Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 1: and speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
Speaker 2: writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
Speaker 2: love our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 1: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 1: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 3: Term career goals.
Speaker 1: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 3: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 1: In this episode, I'm going to be talking with the
Speaker 1: authors of the book Raising Calm Kids in a World
Speaker 1: of Worry, Ashley Graber and Maria Evans, an exciting take
Speaker 1: on how we can raise kids who are a little
Speaker 1: bit more, you know, not flying off the hand, not
Speaker 1: so anxious about everything. I know, there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about children's mental health these days, and with
Speaker 1: the access people have to smartphones and all the clickbaity
Speaker 1: stuff that's out there in the world, the headlines that
Speaker 1: are designed to make you feel like the world is
Speaker 1: falling apart, how can we raise resilient kids? So excited
Speaker 1: to talk about that topic, Sarah without getting too personal,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things that have been kid
Speaker 1: worries in your family?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not naming any specific kids here, but thankfully having
Speaker 2: a few helps. So definitely one of my kids, and
Speaker 2: really only one of them, has always found social situations hard.
Speaker 2: They might worry amusing vague acusings pronouns. Yeah, they might
Speaker 2: worry about it beforehand. They might struggle during an event,
Speaker 2: especially when it gets started, So that's one. Another kid
Speaker 2: has definitely found like night to be scary at certain points,
Speaker 2: like are there in I heard a noise, I don't
Speaker 2: like the dark, I knew my door open, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And it's actually quite interesting to see how different my
Speaker 2: kids fears and anxieties are, so they're definitely individual to each.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, the fear of new social situations. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of a broad one. Many humans
Speaker 1: are are afraid of new social situations, like are you
Speaker 1: wearing the right thing? I mean, who knows? I probably
Speaker 1: am never wearing the right thing. So eventually one just
Speaker 1: moves on from that word doing well in school? Doing
Speaker 1: well in school? Like is this test going to go well?
Speaker 1: Am I prepared enough for this assignment? Going away from home?
Speaker 1: Like to a camp where you don't know what the
Speaker 1: situation will be.
Speaker 3: You know, will you be.
Speaker 1: Changing in front of people, where the showers look like,
Speaker 1: what are the bathrooms look like?
Speaker 3: These are things can make people anxious.
Speaker 1: Joining a new athletic team, particularly if it's a sport
Speaker 1: you haven't done that much in the past, so you'd
Speaker 1: be on the newer end of things. And however you
Speaker 1: may be naturally or not athletically. Not knowing the skills
Speaker 1: as well as other people can be a source of anxiety.
Speaker 1: But you know, all very human things I think for kids,
Speaker 1: for adults as well, totally.
Speaker 3: Are there things you've.
Speaker 1: Done to sort of help kids with various anxieties and
Speaker 1: particularly kind of like broader world ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like when it's news type stuff, I feel like
Speaker 2: making sure that we kind of emphasize the rarity if
Speaker 2: it's some sort of like bad natural event, like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is really scary, but it's unlikely to happen. This happened,
Speaker 2: and it's terrible, but that's why it's so newsworthy, and
Speaker 2: to kind of calmly talk about like how we would
Speaker 2: deal with it if something like that.
Speaker 3: Did happen in our area.
Speaker 2: I don't know, just trying to like tone down, take
Speaker 2: the tone that the news has and turn it down
Speaker 2: like about ten notches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well for something like you guys who you do
Speaker 1: get evacuated for hurricanes for instance, and hurricanes cause a
Speaker 1: lot of headline anxiety because you know they're coming, yes,
Speaker 1: or like a week ahead of time or.
Speaker 3: For the news for the news cycle.
Speaker 1: Yeah so, but being even pointing out like most are
Speaker 1: not that big. Most are your house is built to
Speaker 1: deal with them, that you're enough inland that you're probably
Speaker 1: going to be able to cope with at least some
Speaker 1: of it. But if it is a really scary situation,
Speaker 1: we have evacuated before, this is what we do, This
Speaker 1: is our plan, this is where we go, this is
Speaker 1: what we.
Speaker 3: Take with us.
Speaker 1: And things like that I think are helpful or even
Speaker 1: just like sort of common anxieties like maybe they have
Speaker 1: friends whose parents lose a job or something like that,
Speaker 1: to say like, Okay, well, what have we done to
Speaker 1: prepare for like a financial setback or something like that,
Speaker 1: what we have savings or we have insurance for X,
Speaker 1: Y or Z, And just explaining those things to kids
Speaker 1: that it's like many of the things that can go
Speaker 1: wrong people at least somewhat think through.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's obviously things.
Speaker 1: That you've never even considered that could go wrong, but
Speaker 1: a lot of the normal things that go wrong are
Speaker 1: at least on the radar, and if you are a
Speaker 1: sort of generally prepared person, you've at least put some
Speaker 1: things in place to deal with those realities.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think focusing, as you said, like on
Speaker 2: like this is how we could would help or this
Speaker 2: is how we can help others or help ourselves, like
Speaker 2: focusing on the constructive side of things rather than the
Speaker 2: catastrophizing side of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and maybe limit news consumption. I mean as much
Speaker 1: as possible. I mean that's, you know, keep the kids
Speaker 1: busy with other things, because if you are at cross
Speaker 1: country practice and doing the robotics project with your friends,
Speaker 1: you are not watching the headlines on how the world
Speaker 1: is falling apart, and that's probably a good thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: They don't need that yet. They don't need that yet.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's see her some more about raising
Speaker 1: calm kids in this world of worry. Well, Sarah and
Speaker 1: I are delighted to welcome the authors of Raising Calm
Speaker 1: Kids in a World of Worry to the programs. So
Speaker 1: and Maria, welcome.
Speaker 3: To the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for k Yeah, excited to have
Speaker 1: you guys. So, why did you decide to tackle this topic.
Speaker 4: This is such a big topic that is only growing
Speaker 4: in terms of need, in terms of parents needing to
Speaker 4: know how to help anxious children and kids needing help themselves.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, Although, the interesting thing about calling it a world
Speaker 1: of worry is because in some ways the world may
Speaker 1: be better than it was in the past. I know
Speaker 1: we've all seen the gap between statistics of like random
Speaker 1: crimes you know now versus even like thirty years ago
Speaker 1: or something, and yet people are more worried about it now.
Speaker 3: So what's going on? Why is it this.
Speaker 1: World of worry, even if it's not always born out
Speaker 1: by the data.
Speaker 5: I think there's so much more pressure on kids today
Speaker 5: and on parents today, and the pressures are changing, what
Speaker 5: the expectations are and what kids are expected to do
Speaker 5: and achieve, what parents are expected to do and achieve,
Speaker 5: and social media in this twenty four hour news cycle
Speaker 5: that happens always feels like the biggest reason why people
Speaker 5: are really aware of so many more things, and children
Speaker 5: especially are aware of things perhaps before they should be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, we definitely hear that from a lot of
Speaker 1: our listeners that kids just have an awareness of things,
Speaker 1: and some of it is what other kids are doing
Speaker 1: and what's out in popular culture, but also even just
Speaker 1: the news. So I wanted to talk with you guys
Speaker 1: about when scary things happen in the news, how we
Speaker 1: should deal with this with our kids, and perhaps you
Speaker 1: can even get into your safer parenting approach with this.
Speaker 1: But for instance, we're recording this not too long after
Speaker 1: there's the horrible plane crash in Washington, DC, and I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people saw it the news, and
Speaker 1: a lot of kids probably saw it and said, wow,
Speaker 1: there are kids like me on that plane. Right, So
Speaker 1: when your kid mentions something like that, how should we
Speaker 1: handle that as a parent.
Speaker 4: So one of the first things to know is that
Speaker 4: you really want to have a very strong relationship with
Speaker 4: your child so that you can be the person who
Speaker 4: they come to when things like this happen. And that's
Speaker 4: a lot of what our book is about, is how
Speaker 4: to really forge that very strong connection and that open
Speaker 4: communication so that when they do inevitably either see it
Speaker 4: on social media or is when they're scrolling through YouTube,
Speaker 4: or when a friend tells them at school, because again,
Speaker 4: that information is so quick that they do come to
Speaker 4: you and say, hey, what is this or I'm scared
Speaker 4: or I heard this really scary thing and I don't
Speaker 4: know what to do with it, right, And so the
Speaker 4: first thing that you want to do is find out
Speaker 4: what they do know and debunk any misinformation because that
Speaker 4: happens very quickly, especially when kids are talking to other kids. Right,
Speaker 4: So that's the first thing is do a lot of listening.
Speaker 4: What did you hear about that? What do you know?
Speaker 4: And Ashley, maybe we can go back and forth a
Speaker 4: little bit with this topic. Is it's a big one
Speaker 4: and it's really important.
Speaker 5: And yes, and curiosity around what it is they're bringing,
Speaker 5: versus jumping in and teaching in the moment or fixing
Speaker 5: something that might be scary to them. Really bringing curiosity
Speaker 5: to the situation. And as Maria said, there often kids
Speaker 5: will go to school and they'll get misinformation and so
Speaker 5: if they come home and talk to you as a
Speaker 5: parent about it, to really just listen and ask questions,
Speaker 5: what are your friends saying about it, what are you
Speaker 5: hearing about it? What do you know about it? And
Speaker 5: then only to speak to what they're bringing to you.
Speaker 5: One of the things that we see often is over
Speaker 5: explaining and sharing a lot of information and letting a
Speaker 5: child just be in that moment. So if they're not
Speaker 5: into talking about something or unpacking it completely, to kind
Speaker 5: of go with their cues on that to really see
Speaker 5: are they seeming overwhelmed, are they seeming not bothered by
Speaker 5: something in the moment, or are they kind of blowing
Speaker 5: something off. That can be a place where it's confusing
Speaker 5: to a parent because they might say something like, well,
Speaker 5: that doesn't matter or it doesn't matter what happened to
Speaker 5: those kids, And to recognize that is something that is
Speaker 5: a defense that's happening in the moment because the information
Speaker 5: might be overwhelming to them.
Speaker 4: Yes, and then for the kids who are actively scared
Speaker 4: about it, which does happen? Right, I heard this scary thing?
Speaker 4: What if that happens to me? We know a few
Speaker 4: things that really work well, which is that you want
Speaker 4: to really focus on and lean into the safety measures
Speaker 4: that we have in place. Right, So with a plane,
Speaker 4: talking about the safety precautions that are there, talking them
Speaker 4: through what would happen if they were on a plane
Speaker 4: and there was turbulence and then really leaning into where
Speaker 4: they can help others because kids really thrive, and really
Speaker 4: being able to channel those fears into supporting others. We
Speaker 4: just had the fires in LA and a lot of
Speaker 4: kids whose homes didn't burn down and who didn't have
Speaker 4: to evacuate, were still really crying and worried, and a
Speaker 4: lot of families channeled a lot of those fears and
Speaker 4: feelings into helping right standing outside, giving donations, writing to kids,
Speaker 4: and it was really a remarkable community of because.
Speaker 1: It sounds like one of the things that might help
Speaker 1: children with anxiety. I think you guys had mentioned this
Speaker 1: is feeling like they are part of something bigger than themselves.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, because kids, we sometimes forget that their view
Speaker 5: is very limited in that you might be talking to
Speaker 5: a seven year old who's been only in the world
Speaker 5: for seven years, and so all that they know is
Speaker 5: that this scary thing has happened, and so if you
Speaker 5: can help them, and this goes for when scary things
Speaker 5: happen or at other times in life, that helping them
Speaker 5: to see that there are people around them that will
Speaker 5: help and helping them to see that there is something
Speaker 5: that they can do in the moment really does help
Speaker 5: them to feel calmer in the world. And doing that
Speaker 5: with a child shows them, oh, I have this person
Speaker 5: or these people in my life that I can also
Speaker 5: fall back on in community something that we talk about
Speaker 5: and that is such an important aspect. And not every
Speaker 5: parent has family around them or has people that they
Speaker 5: know well around them, but yes, helping them to see
Speaker 5: that they are something part of something bigger will help
Speaker 5: them to feel calmer in the world and help assuage
Speaker 5: some of the worries.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it probably makes an adult feel a little bit
Speaker 1: more calm as well.
Speaker 3: Well, we're going to take a quick ad.
Speaker 1: Break and then I will be back with more from
Speaker 1: the authors of Raising Calm Kids in a World of Worry. Well,
Speaker 1: I am back with Ashley Graber and Maria Evans, who
Speaker 1: are the authors of the new book Raising Calm Kids
Speaker 1: in a World of Worry. We've been talking about getting
Speaker 1: kids involved in community help efforts as a way to
Speaker 1: make them feel part of something bigger than themselves, making
Speaker 1: them feel a little bit less anxious. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to go back to something you talked about earlier that
Speaker 1: one of the most important ways you can make sure
Speaker 1: that a kid is coming to you when they are
Speaker 1: feeling anxious is to have built this nurturing bond with them,
Speaker 1: And some of I'm sure people are like, well, of course,
Speaker 1: we all love our kids, you know, hopefully they feel
Speaker 1: this way. But I'm sure it's not totally automatic. So
Speaker 1: I wonder if there are some practical things people can
Speaker 1: do if they want to give themselves that a plus
Speaker 1: for at least trying to build the nurturing bond.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, we have an entire chapter in the book which
Speaker 4: is it's sort of like our therapist's secrets for how
Speaker 4: to connect with kids in the best possible way and
Speaker 4: get them to open up to you. And we just
Speaker 4: transformed it into parenting tips that really work, and it's
Speaker 4: called Engage like a pro very fun, and so we
Speaker 4: teach parents, first of all, the roadblocks to what parents
Speaker 4: tend to do that tend to stop kids from sharing,
Speaker 4: which most parents do. So if you're a parent and
Speaker 4: you're listening, we can almost one hundred percent guarantee that
Speaker 4: you will relate to this one. But most parents like
Speaker 4: to fix, so when their kids come to them, they
Speaker 4: have every positive intention to help fix the situation, and
Speaker 4: so they come up with solutions or they come up
Speaker 4: with ideas of well why don't we try this, or well,
Speaker 4: why don't you think about it this way? Other parents
Speaker 4: tend to maximize the reaction, right, like, wow, that's really terrible,
Speaker 4: what can we do? Should I call your teacher? Write
Speaker 4: things like that, and then other parents, in an effort
Speaker 4: to make things better, they tend to minimize, which is
Speaker 4: helping kids see that what they're worried about is not
Speaker 4: that big a deal or what they're bringing is going
Speaker 4: to be totally fine. Right, And so we teach parents
Speaker 4: all kinds of tips on how to respond in a
Speaker 4: way that keeps the conversation flowing.
Speaker 5: I love that, Maria, and I would add to that
Speaker 5: too that being able to talk to your kids and
Speaker 5: talking with your kids and building this relationship means that
Speaker 5: you have so many opportunities to do it. It isn't
Speaker 5: just built in one interaction. Or if your child is
Speaker 5: a little bit older, it doesn't matter that you might
Speaker 5: just be starting today to do some of the tips
Speaker 5: that we recommend that if there's little things over time,
Speaker 5: So if your child comes to you and they're feeling
Speaker 5: scared or anxious about something and they say, well, this
Speaker 5: is the topic I'm bringing to you to circle back
Speaker 5: around to it again and to bring it up again.
Speaker 5: And even if a child says I'm not scared about
Speaker 5: that plane crash anymore, or it says I'm not thinking
Speaker 5: about the fires, that you still are showing them that
Speaker 5: you're in it with them, in it with the worries.
Speaker 5: And we have a whole chapter on building self esteem
Speaker 5: and this idea that whatever kids are bringing that you
Speaker 5: you don't have to love it, but you can be
Speaker 5: in it with them. And this is a little bit
Speaker 5: torturous to most of our parents, because if it's dinosaurs
Speaker 5: or certain kind of music, that you have these little
Speaker 5: opportunities to say, tell me about that music, or tell
Speaker 5: me about this thing that you're interested in. And you
Speaker 5: have so many opportunities to build connection between the two
Speaker 5: of you, or the three of you, or four of you,
Speaker 5: or however many children there are, but individually with them
Speaker 5: that there are so many opportunities to do it. And
Speaker 5: if something seems like it's going badly, you try to interact,
Speaker 5: You try to bring up something and a child blows
Speaker 5: it off that you just kind of go on from
Speaker 5: there and try again and bring up something again at
Speaker 5: another time, whether that's something scary or an interest that
Speaker 5: they have.
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder if you could talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about even in scripts we might have because you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of people do want to dive in and
Speaker 1: fix the problem or say, oh yo, you don't need
Speaker 1: to be worried about that because of X, or you
Speaker 1: know again like or I'm going to go tell your
Speaker 1: teacher right now. So let's say a kit comes and says,
Speaker 1: I think I bombed that math test, you know, like,
Speaker 1: I think I did terrible on that. What sort of
Speaker 1: a script you could say after that that wouldn't be
Speaker 1: immediately leaping in to fix or minimize or maximize that issue.
Speaker 4: So we'll do even better for you than a script,
Speaker 4: which is the best method that we use all the
Speaker 4: time in our parent coaching groups and with our parents.
Speaker 4: So we want you to remember this term called echoing. Okay,
Speaker 4: So the picture that you're in a cave and you've
Speaker 4: called out a word and what you hear back is
Speaker 4: something similar but not exactly. Okay, you scream out a
Speaker 4: sentence and you hear back a few of the words.
Speaker 4: So this is what we coach parents to do, and
Speaker 4: this is the thing that really gets kids to open
Speaker 4: up it works like magic. So when your child is
Speaker 4: telling you something, what you want to do is paraphrase
Speaker 4: what you've heard and say it back with the same
Speaker 4: level of emotion that they're bringing, or slightly lower. So
Speaker 4: let's say they say, oh, I got a really bad
Speaker 4: grade on my math test. You can literally say back, oh,
Speaker 4: you got a bad grade on your math test. That's it.
Speaker 4: And what you will find is that just by echoing
Speaker 4: it back, they will say more. You don't have to
Speaker 4: say anything else. And then they're going to go, yeah,
Speaker 4: and I studied really hard for it, and I just
Speaker 4: can't believe it. Oh, yeah, you're really disappointed because you
Speaker 4: studied really hard for it, And you can almost go verbatim.
Speaker 4: If you slightly change it, they will just keep on going.
Speaker 1: Now, what about kids who are a little bit more
Speaker 1: reticent to open up, because I guess in that example,
Speaker 1: I assume that the kid comes and tells you that
Speaker 1: they got a bad grade on the mar which is
Speaker 1: not a given. We've all got people in our lives
Speaker 1: who are a bit you know, have fewer words coming
Speaker 1: out of their mouths.
Speaker 3: I wonder if there are some ways to try.
Speaker 1: To get people to open up and start sharing with
Speaker 1: our questions to ask or things to do for kids
Speaker 1: who are a little bit less likely to communicate that way.
Speaker 5: One of the key things that for a parent to
Speaker 5: pay attention to is the settings in which a child
Speaker 5: will open up in. So sometimes we want to sit
Speaker 5: down and have a chat, and a child that, as
Speaker 5: you said, is reticent to do it, doesn't want to
Speaker 5: sit across from you and get into a deep conversation
Speaker 5: about something. So maybe you find that when you walking
Speaker 5: down the street that they open up, or if a
Speaker 5: child is sitting in the backseat of the car and
Speaker 5: then on the way to school, that they might open up.
Speaker 5: We often hear parents will say they go to say
Speaker 5: good night, and they're really ready to go to bed,
Speaker 5: and then all of a sudden and the floodgates open
Speaker 5: up and a child will start talking. But to pay
Speaker 5: attention even in that time, which can be so much
Speaker 5: harder late at night, but to pay attention to what
Speaker 5: are the settings in which they might Could it be
Speaker 5: that they're cooking, you're cooking in the kitchen. Could it
Speaker 5: be that you're sitting on the couch and your child
Speaker 5: is sitting on the floor coloring or playing with something,
Speaker 5: and that's a moment when they will open up. So
Speaker 5: really paying attention to just kind of studying it for
Speaker 5: a little bit of time. What are the settings that
Speaker 5: they will.
Speaker 4: And remembering that kids they're not used to conversing the
Speaker 4: way that adults are, so it's very common when you
Speaker 4: pick up a child from school, the adult instinct is
Speaker 4: to power through a bunch of questions. How is your day,
Speaker 4: did you sit with friends at lunch, what did you
Speaker 4: have for lunch? How much did you eat? Where the
Speaker 4: class is interested, what was the worst thing that happened
Speaker 4: in the day. And most parents will tell you kids
Speaker 4: never answer or they go good and that's all you get, right,
Speaker 4: a one word. So you might as well save that
Speaker 4: barrage of questions, give them a little bit of space
Speaker 4: and just talk about something random like a fact, Hey
Speaker 4: I read that Wales do XYZ Did you know that?
Speaker 4: And start there and see if eventually some of that
Speaker 4: daytime experience comes out, like Ashley shared, awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to take another quick ad break and
Speaker 1: then we'll be back with a little bit more about
Speaker 1: raising calm kids in a world of worry. Well, I
Speaker 1: am back talking with Ashley Graber and Maria Evans, the
Speaker 1: authors of Raising Calm Kids in a World of Worry.
Speaker 1: So here's the question, why is it that people open
Speaker 1: up when they are either in a are not looking
Speaker 1: at each other I guess, or a separate thing with
Speaker 1: late at night? I mean, what is it about those
Speaker 1: scenarios that tend to lower the barriers.
Speaker 5: Well, the barriers that as Maria was saying, that sometimes
Speaker 5: there's an expectation that a child is going to open
Speaker 5: up and they're going to talk about what it is
Speaker 5: that's on your mind in that moment, or there's something
Speaker 5: important that you want to share or that you do
Speaker 5: need to talk about, and a child just isn't opening
Speaker 5: up in the moment. And so the thing to be
Speaker 5: paying attention to with kids is that they will step
Speaker 5: into something in the amount of time that they can
Speaker 5: and so really being able to kind of step back
Speaker 5: and say to yourself as a parent, this just isn't
Speaker 5: the moment, This isn't the time that they are able
Speaker 5: to or ready. And Maria made mention of this that
Speaker 5: often after school, we want to know how is your day,
Speaker 5: what went on, what are the things that happened, and
Speaker 5: a child might be overloaded in that moment they might
Speaker 5: be kind of done with interactions and done with communicating
Speaker 5: because they're overstimulated or they're tired, and so paying attention
Speaker 5: to when it is, but also that kind of being
Speaker 5: okay if a conversation doesn't happen in the way that
Speaker 5: we hope.
Speaker 4: This is also an important tip for adults. So if
Speaker 4: you're trying to have a conversation with a friend or
Speaker 4: a partner, you may find that you'll have a much
Speaker 4: better and easier time having them open up if you're
Speaker 4: walking side by side on a walk or along the
Speaker 4: beach or something where people can look off to the side,
Speaker 4: then sitting straight up right in front of each other.
Speaker 4: We talk about face to face versus side by side,
Speaker 4: So be strategical.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go on a walk with somebody if you've got
Speaker 1: something difficult to talk with. What was also just the
Speaker 1: idea that it might not be the moment, but this
Speaker 1: is not all the moments. You get that most relationships
Speaker 1: are more of a marathon than a single moment in time,
Speaker 1: and so you can probably come back to it. I
Speaker 1: wonder if there are ways you can talk about practical
Speaker 1: You said that palm is contagious, and so if Palm
Speaker 1: is contagious, and we would like to be calm people
Speaker 1: modeling that behavior, dealing with our own anxiety and healthy ways.
Speaker 1: What are some habits we can put into our daily
Speaker 1: lives to do that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is a tough one because the whole title
Speaker 5: of the book is raising caalm kids in a world
Speaker 5: or worry. So there's a lot going on. And if
Speaker 5: you're a parent who is busy, which will a parent
Speaker 5: is not, then it is hard to have an expectation
Speaker 5: that you're going to be calm all the time. What
Speaker 5: we know is that if we try practicing things a
Speaker 5: little bit at a time, that it will add up.
Speaker 5: And so being able to take time to go work
Speaker 5: out every day may not be completely possible as a
Speaker 5: way for somebody to expend energy and bring calm into
Speaker 5: their family life and into their relationships. But can they
Speaker 5: find little moments over time that they can do something
Speaker 5: that might help. Can they notice? Can a parent notice
Speaker 5: in a moment if they're feeling activated. Because in the
Speaker 5: same way calm is contagious, so is fear, and so
Speaker 5: it's okay you can model that. It's okay if you're
Speaker 5: getting upset about something, it's not okay to scream and
Speaker 5: yell and throw things around, but if you're noticing that
Speaker 5: those things are rising up inside of you, to model
Speaker 5: that and tell your child that I'm feeling activated and
Speaker 5: I'm going to take a minute. And as long as
Speaker 5: we circle back around, if we say to a child,
Speaker 5: I need a break in this moment, and then we
Speaker 5: go take a break, what that does is allows our
Speaker 5: nervous system to calm down and allows our brain to
Speaker 5: come back connected so that we have all parts of
Speaker 5: it working. And so there are bigger things that we
Speaker 5: can do, and I don't I would imagine your listenership
Speaker 5: doesn't need to go through self care tips. But there
Speaker 5: are all kinds of things that we can do in
Speaker 5: bigger ways. But then those smaller moments are also important.
Speaker 5: And we're big proponents of mindfulness and meditation and mindfulness
Speaker 5: get the words get sort of overlinked across one another.
Speaker 5: But we're not saying necessarily to sit down and meditate.
Speaker 5: But in a moment that you're feeling activated, can you
Speaker 5: bring mindfulness to the moment? Can you notice the things
Speaker 5: around you? Can you use some of your sensations, your hands,
Speaker 5: your touch, your eyes, your smell to bring yourself back
Speaker 5: in that moment to a sense of calm. And we
Speaker 5: have a whole chapter called setting the Tone, and that
Speaker 5: if we are bringing a calm tone to the situation,
Speaker 5: then we are helping children in the moment to feel
Speaker 5: calmer themselves. As you said, calm is contagious.
Speaker 4: The other thing, just very practically for parents is that
Speaker 4: they tend to really overload themselves and just even once
Speaker 4: in a while taking an inventory of what have I
Speaker 4: taken on? Am I volunteering a lot at the peace?
Speaker 4: Can I let go of just that one meeting? Can
Speaker 4: I give myself ten minutes instead of reloading the dishwasher?
Speaker 4: Can I give myself that time? We have so many
Speaker 4: conversations about parent guilt and taking time for yourself, but
Speaker 4: those moments really add up when you allow yourself even
Speaker 4: that five minute break in the morning to have coffee
Speaker 4: uninterrupted if you can find it, or go into the
Speaker 4: closet and just have a two minute break and breathe.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I wonder if there's also ways to sort of
Speaker 1: limit the amount of perseverating we do over some of
Speaker 1: the world of worry.
Speaker 3: Stuff that is around us.
Speaker 1: I know one thing that was helpful to me in
Speaker 1: kind of the early days of the pandemic, for instance,
Speaker 1: or if there's a huge news story that I find
Speaker 1: that I am just hitting refresh over and over again,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that my hitting refreshed does absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: to solve the problem. Right that just you know, saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to check the news for ten minutes a day.
Speaker 3: And that's enough to be an formed.
Speaker 1: Citizen, but recognizes that me, I am not going to
Speaker 1: be able to do much about this other than what
Speaker 1: I can do in my own community or you know,
Speaker 1: giving to charity and things like that. So I mean,
Speaker 1: am I on to something there? I mean, would you
Speaker 1: recommend kind of limiting some of those inputs.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, that's a really really important point. You know, we're
Speaker 4: a psychotherapists, and so we'll give you sort of the
Speaker 4: more therapy angle, which is our brains have sort of
Speaker 4: a misperception that if we focus on information over and
Speaker 4: over that we're going to have more of a sense
Speaker 4: of control or that something different might happen. But really,
Speaker 4: when you are experiencing and we teach kids this too,
Speaker 4: is that when you're experiencing something as sticky in your brain,
Speaker 4: like a sticky thought or something that just won't leave.
Speaker 4: It's important to go back to that mindfulness practice, which is, ah,
Speaker 4: I'm having a thought that's bringing me a sense of anxiety.
Speaker 4: Can I notice that thought is there? Can I let
Speaker 4: it pass? Can I do something else with my hands
Speaker 4: or interact with the world, something with my senses to
Speaker 4: help bring myself out of that. And actually reducing consumption
Speaker 4: of media is a huge part of that, because every
Speaker 4: time you refresh or see something new, that jolt comes
Speaker 4: right back.
Speaker 5: And I would add I love what you said about
Speaker 5: finding it an actual time to do things like that.
Speaker 5: There's a thing called office hours that we could set
Speaker 5: an amount of time to watch the news. We can
Speaker 5: also do that with children with worry. We can say, Okay,
Speaker 5: we've got this amount of time to think about this
Speaker 5: and to talk about it, and then we're going to
Speaker 5: set it aside until the next day. And what it
Speaker 5: does is it does is we're saying, it does help
Speaker 5: us come back in those moments. We're not over activating
Speaker 5: ourselves over and over and over again with the same
Speaker 5: thought or with the same refresh, as you said on
Speaker 5: the news, but allowing ourselves a little bit of space
Speaker 5: from it. And the key thing in this is that
Speaker 5: our nervous system gets activated, and when we get activated,
Speaker 5: we have less of an ability to find a moment
Speaker 5: of calm when our brain and Dan Siegel coined this
Speaker 5: term flipping our lid. I think we kind of all
Speaker 5: know and can visualize what that means, But that actually
Speaker 5: means that our prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain
Speaker 5: that helps us to make decisions, is not there to
Speaker 5: in that moment. And they know from science that it
Speaker 5: takes twenty minutes for our brain to get reconnected again.
Speaker 5: So if we can get a little bit of space,
Speaker 5: as you said, from those things that are scary and
Speaker 5: do like what you said, step away for a minute,
Speaker 5: really give yourself a minute, and that will help in
Speaker 5: all the things we've been talking about. It'll help a
Speaker 5: parent to feel better and calmer and better able to
Speaker 5: take on what's happening. And it helps a child to
Speaker 5: feel less activated and scared, and especially if they're already
Speaker 5: worried child.
Speaker 3: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you guys so much for sharing
Speaker 1: all these practical tips. We always end these interviews we
Speaker 1: have a segment called Love of the Week, which is
Speaker 1: anything that you are enjoying right now, I can go first,
Speaker 1: so I can give you a minute to think about it.
Speaker 1: I read a lot of stuff electronically, just because it's
Speaker 1: so easy to get ebooks and to have a band
Speaker 1: phone with me. Like if I'm sitting with my five
Speaker 1: year old because he's having trouble going to sleep, for instance,
Speaker 1: you know, I can read on my phone, which is
Speaker 1: I can't do with a paperback. So I tend not
Speaker 1: to buy many paperbacks, but I did the other day
Speaker 1: because I happened to be at an airport.
Speaker 3: Bookstore, and you know, I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1: It's fun to read something paper because it feels like
Speaker 1: a little vacation from everything else going on.
Speaker 3: So read a paperback book is my love of the week, Ashley.
Speaker 3: How about you.
Speaker 5: I am presently obsessed with tennis.
Speaker 6: Oh okay, yes, And so I would say that the
Speaker 6: thing that is really the love of my week or
Speaker 6: the joy that I'm having is the moments I do
Speaker 6: get to step out on a tennis court.
Speaker 5: And I have just taken it up recently, so I
Speaker 5: wouldn't say that I'm that great, but I love the
Speaker 5: practice of doing it over and over again and just
Speaker 5: improving a little bit and getting outside and getting a
Speaker 5: little sunshine on my face.
Speaker 3: Awesome, awesome, And Maria, Laura.
Speaker 4: I'm going to piggyback off of yours, which is this
Speaker 4: week I've really been enjoying. You might know, there's a
Speaker 4: series in the New York Times called Tiny Love Stories,
Speaker 4: and there are these tiny, tiny little snippets, like I
Speaker 4: think they are about four or five sentences each where
Speaker 4: people just talk about and distill the love that they
Speaker 4: have for either a parent or a partner, or sibling
Speaker 4: or child. And it's really heartwarming, and it really just
Speaker 4: takes me into the moment and reminds me of what's
Speaker 4: most important.
Speaker 3: Awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, Ashley and Maria, thank you guys so much, and
Speaker 1: everyone be sure to pick up your copy of Raising
Speaker 1: Calm Kids in a World of Worry.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, we are back some helpful tips there on how
Speaker 1: we can raise resilient children who are focused on moving
Speaker 1: forward as opposed to being completely anxious about headlines and
Speaker 1: things like that. So a somewhat random question that a
Speaker 1: listener sent in said, I could ask the class, or
Speaker 1: we could answer, but when did your kids start cutting
Speaker 1: their own nails?
Speaker 2: So, Sarah, I don't know the exact age but I
Speaker 2: know that Cameron will do his own and he is
Speaker 2: eleven and Genevieve will not, so it's somewhere in there.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: I feel like fourth ish grade, at least in our family,
Speaker 2: has been when like a lot of the personal care
Speaker 2: stuff just gets really taken over by the individual.
Speaker 3: And I do think sometimes you.
Speaker 2: Have to make sure they have the right tools. You
Speaker 2: can demonstrate, you can give curtique, like oh, I think
Speaker 2: you cut your nails a little too close or something
Speaker 2: like that. Like I think that you can definitely give feedback.
Speaker 2: But and I'm sure one age is not the right
Speaker 2: answer for all, But that's kind of been our general ballpark.
Speaker 3: What about you guys, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is actually probably one of my least favorite kid
Speaker 1: care things, and I feel like it's always me, Like
Speaker 1: I'm not sure the children's nails would ever have been
Speaker 1: cut if I were like not around. But it's uh,
Speaker 1: I mean definitely, I still have to deal with Henry's
Speaker 1: and I don't do it often enough because I hate
Speaker 1: doing it, so some of his nails get a little long.
Speaker 1: I do believe that it's around ten and eleven that
Speaker 1: a lot of the body care stuff starts being more
Speaker 1: of the kid's individual concern, like they start thinking about
Speaker 1: it a little bit more, or like not wanting to
Speaker 1: change in front of you or anything like that, you know,
Speaker 1: wanting to not have you run a bath or turn
Speaker 1: on the shower or anything along those lines. And so
Speaker 1: a lot of the other personal care stuff starts happening
Speaker 1: on their own schedule then too. But I will point
Speaker 1: out that I'm not sure some of my kids ever
Speaker 1: really cut the nails because I have a couple of
Speaker 1: nail biters.
Speaker 3: So it's like a problem that solves itself.
Speaker 2: Oh man, I have definitely gone through phases of nail biting.
Speaker 2: I've been really good, though I haven't been there for
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, good for you, Good for you. So I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if that answer was helpful or not. But
Speaker 1: nail biting, as we've been talking about it, so that's
Speaker 1: not going to take care. I don't know what's going
Speaker 1: on with people's toenails.
Speaker 3: I just don't ask. We're in a northern climate, we're
Speaker 3: in socks for like ten months of the year.
Speaker 1: Like, I don't see people's toes. It's who even knows.
Speaker 1: I see it gets dealt with one way or the other.
Speaker 3: Well, feel free to let us know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I want to hear other people's like when
Speaker 1: kids started cutting their own nails and if you've got
Speaker 1: nail biers, we maybe we can hear about that too.
Speaker 1: That has to do with this episode of being anxious
Speaker 1: and a world of worry, or I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: people do it for other reasons. But in any case,
Speaker 1: we will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 1: work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 2: or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.
Speaker 1: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 1: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 1: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 1: work together.