Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #743 Little People, Big Feelings & Unprocessed Emotions

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#743 Little People, Big Feelings & Unprocessed Emotions · 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.
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  Speaker 1: The time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson. A little while ago,
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  Speaker 1: we did this really cool, really cool summit with Happy Families.
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  Speaker 1: It was called Little People, Big Feelings. And one of
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  Speaker 1: my favorite Americans, a lady by the name of Reenie Jane,
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  Speaker 1: who runs a website that you might have heard of
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  Speaker 1: called go Zen with loads of fantastic resources. You have
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  Speaker 1: to check out go Zen. Rene joined me on the
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  Speaker 1: Little People, Big Feelings Summit to talk about well, anxiety
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  Speaker 1: and all those other big feelings that little kids have.
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  Speaker 1: I asked Renie about anxiety. I asked her, how do
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  Speaker 1: we define it? How do we see it in children,
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  Speaker 1: especially young kids under six? And here's what she said.
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  Speaker 2: I define it in a very lay way, which is
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  Speaker 2: a message that your body is sending you. And I
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  Speaker 2: know that doesn't sound like what does that mean? Right?
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  Speaker 2: But that is the definition for me of any emotion.
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  Speaker 2: Your emotions, your feelings are essentially messengers, their data points,
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  Speaker 2: their pieces of communication. So anxiety is just one of
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  Speaker 2: those things. How it manifests in our little ones can
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  Speaker 2: be in many, many different ways. Most of the time,
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  Speaker 2: child under the age of six is not going to
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  Speaker 2: say I'm feeling anxious, right, We're going to see it manifesting,
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  Speaker 2: perhaps in a meltdown. Maybe they'll say my tummy feels funny.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe they'll say I'm having a hard time sleeping. So
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  Speaker 2: there can be many, many manifestations of it, but it
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  Speaker 2: is it's a feeling, right. So, anxiety, like many many
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  Speaker 2: other feelings on the spectrum of human emotions, is just
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  Speaker 2: another one of our feelings that appears.
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  Speaker 3: The fact that it's just this information coming through feelings
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  Speaker 3: to a child, Some children get very very anxious about
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  Speaker 3: their anxiety, and parents get very very anxious about their
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  Speaker 3: children's anxiety. When does anxiety become a problem, Because the
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  Speaker 3: reality is, all of our feelings kind of do exactly
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  Speaker 3: what you're talking about, right, They convey this information to us.
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  Speaker 3: But anxiety becomes problematic sometimes and at other times it's
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  Speaker 3: actually perfectly healthy. It's normal. It's actually functional rather than dysfunctional.
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  Speaker 3: Where's that line? How do we know?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so when we are not able to navigate through
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  Speaker 2: our feelings, we're not able to actually process the worry,
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  Speaker 2: that's when it becomes a problem. When it starts to
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  Speaker 2: interrupt our general functioning, when it starts to create disturbance
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  Speaker 2: to the point where we can't sleep, you know, or
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  Speaker 2: maybe not able to do our school work. We are
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  Speaker 2: complaining about it all the time. Maybe there are other
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  Speaker 2: manifestations such as anger or eruptions, you know, when it
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  Speaker 2: becomes when it starts to interrupt our ability to function generally,
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  Speaker 2: then it starts to become a problem. Really, the issue
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  Speaker 2: is and sometimes it just sounds so simple that it's
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  Speaker 2: like that can't be the issue. I mean, the diagnosis
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  Speaker 2: is rampant, right, the problem is pervasive. It's a global epidemic,
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  Speaker 2: frankly anxiety. But really the issue is their unprocessed emotions. Right.
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  Speaker 2: We're having these flare ups of worry, and that triggers
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  Speaker 2: a flare up of worry, as you said justin within
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  Speaker 2: the parent, Oh my goodness, my child is worried. So
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  Speaker 2: now I'm worried, and so we start to do things
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  Speaker 2: like quash the worry, run away from the worry, ignore
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  Speaker 2: the worry. Right. We don't sit with it. We don't
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  Speaker 2: listen to the message it's sending. We don't try to
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  Speaker 2: figure out, well, what signal am I getting? What should
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  Speaker 2: I do with this worry, we think it's something wrong
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  Speaker 2: with us, and so that's when it starts to become
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  Speaker 2: a problem, when it's not processed.
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  Speaker 3: There's so many different directions that I want to take
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  Speaker 3: that last comment and I'm going to try to tase
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  Speaker 3: them a pot bit by bit. The first thing that
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  Speaker 3: really stands out to me is you're talking about it's
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  Speaker 3: an unprocessed emotion. And yet for our little people, for
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  Speaker 3: our children, children under five or six, they I mean,
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  Speaker 3: every emotion is unprocessed, isn't it. They don't really have
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  Speaker 3: the developmental capacity to process their emotions.
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  Speaker 2: You know what's so funny. I actually think they come
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  Speaker 2: into the world as masters at emotional processing, because when
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  Speaker 2: you see a very young child, you will see that
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  Speaker 2: they can go from zero to one hundred, you know,
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  Speaker 2: in a moment. Let's take an example of two siblings
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  Speaker 2: fighting with each other, right, they're fighting over a toy,
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  Speaker 2: They're yelling at each other, they're screaming, maybe one of
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  Speaker 2: them's in the corner, and then three minutes later they're
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  Speaker 2: best friends. That is the ultimate ability to process the emotion.
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  Speaker 2: The emotion actually comes into them, it's temporary, they feel it,
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  Speaker 2: they show it right, So there's a manifestation of the
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  Speaker 2: emotion and then it passes. So for many of us,
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  Speaker 2: it is unprocessed because we don't allow it to pass.
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  Speaker 2: We don't allow the feeling to come into us, send
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  Speaker 2: the message, and then interact with it. Right, there's no relationship.
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  Speaker 2: We basically try to ignore it or get rid of it.
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  Speaker 2: So I actually think in their own way, and I
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  Speaker 2: know what you're saying. You know, they don't know how
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  Speaker 2: to process these big feelings. They might not know what
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  Speaker 2: to do with them, but I feel like they can
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  Speaker 2: naturally process them if we as parents allow the space
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  Speaker 2: for it and then facilitate the processing.
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  Speaker 3: We're going to talk about the facilitation in just to say,
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  Speaker 3: but I got to say what you've just described infuriates
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  Speaker 3: parents because it's like you kids were just throwing blocks
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  Speaker 3: at each other's heads. You know, you've got a three
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  Speaker 3: year old and a four year old try to beat
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  Speaker 3: each other up, and they're biting and pulling hair and scratching,
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  Speaker 3: and it's so frustrating for a parent, and the parent
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  Speaker 3: wants to do all this stuff. And literally ninety seconds later,
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  Speaker 3: these two kids are best friends again. They're hugging and
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  Speaker 3: they're playing and it's like it never happened.
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  Speaker 2: They've processed their emotions, they've done their own conflict resolution,
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  Speaker 2: they've figured it out. Meanwhile, our hair has turned completely
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  Speaker 2: gray right there.
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  Speaker 3: In the moment they're having the emotion, and then they
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  Speaker 3: seem to move through it and get on with life.
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  Speaker 3: Like you said, we seem to want to sit with it.
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  Speaker 3: So I guess to pull the threads from the previous
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  Speaker 3: question this one together and move to the practical stuff.
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  Speaker 3: A couple of times now, you've talked about this idea
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  Speaker 3: of allowing the emotion to be of helping. Well, I
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  Speaker 3: guess we've probably got to do a bit of work ourselves.
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  Speaker 3: But how do we What are the mistakes that parents
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  Speaker 3: are making. Let's talk about the mistakes first, and then
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  Speaker 3: how we can overcome those mistakes to get the kinds
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  Speaker 3: of outcomes that we're looking that is balanced, happy little people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, the first mistake that we make is
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  Speaker 2: we're taking, probably for many men of us, the training
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  Speaker 2: that we had as kids with our parents in assuming
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  Speaker 2: that there are a certain set of emotions that we
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  Speaker 2: need to see from our kids. We want them to
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  Speaker 2: be happy, we want them to be joyful, we want
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  Speaker 2: them to be grateful, we want them to be cheery,
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  Speaker 2: and when we see the other ones, we see anger,
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  Speaker 2: and we see jealousy, and we see worry, and we
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  Speaker 2: see all of these other bad emotions. It scares us, right,
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  Speaker 2: and so we are afraid of half of the human
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  Speaker 2: spectrum of emotions, which is a problem. Obviously. We don't
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  Speaker 2: see purpose in those emotions, and so as soon as
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  Speaker 2: we see it as a parent, we get triggered. We're triggered,
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  Speaker 2: and then with the triggering, you know, this can go
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  Speaker 2: in so many different directions. Sometimes we are catastrophic thinkers.
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  Speaker 2: Not sometimes oftentimes, oh, my goodness, my child is worrying
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  Speaker 2: at this young age of under six. They're five years old,
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  Speaker 2: and maybe they worry so much they have to sleep
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  Speaker 2: next to me at night, and you know, or they
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  Speaker 2: can't do something, they can't go to school, or they
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  Speaker 2: don't want to socialize, and so how are they going
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  Speaker 2: to handle life? My goodness. Catastrophic thinking goes in usually
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  Speaker 2: three directions. It ends up where your child is either
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  Speaker 2: going to be in jail on drugs or homeless, right
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  Speaker 2: like they're always My five year old can't sleep alone
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  Speaker 2: at night, So therefore they're never going to get a job, right,
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  Speaker 2: So we go wrong in thinking that there's going to
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  Speaker 2: be some tragic ripple effect, and we are again based
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  Speaker 2: on our own conditioning of being scared of these big feelings.
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  Speaker 2: They make us incredibly uncomfortable. So the messaging that we're
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  Speaker 2: often sending to our kids with great intention and trust me,
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  Speaker 2: I have a seven and eight year old and they
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  Speaker 2: are very loud spirited kids with big feelings, right. But
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  Speaker 2: the message we often send to our young ones is
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  Speaker 2: listen your big feelings. They're making me uncomfortable. I would
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  Speaker 2: like you to go into a calm down corner. You know,
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  Speaker 2: if we're very conscious, we're not putting them in time out.
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  Speaker 2: We're in a time in right, and go get rid
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  Speaker 2: of those big feelings and come back when you have
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  Speaker 2: the feelings that I'm more comfortable with. So the first
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  Speaker 2: message that we need to send our kids is your
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  Speaker 2: feelings are valid. You know I can hold space for them,
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  Speaker 2: I can handle them. I understand that when you're disregulated
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  Speaker 2: that you need me to lean on. You need my regulation,
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  Speaker 2: you need to borrow mine. But I can only do
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  Speaker 2: that if I'm able to stand strong in my own
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  Speaker 2: understanding that this is all okay.
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  Speaker 1: That's Renie Jane, the founder of go Zen. You can
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  Speaker 1: find her online by doing a quick google Reniere n
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  Speaker 1: double e Jane j A I n Renie Jane from
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  Speaker 1: go Zen. And that was the part of a conversation
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  Speaker 1: that we were having about little people and big feelings
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  Speaker 1: from the Little People Big Feelings Summit. If you'd like
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  Speaker 1: more information about how you can help you little people
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  Speaker 1: deal with their big feelings, but please check out the summit,
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  Speaker 1: just google Happy families dot com dot au and type
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  Speaker 1: in little People, Big Feelings. The summer will come up
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  Speaker 1: and you can grab hold of that for a lot
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  Speaker 1: of really useful resources. The Happy Families podcast is produced
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  Speaker 1: by Justin Roland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
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  Speaker 1: executive producer, and if you'd like more info about how
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  Speaker 1: to make your family happier, visit us at happy families
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot au.