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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just answers me.

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Speaker 2: Now, Hello, this is doctor Justin Coulson. Thank you so

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Speaker 2: much for joining me as we move towards the end

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Speaker 2: of the school holidays. A little while ago, we did

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Speaker 2: this really cool, really cool summit with Happy Families. It

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Speaker 2: was called Little People, Big Feelings, and one of my

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Speaker 2: favorite Americans, a lady by the name of Reenie Jane,

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Speaker 2: who runs a website that you might have heard of

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Speaker 2: called go Zen with loads of fantastic resources. You have

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Speaker 2: to check out go Zen. Rene joined me on the

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Speaker 2: Little People, Big Feelings Summit to talk about well, anxiety

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Speaker 2: and all those other big feelings that little kids have.

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Speaker 2: I asked Renie about anxiety. I asked her, how do

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Speaker 2: we define it, how do we see it in children,

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Speaker 2: especially young kids under six? And here's what she said.

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Speaker 3: I define it in a very lee way, which is

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Speaker 3: a massive that your body is sending you. And I

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Speaker 3: know that doesn't sound like, hey, what does that mean? Right?

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Speaker 3: But that is the definition for me of any emotion.

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Speaker 3: Your emotions, your feelings are essentially messengers, their data points,

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Speaker 3: their pieces of communication. So anxiety is just one of

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Speaker 3: those things. How it manifests in our little ones can

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Speaker 3: be in many, many different ways. Most of the time,

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Speaker 3: child under the age of six is not going to

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Speaker 3: say I'm feeling anxious, right, We're going to see it manifesting,

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Speaker 3: perhaps in a meltdown. Maybe they'll say, my tummy feels funny.

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Speaker 3: Maybe they'll say I'm having a hard time sleeping. So

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Speaker 3: there can be many, many manifestations of it, but it

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Speaker 3: is it's a feeling, right, So, anxiety, like many many

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Speaker 3: other feelings on the spectrum of human emotions, is just

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Speaker 3: another one of our feelings that appears.

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Speaker 1: The fact that it's just this information coming through feelings

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Speaker 1: to a child. Some children get very very anxious about

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Speaker 1: their anxiety, and some parents get very very anxious about

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Speaker 1: their children's anxiety. When does anxiety become a problem, Because

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Speaker 1: the reality is, all of our feelings kind of do

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Speaker 1: exactly what you're talking about, right, They convey this information

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Speaker 1: to us. But anxiety becomes problematic sometimes and at other

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Speaker 1: times it's actually perfectly healthy. It's normal. It's actually functional

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Speaker 1: rather than dysfunctional. Where's that line? How do we know?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So, when we are not able to navigate through

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Speaker 3: our feelings or not able to actually process the worry.

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Speaker 3: That's when it becomes a problem, when it starts to

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Speaker 3: interrupt our general functioning, when it starts to create disturbance

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Speaker 3: to the point where we can't sleep, you know, or

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Speaker 3: maybe not able to do our school work. We are

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Speaker 3: complaining about it all the time. Maybe there are other

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Speaker 3: manifestations such as anger or eruptions, you know, when it

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Speaker 3: becomes when it starts to interrupt our ability to function generally,

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Speaker 3: then it starts to become a problem. But really the

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Speaker 3: issue is and sometimes it just sounds so simple that

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Speaker 3: it's like that can't be the issue. I mean, the

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Speaker 3: diagnosis is rampant, right, the problem is pervasive. It's a

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Speaker 3: global epidemic, frankly anxiety. But really the issue is their

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Speaker 3: unprocessed emotions. Right, We're having these flare ups of worry,

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Speaker 3: and that triggers a flare up of worry. As you

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Speaker 3: said justin within the parent, Oh my goodness, my child

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Speaker 3: is worried. So now I'm worried. And so we start

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Speaker 3: to do things like quash the worry, run away from

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Speaker 3: the worry, ignore the worry. Right, we don't sit with it,

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Speaker 3: we don't listen to the message it's sending. We don't

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Speaker 3: try to figure out, well, what signal am I getting?

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Speaker 3: What should I do with this worry? We think it's

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Speaker 3: something wrong with us. And so that's when it starts

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Speaker 3: to become a problem when it's not processed.

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Speaker 1: Directions that I want to take that last comment and

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Speaker 1: I'm going to try to tease them apart bit by bit.

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Speaker 1: The first thing that really stands out to me is

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Speaker 1: you're talking about it's an unprocessed emotion. And yet for

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Speaker 1: our little people, for our children, children under five or six,

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Speaker 1: they I mean, every emotion is unprocessed, isn't it. They

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Speaker 1: don't really have the developmental capacity to process their emotions.

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Speaker 3: You know what's so funny. I actually think they come

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Speaker 3: into the world as masters at emotional processing, because when

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Speaker 3: you see a very young child, you will see that

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Speaker 3: they can go from zero to one hundred, you know,

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Speaker 3: in a moment. Let's take an example of two siblings

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Speaker 3: fighting with each other, right, they're fighting over a toy,

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Speaker 3: They're yelling at each other, they're screaming, maybe one of

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Speaker 3: them's in the corner, and then three minutes later they're

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Speaker 3: best friends. That is the ultimate ability to process the emotion,

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Speaker 3: the emotion actually comes into them. It's temporary, they feel it,

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Speaker 3: they show it, right, So there's the manifestation of the emotion,

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Speaker 3: and then it passes. So for many of us, it

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Speaker 3: is unprocessed because we don't allow it to pass. We

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Speaker 3: don't allow the feeling to come into us, send the message,

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Speaker 3: and then interact with it. Right, there's no relationship. We

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Speaker 3: basically try to ignore it or get rid of it.

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Speaker 3: So I actually think in their own way, and I

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Speaker 3: know what you're saying. You know, they don't know how

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Speaker 3: to process these big feelings. They might not know what

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Speaker 3: to do with them, but I feel like they can

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Speaker 3: naturally process them if we as parents allow the space

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Speaker 3: for it and then facilitate the processing.

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Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the facilitation in just to say,

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Speaker 1: but I got to say what you've just described infuriates

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Speaker 1: parents because it's like you kids were just throwing blocks

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Speaker 1: at each other's heads. You know, you've got a three

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Speaker 1: year old and a four year old try to beat

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Speaker 1: each other up, and they're biting and pulling hair and scratching,

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Speaker 1: and it's so frustrating for a parent, and the parent

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Speaker 1: wants to do all this stuff and literally ninety seconds later,

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Speaker 1: these two kids are best friends again. They're hugging and

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Speaker 1: they're playing, and it's like it never happened.

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Speaker 3: They've processed their emotions, they've done their own conflict resolution,

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Speaker 3: they've figured it out. Meanwhile, our hair has turned completely gray.

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Speaker 1: Right, They're in the moment, they're having the emotion, and

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Speaker 1: then they seem to move through it and get on

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Speaker 1: with life. Like you said, we seem to want to

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Speaker 1: sit with it. So I guess to pull the threads

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Speaker 1: from the previous question this one together and move to

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Speaker 1: the practical stuff. A couple of times now, you've talked

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Speaker 1: about this idea of allowing the emotion to be of helping. Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess we've probably got to do a bit of

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Speaker 1: work ourselves. But how do we What are the mistakes

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Speaker 1: that parents are making. Let's talk about the mistakes first,

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Speaker 1: and then how we can overcome those mistakes to get

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Speaker 1: the kinds of outcomes that we're looking that is balanced,

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Speaker 1: happy little people.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, the first miss stak that we make

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Speaker 3: is we're taking probably for many many of us, the

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Speaker 3: training that we had as kids with our parents in

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Speaker 3: assuming that there are a certain set of emotions that

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Speaker 3: we need to see from our kids. We want them

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Speaker 3: to be happy. We want them to be joyful, we

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Speaker 3: want them to be grateful, we want them to be cheery.

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Speaker 3: And when we see the other ones, we see anger,

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Speaker 3: and we see jealousy, and we see worry, and we

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Speaker 3: see all of these other bad emotions. It scares us, right,

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Speaker 3: and so we are afraid of half of the human

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Speaker 3: spectrum of emotions, which is a problem. Obviously, we don't

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Speaker 3: see purpose in those emotions, and so as soon as

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Speaker 3: we see it as a parent, we get triggered. We're triggered,

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Speaker 3: and then with the triggering, you know, this can go

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Speaker 3: in so many different directions. Sometimes we are catastrophic thinkers.

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Speaker 3: Not sometimes oftentimes, oh, my goodness, my child is worrying

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Speaker 3: at this young age of under six, they're five years old,

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Speaker 3: and maybe they worry so much they have to sleep

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Speaker 3: next to me at night, and you know, or they

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Speaker 3: can't do something, they can't go to school, or they

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Speaker 3: don't want to socialize, and so how are they going

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Speaker 3: to handle life? My goodness. Catastrophic thinking goes in usually

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Speaker 3: three directions. It ends up where your child is either

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Speaker 3: going to be in jail on drugs or homeless. Right,

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Speaker 3: like they're always my five year old can't sleep alone

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Speaker 3: at night, so therefore they're never going to get a job. Right.

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Speaker 3: So we go wrong in thinking that there's going to

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Speaker 3: be some tragic ripple effect, and we are again based

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Speaker 3: on our own conditioning of being scared of these big feelings.

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Speaker 3: They make us incredibly uncomfortable. So the messaging that we're

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Speaker 3: often sending to our kids with great intention and trust me,

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Speaker 3: I have a seven and eight year old and they

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Speaker 3: are very loud spirited kids with big feelings, right. But

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Speaker 3: the message we often send to our young ones is

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Speaker 3: listen your big feelings. They're making me uncomfortable. I would

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Speaker 3: like you to go into a calm down corner, you know,

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Speaker 3: if we're very conscious we're not putting them in time

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Speaker 3: out or can't we're in a time in right, and

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Speaker 3: go get rid of those big feelings and come back

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Speaker 3: when you have the feelings that I'm more comfortable with.

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Speaker 3: So the first message that we need to send our

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Speaker 3: kids is your feelings are valid. You know I can

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Speaker 3: hold space for them, I can handle them. I understand

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Speaker 3: that when you're disregulated that you need me to lean on.

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Speaker 3: You need my regulation. You need to borrow mine. But

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Speaker 3: I can only do that if I'm able to stand

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Speaker 3: strong in my own understanding that this is all okay.

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Speaker 2: That's Renie Jane, the founder of go Zen. You can

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Speaker 2: find her online by doing a quick google Reniere Nae

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Speaker 2: Jane j A. I n Renie Jane from go Zen.

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Speaker 2: And that was the part of a conversation that we

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Speaker 2: were having about little people and big feelings from the

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Speaker 2: Little People Big Feelings Summit. If you'd like more information

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Speaker 2: out how you can help your little people deal with

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Speaker 2: their big feelings, but please check out the summer. Just

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Speaker 2: google Happy Families dot com dot au and type in

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Speaker 2: little People, Big Feelings the summer will come up and

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Speaker 2: you can grab hold of that for a lot of

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Speaker 2: really use resources. Hey, Kylie and I were back tomorrow

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Speaker 2: as we move towards the end of our Happy Families

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Speaker 2: Summer podcast series. See you then,