Latest / Beautifully Complex / 313: Build Resilience and Joy with Awe and Wonder, with Deborah Farmer Kris

Transcript

313: Build Resilience and Joy with Awe and Wonder, with Deborah Farmer Kris · Beautifully Complex

0:03
Speaker 1: When you are focused, that drains your attention battery. We
0:06
Speaker 1: only have so much of it, and some of us
0:08
Speaker 1: have varying degrees of it. But being in nature, our
0:11
Speaker 1: brain is still active, right, So think of like your
0:14
Speaker 1: phone is still on while it's charging. I GE's still active,
0:17
Speaker 1: but it's effortless versus effort full. Right. The birds song,
0:22
Speaker 1: the wind in your face, it's stimulating, but it's helping
0:27
Speaker 1: restore your attention capacities.
0:30
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Beautifully Complex podcast, where I share insights
0:34
Speaker 2: and strategies on parenting neurodivergent kids straight from the trenches.
0:39
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Penny Williams. I'm a parenting coach, author
0:43
Speaker 2: and mindset mama, honored to guide you on the journey
0:46
Speaker 2: of raising your atypical kid. Let's get started. Hi, everyone,
0:54
Speaker 2: welcome back to Beautifully Complex. I am really thrilled to
0:59
Speaker 2: have Denverra Farmer Chris back with me, who I always
1:02
Speaker 2: love to chat with. We have the most amazing conversations
1:05
Speaker 2: about compassion, empathy and the way kids should feel and
1:10
Speaker 2: how we help them feel these amazing ways, and I
1:13
Speaker 2: just I always look forward to our conversations, and today
1:16
Speaker 2: we're going to talk about awe and wonder because you
1:20
Speaker 2: have a new book coming out called Raising All Seekers, right,
1:24
Speaker 2: and so I'm really excited to talk about this because
1:27
Speaker 2: i feel like I have so much awe and wonder
1:29
Speaker 2: and I feel like my kids have none, and I
1:33
Speaker 2: feel like sometimes I feel them in that way, and
1:35
Speaker 2: so I'm really excited to talk about how we can
1:38
Speaker 2: help defoster these senses and our kids. Will you start,
1:42
Speaker 2: Deborah before we jump in and let everybody know who
1:44
Speaker 2: you are and what you do.
1:46
Speaker 1: Sure, So I'm Deborah from Chris and I'm a child
1:49
Speaker 1: development expert. So i spent twenty years in the classroom.
1:52
Speaker 1: I've written many picture books and board books. I work
1:55
Speaker 1: for PBS Kids, as I talked with Penny about in
1:58
Speaker 1: an earlier episode. I'm an advisor for Carl the Collector
2:01
Speaker 1: on Previous Kids, which is so near and dear to
2:04
Speaker 1: my heart. And this is my first parenting book coming out.
2:07
Speaker 1: But I've been a parenting journalist for a decade, and
2:10
Speaker 1: I feel like everything kind of coalesced around this topic
2:13
Speaker 1: of awe and wonder, and I've spent four years ready
2:17
Speaker 1: and I'm still excited about it. So that's how you
2:19
Speaker 1: know you found something you care about right.
2:21
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah. And we were chatting before we started recording
2:25
Speaker 2: about the fact that we have a lot of awe
2:29
Speaker 2: and wonder about natural beauty. Maybe we're both tree lovers.
2:33
Speaker 2: I think trees are all these artistic sculptures, and I
2:37
Speaker 2: just feel amazing when I look at trees. I have
2:40
Speaker 2: photographs of all different trees in my house, like it's
2:43
Speaker 2: a thing. My family makes fun of me, it's a thing,
2:46
Speaker 2: But I have this sense like when I see things
2:48
Speaker 2: still that they're beautiful and they are somewhat magical almost,
2:55
Speaker 2: that they exist, and that we get to enjoy them.
3:00
Speaker 2: What is the science behind maybe awe and wonder? Where
3:04
Speaker 2: do we start so we can sort of unpack, like
3:07
Speaker 2: where does this come from?
3:08
Speaker 1: Well, first of all, like that is such a gift
3:10
Speaker 1: that you feel that, because not only is it a
3:13
Speaker 1: wonderful feeling, it turns out that awe and wonder are
3:17
Speaker 1: related to so many benefits for ourselves and our kids.
3:21
Speaker 1: And I kind of stumbled upon this research. I've stumbled
3:24
Speaker 1: upon it during the pandemic. And the story, and it's
3:28
Speaker 1: a very real story, goes that I had been asked
3:32
Speaker 1: by a school to come give a parenting presentation on
3:35
Speaker 1: resilience and stress. And this was Fallow twenty twenty one,
3:39
Speaker 1: and like something inside me broke. I was like, I'm
3:41
Speaker 1: resilienced out. I have resilience to myself for eighteen months
3:46
Speaker 1: right during this pandemic and my kids at home, and
3:49
Speaker 1: I was like, I really just want to talk about
3:51
Speaker 1: something more hopeful, and I wanted to pitch something, but
3:54
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what. And I somehow stumbled down the
3:58
Speaker 1: rabbit hole of AWE research and I came up across
4:01
Speaker 1: this white paper and it has twenty plus years of
4:04
Speaker 1: like real research by psychologists at TAP the universities behind it.
4:10
Speaker 1: And what they've found is that the simplest way to
4:12
Speaker 1: define it, right is you know you're feeling it. It
4:15
Speaker 1: might be the goosebumps, the tears spring into your eyes
4:18
Speaker 1: when you just look at something and say wow, right,
4:21
Speaker 1: or the whole crowd goes wow because we all feel that.
4:25
Speaker 1: And for kids, for me, it's often like when their
4:27
Speaker 1: eyes grow wide. That's a sign to me that they're
4:30
Speaker 1: feeling that sense of wonder. And you know, it turns
4:34
Speaker 1: out it correlates with mental wellness, with even decreases in
4:38
Speaker 1: inflammation and stress levels in the blood and in saliva.
4:43
Speaker 1: It correlates with academics because when you're curious about something,
4:47
Speaker 1: when there's like this wow moment, it primes the brain
4:51
Speaker 1: to learn. And so all of these outcomes we want
4:53
Speaker 1: for kids. There's some incredible stories about how you know
4:58
Speaker 1: ahe makes steady participants, more generous, more willing to share
5:02
Speaker 1: with strangers. It helps us feel connected, more connected to
5:05
Speaker 1: the community. So if you think about almost every good
5:08
Speaker 1: thing you want for your kids, like aw can be
5:12
Speaker 1: one of those things that helps support that. And the
5:16
Speaker 1: other piece is like, it's not something you have to
5:18
Speaker 1: feel all the time, but when you do feel it
5:21
Speaker 1: right like, this is why I call it raising AWE secrets.
5:24
Speaker 1: It's almost like I just want to kind of put
5:27
Speaker 1: myself and my kids in the path where I could,
5:30
Speaker 1: you know, like if I'm going to take that walk outside,
5:33
Speaker 1: I might, you know. So my book is structured around
5:37
Speaker 1: these seven sources of AWE. Researchers have found that there
5:41
Speaker 1: are basically seven major umbrellas where people report that they
5:45
Speaker 1: feel this and we know we can talk more about
5:47
Speaker 1: that later, and so I take each one of those
5:50
Speaker 1: and we look at it from kind of a child
5:52
Speaker 1: development perspective, and for all kinds of kids, and so
5:55
Speaker 1: you know, this is I'm really I have a lot
5:58
Speaker 1: of kid voices and teen voice is in this and
6:01
Speaker 1: kids who find fascination in really different things, different things
6:05
Speaker 1: than I might find fascination in. It's actually a in
6:09
Speaker 1: the book, it was a high schooler who just waxes
6:13
Speaker 1: on about how the Franklin Expedition, which she was completely
6:18
Speaker 1: taken with for like three years, like hyper focus, what
6:22
Speaker 1: that taught her about like humanity, and like it was
6:24
Speaker 1: just it's just so cool and beautiful because I know
6:27
Speaker 1: nothing about the Franklin Expedition, but like her awe and
6:30
Speaker 1: wonder was inspiring.
6:32
Speaker 2: It's contagious. Yeah, yeah, that feeling. You may not have
6:36
Speaker 2: the same awe about the same thing, but witnessing someone
6:40
Speaker 2: else's awe is contagious. It makes us feel good. I
6:45
Speaker 2: love to watch America's Got Talent for that exact reason
6:49
Speaker 2: because I just got goosebumps just saying it. Because when
6:52
Speaker 2: people have their moment, it makes me so happy to
6:56
Speaker 2: see it. And so that's what i'd never or watch
7:00
Speaker 2: like the last few where they pick a winner because
7:04
Speaker 2: their awe is gone, like they're like, okay, I'm in it.
7:06
Speaker 2: People like me. Right, it's a different experience. I like
7:09
Speaker 2: watching when they first come out, they doubt themselves and
7:13
Speaker 2: they get that win, right, and you can just see
7:17
Speaker 2: them light up and have their moment, and it makes
7:19
Speaker 2: me so happy. But I was thinking as you were talking,
7:22
Speaker 2: like sometimes I think as a parent, we think that
7:27
Speaker 2: there are certain things that create awe yea and that
7:30
Speaker 2: our kids should have wonder and excitement about those same
7:34
Speaker 2: certain things. And that's not necessarily the case, right, How
7:38
Speaker 2: do we help our kids figure out what brings on
7:42
Speaker 2: this emotion and this joy for them?
7:44
Speaker 1: You know, I think that's one of the great experiments
7:46
Speaker 1: and one of the kind of guiding principles I have
7:48
Speaker 1: throughout the book is this concept of radical curiosity. And
7:52
Speaker 1: I think especially when you have, you know, kids who
7:54
Speaker 1: are beautifully complex, being kind of radically curious about what
7:58
Speaker 1: makes them tick, what them joy, what sparks their delight
8:03
Speaker 1: is part of this journey that we're on. And so
8:06
Speaker 1: you know, I remember being a mentor to a high
8:10
Speaker 1: schooler and just high school as a tough time, was
8:13
Speaker 1: not finding her people, and you know, just all of
8:17
Speaker 1: those traditional struggles that many of our listeners will know well.
8:20
Speaker 1: And I can't saying, you know, keep tapping into what
8:24
Speaker 1: you love and when you get to college, you're going
8:26
Speaker 1: to find like it's you're going to go there and
8:29
Speaker 1: you serious stays trude to kind of tapping into your
8:31
Speaker 1: you know, your own passions. And she got to college
8:34
Speaker 1: and she emailed me two months into the air and said,
8:38
Speaker 1: I did it, Like I found friends and I found
8:40
Speaker 1: them in a bird watching club. Yeah, there was no
8:44
Speaker 1: birdwatching club in high school. That wasn't part of the
8:46
Speaker 1: American high school experience. But that was something you know
8:50
Speaker 1: that it was like almost just trusting and finding that.
8:53
Speaker 1: So one thing I find helpful in the research is
8:55
Speaker 1: when I saw these categories of awe this that was
8:59
Speaker 1: just a really helpful framework for me as a person
9:01
Speaker 1: and as a parent. So I'll just share them with
9:04
Speaker 1: your listener.
9:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm very curious.
9:06
Speaker 1: I think the most obvious is nature, and especially in springtime.
9:11
Speaker 1: It's actually this is the time year I feel like
9:12
Speaker 1: I can actually get my kids tapped into it. Because
9:15
Speaker 1: my son, who seems to sometimes pay zero attention to
9:18
Speaker 1: the outdoors, he was completely captivated by the cherry blossoms
9:21
Speaker 1: at Headlake Bloom Because you know, winter's long in New
9:24
Speaker 1: England and he was like, we need a plant cherry tree.
9:27
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, we can put that on our
9:29
Speaker 1: list in the next couple of years to plant this tree.
9:31
Speaker 1: So nature, right, like you know, the beautiful sunset. And
9:35
Speaker 1: I'm a person who will pull my kids. I'm the
9:37
Speaker 1: one who will say come out and see the sunset.
9:39
Speaker 1: And I'll make them and they'll look for twelve seconds
9:41
Speaker 1: and they'll go back inside.
9:42
Speaker 2: Right.
9:42
Speaker 1: But it's like I feel like they're going to remember
9:45
Speaker 1: their mom is the person who said come see the sunset,
9:48
Speaker 1: just the way I start my book by telling a
9:50
Speaker 1: story of my father pulling me awake out of bed
9:53
Speaker 1: at two am to go see the meteor shower. Right.
9:57
Speaker 1: And you know my dad who struggled it many ways
10:00
Speaker 1: to connect. You know, my dad was on spectrum and
10:03
Speaker 1: he was fascinated though by everything science, and so every
10:08
Speaker 1: time there's a meteor shower, my mind goes to my
10:11
Speaker 1: dad and that is a beautiful core memory. Did I
10:13
Speaker 1: express that at that age? Did I grumble? Probably? Right?
10:18
Speaker 1: So nature provides that. Then there's art, right, and that
10:22
Speaker 1: can be traditional art, that can be a really cool
10:25
Speaker 1: big mural, can also be architecture like walking in to
10:30
Speaker 1: a rotunda or a cathedral, or seeing a skyline that
10:34
Speaker 1: you've never seen before, you know, being fascinated by how
10:38
Speaker 1: a train is made or a submarine, and all of
10:40
Speaker 1: those pieces go into it music making music, And I
10:45
Speaker 1: feel like my music chapter has more kids and parents
10:51
Speaker 1: who are neurodivergent than any other because it seems to
10:54
Speaker 1: be such a language for speaking and connecting. And so
10:58
Speaker 1: one of my favorite stories there is from a friend
11:01
Speaker 1: whose son wandered into the wrong classroom when he was
11:04
Speaker 1: in second grade and there was a mandolin and he
11:07
Speaker 1: began to pluck it, and when the teacher walked in,
11:10
Speaker 1: rather than reprimanding him, noticed that he seemed to have
11:13
Speaker 1: an incredible ear for it. He was tuning it, and
11:15
Speaker 1: he seemed to have perfect pitch. And that has sent
11:18
Speaker 1: him down. I mean it is not saying middle of
11:21
Speaker 1: high school were rough and hard for so many reasons,
11:25
Speaker 1: but like he plays in a professional jazz band mandolin
11:28
Speaker 1: player in college now, and that amazing teacher, right, Like
11:31
Speaker 1: seeing that like created that the next one's big ideas,
11:36
Speaker 1: and that is just being fascinated by anything, right, the
11:40
Speaker 1: big questions that we have and that you know, most
11:43
Speaker 1: great discoveries and ideas and inventions come because somebody had
11:46
Speaker 1: a big question. And I think so many of our
11:49
Speaker 1: kids have really amazing questions about the world and kind
11:53
Speaker 1: of tapping into those and using those and talk more
11:56
Speaker 1: about this later, but like using those as a springboard
11:58
Speaker 1: for other learning, like tapping into where the hyper interest
12:02
Speaker 1: might be as a way to kind of, you know,
12:06
Speaker 1: find a springboard and other things. The next one is
12:09
Speaker 1: the feeling of belonging or collective effort vescence. That means
12:12
Speaker 1: like you're part of a group that's doing something together
12:15
Speaker 1: that's good. And that might be as simple as like
12:18
Speaker 1: being at a sports gain that you're rooting along and
12:21
Speaker 1: you're all cheering. It could be being part of a choir,
12:24
Speaker 1: could be being part of a D and D club
12:26
Speaker 1: right where you're all on a campaign together. And then
12:29
Speaker 1: there's its experiences with life and death and so the
12:33
Speaker 1: awe when you see a brand new puppy, right like
12:35
Speaker 1: if you give a sixteen year old a kid and
12:38
Speaker 1: their face is going to turn into a childlike face.
12:43
Speaker 1: But then also experiences with the other side of the spectrum,
12:47
Speaker 1: and those questions and moments take kind of sacred moments
12:50
Speaker 1: with loss and death. And then the final one which
12:52
Speaker 1: gets me so excited is that it turns out that
12:55
Speaker 1: the most common source of awe for humans, they report
12:59
Speaker 1: feeling it when they witness or hear about other people
13:03
Speaker 1: being kind and brave. Now I find that super hopeful
13:07
Speaker 1: with like in our world right now is that we
13:11
Speaker 1: are super inspired by good stories. Like you know, you
13:15
Speaker 1: hear a story of somebody doing something brave or kind,
13:18
Speaker 1: you get those goosebumps. And so one of the ways
13:21
Speaker 1: that this book has changed my parenting is that I
13:25
Speaker 1: am on the lookout for a story to tell my
13:29
Speaker 1: kids organically. So I'm on the lookout for our news
13:33
Speaker 1: story or a something happened in the neighborhood, and maybe
13:36
Speaker 1: I share it on the way home, maybe I text
13:39
Speaker 1: it to them and be like, oh my gosh, this
13:40
Speaker 1: story right. And just so that I am feeding some
13:45
Speaker 1: of those counteractive you know, measures that say this is
13:50
Speaker 1: a beautiful world full of beautiful people. Yes, it's messy,
13:54
Speaker 1: Yes there's pain, there are people doing terrible things, but
13:58
Speaker 1: also everywhere you look there's beauty. So that scaffolding helps
14:03
Speaker 1: me Because you may have a kid who's so not
14:04
Speaker 1: into art and like nature, they feel allergic to it,
14:08
Speaker 1: but they may be super into music and that can
14:11
Speaker 1: be a source of offer them.
14:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, as you just listed those categories and talked about them,
14:17
Speaker 2: I sort of had this highlight reel of visuals going
14:20
Speaker 2: through my mind. I want to know all the things
14:23
Speaker 2: that I have had awe Like architecture. It's one of
14:26
Speaker 2: the reasons I love New York City. And you know,
14:30
Speaker 2: there's a place in Central Park where you go under
14:34
Speaker 2: this bridge and I discovered it by mistake on a
14:38
Speaker 2: trip there one time, and it is magical. The whole
14:43
Speaker 2: thing is painted and there's all these curves and it's
14:47
Speaker 2: so like Art Deco and just magical. And it felt
14:52
Speaker 2: even more so because it's like this little hidden gym
14:55
Speaker 2: where if you don't know it's there, you don't know
14:57
Speaker 2: it's there, you may not stumble on it. Like music
15:01
Speaker 2: and the connection with neurodivergence. My husband and my son
15:05
Speaker 2: both are gifted in music and both are neurodivergent, and
15:11
Speaker 2: you know, music is a huge part of really getting
15:15
Speaker 2: through the day to day honestly for them. Yeah, and
15:18
Speaker 2: so every category, like I was thinking of these things,
15:22
Speaker 2: and I share those stories all the time with my
15:25
Speaker 2: kids too, and they're in their twenties now, and they're like, hey, whatever,
15:28
Speaker 2: you know, they don't want to hear anything I have
15:29
Speaker 2: to say usually, but I'm still trying to share my
15:33
Speaker 2: all and wonder with them and help them to find theirs.
15:38
Speaker 2: One thought that I had too as you were talking
15:40
Speaker 2: is we need to notice when they are experiencing these feelings, right.
15:47
Speaker 2: We need to notice it. We need to call attention
15:49
Speaker 2: to it, because I would imagine that that helps to
15:53
Speaker 2: foster more of those kind of experiences. Would you agree
15:58
Speaker 2: with that? I would?
15:59
Speaker 1: You know? In one reason and I like being able
16:01
Speaker 1: to name it as a feeling is because I feel
16:04
Speaker 1: like if you can't name something, it's hard to seek it, right.
16:07
Speaker 1: And so you know, if you think about like kind
16:10
Speaker 1: of feeling peaceful or mindful, you start paying attention to
16:13
Speaker 1: kind of what that feels like in your body. But
16:16
Speaker 1: if you're thinking, like, you know that goosebump moment, like
16:19
Speaker 1: I remember I've had that moment, and then you're like, oh, okay,
16:23
Speaker 1: so that's awe, and then you can start paying attention
16:26
Speaker 1: to what brings that for you. And I think, as
16:29
Speaker 1: you know, as kids are older, that's a great conversation.
16:31
Speaker 1: When they're younger, it's also just it helps, you know,
16:34
Speaker 1: for me like where to steer a little bit, especially
16:37
Speaker 1: when they're going through all those phases where everything stupid
16:40
Speaker 1: or maybe they loved something and now they just don't
16:43
Speaker 1: write because you have a sixth grader. You know, like
16:46
Speaker 1: when my Loos is in sixth grade, every interest was
16:49
Speaker 1: like I'm quitting girl Scouts and quitting piano, I'm quitting
16:52
Speaker 1: this and quitting horseback riding, and there was nothing left right,
16:56
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of you know, I'm just like, okay,
16:59
Speaker 1: so what seems to spark, you know, art seem to
17:02
Speaker 1: spark a little bit. So it was like maybe we'd
17:04
Speaker 1: kind of dabble in like one art class, right, like
17:07
Speaker 1: just experiment and run one one mile together race, right,
17:12
Speaker 1: just to see if running could be something they could
17:15
Speaker 1: be interesting and and just to start paying attention to
17:19
Speaker 1: what sparked and you know, nurture that knowing it can
17:23
Speaker 1: shift again and that that's okay, right. I think sometimes
17:26
Speaker 1: as parents we get kind of locked in too, like
17:29
Speaker 1: you know, but we've put so much time and money
17:30
Speaker 1: into soccer and now they don't want to play, and
17:34
Speaker 1: that's okay. I mean at some point, right, like it's
17:36
Speaker 1: not that you want them to give up everything. Sometimes
17:38
Speaker 1: you're like, I've paid for the semester, you're taking the
17:40
Speaker 1: piano lessons. But sometimes you got to pay attention to
17:44
Speaker 1: like are you doing most of the pushing right? At
17:47
Speaker 1: some point? It's the intrinsic motivation that is so much
17:49
Speaker 1: of AWE is like, I want to do this because
17:52
Speaker 1: that helps you do anyone it's hard, right, Like one
17:55
Speaker 1: of my kids did piano dutifully but never loved it.
17:58
Speaker 1: And then finally, you know, it was like, Okay, that's
18:00
Speaker 1: not your thing and joined a theater troupe and was like,
18:02
Speaker 1: oh I love this. And then you know, my other
18:06
Speaker 1: kid like discovered a great team. We found a great
18:09
Speaker 1: teacher for piano. The first one was a great fit.
18:13
Speaker 1: And this one kind of gets his very expansive, creative,
18:17
Speaker 1: beautifully complex mind and teaches him to it and he
18:22
Speaker 1: loves it. And so he will practice for hours without
18:24
Speaker 1: me asking. And so he was willing to do the
18:27
Speaker 1: hard thing, the practice, because it sparks that and so
18:31
Speaker 1: I'm going to nurture that, and you know, it's and
18:35
Speaker 1: that's the dance of parenthood. But having the lens for
18:39
Speaker 1: me of kind of knowing that awe and wonder is
18:42
Speaker 1: that little thing that makes life a little more fun
18:45
Speaker 1: and fulfilling has been helpful in this kind of you know,
18:50
Speaker 1: being parent of adolescence phase that I'm.
18:52
Speaker 2: In right now, I think really nurturing that curiosity for
19:04
Speaker 2: all of us, Like what is it that sparks joy
19:07
Speaker 2: for you? Is it piano or is it not? Like
19:11
Speaker 2: there's this push and pull for us as parents. We
19:14
Speaker 2: know that there are things that are beneficial. We want
19:16
Speaker 2: our kids to have experiences, We want them to maybe
19:20
Speaker 2: learn that you have to really practice at something in
19:23
Speaker 2: order to succeed in it, whatever it might be, the
19:25
Speaker 2: lesson within it. And then on the other hand, it's like, well,
19:29
Speaker 2: we really want them to be happy and have joy,
19:32
Speaker 2: and what if piano is not doing that right?
19:36
Speaker 1: Well, it was actually that her teacher who said this
19:38
Speaker 1: amazing for both of who said to her, you know,
19:42
Speaker 1: I know you're practicing, but I've yet to see you
19:45
Speaker 1: love this.
19:45
Speaker 2: Do you?
19:46
Speaker 1: Is this how you want to spend your time? And
19:47
Speaker 1: she was like not really? And so her teacher talked
19:50
Speaker 1: to me because I was like non negotiable to lighth grade. Yeah,
19:53
Speaker 1: that was one of mine, Like, because that's what I
19:55
Speaker 1: did by my mom was like you can quit when
19:56
Speaker 1: you hit eighth grade. And I was like, okay, well,
19:59
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I know she will practice like
20:02
Speaker 1: she's responsible, but maybe there's something else that's in the
20:06
Speaker 1: arts that you know, might be more fulfilling. And it's
20:10
Speaker 1: not that one path isn't the only path. And I
20:14
Speaker 1: think that's you know, so important for kids. I had
20:17
Speaker 1: this great conversation with a woman named Natalie Bunner and
20:20
Speaker 1: she's a family therapist in Louisiana, and we're talking about
20:24
Speaker 1: belonging and you know, and that kind of struggle sometimes
20:27
Speaker 1: to find your people. And she said one of the
20:29
Speaker 1: things she works with a lot with parents on that
20:33
Speaker 1: issue is when they kind of have a narrow view
20:36
Speaker 1: of where their child should find belonging, like you know,
20:39
Speaker 1: they need to be part of the sports club. They're
20:41
Speaker 1: going to find it through sports, right, or they're going
20:42
Speaker 1: to find it through blank And she said, we have
20:44
Speaker 1: to just really widen our possibilities for where they might
20:49
Speaker 1: find that, right And so you know, maybe it's through
20:53
Speaker 1: a robotics club, maybe it's through but being able to
20:56
Speaker 1: identify an interest can help you identify a group where
21:00
Speaker 1: you might find more feelings of belonging. I thought that
21:03
Speaker 1: was a wise piece of advice.
21:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you said a couple of things that sparked
21:09
Speaker 2: for me. One is the robotics club. That's where my
21:11
Speaker 2: own kid in seventh grade finally found his tribe. But
21:16
Speaker 2: also I keep coming back to this idea too of
21:19
Speaker 2: pressure and how difficult that is for our kids and
21:23
Speaker 2: how much it sort of turns them off to things. So,
21:29
Speaker 2: you know, and maybe this is more about those teachers,
21:33
Speaker 2: those piano teachers. You know, it was one like super
21:35
Speaker 2: rigid and you must do this and there's a lot
21:38
Speaker 2: of pressure, and then another might be more free with it,
21:43
Speaker 2: and you know, do it in your own way, right
21:47
Speaker 2: instead of my way. I'm just the piano. It is
21:49
Speaker 2: just an example. But like when robotics got super pressurized
21:55
Speaker 2: because they did competitions, wasn't is into it anymore? Right?
21:59
Speaker 1: I'm watching this with so many kids. You know, My
22:03
Speaker 1: kids are in kind of the middle school ones enter
22:05
Speaker 1: high school where they're there and haven't been involved as
22:09
Speaker 1: much with kind of the kind of the sports and
22:11
Speaker 1: dance and gymnastics. But all their friends are facing this
22:14
Speaker 1: challenge right now of if I'm going to stick with gymnastics,
22:18
Speaker 1: you're on the competitive team, but some of them don't
22:21
Speaker 1: want to be competitive, They just like doing it. And
22:23
Speaker 1: I'm I think about how do we create these spaces
22:25
Speaker 1: for kids where it's not about specializing, Like, what's the
22:29
Speaker 1: space for the kid who's just like I want to
22:31
Speaker 1: go and just do the bars and the routine, but
22:34
Speaker 1: I don't want to be every weekend at a competition somewhere,
22:38
Speaker 1: you know. And I think of that kind of pressure
22:40
Speaker 1: we put on like travel teams for kids on supports, yes,
22:43
Speaker 1: And I think that's on parents, and that's on teachers
22:46
Speaker 1: to say, how do we make space There are some
22:49
Speaker 1: kids will thrive with that competition, but not everybody, you know,
22:52
Speaker 1: for the ones that just want to enjoy making a
22:55
Speaker 1: robot and have fun doing that.
22:58
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, My daughter was way into softball. She started it,
23:04
Speaker 2: I don't know, age eight, probably seven, maybe, loved it,
23:09
Speaker 2: loved it, loved it. As soon as she got to
23:11
Speaker 2: middle school and she got on the middle school team,
23:14
Speaker 2: she did not love it anymore because it was competitive.
23:17
Speaker 2: At that point you performed or you got yelled at,
23:20
Speaker 2: or you had to run labs or you know, and
23:22
Speaker 2: it just wasn't And now as a young adult, she
23:26
Speaker 2: keeps looking for a place to play because she's still
23:30
Speaker 2: craves playing, but for fun, not for winning or you know,
23:35
Speaker 2: this high pressure competition. I think that happens so so
23:39
Speaker 2: often to our kids in one way or another. We
23:44
Speaker 2: put so much emphasis on performance instead of just like
23:50
Speaker 2: joy and wonder and experience and journey. Right, Like, if
23:55
Speaker 2: you're really into something, provide the opportunity for your kid
24:00
Speaker 2: in that area if they're into it, and then watch
24:02
Speaker 2: the journey, let it unfold.
24:04
Speaker 1: Does it need to lead to a medal or a
24:06
Speaker 1: title or a scholarship?
24:08
Speaker 2: Right?
24:09
Speaker 1: You know when you hear them from kids of leg
24:11
Speaker 1: you see that. You know, the research shows that hobbies
24:13
Speaker 1: really drop off in middle school. I've been laughing at
24:16
Speaker 1: you know, there seems to be a lot of kind
24:18
Speaker 1: of news stories recently about kind of millennial women picking
24:22
Speaker 1: up grandma hobbies. Yes, I'm lay because I picked up
24:27
Speaker 1: embroidery in the last year and I love it. I'm like,
24:30
Speaker 1: that's with it. It's my art form. I never found
24:34
Speaker 1: a way to connect, you know, like I have professional
24:36
Speaker 1: artists in my family, and I just never did. And
24:38
Speaker 1: now it's like there's something about the embroidery, right that,
24:42
Speaker 1: like just it just scratches an itch in my brain
24:45
Speaker 1: of like doing something repetitive, but I'm making something beautiful.
24:49
Speaker 1: But there's I'm not entering this anywhere. I'm not you're
24:52
Speaker 1: student for you, I'm not putting this on any resumes,
24:55
Speaker 1: is not going on LinkedIn yet. I think often our
24:58
Speaker 1: fourteen or fifteen year olds are like anything I do
25:01
Speaker 1: has to be like something I can put on, you know,
25:03
Speaker 1: a college application, or if they're not thinking that way
25:07
Speaker 1: because they're thinking about a different route, they have friends
25:10
Speaker 1: thinking that way, and so it kind of creates this
25:13
Speaker 1: environment where it's you know this, this can be so competitive,
25:16
Speaker 1: and I feel like one of the freedoms of you know,
25:19
Speaker 1: kind of the stage of life for me, you know,
25:21
Speaker 1: is being like what do I love? And I think
25:27
Speaker 1: that me tapping into that is good for my kids,
25:31
Speaker 1: right Like, Yeah, I tell everybody I'm so proud of
25:34
Speaker 1: that I picked up boxing a year ago, not other people,
25:38
Speaker 1: just a bag. I go to boxing classes. I never
25:41
Speaker 1: thought i'd do anything like boxing, Like if you told
25:43
Speaker 1: me ten years ago, I love it. I have never
25:46
Speaker 1: been stronger physically. It's fun, it's you know, you're learning
25:50
Speaker 1: patterns and so that's kind of a fun like brain
25:53
Speaker 1: thing for me. You know, it's a woman instructor. So
25:56
Speaker 1: it feels really empowering. My kids make fun of me
25:59
Speaker 1: all the time. Doesn't have boxing gloves in the car,
26:02
Speaker 1: and I love that they do because they know that
26:05
Speaker 1: their mom is doing something new, right, and they're going
26:08
Speaker 1: to remember that. They're going to remember that their mom
26:10
Speaker 1: was like, I'm doing something just for me. I'm putting
26:13
Speaker 1: on my boxing gloves as a middle aged lady and
26:16
Speaker 1: I'm pounding a bag. And so you know, this is
26:19
Speaker 1: where me like you always have to have sense humor
26:21
Speaker 1: with ad lessons and being like okay, yeah, but you know,
26:24
Speaker 1: like just watch out, I'm gonna be able to beat
26:26
Speaker 1: you at our wrestling soon, right right.
26:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's modeling. It's modeling for our kids, doing something
26:34
Speaker 2: for yourself, taking care of yourself, finding joy and things
26:37
Speaker 2: that aren't competitive, right that you're just doing for you.
26:41
Speaker 2: These grandma hobbies are regulating. There's a rhythm and that
26:47
Speaker 2: is regulating. It regulates our nervous system. I did see
26:50
Speaker 2: an article in the last couple of weeks talking about
26:53
Speaker 2: sort of the science behind it and why it's catching
26:55
Speaker 2: on and people are enjoying it, and it's all about
26:58
Speaker 2: the nervous system, and it's amazing. It's amazing that we
27:02
Speaker 2: continue to learn more about our nervous system and tap
27:04
Speaker 2: into it, because really it's sort of the guiding its
27:09
Speaker 2: guiding the ship. Right.
27:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I so straight threat that somebody had put out
27:12
Speaker 1: that was basically you know, with people saying, oh, where
27:15
Speaker 1: was the autism you know, all these years ago, and
27:17
Speaker 1: they're like, so have you seen all like the amazing
27:19
Speaker 1: quilts that were made in the making this well perfrectly
27:24
Speaker 1: precise and cutton stitch coming right now, right right, we
27:29
Speaker 1: just have out's for it.
27:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. But I think to the sense of AWE regulates
27:35
Speaker 2: our nervous system, right, And you talked early on about
27:38
Speaker 2: there being connection within this, which I had never thought about.
27:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. So a couple of fun studies here. There's a
27:47
Speaker 1: man named Craig Anderson, and he's a professor of psychology.
27:50
Speaker 1: I mean, he was doing his grad work at UC
27:52
Speaker 1: Berkeley and a lot of this research comes out of
27:54
Speaker 1: u C. Berkeley. He took people on whitewater rafting trips,
27:57
Speaker 1: and he took two groups. In particular, he took young
27:59
Speaker 1: con veterans, and he took local high schoolers who had,
28:04
Speaker 1: you know, witnessed community violence, right, so they had been
28:06
Speaker 1: kind of a high pressure. So turns out the high
28:08
Speaker 1: schoolers actually had higher degrees of PTSD symptoms than the
28:11
Speaker 1: combat veterans, which is its own story. But you know,
28:15
Speaker 1: what they did was their saliva samples before and after
28:17
Speaker 1: these trips, and then these questionneers then for the next
28:20
Speaker 1: six weeks, and the levels of stress hormone in the
28:26
Speaker 1: blood dropped after this time in nature, and then six
28:30
Speaker 1: weeks later they self reported lower levels of PTSD symptoms.
28:36
Speaker 1: And part of that with sensory regulation is that these things,
28:40
Speaker 1: with all our very, they involve the senses, right, they
28:43
Speaker 1: involve seeing something hearing it, but not sensory overload. And
28:50
Speaker 1: so you know, there's this interesting research about how time
28:54
Speaker 1: and nature can help restore our attention and our executive
28:57
Speaker 1: function skills. It's called attention rest duration theory. I talk
29:01
Speaker 1: about that too in the book. It's some cool research,
29:04
Speaker 1: but the idea is like when you are focused, that
29:07
Speaker 1: drains your attention battery. We only have so much of it,
29:09
Speaker 1: and some of us at varying degrees of it. But
29:11
Speaker 1: being in nature our brain is still active, right, So
29:15
Speaker 1: think of like your phone is still on while it's charging.
29:18
Speaker 1: It's still active, but it's effortless versus effort full. Right.
29:22
Speaker 1: The birds song, the wind in your face, the smell
29:27
Speaker 1: of the fresh cut grass, it's stimulating, but it's helping
29:31
Speaker 1: restore your attention capacities.
29:34
Speaker 2: Love that.
29:34
Speaker 1: So, you know, they found that going outside and just
29:39
Speaker 1: kind of being right, not on your phone, just being
29:41
Speaker 1: outside even for five minutes, can help you focus when
29:45
Speaker 1: you then return to whatever the work is. So these
29:48
Speaker 1: things that are sensory, and you know, and for me,
29:52
Speaker 1: I like the going outside because I'm not great at meditation,
29:54
Speaker 1: like you know, I'm too fidgety for that. And so
29:57
Speaker 1: for me, what walking is kind of my regulation meditation.
30:01
Speaker 1: It's seeing taking my deep breasts while I'm active, while
30:05
Speaker 1: I'm moving. You know, I find embroideries very similar, Like
30:07
Speaker 1: the repetition of it allows my brain just to kind
30:10
Speaker 1: of you know, zone and you know, when you find
30:14
Speaker 1: something that brings awe and wonder and that has a
30:18
Speaker 1: bit of that again, that can just help with regulating,
30:22
Speaker 1: you know, that kind of sense of peace. They even found,
30:25
Speaker 1: like they did these studies of preschoolers and that they
30:29
Speaker 1: took the swabus alive before and after arts classes, art
30:33
Speaker 1: and music, and their stress levels of these kids, you know,
30:38
Speaker 1: we're lower after arts classes. So you think about like
30:41
Speaker 1: arts funding in schools, right, like these are sometimes the
30:44
Speaker 1: things that can help kids find their passion but also
30:49
Speaker 1: just improve their wellness.
30:51
Speaker 2: Deal with all that pressure. Yeah, right, we need those
30:55
Speaker 2: those moments of downtime in education for that rejuvenile.
31:00
Speaker 1: And just beauty. Right, Like if you're just if you
31:02
Speaker 1: had a chance to draw or play a song or
31:05
Speaker 1: listen to music, you're just tapping into your senses and
31:08
Speaker 1: tapping into the beauty. So mm hmm.
31:11
Speaker 2: There's a reason there's art therapy and music therapy, equine therapy. Yeah,
31:18
Speaker 2: there's a reason for sure.
31:20
Speaker 1: So now all those altimate therapy is like they're all
31:23
Speaker 1: attached to wonder and all, aren't they. Right? You know,
31:26
Speaker 1: one of my former students I interviewed for the book,
31:29
Speaker 1: and she's just got a degree in music therapy, and
31:32
Speaker 1: she talks about doing a drum circle at a soup
31:35
Speaker 1: kitchen and just in that kind of sense of almost
31:38
Speaker 1: collective effer venzas everybody was there, they were drumming together
31:41
Speaker 1: and it just kind of created these goosebumps for everybody. Yes, right,
31:45
Speaker 1: and so you know it's like these are these such
31:48
Speaker 1: connective moments, right that they just connect us to other people.
31:52
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. We actually here, I live in Asheville, North Carolina.
31:56
Speaker 2: We have a weekly drum circle downtown in this little
31:59
Speaker 2: tiny triangle park and it's been going on for more
32:03
Speaker 2: than twenty years that I've been here. It's probably been
32:05
Speaker 2: going on for several decades. And yeah, just seeing it,
32:12
Speaker 2: like even if I just see a photograph of it,
32:15
Speaker 2: I get that awe of like this collective. But I
32:18
Speaker 2: also have a thing with heavy drum beats. It really
32:22
Speaker 2: soothes me. Like if I get super stressed out, I
32:25
Speaker 2: play Radioheads song that they played at the Grammys with
32:29
Speaker 2: the Marching Band, right, and like it's so much drum
32:34
Speaker 2: and rhythm and it really just knocks out that dysregulation.
32:39
Speaker 2: It just soothes me. I listened to it so much
32:42
Speaker 2: after the hurricane came through here and we were so stressed.
32:45
Speaker 2: I just like started my day. I would play that
32:48
Speaker 2: video a couple times before I did anything else because
32:51
Speaker 2: I just needed like that settle. But the rhythm of Yeah,
32:55
Speaker 2: so a drum circle provides so many different aspects of goosies,
33:00
Speaker 2: like just thinking about it.
33:02
Speaker 1: And I love that you said that, like you that
33:03
Speaker 1: you've listened to it kind of multiple times, because I
33:05
Speaker 1: think this is somewhere else where we can help our kids,
33:08
Speaker 1: right as if we've noticed something that is helping them
33:10
Speaker 1: regulate and find that kind of you know, big wonder,
33:15
Speaker 1: Like it's okay to do that over and over, right
33:18
Speaker 1: if they have a song or a piece of art,
33:21
Speaker 1: or an activity or a smell, right Like, you know,
33:27
Speaker 1: I think one of the things you learned by being
33:28
Speaker 1: a parent is like sometimes repetition is just what you need.
33:34
Speaker 1: And so you know, helping find the thing that's part
33:37
Speaker 1: of their toolbox, right, Like I know that this helps,
33:41
Speaker 1: and that you know there's your standard toolbox of like
33:44
Speaker 1: your breathing. Right then we talk about like strategy toolbox,
33:47
Speaker 1: but I think all of us and our kids would
33:51
Speaker 1: need our own like my Deborah toolbox. And my Deborah
33:53
Speaker 1: toolbox may include my box and gloves, it may include
33:56
Speaker 1: my embroidery, It may include you know, a certain song
34:01
Speaker 1: that I know will give me goosebumps every single time
34:03
Speaker 1: I listen to it, right, yeah, And like these things
34:06
Speaker 1: that I know are going to fill me up and
34:10
Speaker 1: give me that spark that I know is good for me.
34:11
Speaker 1: And so, you know, rather than just like sticking with
34:14
Speaker 1: your traditional toolbox like expand it to you know, that
34:20
Speaker 1: box of things that makes your kid your kid.
34:24
Speaker 2: I love it. It all starts with noticing, noticing when
34:27
Speaker 2: sparks them. So what would be the first next step
34:31
Speaker 2: for parents listening they've listened to this conversation, what can
34:36
Speaker 2: they do next to try to foster and provide opportunities
34:40
Speaker 2: for on wonder for their kids?
34:42
Speaker 1: So for me, studying and researching AWE was the metaphor
34:47
Speaker 1: I use is like getting a clear prescription for glasses.
34:52
Speaker 1: It's not that it's any radical change in my life.
34:56
Speaker 1: It's not that you know, I have a script I
34:59
Speaker 1: need to use or I need to go to this class.
35:01
Speaker 1: It's more, I think the first step for me was
35:05
Speaker 1: beginning to ask my own questions and tune myself in
35:08
Speaker 1: to what brings me aw and wonder and to communicate
35:12
Speaker 1: that more intentionally to you know, look for moments where
35:19
Speaker 1: maybe Saturday with not much going on, where I know
35:22
Speaker 1: that sometimes novel experiences bring wonder, like seeing something you
35:26
Speaker 1: haven't seen before. So last weekend, there was a tulip
35:30
Speaker 1: festival about twenty minutes away. I'd never been. My kids
35:35
Speaker 1: were not super excited about going, but I was like,
35:39
Speaker 1: you know what, we'll go get appliable afterwards, so that
35:42
Speaker 1: convinces them, you know. And we went and we had
35:46
Speaker 1: to wander through these gardens to get to it, and
35:49
Speaker 1: my son was like, this is so cool. And there
35:51
Speaker 1: was a pond and we saw some tadpoles and it
35:54
Speaker 1: was only like a forty five minute thing, and they
35:56
Speaker 1: picked their own tulips when we went back, but it
35:58
Speaker 1: absolutely like the end of it. They were like, we
36:01
Speaker 1: could do this next year, right, like okay when? And
36:03
Speaker 1: so sometimes it's like experimenting and trying something local, cheap, new,
36:09
Speaker 1: you know. Sometimes again it's like this kind of wandering
36:12
Speaker 1: into places or things you haven't done before, like let's
36:15
Speaker 1: let's try this. Let's let's go do something new. She
36:17
Speaker 1: wanted to go thrifting, and I was like, okay, you
36:20
Speaker 1: find the spot. And we stumbled upon this incredible old mill,
36:24
Speaker 1: like at thirty minutes of our house that had been
36:27
Speaker 1: turned into this like secondhand treasure and we literally had
36:32
Speaker 1: our like mels open for two hours going through this
36:35
Speaker 1: place where like we didn't know this existed. And I
36:40
Speaker 1: think that you know, these small things of just paying
36:46
Speaker 1: attention to what brings the goosebumps, and then when you
36:51
Speaker 1: start paying attention, you start wanting more of them, Like
36:54
Speaker 1: that's becoming an awe seeker. And you do it yourself
36:57
Speaker 1: and then you tune in with your kids. And so
37:00
Speaker 1: this is not a prescriptive parenting book at all. There's
37:03
Speaker 1: no like use this language. Yeah, really about Here's a
37:08
Speaker 1: framework for an idea you may an emotion you may
37:12
Speaker 1: not have thought a lot about. And it's got some
37:14
Speaker 1: beautiful stories and a lot of good research, and you know,
37:18
Speaker 1: I feel like it just might spark something for somebody
37:21
Speaker 1: to say, oh, yeah, I used to love getting the
37:25
Speaker 1: telescope out. I have never done that with my kids.
37:28
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm going to go pull out the telescope.
37:31
Speaker 2: So much goodness, I think we could talk and swap
37:34
Speaker 2: all experiences all day. It feels so good to do that.
37:38
Speaker 2: My nervous system is feeling super chill right now. It's
37:43
Speaker 2: so fun to think about all these things. Let everybody
37:46
Speaker 2: know where they can find you online.
37:48
Speaker 1: Yes, so if you go to parenthood three sixty five
37:52
Speaker 1: dot com. So parenthood three sixty five. That's also my
37:55
Speaker 1: sub stuck and my Instagram. So if parent at three
37:58
Speaker 1: six five will take you to all my channels. And
38:00
Speaker 1: the book Raising All Seekers comes out May twenty seventh
38:03
Speaker 1: and is available everywhere.
38:05
Speaker 2: So awesome. I can't wait to read it. I'm so excited.
38:08
Speaker 2: I'm happy for you for this book and all the
38:12
Speaker 2: work that you do is just amazing, and I'm so appreciative.
38:15
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm appreciative of you. I mean, I love I
38:17
Speaker 1: love your podcast, I love your work, I love talking
38:19
Speaker 1: to you to know.
38:22
Speaker 2: Awesome. So I am going to link up your website
38:27
Speaker 2: and all of that good stuff in the show notes
38:29
Speaker 2: for this episode. You can find those at PARENTINGADHD and
38:32
Speaker 2: Autism dot com slash three one three per episode three
38:37
Speaker 2: hundred and thirteen, and I will see everybody next time.
38:40
Speaker 2: Take good care. Thanks for joining me on the Beautifully
38:44
Speaker 2: Complex podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and share,
38:49
Speaker 2: and don't forget to check out my online courses and
38:52
Speaker 2: parent coaching at PARENTINGADHD and Autism dot com and at
38:57
Speaker 2: the Behavior Revolution dot com