Latest / The Parent Tap / What to Do AFTER You Lose Your Cool (Part 2): Fixing the Guilt & Evening Chaos

Transcript

What to Do AFTER You Lose Your Cool (Part 2): Fixing the Guilt & Evening Chaos · The Parent Tap

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: That moment, the one where your kid says something or does something, and your blood goes from zero to boiling in half a second.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: The thing you say next, the thing you say next comes out before you even choose.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: And you're standing there, and then you're standing there heart pounding, thinking, I didn't want to be that parent.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the part nobody tells you.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: That split second isn't a care isn't a character flaw.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's biology.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And today we've got a licensed psychotherapist who's going to show you what to do in that exact window.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Olivia Bergeron calls it stop, soften, see.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I promise you, by the end of this conversation, you'll have a tool you can use tonight.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: You've built your whole practice around the one pivot from React to Respond.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: So what's actually happening in a parent's brain when we lose it?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is it just fight or flight or is it something else?
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's fight or flight for sure.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think that there are old triggers, old, old scripts that we're running basically, in that we tend to revert to what we know when we swore up and down.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'd never do that thing, I'd never say that thing.
• 1:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then our child pushes our buttons and out it pops.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Or we've had a long day.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just been one of those days we all have them, right?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where nothing seems to be going right and our child is just pushing back and pushing back, just not listening or actively doing exactly what we asked them not to do.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we lose it.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think for working as a parent coach and as a therapist, I really view it as my my role is to help provide parents with the scaffolding that they need so that they don't get there as often.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: But when they do, they have the skills to figure out what do I do in the moment then.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's one thing to say, hypothetically, theoretically, do this or that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can't actually put it into action, to me, it's worthless.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, it doesn't there's no value there.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I'm a parent myself.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: My daughter was two when my twins were born.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a lot of experience managing the three-ring circus that is having small children.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that really oriented me towards helping parents as a therapist, as a parent coach.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I've been there.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's great.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: You've actually gone through the well, you've walked the walk and talk talk to talk.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly have.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so that helps to know.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then also it helps to know that it's almost like this uncontrollable thing, the fight or flight.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know sometimes I've done it too, where I just react.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: It could be something from a kid spilling red juice on a white or tan couch, or it could be my my kid breaking my TV, which happened two months ago.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or it could be could be something smaller, just like the crackers spilling in the car, and you're just like, oh my god, you've had the worst day, and that's just a tip.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that unless you had really given some thought ahead of time to how you want to respond instead of react, then I think it's really easy to just drop all of your good intentions and and go for it and act as if your child is the enemy and you guys are oppositional, you're on different sides, and we're you're all on the same team.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your family, uh, your kids are on the same side as you.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's maybe doesn't feel like that all the time.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I think remembering that in the moment that you are the adult, they are the child, and choosing not to throw your own tantrum, choosing not to revert to your own childhood self, because your child is looking at you and saying, How do you handle stress and anxiety and worry and and situations like filling the juice on the on the white carpet or on the tan couch?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are showing to them this is how you handle stress, you're modeling to them.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right, this is and you wonder why our kids will throw their own tantrums or yell back.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when we yell at them, this is how they learn this is this is normal.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is what you do when you're stressed out.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, yeah.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And daddy's going through it right now, or at least I'm I shouldn't say it like that.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going through it right now with my with my kids.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so in terms of the stress, and so really trying to manage that going forward with just kind of going through a layoff and then trying to get this pod going and all this stuff that adult stuff that kids don't understand.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like I'm trying to really work on myself during this period of time of like, hey, I was really stressed out during the nine to five.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I was I was not myself, I was not happy, I was not I was not in the present.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was always looking forward to the future or like regretting that I'm not in the past.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm just like, now I just have this huge challenge, this huge opportunity.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just super stoked.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: I get to have people like you on every day, and this is amazing.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I just love it.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, can you tell us about the stop soften?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Let me repeat that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: The stop soften see approach.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk a little bit about first the loyalty bind.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Why, why are you repeating what you swore you'd never do?
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I call it the loyalty bind because it is working with parents for so many years, I found that there's often a block.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: They have really great intentions.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: They really want to change, they want to say the right thing, they want to not to be harsh or punitive or or a pushover, and that oftentimes in the moment they run up against this uh roadblock where, again, the they they just revert to what they know, they repeat what their parents did.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I call that the loyalty line because oftentimes it's unconscious.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is something we don't actually want to be doing, but it's so familiar, we we clot into that groove.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I created this short tactic, it takes 60 seconds to do as a way to interrupt that pattern in the moment.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, obviously, if that is, you can if you relate to that, if you relate to, oh gosh, my parents did these things that I didn't want to do and I'm doing it myself.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's some work to be done there to undo that, but I want to give your your listeners, your your watchers, your your um your audience here a skill, a simple tool that they can use.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it takes 60 seconds, and I call it stop soften C.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's three S's S S S.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the first S is stop.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So when you are yelling or losing your cool or doing something that you know you will regret, stop.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Put your hand over your mouth if you have to.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But the idea is really that you stop yourself mid-sentence or or but the idea is slow yourself down after that.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you stop yourself again, hand over the mouth if you have to, but pause.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Interrupt yourself.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then you soften.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: The person that you're dealing with is your child.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's the same person that you held as a baby, same infant that you used to cradle in your arms.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: You are uh softening your body at the same time.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So relaxing your shoulders, rolling them out, taking a deep breath.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Slowing things down, I think, is really key because as you said, when you're upset, you're 10 steps ahead.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're gaming out all the things that could go wrong, all the things bad that are going to happen is if you have a crystal ball.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea with stopping, softening, slowing things down is to inject that pause so you're not just reacting.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the last S is C.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: See your child's point of view, even if you don't agree with it.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, they want to stay up later, they want to spend time with you, they want to play games, of course they want extra ice cream after dinner because it tastes good.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're not they are the child in the situation.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You are the adult, you've got more perspective, of course, more experience.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know best, no question.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're able to see your child's point of view, then you can come alongside them as opposed to at them.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you can say, I see, I understand that you want this thing.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And we can't do that right now.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Or we'll do it later.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's empathy.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that oftentimes we confuse empathy for sympathy.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sympathy is I feel bad for you, empathy is I understand you.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think using empathy as a tool, your go-to tool, really sets you up for success.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can understand or I see what you're doing, I see why.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't mean I don't need to convince you that you're doing it wrong, uh, or here's what you need to do otherwise.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just okay, I see, I get it.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's figure out what the problem solving strategies are as opposed to getting stuck in the problem.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: As you said, again, you're 10 steps ahead, you're looking at all the things that are going to go wrong, things that you're anticipating.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's important to come back to the present, to slow things down, to get that point of view, that perspective.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: That helps you be the parent you want to be.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Unless you and when you don't do that, you shoot from the hip, you start to, you're reacting, and you're not, you're not probably your finest self.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're not presenting the way that you actually want to be as a parent.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to give parents the tools they need to parent in a way that they're proud of.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, that's great.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, the hand over-the-mouth thing, I so what I have started to do, and I don't even know, it was just like this subconscious thing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I instead of saying bad words, because I was really bad with that around my kids, and I'm more conscious now that my I have a five-year-old and I don't want her to repeat that and because she will.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: So so lately I've been saying I want to say bad words when something bad happens, instead of the throwing out damn it or shit or whatever you want to say, I'll just be like, I want to say bad words in this moment.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then I guess that's my hand over my mouth.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's the best approach, but it's like at least it's not not saying the word, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're not saying the bad word, right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you're human.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying parents have to be perfect, that that's absolutely not the takeaway that I want to have people have here.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: There is no perfect, particularly in parenting.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think if that's the standard, you're going to fail because you can't be perfect.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, I do think acknowledging to your child, I'm having a hard time here.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you have to paste a smile on your face and pretend everything is okay when you feel like cursing or you feel like you're you're not feeling uh the warm and fuzzy feeling that you you want to be.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Telling your child, I'm having a hard time, so I'm gonna go take a break.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna get a glass of water.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want one?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go take a walk around the block or step outside for a minute.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I will be right back.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: You're showing your child how to handle stress.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're modeling to them, it's okay to be upset.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not okay to kick the dog, you know, or just say or do something, reacting in anger against these people that you love because you're upset.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: You feel entitled.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I should be able to do that, I can do that.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have to go back later on and repair.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Parents don't have a lot of time.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and as a parent of three kids, I get it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at this as you know, you're saving yourself time on the back end because you don't need to go and spend all that time repairing and apologizing later on.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I got two myself, so by two and five.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so I get um the lack of time.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the lack of lack of everything, it seems like lack of lack of bandwidth, lack of uh tolerance, lack of sleep, lack of uh time with the wife.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's just this huge lack of whatever because the the focus has been on the kids for the last five years, and rightly so, but you know what I mean?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's just it's one of those sacrifices parents have to make.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was gonna say that, Ryan, that that they're certainly not in a boat alone.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Many parents feel that way, but I also really focus on self-care when I do work with parents because it is really easy to become ships in the night with your partner.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's easy to become like you are last on the list or not even on the list when it comes to your day-to-day.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so, how do you add yourself back on a way that is actually feasible and doable and something you can actually carry through on?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it's but it's probably not going to look the way it did before five years ago, before kids showed up for you, for instance.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you figure out to do small things, but often?
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Small things that bring you pleasure, that bring you joy, that make you happy.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's listening to your favorite song or a podcast, um, or or texting a friend.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Doing something that brings you a little, a little jolt of joy, I think is important because no one's gonna hand that to you on a platter.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish that they would.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: I wish they'd say, here you go, Ryan, go do that fun thing for yourself.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna do that.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as you said, your time is really precious.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's not a lot of it.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you dedicate at least some portion of your day to making sure that you're taking care of yourself so that you can best take care of your family?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's why self-care is not selfish.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's critical because you need that bandwidth to be able to do all those things, tackle all those demands that are on you.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that making time for yourself, like I said, is not selfish at all.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, trying to trying to do that, trying to be a little bit more um, I don't know, it's almost like I I feel like that not selfish almost to a degree, but I get what you're saying.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: You because you go from when you're a single parent, or not a single parent, when you're when you're when you don't have kids, you go from everything's about you to then when you have kids in that hospital room, everything's about them.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have to slowly transition back into, okay, I still have a wife or a spouse, I still have this, I still have a wife.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to, whatever your hobbies are, you still want to re-establish that at some point.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's just these, it's these transitions that are hard for me because it goes from one extreme to the other, and then you have to walk it back and get get your previous self back in in a in a sense, you know what I mean?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: My kid's five, so my six year six, six ago, six years ago self, I should say, I'm trying to get that back a little bit more.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's never gonna be exactly the same, but some some part of where wife and I can go out on a date, or I can I have an hour to work out, or I can work on the podcast without feeling like guilty or whatever.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that is definitely a big focus.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that's that's really critical, and I'm glad to hear that that's a focus of yours.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people, when they have that extra hour or extra half hour or five minutes, will grab their phone instead.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they get they get on social media or they, you know, they they twirl and then they look up after however many minutes, and it's like, where did the time go?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't really feel any better after.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I think you need to cope in advance.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Cope have a list of things that you can do.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Think about it ahead of time.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: What are some things you can do instead of again, grabbing your phone or doing something that doesn't really make you feel that good?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So having that, curating that list, having it on your fridge or on your phone, that you can just pull it up and say, Okay, these are the things I want to do.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't think about it in advance, really hard to think of it in the moment.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I love checking things like that.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: But was that thing I wanted to do?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you know, having the list, and doing those things that make you feel good, then that's this is easy to replicate.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Once you get in the habit of, okay, I'm gonna go, where's my list of things that make me feel good?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I've got five minutes, or I've got a half hour, or an hour, maybe it's working out, like you said.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's going for a walk, maybe it's contacting a friend or or hanging out with your wife, or planning that next vacation together, or doing something that brings you joy and pleasure, that's key.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: That makes you feel good.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to feel good.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I want to get into the phones a little bit.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I was scanning Reddit just for some content for the course for not for the course, for the show.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: And um, there's a Reddit thread right now that's really popular.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: It says, well, basically it's this is just summarizing it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: So a dad finds his 14-year-old secret Instagram account with 2,000 followers, so quite a bit.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: And he wants to take the phone away, but the wife wants to talk first.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: So who's right in that instance and how do you go about handling differences in parenting styles?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, parenting style of differences is something really common for couples.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when I work with individuals or couples, it certainly comes up with a great degree of frequency.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it is you weren't raised in the same home.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you do what's normal for you might not look what's what's standard for your partner.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's just that's just but how do you get on the same page?
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think that marching in and just ripping out the phone out of your child's hand, what are they gonna learn?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Might makes right.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: You can come in and swipe something, and and it's and I I suspect that if you do that to your child, they're gonna be very resentful and angry at you.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what's the lesson?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're not thinking about the lesson, what I should be doing differently.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're angry at you.
• 14:34
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that I I side more with the the mom in that situation where you want to talk about it first because you want to teach a lesson here.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: There's something that you want to you want to share, you want, you want your child to learn.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think again, marching in and just ripping the phone out of their hand is probably not the lesson that you want to impart because they're gonna get sneaky.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: That child is gonna go behind your back, they're gonna start using their friends' phones to use Instagram or log into their account there.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: They're though they will find a way if there's not that connection.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have that warm relationship with your child where they trust you, they want to follow your lead because they want to preserve that relationship, because it's important to them.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of parents, when kids hit the preteen or the teen years, they figure, I'll see you in five years.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um wash their hands of parenting, and oh, I can't control them anymore.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and I think that's a true mistake because your kid still needs you.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: They need your guidance, and I think probably more than ever at that point because they are faced with so many different choices, challenges socially, school-wise, academically, certainly peer-wise.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Peers start to take a great degree of of influence, have precedence and influence over your child.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you want to have some, you want to have some say, you want to weigh in and say, let's let's at least keep the lines of communication open because they really need to hear from you at that point.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and they still trust you.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: They still, teenagers are not so great for openly accepting your your wisdom and your guidance.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can I can attest.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I I think that it is critical not to step away from your child during that time because they still do need your guidance and maintaining the the warmth, the relationship with them is the best way that you can influence them.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so the social uh the Surgeon General just doubled down on social media warning labels.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Some countries are just outright banning social media.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so you work with parents from postpartum all the way through teens.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Is it fair to say there's basically a pre-phone era and a postphone era in terms of how we have how we have to parent our our children?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't think that the rules go out the window once you start introducing phones.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I I think that hopefully you've built up enough of a family culture that you can rely upon that once phones get or social media gets introduced into onto onto the scene.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that making sure that there are limits and that you have boundaries and your child knows about them and and you talk about it openly and there's dialogue between you so that there's an understanding.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Again, kids don't generally like boundaries.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: They don't like limits.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And yet without them, they don't feel safe.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they will constantly be testing against those boundaries, pushing up against the uh the rules and the regulations that you set up in your home to make sure that they're still there.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: But they need that so that they can actually be the kid in the situation.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you have no rules, no guide, no, no, no boundaries, and it's just a free-for-all, and you let them do pretty much whatever they want, um, initially your kid was going to find that enjoyable, but ultimately they won't feel safe because the adults are not in charge then.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: They need to know that the adults are in charge so that they can do the kids things the kids do and not worry about running things.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it is, it is certainly, you know, it's a challenge that parents face for sure.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so you have a free guide called 60 Seconds to Calm.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us one physical thing a parent can do in the first seconds that changes everything?
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, it's it's stop.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Take a pause, inject a pause, because I think if we go from zero to sixty and we just react, oftentimes we're not presenting our best selves.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's our first initial reaction is often not the one we actually want to go with.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're able to find that way to step off the ledge, to take that pause, to go take a break, where your kids live, you can table the conversation and come back to it later.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be addressed.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some parents think I need to address it right in the moment, otherwise I'm losing the teaching moment.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I totally disagree with that because if you are in fight or flight and you're provoking the same reaction in your child, then nobody's listening to each other.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: No, if you're in emergency mode, your brain is shutting, literally your prefrontal cortex is shutting down, you're not able to hear each other and to be reasonable or rational.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever curls of wisdom you're trying to impart at that point, they're not going to land.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really think it's okay to stop, to table the conversation, to wait, whether that's five minutes or talking about it tonight at dinner or tomorrow morning, taking away that urgency.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: I need to teach the lesson right this second, I think it trips parents up because it it's not necessary.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that you're actually doing the teaching that you think you're doing.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Kids are again, they're thinking of either a retort or something else.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're not they're not listening to you and concentrating on the lesson that mom wants to impart to me right now.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Quite the opposite.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: So in your bio, you mentioned parents, you help parents who don't recognize themselves.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: We sometimes I feel angry or uh confused on how angry I am, rather, over stuff, especially when my my kid doesn't want to give me the phone back screen time thing.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: They just get like in this deep obsessive state.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is that normal or is it a signal that something deeper is going on with us?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's hard for me to, I'm not gonna diagnose you and your family right now.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um but but I would say that but I would say that if you are triggered off, I know anger is usually secondary.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: Underneath it is usually fear or sadness.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So if you find yourself going to anger, maybe you're scared about I'm worried about my kid turning out to be, I don't know, um a serial killer or something.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: We tend to go to the worst case scenario oftentimes.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that if you are reacting to a situation based on that kind of fear response, oftentimes fear feels you don't feel like you're in control, you feel like you're powerless.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to feel that we're in control.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: We want to feel power.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we go to anger instead.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm back in charge.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: But that anger oftentimes doesn't have the impact that we want it to on the person that we're directing it at.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because yelling, and I would imagine, Ryan, you're probably much larger than your kids.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so when parents get angry at your kids, that's this person is twice as big as I am.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Either they're yelling or furious at me, and that's that's scary.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think the kids are learning when they're when they're when they're scared, frankly, or they're not learning the lessons that you want them to be learning at that time.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're learning that with dad when he's mad, he's he's scary.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I need to protect myself, or you know, they kind of go into their own fight or flight protection mode.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not a time of learning.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: I used to be a kindergarten teacher and I used my high, I'm 6'4.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: I thought that not scaring them in a way of boo Halloween scary, but you just standing over them when they're doing something wrong or giving them that like mean mug look would actually help me and that classroom discipline that that's really tough at that age group.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, not really.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think it had the right effect that I wanted it to do.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I I don't even try that with my kids anymore because that was 15 years ago I did that.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's more just, yeah, I think I've learned what works, what doesn't a little bit more.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, now it's more just getting on their level with them.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: And then again, when I'm angry is retreating, and then, like you said, waiting for a better time when we're both calmed down because you said in that moment, she's angry, I'm angry, no one's saying anything rational or anything like productive is being done.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're just escalating the problem.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've noticed with my daughter, she's she's on the spectrum, and so she'll she'll little things will set her off, but she'll get really stuck and hung up on something sometimes.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: She'll have an hour tantrum, maybe two-hour tantrum where it's consistent.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like, and so it's it's very tough in those moments to not get frazzled as a parent, not to get um, not to want to correct her behavior or you know, to intervene.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I have to really step back and do that.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: But what's one thing a listener can do today if their kid is just imploding my daughter as the example for for a long time, a long period of time?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: What can they do to call themselves back?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because it might be longer than 60 seconds, it might be longer than an hour.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Or whatever, how do you keep yourself calm in that period of window when just your world's imploding?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think the the last S there, the the C is really important, and that's empathy.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can I see it's not just your child is not giving you a hard time, they are having a hard time.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: If they're going through a two-hour tantrum, goodness, that's imagine how taxing that is for them.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: How hard that is for the emotions, just the the energy that that that takes, the upset the storm that's inside, that that's that's a lot to deal with.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would urge parents to use empathy first and to try to understand your child's perspective, what they're going through, without trying to fix it, without trying to correct.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: First step is empathy, and that comes maybe after you're able to soften yourself, slow things down yourself and and model to your child.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: How do you want them to respond to this kind of a situation?
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you go into a urine tantrum and you're showing them this is how you handle stress, this is how you handle anger, whereas instead, and it's okay to have that that that the emotions.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying all emotions are acceptable, just not all behaviors.
• 22:58
  unknown: Yeah.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we as adults, I don't think you need to stuff your emotions down and pretend they're that they're not there.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you can acknowledge them.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm upset right now.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: I see you're having a really hard time, and it's making me upset.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna go take care of myself.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be back in one minute or or however many seconds it takes to go throw some cold water on my face, get a glass of water.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want one?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I think softening your own tone and like I said, the softening your body, even well, sweetie, you're having such a hard time.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here for you.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are no perfect words.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you have to be particularly verbose.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and because when you're talking at a child that's in the throes of a tantrum, again, they're not hearing you, they're not taking anything in, but it's more your tone, your attitude.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can you be soft?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Can you be warm?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Can you still be loving?
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even in the face of that, and this is a challenge.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I and don't get me wrong, no parent can do this 100% all the time.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, it we are humans, we do get upset ourselves, and it is really hard to see your child having such a hard time and having all those emotions because we wanna, as you said, we wanna we wanna lock it down or control it or stop it.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it almost feels like we should, right?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: When it's going on that long, you're like, okay, I gotta intervene, I gotta do something.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's not a parenting style, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Don't don't don't intervene or don't don't try to help.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can try to help with figuring out it's not my role to lock down her emotions and and have her put a cork in it.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's my job is to help her through the emotions because once she gets that out of her system, and I would hope after a couple hours or after however long you know the tantrums are for your family or for other families that are listening, that your child is softer.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're relieved.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I got it off my chest.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like this de-escalation where, yeah, I can it she probably won't have another one of those for a month or two because it's like she got it all out of her system, so to speak.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right, right.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess you know the the the key then is is Ryan, how do you have her release some of the pressure before she has to go to level level 11?
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you have her when she gets to level three when you can recognize she's having one of those days?
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna help her do a dance and kind of laugh.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because laughter, laughter or tears.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's really the way to discharge that kind of energy.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can help her laugh, can we get on the floor and play?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna try to take each other's socks off, or we're gonna do some wrestling, or we're gonna laugh together.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think laughing together as a family, parent and child, that that is gold.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're creating that connection, you're creating that relationship, and you're helping them to discharge that energy.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: All that that stress and that anxiety that's built up.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: If yeah, I was gonna say, if I sense it, I will try to distract her from whatever's going on, whatever's bothering her.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's is something like her brother once goes down the stairs first in the morning.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: She wants to be the first to go down the stairs in the morning, right?
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or it's we're looking at her, she doesn't want us to look at her.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like it's hard, like it's not really something that from my perspective should be like a hill to die on, but she that is her hill to die on.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's like I try to distract her and like you said, be funny, be like outlandish, hurt myself on purpose, something like that, where it's like, okay, honey, that don't look over there, look over here, kind of thing.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I I suspect that if she's it's not really about being first.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not really it's it's not about yeah, it's it's she's showing you that that that's how the symptom basically, that's how it's it's meant, it's showing up.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: But something's something's eating away at her, something's going on that she needs to discharge.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why if you can get her laughing as you're doing, even if you can provoke tears, sometimes that's if you have uh the time for that.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: When you're trying to get out the door to go to school or summer camp or what have you, sometimes we just don't have the time.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think if your child is is showing you, you know, they're waving that flag, saying, I need, I need some help, taking that seriously and making sure that when you do pick her up at the end of the school day, for instance, or at the end of camp, uh, you really take some time from one-on-one for either laughter or for tears.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you know that something's brewing.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't address it, then you and then she's gonna go full on meltdown later on.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you're feeling the preventive maintenance and then kind of taking care of her in advance, knowing that she probably needs to discharge that energy because she's shown you the signs already.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's a great, great way to to diagno uh analyze it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you're not gonna diagnose anything over this call with my vague statements, but yeah, to really give me a better perspective on how to approach it and understand her psychology during those moments because sometimes I'm just like, oh, I'm just so like like frazzled and flustered on why she's upset about things that I perceive are just little, but in her world, um they're definitely not.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: For her, I mean, I I used to ask my kids, is this a big deal or a little deal?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I would think it'd be completely ridiculous.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: They would say it's a big deal.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, for you it's a big deal.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, I'm gonna respect that.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you guys don't have to agree about that.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: But at least you're you're helping her to put it into perspective and to say, okay, is this catastrophic the end of the world?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: But for kids, again, all emotions are big.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I bet when she's happy, she's probably ecstatic.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: When she's sad, it's the end of the world.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when she's mad, you know, she sees red.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: She's yeah, inside out.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: She's either the anger or she's goofball island, like bing bong.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so she's one of the opposite of those emotions.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that movie because it really does help describe um what she's going through and realize that there there are certain times of the day that you're gonna feel up and you're gonna feel down, you're gonna feel sad, and you're gonna feel all these different things, angry.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I we all feel that.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just her, but it's daddy.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: She sees me.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I wear my emotions on my sleeve, so you can definitely tell when I'm going through something rough, or I can be the I can I can be the goofiest person in the world too when things are going well and I'm feeling good.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: I let my hair down and do stupid stuff.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so I can be both.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and that could happen in the same day.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so my daughter, I'm seeing that too, where it's like she can have the best morning and the worst afternoon, and vice versa.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just like it's just bringing that in.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: I do find that transitions are often what provokes sometimes the behavior.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: So getting up, getting dressed, getting out the door, yeah, mealtimes, bath times, bed times.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's when your agendas don't align, usually she wants to continue playing.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: You want her to go to bed, she wants to have carrots.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You gave her peace.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it happens to be.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: But that's when the empathy tool, I think, is really helpful.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you can use that as your go-to.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I I understand.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't agree, but I I I get where you're coming from.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: You want to stay up later.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're having a good time, you don't want it to end.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: You wanted a different vegetable, you're disappointed.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um doesn't mean you have to change it and say, I'm gonna go cook eat whatever it is you want, or yes, you can stay up an extra three hours.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you do that, but I think instead, if you're able to understand and offer that empathy to say, Yeah, I I get it.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: I understand why you'd want to stay up later.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's bedtime.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So do you want to walk like a duck or clock like a duck on the way to the bathroom?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so you give her a little choice, you make it a little lighthearted, you don't get settled and stuck.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that is a way to set those boundaries, set those guidelines, set the expectations, and do it in a fun way, in a way that's not um, hopefully it gets it gets it gets greater compliance because it is more fun.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's so great.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: Olivia, how can people get your free 60 seconds to calm guide and find more about you and follow you on the internet?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I'm on all the socials.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: The easiest way to get the free guide uh to reach out to me is to do it through Linktree.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look up Mommy Groove, that's two O's, Mommy Groove, uh at Linktree, you can find me there and it's got the free guide and it's got uh some other goodies for you.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So folks are welcome to check that out.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: My website is also mommygroove.com.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: But uh people are welcome to reach out to me.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you.