more
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  Speaker 2: self aware in my own life, what I've really come
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  Speaker 2: to understand is that our emotions are actually this beautiful
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  Speaker 2: gift that is personally hand packaged for us so we
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  Speaker 2: can interpret the experiences we're having in the world. But
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  Speaker 2: for most of my upbringing, I saw emotion as something
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  Speaker 2: to be scared of, something to be weary of, and
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  Speaker 2: really did everything I could to kind of hold it
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  Speaker 2: all inside and as I've started to discover what emotion
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  Speaker 2: is and how it is this beautiful gift, it's giving
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  Speaker 2: me the opportunity to help our kids work through it.
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  Speaker 2: And so the other day we had an experience where
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  Speaker 2: I might have fallen asleep before the kids did.
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  Speaker 1: You were out, you might have. I was out presenting.
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  Speaker 1: You fell asleep at like seven point thirty. I got
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  Speaker 1: home at nine thirty. You know this parenting gig, it's eauting.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to, but I did fall asleep, and
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  Speaker 1: I got home at nine thirty and we had kids
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  Speaker 1: still running around the house, including a nine year old,
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  Speaker 1: and I just thought, oh, tomorrow, Tomorrow's going to be
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  Speaker 1: the worst.
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  Speaker 2: And tomorrow was pretty bad.
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  Speaker 1: We woke up, the kids would not get out of
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  Speaker 1: bed until fifteen minutes before they were supposed to be
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  Speaker 1: at school.
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  Speaker 2: For goodness sakes, I mean, and when they did wake up, because.
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  Speaker 1: I was not at my best, so you were not
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  Speaker 1: at your best.
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  Speaker 2: But they were also quite emotional because they were exhausted,
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  Speaker 2: and so I was having to work through some big
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  Speaker 2: emotions there. And as the morning progressed, I was watching
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  Speaker 2: your emotions elevate because you were getting frustrated because they
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  Speaker 2: needed to be out the door, and so.
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  Speaker 1: Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, let's go, let's go,
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  Speaker 1: let's go.
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  Speaker 2: You teach this well obviously living in the moment. Sometimes
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  Speaker 2: it's so hard, this idea that fast is actually slow.
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  Speaker 2: The more we try to hurry our kids in the moment,
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  Speaker 2: the less inclined they are to move.
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  Speaker 1: You actually said something to me. And it's so funny
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  Speaker 1: because when I shared that story about a sixteen year
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  Speaker 1: old before, I did it with her, but on this
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  Speaker 1: particular morning, I was all about, let's get this done.
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  Speaker 1: We've got to go.
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  Speaker 2: You've got your own agenda, right, You've to get.
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  Speaker 1: Out of the door, that's right. And so I actually
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  Speaker 1: I said to you something about this isn't good enough,
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  Speaker 1: but this is ridiculous, and we need to hurry up.
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  Speaker 1: And you said, and I quote, we need to slow
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  Speaker 1: down to go.
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  Speaker 2: Fast as just eloquent as yours.
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  Speaker 1: But oh no, no, no, we need to slow down
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  Speaker 1: to go fast. I looked at you, and I was like, genius, genius, genius.
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  Speaker 2: And so I spent the morning I just worked with
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  Speaker 2: them individually. I needed to do a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: emotion coaching to help them work through their emotions. But
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  Speaker 2: as a result, they complied, they worked with me, and
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  Speaker 2: we got out the door. Had we have done it
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  Speaker 2: your way that morning, it would have been a lot
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  Speaker 2: longer and a lot more painstaking for all of us,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: and the kids would have left in an ans. They
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  Speaker 2: actually left really calm, really collected, and feeling positive about
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  Speaker 2: the day ahead, and I was really grateful for that.
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  Speaker 2: So my I'll do better tomorrow is really tapping into
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  Speaker 2: that idea that when things are not going well, the
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  Speaker 2: more we try to hurry our kids, the more we
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  Speaker 2: try to push through and have our agenda, the slower
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  Speaker 2: things go and the more frustrated and big emotions we experience.
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  Speaker 2: But if we will actually step back, slow down, and
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  Speaker 2: just tap into the most important thing in that moment,
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  Speaker 2: you'll actually get through it much quicker.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I promised at the start of the podcast, we
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: were teeming with great ideas to help your family function better.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I think that we nailed it today. Hopefully this helps
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: you to nail it in your home when things go
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: pear shaped and the bottom falls out, as it did
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a couple of times in our house this week. The
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rowan from Bridge Media.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Craig Bruce is our executive producer. For more about how
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: you can make your family happier, visit us at Happy
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: families dot com dot a U and a quick reminder,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: only six days to go until the Smells Like teen
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Spirit Summit, more Navana, less drama. We would love to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: see you there if you haven't grabbed your ticket. Tickets
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: are still on sale now at happy families dot com
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: dot AU. Have a great weekend.