Speaker 1: Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda Land Audio
Speaker 1: in partnership with I Heart Radio. There is no such
Speaker 1: thing as perfect parenting. There just isn't the reason. Over
Speaker 1: these years, you know, when I've written parenting books, I
Speaker 1: always include the ways I've messed up as a parent.
Speaker 1: Is because it's always room to reconnect after a rupture,
Speaker 1: you know, to make a repair. Hi, everybody, and welcome
Speaker 1: back to Katie's Crib. Today's guest is truly is such
Speaker 1: a gift that we got him to come home to
Speaker 1: the podcast. He has written two of my favorite most
Speaker 1: useful books on my bedside table. It's Dr Dan Siegel.
Speaker 1: He wrote No Drama, Discipline and The Whole Brain Child,
Speaker 1: and I use them both constantly. If you've never heard
Speaker 1: of them, don't walk, run to get them. I learned
Speaker 1: so much. We talk a lot about the power of
Speaker 1: showing up. We talk about development trauma and helpful mindfulness
Speaker 1: exercises that we can start with our young children now
Speaker 1: so that they can continue to practice such techniques into adulthood.
Speaker 1: Dr Siegel is a clinical professor of psychiatry at the
Speaker 1: u c l A School of Medicine and the founding
Speaker 1: co director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at u
Speaker 1: c l A. He's also the executive director of the
Speaker 1: Mind Site Institute, and the institute focuses on such topics
Speaker 1: as the development of mind site empathy, and integration of
Speaker 1: families and communities. Dr Siegel is published for both professional
Speaker 1: and general audiences, and his work includes five New York
Speaker 1: Times bestsellers, including Aware, The Science and Practice of Presence,
Speaker 1: mind A Journey to the Heart of Being Human, and
Speaker 1: two of his best sellers, The Whole Brainchild and No
Speaker 1: Drama Discipline, were co authored with Dr Tina Payne Bryson.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Dr Siegel for making time and
Speaker 1: for coming onto Katie's crib. I just want to tell
Speaker 1: you I'm such a huge fan. I have read your books.
Speaker 1: I am a parent of two children, and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to implement lots of your things. I've watched Google talks,
Speaker 1: and I've listened to you on Chelsea Handler's podcast. Oh great. First,
Speaker 1: for those listening who may not know you, just tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about how you come to your
Speaker 1: parenting books through science and through interdisciplinary science and Katie Speak.
Speaker 1: It's like lots of different sciences coming together, right Yeah,
Speaker 1: what I've been trying to do, being trained both as
Speaker 1: a physician and a scientist, in becoming an educator and
Speaker 1: also you know, being a therapist, wanting to see if
Speaker 1: there was a way to combine all the different disciplines
Speaker 1: of science into one framework. So in my professional academic writing,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a whole series of books that
Speaker 1: I edit that other people write in this approach. So
Speaker 1: we have over seventy five textbooks for esstionals, and then
Speaker 1: I also write, you know, my own books a little
Speaker 1: bit in that series, but also for the general public,
Speaker 1: including parenting. That's called interpersonal neurobiology, which is a fancy
Speaker 1: term just meaning what if you went inside for the personal?
Speaker 1: What if you went in our relationship with the inters
Speaker 1: that's the interpersonal, And what if you look not just
Speaker 1: at the brain, but the whole way in which all
Speaker 1: the different systems were part of the entire nervous system
Speaker 1: and the whole body, but then the systems of relationships
Speaker 1: we have with humanity and with nature. If you tried
Speaker 1: to understand those systems from a scientific point of view,
Speaker 1: how would that influence, for example, the way you approach
Speaker 1: parenting or how you would approach psychotherapy, or you know,
Speaker 1: how you might even approach the way we deal with
Speaker 1: the environment or racism, or how we're approaching the pandemics
Speaker 1: that we have. So it's a really exciting moment to
Speaker 1: try to bring the research findings of science to practical application. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's sort of like instead of going to one doctor
Speaker 1: for one specific thing, what's great about you are sort
Speaker 1: of bringing lots of different things together. Mindfulness, psychotherapy, science,
Speaker 1: all of these things, like you were saying, to help
Speaker 1: us be better parents, to raise a whole integrated brain child. Exactly,
Speaker 1: well said I put things in real Katie's crib terms. Now, um,
Speaker 1: why is it important to care about your child's brain
Speaker 1: and development as a toddler? And also for me, is
Speaker 1: my three and a half year old already screwed? Like like,
Speaker 1: oh god, I mean, are these the most sometimes I
Speaker 1: hear these are the most important years. If you haven't
Speaker 1: really done it before five or seven year you can
Speaker 1: fill in the blanks talk to me about the toddler brain. Right. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, thanks with the question. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think for everyone listening, we can all take a
Speaker 1: deep breath and say there is no such thing as
Speaker 1: perfect parenting. There just isn't the reason. Over these years,
Speaker 1: you know, when I've written parenting books, I always include
Speaker 1: the ways I've messed up as a parent is because
Speaker 1: it's always room to reconnect after a rupture, you know,
Speaker 1: to make a repair. And in fact, not that you
Speaker 1: should try to make ruptures in your connection with your kid,
Speaker 1: but they happen inevitably even if you're you know, expert
Speaker 1: in this area or write books in this area or whatever.
Speaker 1: And when my kids got old enough to read and
Speaker 1: reflect them what I was doing, and I asked their
Speaker 1: permission and to make sure what I was writing was accurate.
Speaker 1: They both read this piece that I've written about some
Speaker 1: conflict the three of us had, and they said, well, listen,
Speaker 1: it's accurate. But what's wrong with you that you want
Speaker 1: to let the world know what a jerk you can be? Great,
Speaker 1: what a relief? Yeah. So I said, okay, I'm putting
Speaker 1: it in there. They go, why would you do that?
Speaker 1: I said, I'm doing that because the story that you're
Speaker 1: saying is accurate is really about how we reconnected after
Speaker 1: I messed up, and people need to know that instead
Speaker 1: of aiming for something that's called perfection or just getting
Speaker 1: right you have a direction you aim for, so you're
Speaker 1: not just lost, and you can be inspired by science
Speaker 1: but not getting imprisoned by science. So even the word attachment,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm an attachment researcher. I'm trained through the
Speaker 1: National Instudentental Health blah blah blah to study attachment. So
Speaker 1: what the research on attachment shows is that, first of all,
Speaker 1: human beings can have more than one attachment figure. But
Speaker 1: what that means is kids can have different attachment figures.
Speaker 1: That's number one. Number two. It also shows that you're
Speaker 1: asking about, you know, is your three and a half
Speaker 1: year old messed up? You know? Is that these attachment
Speaker 1: experiences can be healed if there's real, big ruptures in
Speaker 1: them anytime in the lifespan. Earlier is better than later,
Speaker 1: but doing it is better than not doing it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you talk about attachment secure versus insecure, I just
Speaker 1: want to make sure people understand what attachment what that means. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there is a formal approach to parent you called
Speaker 1: attachment parenting that, as far as I can tell, has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with attachment research. So I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about attachment parenting. So the word attachment can be used
Speaker 1: however you feel like using it. No one's got like
Speaker 1: an ownership of it. But in the field of psychology
Speaker 1: that studies child development, there's a branch of that called
Speaker 1: attachment theory and research. That's just what they used for
Speaker 1: their academic studies. That's what I'm trained in, and what
Speaker 1: we do is we study of parents and other caregivers
Speaker 1: and how they interact with children. One of my colleagues
Speaker 1: has been doing this in a study over forty five
Speaker 1: years in length, where they study the families before the
Speaker 1: child was born, so during a pregnancy, and now those
Speaker 1: kids are in their mid forties. In a nutshell, what
Speaker 1: we've learned from that attachment research is that there are
Speaker 1: these patterns in which we tend to fall, which include,
Speaker 1: in the broadest categories, what's called secure attachment, which leads
Speaker 1: to resilience in a child. And that's in the United States,
Speaker 1: somewhere between fifty five and six kids with their primary
Speaker 1: caregiver have a secure attachment's great news, But for close
Speaker 1: to a third to a half, you know, we have
Speaker 1: non secure attachment with their primary caregiver, which is what
Speaker 1: the research studies. Because you have many a number of
Speaker 1: attachment figures when you look at the non secure forms,
Speaker 1: there are three kinds. One is avoidant, which is about
Speaker 1: of population, where basically it was emotional distance, and the
Speaker 1: kid learns how to be prematurely autonomous, right, and that
Speaker 1: has all sorts of consequences in that person's adulthood and
Speaker 1: their romantic relationships. And then the second grouping, which is
Speaker 1: about fifth team person of the population, is ambivalent attachment,
Speaker 1: where they got mixed messages and so instead of the
Speaker 1: disconnection of the avoidantly attached kid with the primary caregiver,
Speaker 1: this one is kind of confused, like who are you?
Speaker 1: Who am I? I'm not sure do you love me enough?
Speaker 1: Maybe you do, maybe you don't write, and the boundaries
Speaker 1: were sometimes not clear, sometimes they were true to intruded upon.
Speaker 1: And then overlapping these three secure and the two forms
Speaker 1: of non secure is the most concerning form disorganized attachment.
Speaker 1: And these kids have the worst outcome, where you are
Speaker 1: terrified of your caregiver, and so obviously this is an
Speaker 1: abuse and neglect, but even in more subtle forms where
Speaker 1: you may not be removed from the care of your parents,
Speaker 1: but here you're still being terrified of the caregiver in
Speaker 1: various ways. And those kids develop what's called dissociation, so
Speaker 1: they have a fragmentation of their mind. Now it's very healable,
Speaker 1: it's very disturbing of their ability to regulate their own
Speaker 1: emotions or to engage in mutually rewarding relationships with others.
Speaker 1: So I've worked with, you know, adults who bring their
Speaker 1: obviously older parents in talk about a rupture a long
Speaker 1: time ago or something like that. That's right, and some
Speaker 1: of the most amazing healing has happened, you know, when
Speaker 1: the parents are in their sixties or seventies and they
Speaker 1: come in and the child is in her thirties or forties,
Speaker 1: and then we do the work, and it's amazing that
Speaker 1: the healing, the reconnecting, the becoming whole is what healing needs,
Speaker 1: you know, really requires a kind of kindness and vulnerability
Speaker 1: that allow to heal from ruptures. It doesn't always happen.
Speaker 1: Not all parents are up for that. So sometimes you
Speaker 1: as an individual need to make sense of your own life.
Speaker 1: And Mary Hartzel, my daughter's preschool director, and I wrote
Speaker 1: a book called Parenting from the Inside Out. Yeah you did,
Speaker 1: and and we can talk about that. But that inside
Speaker 1: out approach basically says you're going to heal yourself, even
Speaker 1: if your parents don't cooperate, or even if they're not
Speaker 1: still alive. So, if you've had an avoidant back ground,
Speaker 1: you can move towards security. If you've had an ambivalent background,
Speaker 1: you can move towards security. And if you've had a
Speaker 1: disorganized one, you can move towards these various forms of
Speaker 1: non secure attachment, but even security. So the great news
Speaker 1: is that if you're listening, you can change. And you know,
Speaker 1: the mindset book I wrote, you know, or parenting remainside
Speaker 1: out give you the pathways to change. Can you give
Speaker 1: me an example of a big rupture versus a little rupture,
Speaker 1: just so I have like a sort of framework. A
Speaker 1: rupture would be obviously like a divorce or like moving
Speaker 1: out of parents. I mean huge things, right, Yeah, So
Speaker 1: let's just look at the science of that. There is
Speaker 1: a term called developmental trauma that usually means abuse of
Speaker 1: some sort or neglect. And then neglect can be severe
Speaker 1: emotional neglect or severe physical neglect. And obviously the abuse
Speaker 1: can run the range of sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse,
Speaker 1: where there's something very negative that's present rather than the
Speaker 1: absence of something positive that's needed. And neglect and abuse,
Speaker 1: these forms of developmental trauma. There's basically the experience of
Speaker 1: a child being terrified of something being created by the
Speaker 1: attachment figure, which means the parent usually, but it can
Speaker 1: be other attachment figures. Now you know feel that I'm
Speaker 1: a part of attachment. Research shows is that when a
Speaker 1: child feels terrified of the attachment figure, it creates a
Speaker 1: kind of bind inside their own brain, a double thing
Speaker 1: going on. One thing is that the deepest part of
Speaker 1: the brain says, oh my gosh, I'm being terrified. Let
Speaker 1: me get away from the terror. But another part of
Speaker 1: my brain, a little bit higher up in the brain says,
Speaker 1: I'm a mammal, and when I'm in a state of terror,
Speaker 1: where I go is to my attachment figure to be protected,
Speaker 1: because that's one of the main things attachment is all about,
Speaker 1: is safety. So here's the difficult situation. It's called fear
Speaker 1: without solution. It's a biological paradox. If the attachment figure
Speaker 1: is causing the state of terror, then one part of
Speaker 1: the brain says, get away from that source of terror.
Speaker 1: The other part says, go towards the attachment figure, who
Speaker 1: is the source of terror. So your mind fragments. That's
Speaker 1: the most extreme. Now it doesn't have to be abused
Speaker 1: and neglect, so this is where people should know about it.
Speaker 1: It can be an example of flipping your lid as
Speaker 1: a parent where you're not abusive in terms of neglect
Speaker 1: or physical abuse. It's not developmental trauma, but it is
Speaker 1: still terrifying to your kid. So this is now a
Speaker 1: little step down. And yet it can be very toxic
Speaker 1: to a child, even if you don't want to use
Speaker 1: the word trauma, and it could fall into the category
Speaker 1: of adverse childhood experiences, which is what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: In my household, I have a very, very dynamic three
Speaker 1: and a half year old toddler boy who really enjoys
Speaker 1: if you tell him to do something, he's not going
Speaker 1: to do it, and enjoys that. It's like wild and
Speaker 1: it's perfect for me, because good lord, we couldn't be
Speaker 1: more opposite. So I'm a hippie in my sort of
Speaker 1: parenting style. And it was quick to realize that worked
Speaker 1: for the first two two and a half years with
Speaker 1: my son and now it really doesn't. Anyway. My husband
Speaker 1: has really more of the disciplinary and if you would
Speaker 1: go with a good cop, bad cops situation. Now when
Speaker 1: you use the word disciplinary, and what do you mean,
Speaker 1: Like he was better at following through, Like we have
Speaker 1: a long leash, but if it's something where someone's going
Speaker 1: to get hurt, or we have a new born at
Speaker 1: three and a half month old, and one time he
Speaker 1: stepped on her head on purpose and it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: and now you're going to your room, and you have
Speaker 1: to think about what you've done. And violence is never tolerated,
Speaker 1: and we don't touch our friends bodies this way and
Speaker 1: our family members and blah blah blah. My husband is
Speaker 1: better at that than me in just like you're going
Speaker 1: your room right now. I'm so angry at you. This
Speaker 1: is unacceptable. And guess what hanukas canceled? Christmas is canceled,
Speaker 1: dessert is canceled, TV is canceled. And then he goes
Speaker 1: to his room and it was very upsetting and he
Speaker 1: was very sad and it was the most trouble he's
Speaker 1: ever got in and rightfully so, he's he literally looked
Speaker 1: me in the eye and stomped on his newborn sister's head.
Speaker 1: But my son is more afraid of my husband than
Speaker 1: he is me, Like, is this a rupture because Adams
Speaker 1: like I don't want to be the bad cop all
Speaker 1: the time. But our son is not someone that listens
Speaker 1: easily with being told what to do. And I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's the age, I don't know, if it's
Speaker 1: his spirit. I have no idea. I've only met him
Speaker 1: three and a half years ago. This podcast for everyone
Speaker 1: has just literally become my session with my son. You're welcome, everyone,
Speaker 1: don't worry. We'll get back on topic in one. Here's
Speaker 1: the thing everyone listening should just take a deep breath
Speaker 1: and reflect that every kid is different. They have, you know,
Speaker 1: something called it temperament, and that's kind of their inborn
Speaker 1: proclivities that are in the eight There are not learned
Speaker 1: and they're slightly modifiable, but not that much. Temperament is
Speaker 1: very real. Some of it is genetically related, but in
Speaker 1: any event, it's inn eight, not learned. Right. So the
Speaker 1: next thing that we're talking about is attachment. You know,
Speaker 1: how do the relationships you have with your caregivers, you know,
Speaker 1: within the family setting, influence how you work through your
Speaker 1: way of being in the world to develop what's simply
Speaker 1: called personality. When I think about my two kids, you know,
Speaker 1: they had very different temperaments. So if you thought you
Speaker 1: were doing a strategy that worked for the older one
Speaker 1: and then tried it on the younger one who temper
Speaker 1: was totally different, it just wouldn't work. So you can
Speaker 1: have a broad approach to attachment, like you want to
Speaker 1: develop secure attachment, but then there are absolutely modifications one
Speaker 1: needs to make depending on the temperament of the kid.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Adams, you know, being stern talking
Speaker 1: about the brain a little bit. As the brain is developing,
Speaker 1: let's say from nine to twelve months, which is the
Speaker 1: time when a kid begins to crawl, um, the brain
Speaker 1: of that child has got to learn to develop these
Speaker 1: basically like a break, you know, to to to shut
Speaker 1: down behavior. And so what you see then in this
Speaker 1: time period is parents start saying no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no a lot. The way you say no is what's important, right,
Speaker 1: So if you say no, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: and nothing happens, the kids inhibitory circuits are not going
Speaker 1: to develop, right, and so they're just gonna push you
Speaker 1: and push you and push you until you just you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna lose your mind. You're using the word
Speaker 1: stern for Adam, So be able to be clear about it.
Speaker 1: I said, no, you know, like this, You know, it
Speaker 1: may make your kid frustrated, It may make them really
Speaker 1: piste off, but it's not terrifying them. Now. Inhibiting that
Speaker 1: may take a stern boundary that if you can't create it,
Speaker 1: Adam can create it. Oh no, I've gotten good. It's
Speaker 1: a learning curve. But I'm here. Yeah, okay. Good. So,
Speaker 1: because when there's dangerous things going on like that that
Speaker 1: could be harmful, sometimes you have to say no, you know,
Speaker 1: and but there's no such thing as perfect parenting. Ruptures
Speaker 1: happen a kid. Their job is to push against the boundaries,
Speaker 1: and then, depending on your own childhood and your own temperament,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna cave in in various ways. Here's
Speaker 1: an example where my kids were older than your son
Speaker 1: is at that time. But I had a nine at
Speaker 1: the time, my daughter and then our son was fourteen,
Speaker 1: and they went to the movies. Right. I took my
Speaker 1: daughter to a movie, and my son wanted to go
Speaker 1: to a movie with his friends. We picked up her
Speaker 1: brother and we were walking by this crepe store near
Speaker 1: where we live, and my son said, he's hungry. I said,
Speaker 1: you want to creepe, and he said, yeah, I love creep.
Speaker 1: And then I asked his sister, do you want to crepe?
Speaker 1: She goes, I'm not hungry. I said fine, you know,
Speaker 1: so we went in. He got a creep and then
Speaker 1: she said to him, can I have a taste of
Speaker 1: your crepe? He goes now and he's eating and needing
Speaker 1: it and smells are coming from the scrape. She can,
Speaker 1: I have a little bit. He goes, okay, okay, get
Speaker 1: and he cuts her off that inche that's like really
Speaker 1: burnt and tasteless, and so hands it to her on
Speaker 1: his fork. She goes, that's too small. Oh hilarious, and
Speaker 1: he goes forget it. And I'm just fuming inside, like
Speaker 1: I've done horrible job teaching him to be a sharer
Speaker 1: and he's selfish and all stuff. We get in the car,
Speaker 1: you know, and I slammed the door shut, and he goes,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? What's wrong? I said, well, you
Speaker 1: didn't share the crape and he goes, yeah, because she
Speaker 1: didn't want one, and I was hungry. I said, well,
Speaker 1: what if this is one of those friends you know
Speaker 1: then you went to the movies with him? He goes,
Speaker 1: I'd give them half my crape. So I go, well,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you give your sister one? He goes, she's
Speaker 1: not my friend. Yeah, and then I exploded. Luckily my
Speaker 1: wife was home and she intervenes. When we get we
Speaker 1: all have three of us get home, and then my
Speaker 1: system is starting just slowly calm down. And so his
Speaker 1: sister and I go for rollerblading out on the street
Speaker 1: and she says to me, she goes, dead, what was
Speaker 1: going on? Why why did you get so angry? I said, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, because he didn't share the crepe with you.
Speaker 1: She goes, I can handle myself. What was happening? I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess if I thought about it. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: a younger child, just like you're the younger sibling, because
Speaker 1: my brother was really mean to me, and if your
Speaker 1: brother was ever mean to you, I was never gonna
Speaker 1: let that happen to if I ever had kids. And
Speaker 1: so I was trying to guess work through the way.
Speaker 1: My parents never protected me, so I was trying to
Speaker 1: protect you. And since she looks at me, she goes,
Speaker 1: this is your own garbage. She goes, why don't you
Speaker 1: work this out on your own time? And that's parenting
Speaker 1: to talk about this crapes of wrath business. That was
Speaker 1: the rupture and then figuring it out. But the repair
Speaker 1: happened when she and I got back from the rollerblading thing.
Speaker 1: We had a family meeting and and I apologized to
Speaker 1: my son for having you know, flipped my lid, for
Speaker 1: just asserting his right to eat his crape by himself.
Speaker 1: And I was able to talk about, you know, to
Speaker 1: him about what the experience was like and then with it.
Speaker 1: Since his mother didn't watch all this, I asked him
Speaker 1: if he wanted to, you know, share what the experience
Speaker 1: was like, and then he imitated me, and he did
Speaker 1: a really good job of how ridiculous I was, so
Speaker 1: so inside of me. I had to be ready in
Speaker 1: terms of the repair process. And we're the older, more experienced, wiser,
Speaker 1: hopefully ones than our kids. So it's our responsibility to
Speaker 1: make the repair right. That's so important. Yeah, we need
Speaker 1: to understand that these are vulnerable places in us. So
Speaker 1: whatever issues I have with my brother being you know,
Speaker 1: protected by my parents and me not being protected and
Speaker 1: all these kind of stuff, that's not for me to
Speaker 1: work out with my kids, but it's to to work
Speaker 1: it out with them that I did something pretty scary
Speaker 1: cur saying slamming the slamming the door. It was terrible,
Speaker 1: I mean, and so I had to own that and
Speaker 1: apologize for that instead of saying, yeah, but you made
Speaker 1: me do it because you wouldn't share. And I don't
Speaker 1: like selfish kids. You know, I could, you could do that,
Speaker 1: you could go that route, sure, but that's really the
Speaker 1: opposite of repair. I think I was watching maybe it
Speaker 1: was your Google talk, but so much about we're talking
Speaker 1: about these repairs and ruptures. If you do a lot
Speaker 1: of the repairing of your own life, it's so helpful
Speaker 1: to you as a parent, because a lot of times
Speaker 1: nothing shows you your weaknesses more. And I sit here
Speaker 1: and I see my other friends kids who listen when
Speaker 1: they're asked once. They're not boundary pushers. That's not what
Speaker 1: they Their kids are doing something else, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Like I was just at a swim class.
Speaker 1: My son's learning to swim, and my son has gotten
Speaker 1: in really big fat rubble every swim class because he's
Speaker 1: splashing all the other kids in the face and making
Speaker 1: them cry. Okay, and the kid who's crying is afraid
Speaker 1: of the water. And my son senses that he's afraid
Speaker 1: of the water, and so he's instigating and splashing and
Speaker 1: things like that. I'm the mom freaking out that my
Speaker 1: kid is making other kids cry. But my kid is
Speaker 1: like animal beast in the water, loves nothing more than
Speaker 1: diving off the side. And today's the graduation from swim class,
Speaker 1: and he's showing off everybody's such a good swimmer. The
Speaker 1: mom of the shy boy who is crying is a really,
Speaker 1: really tough mom, and she's having such a hard time
Speaker 1: that her son is struggling in the water. And I'm
Speaker 1: looking at each other and I'm like, oh my god, Like, really,
Speaker 1: in another life, should we we We would switch and
Speaker 1: we would both be like not having on this journey
Speaker 1: learning whatever the hell it is that we're learning. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they definitely teach us. You know. There's something called reflective dialogues,
Speaker 1: which is a dialogue as a conversation. Reflection means to
Speaker 1: the inward. And there are three kinds of maps that
Speaker 1: the brain is able to make. It's called a mind
Speaker 1: site or seeing the mind mindset map of oneself, a
Speaker 1: mind site map of someone else, so it's a U map,
Speaker 1: so it's a me map, you map, and a WE map.
Speaker 1: So ideally for your son, whether it's going to happen
Speaker 1: soon or later, if you don't mind me giving you
Speaker 1: reflections on this, you know, he needs to develop the
Speaker 1: mind site abilities to be able to make a map
Speaker 1: of himself. I really feel like splashing these kids because
Speaker 1: I'm so good and I want to show my strength,
Speaker 1: and then he does not do it. So a mind
Speaker 1: site map would say, I've got the urge, but I'm
Speaker 1: not going to allow the impulse to turn into action.
Speaker 1: And you know some people call that self control and
Speaker 1: and that's going to be something, Yeah, he needs to learn,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna require awareness. That's number one. A U
Speaker 1: map would be where he makes a map of that
Speaker 1: kid who shy and he realizes this kid is already
Speaker 1: having a hard time with water, so for me to
Speaker 1: splash him in the face is really mean. And I
Speaker 1: don't want to be a mean person, or if I
Speaker 1: do want to be a mean person, if I like
Speaker 1: hurting people, I need some help. And then there's what's
Speaker 1: called we map, right like I want to be a
Speaker 1: part of this class where I'm a welcome member of
Speaker 1: this group, and that's a we map. Right, So we
Speaker 1: learned these mind side maps in our homes. But you
Speaker 1: and Adam, you can sit down with your kids. I
Speaker 1: mean you're three month was a little young for this.
Speaker 1: But where you start talking about Okay, let's talk about today.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about, you know, swim class being over and
Speaker 1: you splashing kids in the face. I'm not mad. You
Speaker 1: say it's his mom um, but I'm I want to
Speaker 1: talk about what you think that kids experience was to
Speaker 1: be scared of the water. You know that, and then
Speaker 1: you're splashing him in the face. This is so helpful.
Speaker 1: I want to sit and have this like lovely conversation
Speaker 1: with him and not put too much pressure on it exactly.
Speaker 1: And when you're feeling really centered and calm and can be,
Speaker 1: you know, open to whatever it is, and you can remember, Katie,
Speaker 1: that you can have this coal state curious, open, accepting
Speaker 1: and loving c O a L. It's just something to remember.
Speaker 1: That's one of the best definitions of mindful. So when
Speaker 1: you mindfully have this conversation with him, Katie, you bring curiosity.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious about it. You're open to whatever he says. Well,
Speaker 1: I wanted him to feel bad. You don't get angry
Speaker 1: about that. You accept that's what he said, and you
Speaker 1: bring a loving stance and then you're going to explore it. Right.
Speaker 1: So when we bring a coal kind of presence to
Speaker 1: our interactions as parents, what's great about that is that
Speaker 1: you know you come from a place that you're being
Speaker 1: a role model for him too of how he can
Speaker 1: be that way also in life. I love coal And
Speaker 1: you don't think of three and a half year old
Speaker 1: you think it's this is like great to be starting this.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yes, okay, God, Actually this is a
Speaker 1: great example. There's a research study which looked at death kids, right,
Speaker 1: and they were around your son's age three and a
Speaker 1: half four, and they divided them into two groups. One
Speaker 1: group had these mind site abilities where they knew about
Speaker 1: emotions and their impact on us. They knew about how
Speaker 1: memory works. These are three and a half year olds,
Speaker 1: four year old, so they had these mind site skills, right.
Speaker 1: The other half of this group of deaf kids didn't
Speaker 1: have those skills of insight into one's own inner life
Speaker 1: or the inner life of others. That's what mind site means, right.
Speaker 1: So then they studied these and they found that one
Speaker 1: of the groups that had the mind side abilities versus
Speaker 1: the ones that didn't have the mindset abilities divided up
Speaker 1: really neatly into one had parents who were deaf at
Speaker 1: birth and the other had hearing parents who then found
Speaker 1: themselves with a deaf kid. Oh my god, Now which
Speaker 1: group do you think is which? It turns out that
Speaker 1: the deaf kids who were born to parents who were
Speaker 1: deaf who knew how to do American sign language, they
Speaker 1: had perfectly intact development of mind site abilities, whereas the
Speaker 1: ones who are deaf who had parents who could barely
Speaker 1: communicate with them. So, like, give you an example, if
Speaker 1: a kid fell down, if that parent was a deaf
Speaker 1: parent who knew how to sign in a sophisticated way,
Speaker 1: they could have a reflective dialogue using sign language and
Speaker 1: say that must have been so scary for you to
Speaker 1: have your triesycle hit the stone. I'm so sorry that
Speaker 1: was so scary. Here, come here and let me pick
Speaker 1: you up and help you, whereas the other one just says,
Speaker 1: get up. So parents who don't do reflective dialogues have
Speaker 1: kids who just are external looking. They don't look inward,
Speaker 1: either in their own life or the life of others.
Speaker 1: So what you want to do, especially with someone with
Speaker 1: a temperament like your kids temperament is you want to
Speaker 1: give them mind site skills, the ability basically to make
Speaker 1: a map of the mind inside myself. If I'm your son,
Speaker 1: so I know what am I feeling, what am I thinking?
Speaker 1: Where's my attention going, what's my intention? How do I
Speaker 1: get a sense of what my impulse is from my behavior?
Speaker 1: That's all called let's just put under the word insight.
Speaker 1: And amazingly, we all have feelings and thoughts and impulses,
Speaker 1: but not everybody is insight, right, So it's a way
Speaker 1: of like making a map of my own interiority. Right.
Speaker 1: We do a lot of this, and I actually, you
Speaker 1: know I have I'm having such memories in this conversation
Speaker 1: of the times that I got in trouble whatever that's
Speaker 1: the word you want to use, growing up in my
Speaker 1: household and got sent to my room to think about
Speaker 1: what I had done. And they always ended with my
Speaker 1: dad sitting at the edge of my bed and talking
Speaker 1: about what had happened and how I feel and he
Speaker 1: would always end up crying. My dad's super emotional dude,
Speaker 1: like he would always end up crying and being like,
Speaker 1: you know, I love you. And it's okay, and we
Speaker 1: let's just talk, you know, and we always just have
Speaker 1: like a nice talk about what it was that had happened.
Speaker 1: And I'm just looking back on that and being like
Speaker 1: my parents were really good about that. Everybody needs these
Speaker 1: mind sight skills. It sounds like your parents gave you.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what it is. So that's the site piece.
Speaker 1: The second is, you know, empathy, So it's your own
Speaker 1: self awareness, the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes,
Speaker 1: and then the ability for the WE map, which is
Speaker 1: and where does this fall in society, in in the world,
Speaker 1: in the world right And you could call that compassion
Speaker 1: if you wanter kindness where you say there's a relationality
Speaker 1: to me and that person. And so the way I'm
Speaker 1: going to act in terms of the we is to
Speaker 1: bring kindness into the world. And the WE map is
Speaker 1: really saying, Okay, I'm a part of something larger than
Speaker 1: just my body. I'm a part relationship with people in
Speaker 1: the planet. So that would include you know, how you
Speaker 1: treat nature, how you treat pets, how you treat the
Speaker 1: trees around you. So this is what mindset involves. And
Speaker 1: the great news about doing it understanding this as a
Speaker 1: parent is you can have kind of a mind site
Speaker 1: strategy where you say, my kids three and a half. Now, really,
Speaker 1: what I made me for is when he's eighteen and
Speaker 1: he's getting ready to launch, so I don't have to
Speaker 1: do everything when he's three and a half. Ah, so huge.
Speaker 1: I'm all about when your child has done something and
Speaker 1: making sure you're coming from a stern, boundary but regulated place,
Speaker 1: like I think if you're flipping your fucking lid, I
Speaker 1: personally remove myself from the situation, let's say, and for
Speaker 1: like five ten minutes until I've like feel like I'm
Speaker 1: not coming at it from like a complete like my past,
Speaker 1: like you had said, and then when I come at
Speaker 1: it from a regulated place. We've been trying lots of
Speaker 1: things like you have to go to your room. We're
Speaker 1: going to take away this toy because you used it
Speaker 1: to hit the dog or whatever it is. I'm basically
Speaker 1: just trying them all because I'm trying. I'm learning as
Speaker 1: I go. What are any suggestions in the discipline lanes?
Speaker 1: So the word discipline, it's important remember as a parent
Speaker 1: means to teach, does mean to punish. You know, when
Speaker 1: Tina and I wrote the book No Drama Discipline. Our
Speaker 1: main goal is to tell parents, you know, we miss
Speaker 1: interpreted the word discipline to be I need to punish, right,
Speaker 1: So that's the first thing to say, so that you
Speaker 1: can say, well, okay, what am I trying to teach
Speaker 1: my child? Well, you're trying to teach him the skills
Speaker 1: of self regulation, to put it really simply, and you
Speaker 1: know this wonderful research from Adele Diamond that shows that,
Speaker 1: you know, self regulation is really gonna be learned like
Speaker 1: between three and nine, you know, and the parts of
Speaker 1: the brain that helped curb impulses will be developed now.
Speaker 1: So he's just at the beginning of this. So you say, okay, well,
Speaker 1: then I've got a good you know, six years to
Speaker 1: be working on this project. Great, oh god, you know
Speaker 1: this is the moment where these mind site skills you
Speaker 1: will teach of self awareness and empathy and the WE
Speaker 1: map will help him see, I have feelings and I
Speaker 1: have an impulse. And just because I have an impulse
Speaker 1: like to splash someone, you know, or hit the dog
Speaker 1: with the toys, step on my sister with my foot,
Speaker 1: I can actually be so empowered as even though the
Speaker 1: impulse is there the action does not happen. It's not
Speaker 1: that you always say yes hardly, It's that you identify
Speaker 1: the feeling of a child and once you connect like that,
Speaker 1: you can redirect their behavior. You know. I was like,
Speaker 1: you really feel the need to hit? Okay, you can.
Speaker 1: You're allowed to hit the couch, you're allowed to hit
Speaker 1: the floor, but you can never hit a person, and
Speaker 1: you can never hit an animal. Period. And now, after
Speaker 1: a while of that not working good year, it got
Speaker 1: to the point where I was like, if you hit
Speaker 1: someone one more time, you don't get this, you know,
Speaker 1: and that's when it works. Or if you hit one
Speaker 1: more time, you you have to We're going to have
Speaker 1: to start talking about consequences of things. And that worked, right,
Speaker 1: And every kid is different. Is there ever a time
Speaker 1: where throwing your kid in the room and closing the
Speaker 1: door is like allows throwing your kid in the room
Speaker 1: and closing the door. I wouldn't use the phrase throwing
Speaker 1: your kid in the room. Yeah, throw is not good
Speaker 1: escorting them, listen. Timeouts are a very interesting issue. The
Speaker 1: way they've been researched shows that they work, but they're
Speaker 1: never done in anger. They're always done where the child
Speaker 1: is told before an incident has happened. If something happens
Speaker 1: that is a problem in how behavior is going. I'm
Speaker 1: going to give you what I'm going to call the
Speaker 1: time out, and what that means is you're gonna take
Speaker 1: five minutes and you are going to have a break
Speaker 1: from being interacting with the family. And then as you
Speaker 1: do that, I want you to think about what's going on.
Speaker 1: Then in five minutes you can come back with the family.
Speaker 1: What parents tend to do in real life, unlike what
Speaker 1: the researchers very appropriately suggested, parents have taken that term
Speaker 1: time out, and they mean they're going to punish them
Speaker 1: by removing them from social connection, sometimes for half an
Speaker 1: hour an hour. There is a place for timeouts done
Speaker 1: the way research is suggesting it, but I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a place for using timeouts as a punishment. It's
Speaker 1: an opportunity to inspire to motivate, sure, but not to
Speaker 1: vanish for an hour in social isolation. That is really
Speaker 1: not what they were ever intended for by the researchers.
Speaker 1: So if you want to follow the research protocol, go
Speaker 1: for it, but don't use that as a way to
Speaker 1: shirk your parenting responsibilities of teaching skills just because you're
Speaker 1: fed up and now you're gonna, as you say, throw
Speaker 1: your kid in the room. No, that's not okay, is
Speaker 1: what I would say. You know, in my household, the
Speaker 1: biggest boundary I can set with my son is taking
Speaker 1: away his most favorite thing that he never gets, which
Speaker 1: is the television. And that's how he knows it is
Speaker 1: at the fan. And you know what else works on
Speaker 1: my son. This is so lame. I cannot believe I
Speaker 1: have turned into this mother. I'm the one too three mom.
Speaker 1: And I think it's because it gives him a second
Speaker 1: to control that impulse, if that makes sense. It gives
Speaker 1: him a minute. Is that bad? No? I mean, you
Speaker 1: know it's beautiful about that, Katie, is that you are
Speaker 1: showing him that he can become aware that it's his
Speaker 1: decision that he can feel. Oh, I can hit the
Speaker 1: dog again. But you know, I really love television, So
Speaker 1: I am choosing to actually not do it. And he's
Speaker 1: learning from that way you're doing it that he actually
Speaker 1: has an option that is in his control. I try
Speaker 1: to always given options because this kid is a negotiating,
Speaker 1: autonomous being. Yeah, you're teaching him the skill of self regulation,
Speaker 1: you know, which is important to do, and this is
Speaker 1: this is gonna be over the next few years. You
Speaker 1: want to take a deep breath and just realize it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean he's gonna wait till then, but you have
Speaker 1: this time. Especially in the next couple of years, his
Speaker 1: inhibitory circuits from the higher part of his brain to
Speaker 1: the lower part of his brain are developing. And the
Speaker 1: way you come to say no in a way that
Speaker 1: invites him to say, oh, I see, I have an
Speaker 1: impulse I'm not going to act on it is actually
Speaker 1: going to grow those inhibitory fibers from the higher parts
Speaker 1: to the lower parts of his brain. And that's what
Speaker 1: self regulations depended on. And that's the skill you're going
Speaker 1: to give to him. The other thing I do is
Speaker 1: how I got it. I was like, if you hit
Speaker 1: one person at this party, we're leaving, so just know that,
Speaker 1: and he did and I then I the funked up
Speaker 1: part is that I have to follow through because it's
Speaker 1: like he did it, and I was like, you hit
Speaker 1: him in the face with a stick. So we're going
Speaker 1: to leave the party and he's screaming, I don't want
Speaker 1: to go, I don't want to go, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to leave, but I told
Speaker 1: you that if you hit someone, we have to leave
Speaker 1: the party good and you follow through with it and
Speaker 1: have the next party go much better. He didn't do it,
Speaker 1: there you go, but then he'll forget and it could
Speaker 1: happen again. And that's a great example of teaching them
Speaker 1: the skills of self regulation. This is exhausting. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I can't like guys. Just google Dr Dan SEAgel,
Speaker 1: get all the books. I'll have to have you on
Speaker 1: again because we're moms and we can't listen to podcasts
Speaker 1: that are more than an hour. We don't have time
Speaker 1: for that. But this is um been so so so helpful.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on Katie's Krim. You're welcome.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Katie. Can you believe this is the kid
Speaker 1: that God she gave me. It's perfect. It's great for you, Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: What an opportunity to learn. Thank you guys so much
Speaker 1: for listening to this week's episode. I hope you've got
Speaker 1: a lot out of it. I know I did. I
Speaker 1: want to hear from you guys. What are topics you
Speaker 1: want to discuss guests that you want to have on
Speaker 1: I'm always open to hearing your thoughts. You can email
Speaker 1: me at Katie's Crib at Shonda land dot com. Katie's
Speaker 1: Crib is a production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows. You until you try me
Speaker 1: need