Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #871 The Secret to Regulating Emotions

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#871 The Secret to Regulating Emotions · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now, the one thing that I shared with her was
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  Speaker 2: that no matter how many doors she slammed, that I
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  Speaker 2: loved her no matter what. Those three keywords not I
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  Speaker 2: love you, but no matter what. And when I shared
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  Speaker 2: that with her, all of the big emotions she'd been
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  Speaker 2: feeling dissolved.
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  Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, My mom
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  Speaker 1: and Dad, Kylie.
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  Speaker 2: We received an email from Danny who is having a
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  Speaker 2: hard time with the child who's having big emotions emotional
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  Speaker 2: regulation stuff. She said, I'd love to hear a podcast
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  Speaker 2: topic on dealing with kids with big emotions, emotion regulation
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  Speaker 2: challenges lead to them hitting themselves in the head, and
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  Speaker 2: moments of emotional overload and what can parents do in
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  Speaker 2: the moment, because sometimes meltdowns seem to happen out of nowhere,
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  Speaker 2: so the best prevention strategies often don't work.
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  Speaker 3: It stands out to me the most with this question
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  Speaker 3: is the reality that often there is actually very little
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  Speaker 3: we can do in the moment. We talk about high
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  Speaker 3: emotions and low intelligence, and this idea of when we're
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  Speaker 3: emotionally flooded, our thinking part of our brain doesn't work.
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  Speaker 2: It just switches off.
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  Speaker 3: And a really really clear case in point was when
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  Speaker 3: I taught our eldest daughter to drive. First day. She
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  Speaker 3: was driving straight for a brick wall, and I could not,
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  Speaker 3: for the life of me think of what needed to
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  Speaker 3: happen in order to stop that.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, you needed to say stop.
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  Speaker 3: I did. I was screaming stop. But at no point
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  Speaker 3: did my thinking brain go pull the handbrake up right.
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  Speaker 2: I didn't.
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  Speaker 3: I couldn't. And it wasn't until after that and everything
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  Speaker 3: blew up in smoke that it was like, why didn't
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  Speaker 3: I pull the handbrake? But I couldn't think of that
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  Speaker 3: in that moment because I was so emotionally flooded with
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  Speaker 3: the fear of the fact that we were about tea
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  Speaker 3: to brick wall.
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  Speaker 2: I can't remember the name of the podcast listener. I
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  Speaker 2: think her name was Jess. I sent us an email
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  Speaker 2: one time and said, you have that high emotions low
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  Speaker 2: intelligence thing. I don't like it, because you're still intelligent,
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  Speaker 2: it's just that you're not accessing it. And I think
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  Speaker 2: that that was I mean, it's a new moonic, right,
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  Speaker 2: but you can't think straight in a high emotion state
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  Speaker 2: is what she said. Let's get people understanding that when
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  Speaker 2: you're on the brink, you need to stop and think.
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  Speaker 2: But what Danny's saying in her email is when you're
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  Speaker 2: over the brink, it's too late to stop and think,
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  Speaker 2: Which is what happened with you when our daughter wrote
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  Speaker 2: the car off on her very first driving Lisson.
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  Speaker 4: Ever, airbags everywhere. I mean, it was just it was
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  Speaker 4: a disaster. So how do we help Danny with this?
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  Speaker 4: If you had asked me this question a little while ago,
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  Speaker 4: maybe a year or two ago, I would have said,
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  Speaker 4: once the kids are in that high emotion state where
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  Speaker 4: they're blowing up, where the meltdown is just going absolutely bonkers.
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  Speaker 4: At that point, you can't do anything. You just have
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  Speaker 4: to wait. And I still think that in many cases
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  Speaker 4: that may be the case, because as parents, we've got
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  Speaker 4: to have the skill set to respond to that. So
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  Speaker 4: sometimes my auntswer is still going to be you can't
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  Speaker 4: do anything. But over time I've become increasingly convinced that
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  Speaker 4: there are things that you can do, and that's what
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  Speaker 4: I think we should talk about in today's podcast episode well.
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  Speaker 3: Being at a household of girls, there are huge emotions
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  Speaker 3: on a regular basis so much.
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  Speaker 2: Emotions, gaze of emotion, so much emotion.
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  Speaker 3: And as I've been learning more about how to deal
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  Speaker 3: with my own emotions, which has been so powerful for
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  Speaker 3: me then being able to help our children. One of
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  Speaker 3: the things that I've found really eye opening is I
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  Speaker 3: just have a sheet with all of the different emoji
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  Speaker 3: emotions on it, and the other day our thirteen year
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  Speaker 3: old was displaying some huge emotions, but when I tried
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  Speaker 3: to talk to her about it, she completely shut down.
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  Speaker 3: And as our kids get older, we often find that
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  Speaker 3: instead of their emotions getting bigger, they actually hold them in.
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  Speaker 2: It's probably worth highlighting and interrupting, just briefly in this story.
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  Speaker 2: Emotion regulation is not just the ability to hold your
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  Speaker 2: emotions in. It's the ability to express or suppress appropriately.
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  Speaker 2: And when children are emotionally disregulated, like our thirteen year
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  Speaker 2: old was here, she's suppressing that emotion, but she's not
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  Speaker 2: doing it in a healthy way. It's in a disregulated way.
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  Speaker 2: But she's holding it in because she doesn't want to
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  Speaker 2: be explosive. And she also knows that, like a wave
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  Speaker 2: on the shore, that emotion is coming in and eventually
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  Speaker 2: it is going to go back out and she'd be
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  Speaker 2: able to process it and deal with it appropriately. But
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  Speaker 2: right here, right now, she's blowing up, and rather than
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  Speaker 2: blowing up and making it worse, she's now suppressing it.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes healthy, sometimes not. Just wanted to jump in with that,
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  Speaker 2: and so.
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  Speaker 3: I pulled out the emotions chart and I just said
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  Speaker 3: to her, I said, I feel like there's a whole
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  Speaker 3: heap of emotion you're feeling at the moment. I said,
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  Speaker 3: do you actually know what you're feeling? And she looked
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  Speaker 3: at me and she said, ah. I said, maybe we
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  Speaker 3: can use the chart, and one by one she handpicked
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  Speaker 3: about eight different emotions Like that is a lot of
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  Speaker 3: emotion for anyone to be going through, but especially as
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  Speaker 3: a young teenager who's trying to work life out.
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  Speaker 2: And it's even harder when you've got a five or
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  Speaker 2: a six year old, or a t or a three
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  Speaker 2: year old who's experiencing all of those emotions and doesn't
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  Speaker 2: know how. I mean, it doesn't even have the words,
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  Speaker 2: doesn't have the labels, the names. There's so much happening
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  Speaker 2: inside them and they just think there's something wrong with them.
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  Speaker 3: And that's how our daughter was feeling specifically this day.
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  Speaker 3: So when I realized how many emotions we were dealing with.
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  Speaker 3: I said, if you had to hand pick maybe the
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  Speaker 3: top two that are taking up the most emotion in
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  Speaker 3: your body, what would they be? And she pointed to
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  Speaker 3: two and I went great, Now I actually, as a parent,
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  Speaker 3: have something to work with, because until that point I
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  Speaker 3: had no idea really what was going on. But now
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  Speaker 3: she's given me a really beautiful, vivid picture of this
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  Speaker 3: is what I'm feeling now.
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  Speaker 2: I want to break this down for Danny and everyone
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  Speaker 2: else who's saying, how am I supposed to do this? One?
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  Speaker 2: We've got a child who we're stepping in with a tool.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, I think I'm going to get the Happy
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  Speaker 2: Family's team to develop a tool and we'll make it
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  Speaker 2: available in the shop. I think that we just need
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  Speaker 2: to help people with this. You put the tool in
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  Speaker 2: front of your child and say, can you just point
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  Speaker 2: to these emotions, because no matter how angry they are,
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  Speaker 2: this gentle distraction that's emotion focused and problem solving focused,
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  Speaker 2: it will bring them back to the here and now
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  Speaker 2: and it gets their logical brain working again. It gets
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  Speaker 2: them out of that emotional brain into their logical brain.
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  Speaker 2: It's kind of like when you say, can you draw
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  Speaker 2: your emotions for me? You can do this with little kids,
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  Speaker 2: right And they pull out the black texture and scribble
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  Speaker 2: all over the page and you say, wow, that is
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  Speaker 2: a lot.
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  Speaker 3: Of until they take that tool to school and they
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  Speaker 3: draw all over the carpet with the text and.
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  Speaker 2: You get a focal from the teacher. But the important
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  Speaker 2: part about your story, Kylie, is the way that you've
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  Speaker 2: stepped in with compassion and gentleness and a tool so
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  Speaker 2: that a child can identify an emotional state.
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  Speaker 3: I'm forty plus years old, and for so long I
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  Speaker 3: just thought there was angry, mad.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that angry. It's that angry, scared, stress.
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  Speaker 3: And happy. I really struggle to recognize that I could
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  Speaker 3: feel a whole heap more. And so for our kids
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  Speaker 3: it's the same. They just think they're angry. That's what
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  Speaker 3: That's why we have these big emotions. They think they're angry.
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  Speaker 3: But helping them to recognize that actually, no, underneath that anger,
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  Speaker 3: there is on this particular day, it was shame, it
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  Speaker 3: was embarrassment, it was feeling alone, it was feeling isolated.
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  Speaker 3: There were so many emotions that weren't actually angry at all,
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  Speaker 3: but anger is how we express them.
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  Speaker 2: So in the moment that's your big idea, Let's sit
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  Speaker 2: down with the tool and let's talk through the tool,
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  Speaker 2: because that's going to build the emotional awareness and the
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  Speaker 2: emotional regulation in the child. I want to share, I guess,
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  Speaker 2: and more advanced, not not that that's not advanced.
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  Speaker 3: I can't believe.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, no, honestly I said that I'm wrong. What
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  Speaker 2: I'm trying to say is I want to share. So
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  Speaker 2: I mean, you've got you've got great parenting happening here,
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  Speaker 2: but I want to share the kind of parenting for
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  Speaker 2: the parent who really wants to take on a really
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  Speaker 2: big challenge in dealing with really really mega emotions. In
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  Speaker 2: some other ways that could also work. But what you
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  Speaker 2: said was really great, and I think that it should
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  Speaker 2: be encouraged.
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  Speaker 3: To stop talking. I'm just going to stop talking.
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  Speaker 2: Should I just share my story?
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  Speaker 3: She's okay.
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  Speaker 2: I did actually share this on the podcast a little
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  Speaker 2: while ago. I said that all wrong. I'm so sorry.
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  Speaker 2: So I shared this while ago. We had one of
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  Speaker 2: our adolescent daughters lose the plot. Recently, it was several
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  Speaker 2: months ago now, absolutely going off, really really psyching at
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  Speaker 2: her sister. And when I walked into the room, and
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  Speaker 2: asked her if she could please step out. She defied me,
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  Speaker 2: said she wasn't going anywhere. I mean, she was just
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  Speaker 2: her eyes were on fire. So after two or three
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  Speaker 2: more requests and me standing my ground and staying very soft,
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  Speaker 2: very gentle, but also being very clear that there was
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  Speaker 2: a boundary that had been crossed and she needed to
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  Speaker 2: step out.
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  Speaker 3: So before you go on, that's actually such a key point.
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  Speaker 3: If we're not taking care of ourselves emotionally and making
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  Speaker 3: sure that we're on point, when our kids are losing
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  Speaker 3: the plot, more times than not, we lose.
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  Speaker 2: The people we join them in the case, we.
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  Speaker 3: Actually create more chaos. So key to this story working
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  Speaker 3: out was that you were in a good space and
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  Speaker 3: could hold your ground in being really scented emotionally.
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  Speaker 2: Probably want to highlight just on this though, and this
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  Speaker 2: is so important for Danny's question. If we're going to
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  Speaker 2: step in and help our children regulate that whole idea
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  Speaker 2: of regulation, being able to express or suppress appropriately. I
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  Speaker 2: was furious with this daughter the way she had treated
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  Speaker 2: her sister. I was furious, so I had to regulate
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  Speaker 2: my emotion. I had to suppress that, keep it together
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  Speaker 2: and politely compassionately and gently see that she was going
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  Speaker 2: through a struggle.
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  Speaker 3: This is and that's a tool in and of itself, right,
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  Speaker 3: recognizing that when our children are showing big emotions, it's
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  Speaker 3: actually getting to a place where we can have compassion
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  Speaker 3: for what they are experiencing in that moment.
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  Speaker 2: So I held my ground because she was very, very
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  Speaker 2: defined and explained a couple of times she just needed
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  Speaker 2: to leave the room and I would be with her
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  Speaker 2: soon and we'd work this out. And it was very
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  Speaker 2: much oriented towards I'm here to help you. I'm just
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  Speaker 2: going to look after your little sister first. Anyway, she
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  Speaker 2: stepped onto our little tile decking area next to the
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  Speaker 2: car port and waited for me. When I stepped outside,
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  Speaker 2: having checked that her sister was okay, I expressed to
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  Speaker 2: her that perhaps perhaps we could go for a walk
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  Speaker 2: to the front gates to get some fresh air. Now
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  Speaker 2: front gate's only about eight meters from the front door,
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  Speaker 2: but she agreed to do it, and so we walked there,
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  Speaker 2: and it wasn't nearly far enough. She was still hostile
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  Speaker 2: and fuming, and so I convinced her to walk to
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  Speaker 2: the corner with me. There's something about nature there's something
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  Speaker 2: about being outside when your children are having a meltdown.
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  Speaker 2: We always try and deal with it in the living room,
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  Speaker 2: and I just I really recommend getting outside. The kids
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  Speaker 2: don't respond the same way outside as they do in
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  Speaker 2: the four walls of the home.
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  Speaker 3: We talked about this in our Witching Hour episode last week,
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  Speaker 3: this acknowledgement that our baby calmed as soon as she
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  Speaker 3: was outside. We learned this lesson very early on, and
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  Speaker 3: it has paid endeavored ends every time we've used it
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  Speaker 3: with our children.
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  Speaker 2: So when we got to the corner, I put my
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  Speaker 2: arms out to her and said, can I hug you?
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  Speaker 2: And she said no because she hated me right then,
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  Speaker 2: and she was really really angry. And I just said
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  Speaker 2: to her, very very gently and quietly, I just want
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  Speaker 2: to share one thing with you, just one and once
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  Speaker 2: I've shared that with you, I won't talk again. And
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  Speaker 2: the one thing that I shared with her was that
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  Speaker 2: no matter how many doors she slammed, no matter how
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  Speaker 2: many insults she shared with her sister, no matter how
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  Speaker 2: many challenging moments like this we went through, that I
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  Speaker 2: loved her no matter what. Those three key words not
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  Speaker 2: I love you, but no matter what, and when I
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  Speaker 2: shared that with her, all of the big emotions she'd
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  Speaker 2: been feeling dissolved, and a new big emotion came over
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  Speaker 2: her instead, and she burst into tears and hugged me
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  Speaker 2: for a few minutes down on the corner before we
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  Speaker 2: walked home and we resolved things. The reason that I'm
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  Speaker 2: sharing that as an advanced parenting strategy, Kylie, the reason
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  Speaker 2: that I said what I said before is because our
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  Speaker 2: capacity to hold our emotions in check, to have and
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  Speaker 2: hold compassion for children who are being horrible, and then
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  Speaker 2: to express unconditional regard and love for them at the
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  Speaker 2: right time, in the right place, in a way that
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  Speaker 2: makes them receptive to it and brings them back to
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  Speaker 2: a place where they can then move forward with finding solutions.
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  Speaker 2: It's a really hard thing to do, but when we
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  Speaker 2: get our heart right towards our child, when our heart
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  Speaker 2: is full of compassion and gentleness, I think that's really
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  Speaker 2: the key when our kids are having the meltdown, Danny,
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  Speaker 2: It's really about the state of our heart, and if
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  Speaker 2: we're oriented towards compassion and helping, then we get better outcomes.
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  Speaker 2: They do stop hitting themselves in the head, they do
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  Speaker 2: stop beating up their siblings, they do stop saying I
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  Speaker 2: hate you or I hate this world and I want
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  Speaker 2: to die. They stop saying those things and they respond
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  Speaker 2: to our unconditional love.
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  Speaker 3: Which just for the record, I didn't really like our
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  Speaker 3: thirteen year old that day either.
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  Speaker 2: You regulated very well I did. We really hope that
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  Speaker 2: this has been useful, Danny, thanks so much for the email.
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  Speaker 2: You can email your questions podcasts at happy families dot
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: com dot au. That's podcasts with an s at happy
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: families dot com dot au. Thank you so much for
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: listening to the Happy Families podcasts. We hope that it
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: makes your family happier. The Happy Families podcast is produced
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: executive producer. For more information about making your family happier,
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: please visit us at happyfamilies dot com dot au.