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Your Anxiety Doesn’t Define Your Parenting · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well and welcome back.
• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, Child, an adolescent psychotherapist, and I'm going to offer you episode three in the series that is concerned with anxiety and anxiety in parents and the difficulties that are experienced when trying to parent and experiencing periodic or constant anxiety for whatever reasons.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in the preceding episodes, I've tried to explain something of the experience of that, the neurobiology, some references to how to observe, step to one side, and also to look at the intergenerational components.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say that, what I mean is, where did you learn to be anxious?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where did you learn to have reactions which maybe you did and still feel like you are the victim of?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I the reason I say this is because with many patients, when they talk about the difficulties they're experiencing, it's almost as if they visualize a part of themselves that is ready to attack them, make them feel bad.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is very much the case with OCD.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: You see it also in eating disorders, phobic behaviors, and in generalized anxiety disorders.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what the person tends to do is to position themselves away from whatever those difficult symptomatic expressions might be.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And something then happens, which is the person's sense of agency and ability to be in control of becomes eroded.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so for that reason, they then start to experience themselves as someone who has to be on the lookout for the symptomatic expression, whether that's a ritualistic behavior and OCD or calorie counting or whatever the particular difficulty might be.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an incredibly psychologically draining process.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, really, you know, the purpose of these, well, I think the podcasts generally, but more specifically, these is to try and help you to see that that imbalance, that internal imbalance, doesn't have to persist.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Your anxiety does not control you.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: It can, but actually, it doesn't have to, because we can change the power balance so that we learn how to see anxiety for what it is, not explore it in a way which re-triggers us, keeps us feeling powerless, and keeps our central nervous systems in a state of hypervigilance.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk about how you go from anxiety to security, and that incorporates repair, resilience, and raising children who internalize that.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And by now you'll know I talk an awful lot about internalizing.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, children don't need perfect parents, and you've heard me say that probably enough times, but the research consistently shows something powerful, and that's that children don't need constant attunement, they need good enough attunement.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, what that means is you will get it wrong sometimes.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: You will overreact on occasion, and at times you'll feel overwhelmed.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what matters most is what happens next, and that's the repair.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the power of repair is considerable because it teaches children that emotions are survivable, relationships can recover, mistakes are not catastrophic, and conflict doesn't equal abandonment.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, if you think about this as someone who has difficulty in adult relationships, if you haven't come from a background where when things go wrong we fix them, then you are constantly alert to trying to ensure that things don't go wrong, because if they do, it will end up in abandonment, conflict, and arouse a whole host of internal psychological reactions.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, I mean, I do this quite a lot in my work with patients, that there will be things that go wrong in the consulting room, or things which patients feel they can't say because if they do, they are failing me, disappointing me, offending me, or hurting me.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my task is to demonstrate, no, that is not what's happening.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can remember some while back a patient returning to a session, and I had said something in a previous session which I I thought to be perfectly harmless, but actually her experience of it was very different, and it triggered a whole host of very powerful feelings, which caused her to be very defensive, and we were able to unpick what had happened, and I described she she she told me what it was that I'd said, and I asked her to tell me what she thought that meant and also what she experienced, and she carefully but began more securely to describe it.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what was interesting was I I didn't I didn't correct her, I didn't say, well, you've got that wrong, because generally speaking, that's not very helpful.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: What I did was to say let can I explain to you what I meant, but before we do that, I'm really sorry that what I said caused you to feel the way you did, and perhaps I could have said it differently, but I I think she was quite shocked, and she immediately said, No, no, it's not your fault.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, let's not let's not do that because what you felt was real, and then it was possible to say to her, so we have two things, we have what you experienced, which was real, in in response to or in reaction to what I said.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I meant, which is the second thing.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's put those two things side by side.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in a sense, all that really happened was a repair.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was, no, I'm not gonna discount what you experienced.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I want to know about it because I've done something, which I didn't intend to do, but that's not really the point.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was her experience that mattered more than my intention.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was important to put my intention alongside it so that we could reframe what happened in a in a healthy way, and this was not about any kind of correction.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I suppose it was a misunderstanding, it was a moment of misattunement, so that was corrected, but not without acknowledging and really exploring what she experienced.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in a clinical context, that's really important because it means that we are then able to see what it was in her that had been had been touched, and that had its roots in experiences with significant people in her life.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So in the context of the consulting room, that's the right thing to do.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: In the context of a family, we we don't need to do the kind of linking to earlier experiences in quite that way, but I think we do have to do the other two things.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the nature of repair.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when an anxious parent says, I'm sorry, I was I was worried earlier, but I'm okay now, the child learns that feeling learns that feelings change, calm can return, and adults can regulate themselves.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this builds a sense of internal security in the child's nervous system.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there's something that we call family regulation practices, which is a bit wordy, but essentially what it means is instead of fighting anxiety, create rhythms that build safety.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes anxious parents will overcompensate, they will behave in a way that tries to protect the child from the anxiety, and sometimes that overcompensation can be seen through behaviors which are about constantly making sure that things are okay, could be the environment, that everything is under control.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a kind of perfectionism which really doesn't work.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So very often this kind of environmental anxiety will find expression at different times of the day that children will experience.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So predictable routines, gentle routines, are a good thing because they make people feel secure.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Calm bedtime transitions, easier said than done, because children very often don't really want to be going to bed, particularly if you're if they have screens, but that's a ten-part podcast series that will come at some point.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: There need to be shared calm moments, but there also need to be opportunities just to ask, how are you doing?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not just how was your day, how are you doing?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: How are you feeling?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: You okay?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Something which says that the communication of feelings is permissible, and often slower speech and softer tone.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: These things matter because they actually make connections with the amygdala, which is that part of the brain that is alert to danger and threat.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you're soothing just in the way you speak.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you know, if you're in the middle of a car park trying to load your car with shopping and you have children who have decided it's a good time to have a fight, or to just generally be children, you know, that's a nice idea, but it might be hard to accomplish.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: Although there are times when I hear parents talking to their children in supermarkets, and it is interesting to listen to the different tones.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: But this is about regulation and calmness, as much as one can accomplish calmness, but it spreads, and so does anxiety.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, it's a question of reminding yourself what it is you want to spread in your home.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Again, these are these are simple concepts, but it doesn't mean they're easy in practice.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But again, we come back to you're just trying to be good enough, that's all.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, an anxious parent who reflects emotional literacy, self-awareness, repair, and compassion raises resilient children.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Children raised in reflective homes learn that they can feel without collapsing, they can struggle without shame, and they can return to calm.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's resilience.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the absence of anxiety, but it's more to do with the presence of recovery.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are a parent who experiences anxiety at whatever level, my hope is that you will have learned from this series that your anxiety does not define you, and it certainly doesn't have to define your parenting.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's your awareness that does that.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: So every time you pause instead of react, every time you breathe instead of escalate, every time you repair instead of defend, you are building emotional security, not only for yourself, but for your child.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Anxiety begins as a protection, understanding transforms it, regulation softens it, repair redeems it, and love and acceptance, not just of your child, but of yourself, makes it safe.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope this has been helpful to you.