November 30, 2024 • 36 mins
Most parents hate seeing their children in stressful situations, regardless of what the cause is - but there may be an argument for allowing them to experience the stress.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks dB.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yes, welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage.
Enough you missed any of our previous hours, we had
a raucous I think rucus Was that a fair way
to sat? You never know if it was raucous actually,
because it felt raucous on the brakes, that's for sure.
But it was Our panelists Wilhelmina Shrimpton and Neiva Ritti
Marnoo had had a great chat with them for the
panel at three o'clock and chick It Out Where podcast.
The Weekend Collective iHeartRadio is a great starting point and
(01:01):
the one roof show just now with Deb Roberts from
Whose Investment Coach with Property Apprentice talking about the o
CR fixing, floating and the whole shebang. But right now
we're moving on because it is the Parent Squad and
joining me is she's a clinical psychologist at Engaged Training
and her name is Catherine Burke at Catherine Hello, How
are you? Hello?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Tim? I'm good, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You're looking at looking like a bright heard and brushy tail,
like you've been out exercising on something of very summary.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's it's a beautiful Wellington day, as per usual, wouldn't
it be? Brother?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Are you saying that.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It is a beautiful day? I might be saying, you know,
as per usual, with a little bit of a hinter psychasm.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, well, lovely, even if it's sunny, even if it's Wendy,
it can still be sunny, of course. And let's not
play let's not play that that cliche any further anyway,
because it's probably a bit tiresome for you guys. You
must get sick of the old Wendy Wellington thing, don't you.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, I think Auckland has more windows than us if
you actually look at the stage as just might be.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh okay, right, let's let's let's just pretend that's true.
I'll google the stats and the break.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Now, look, we want to talk about stress and kids
and how much you should lay your children to have. Stuitively,
we'd all have an instant response, well, of course they
probably should have some sort of stress, because that's how
they learn. But then again, they are parents who want
to try and avoid having their kids suffering any sort
of stress. They want them to sort of have a
nice sort of sunshine and Rainbow's life at the start
(02:28):
and find it very difficult to let their kids experience stress.
And so I guess, you know, the conversation is always
around the sweet spot, but how much stress should you
allow your kids to have? And I guess, sir, how
much does that? It obviously changes because you can become
more resilient. And I guess I'm answering my own question
in a way that resilience only comes from practice exactly.
(02:55):
But yeah, I mean it's but it's not easy.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's not easy, and it's not easy because, especially as parents,
we're actually so connected with our young people. We become them,
and so if there's something that really makes us upset
or triggers us or makes us anxious or whatever, then
they actually experiencing it makes us experiencing it. So we're
trying to avoid the feeling ourselves. So the way I
(03:22):
put it into a really easy concept is if you
went to the gym, you'd find a weight. If you're
wanting to increase your muscle capacity, you'd find a weight
that was tolerably difficult to pick up. And that's not
the same for all of us. And also it's not
the same every day, like you might go to the
gym one day and actually, I'm not in a good
space today, so I'm just going to down my weights
(03:43):
or down my reps a little bit. So that's where
it becomes tricky, because we get books and we get,
you know, all this information. We say, this is how
much a seven year old can do, this is what
a fifteen year old should be doing, this is what
my friends are doing. And actually it's just up to
the individual stress response system. What's tolerable for the individual.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, so how would you work out what is tolerable
because some people give the appearance of tolerating stress quite well,
but it possibly could be eating them up. And then
you get the ones who are the drama queens, who
something's gone slightly wrong and you'd think the world was ending.
But you know, I've seen this with parents where you
with kids who are really looking upset and mom just
(04:24):
goes on, I should be fine, don't worry, Just give
her a couple of minutes where I'm thinking, don't you
need to intervene because they have the dramatic flare.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, it's more I find it's much easier to sort
of look at the body, so the heart rate, the
lungs are sort of going into activation. It's the fight
flight response. The shoulders will be up. Eyes actually dilate,
which is quite a big one because you can't I
dilate your eyes on purpose. You can't sort of attend
that one.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Unless you turn the lights down if if they're if
they're stressed and the dark.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Ye, I suppose if you want to go to that ever,
one of the fairest pewl to do and put the thermometer,
you know, put the heater on as thermometer. You know,
you can go to certain levels that you could pretend
to be stressed, I guess. But yeah, it's more in
the body, but it's also really separating from your child
and looking at them with a really objective space and
just saying, actually, do I think that they are actually upset?
(05:18):
And also, by the way, if they're having a screaming fit,
that's not necessarily not tolerable. Do you see what I mean?
Like if a kids having an absolute fit in the
supermarket because they can't get something they want, that's the
end of the world. That's not going to damage their
stress response system to the point where they're going to
become an anxious child that will highly likely be a
(05:38):
learning space. So it's really important that the parents try
and step back and look at it with an objective
iron think. Do I think this is a learning curve?
Do I think they're going to come out of a
stronger or do I think it's so high it's going
to damage them.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
That's quite funny in a way as a parent, when
you say step back and look at it objectively, that's
a big battle for many parents, full stop. Isn't it
objectively one hundred percent? Because you do tend to You
do tend to ride the waves a little bit, don't you.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
We are our kids, and we're so connected to them,
and like you said, we want them to have no
bad things happen. But our kids work this out, and
in fact, we're not doing them a service. We're not
doing them any favors by allowing them to get everything
that they want through activating into that stress response. It's
not actually a good method of going through life.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
It actually reminds me of I mean, there's always anecdotes
around the stuff, but the thing that comes to mind
in terms of early moments with parents and kids and
stress is the first time you drop your child off
at kiddie care, and all the teachers who handle preschool
kiddie care, they're all well practiced at basically distracting the
(06:54):
child and looking at mum or dad and saying go
now while they're not focusing because you know, they see
mum and dad about to leave and they start crying
and all that sort of thing, and to the parent,
that looks like the child is going through an intolerable
separation sort of anxiety, when in fact, as soon as
mum's gone and they've managed to distract them, you usually
(07:14):
learn that that child has had a pretty good day,
with exceptions of course.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Is that an example, of course, and there's one hundred
percent and what you want to do, and if so,
you trust the teacher, hopefully your trust where they've gone.
And by the way, of course, it's hard to separate.
We don't like giving things away. But as soon as
they go and we go, okay, that was over that now.
And so if that happens and you're talking to the teachers,
what you want to get a sense of is that
(07:40):
over time it's getting less that we're not increasing, it's
not sort of maintaining a really high level. And as
long as it's getting less, then that's showing that the
young person is improving their own ability to activate back
to calm, So they're getting better, their muscles are getting stronger.
So yeah, it's definitely part of learning because.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Actually there would be the kids who really do struggle
in it, and they actually might be miserable for the
whole day, and that give rise if the parents were
to thinking, I can't drop them off at daycare. But
there has to be a way where you do actually
acclimatize them to that sort of thing. It's just you
just have to use a different maybe a few different
techniques perhaps, or do something a bit more gradually.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
There are some young people, or not many, but there's some.
You know, we're all so different. There are some young
people who don't like to be at a kindergarten with
lots of other kids and maybe they haven't got anyone
they feel safe with there. I mean, it's highly unusual
because our kindy teachers are just usually is at least
one of them that's just you know, very connected with
that kid. But it could be that fact, it could
be something about the environment. I'd then make sure that
(08:43):
I was having times for that young person to be
separated from me if as their parent at other times.
But yeah, but mostly our kids can acclimatize to that,
but we have to, yeah, put them through the strength training.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Okay, well, so what you mentioned, what are the signs
of intolerable stress? I mean, you hardly. I wouldn't actually,
to be honest, know what an abnormal pulse was for
a start with kids. I mean, what would be the
first sign that would be obvious to a parent, Because tears,
I don't think can necessarily assign your child is not coping.
Teas are part of the coping response naturally anyway, aren't they.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And I can turn tears on. I mean that's a
pretty easy one. That's a pretty emotive one. So kids
learn those ones pretty quickly. And I'm not saying tears
aren't a signed, but they're not what I'm looking for.
What I'm looking for is the body going into a
phase where it believes it's going to have to protect
itself from an attack, and so that's the eyes dilating,
Their ears change so they hear high and low sounds,
(09:44):
the shoulders go up, the mouth can go really dry
because we shut down saliva production, stomach starts to feel
really sore. Bathrooms needed. They sweat, They can get quite sweaty.
That's something that they can't turn on or off on purpose.
Their skin gets quite sensitized. They sort of get a
bit itchy, specially on their back and stuff like that,
and the arms and the legs and shoulders get more blood.
(10:05):
So you sort of see that fidgeting or moving or
quite agitated sort of body. That's actually shows the body
is activating into stress, and that's when we know there's
an actual physiological change in the body.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Actually, did you just tell me that you can turn
on tears when you want?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Really?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Surely you've well, Catherine Burkey, you've just shared that with us.
You should try it on the show sometime when I
think and make me think that I've asked the wrong
question one too many times. Oh my god, that would
traumatize me. But kids can turn them on, can't.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
They Just remember I was in New York and I
had to go do something for my passport and they
were being really difficult, and I said to the kids,
because I don't cry, I said to the kids, as
they were quite young, we're walking up the stairs, I said,
just be keep I'm going to cry because it's it's
necessary to get this done, so don't worry about it.
And I boiled my eyes out in front of them
and I got there. I wanted to say, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Just so naughty and fantastic. At the same time, I've
what are the effects that it will have? I mean,
just so we can get the picture on kids dealing
with intolerable stress, what are the effects that can have
if you if your child is actually experiencing something that
they are struggling to tolerate. I don't want to be
(11:29):
dramatic and saying intolerable stress because that's just sounds horrendous,
but you know what I mean, they're battling with coping.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, and that's when if you again go to the
muscle analogy, if you enter the gym and you continue
to pick up a weight that was really beyond your capacity,
you're going to actually start really damaging your muscles. Do
you know if you did it once, it's not a problem.
I've definitely put my kids into intolerable stress a number
of times as a parent. You know, like I haven't
been perfect, but every now and then is not a problem.
(11:58):
But if you started to see damage done to the
stress response system, and that's when we start to see
ongoing stomach issoes or boweler shoes or skin isshoes, or
heart rate issues, and they can all come from other
places too. But if I started to see that, because
I work in the area of trauma and that's what
we're actually looking for when we're trying to establish if
(12:20):
trauma has occurred, as we look more at the physiological
signs from an over activated stress response. So if you're
starting to see that as a parent, that's when I'd
start to really think we need to do something about this.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I think that one of the obvious questions that comes
up is, Okay, your child is going through something where
they are struggling with the stress of it. Sometimes it's
not necessarily avoidable, I mean, as the answer to try
and help them through that stress, or is the answer
to try and remove that stress. I mean, I know
(12:53):
it's a sort of I tend to think it's probably
something that depends on the situation, but there are going
to be times when something's happening and you really can't
help the fact that this is something that they're going
to have to deal with, So helping them it versus
you know, removing something that really is transitory.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
One hundred percent. And as an adult, and even as
a teenager and older adolescent, there are times when we're
going to have things that are really difficult, really difficult,
you know, I have them in my life as an adult. Still,
what we need to understand for our kids is they're
going to bounce better as a young person. So if
they're going through something that you think is getting close
(13:32):
to intolerable, you can put some support in. And again
with the gym analogy, if you saw someone you know
lifting the bar, you'd help them, you'd spot them, you'd
help them as little as possible. So we can say
to our kids, what about this, I'll give you this
advice or maybe try this. Not jump in and say
to the teacher, don't ever mention that again, or don't
ever make them do that again. Say to them, okay,
(13:54):
next time, you could ask for this, or maybe we
could change it a little bit. I could support you
a bit. So that's that's scaffolding, that support in there.
But you're one hundred percent right, if we take everything away,
I mean we've got prize given coming up, right, if
we take that away, Oh, kids aren't allowed to fail.
So everybody's going to get a certificate or everybody's going
to get a prize. That's not teaching our kids the
actually life is full of disappointment and hard life. You know,
(14:17):
that's it's where we should be learning it. So let's
not take these things away. Let's increase their ability to
tolerate it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
What if they are what are the what happens if
they are given put in situations where they are struggling
to cope for too many times too often? What are
the signs that you know that you might notice as
a parent.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And so I said, when that that physical stuff might
start happening, and we often talk about their I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Thinking longer term sort of thing in terms of their resilience.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
They wouldn't grow resilient, so everything would start to be
difficult to emotionally tolerate. You know, they would they would
find so many things difficult, and that's not fair on
the young person. And as a parent is our job
to increase the tolerance and increase their ability to get through.
So you would start seeing them avoiding anything that's activating
(15:11):
any level of anxiety, anger, frustration, sense of failure in
their life. And that's that's going to be good for
them if they avoid every emotional moment.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, because I mean there would be those that sort
of I don't want to say the old school sort
of thought because that's just not helpful at all. But
you know, there would have been people who appearents themselves
have gone through some very difficult times who will say, well,
I coped without necessarily recognizing will actually maybe maybe if
you'd got a bit more help through those tougher times,
(15:46):
you wouldn't necessarily be saying that. You know, people have
grown up through the school of hard knocks sometimes might
be might not recognize the problem one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And this is the different This is the pendulum swift,
the swing that we've gone through. So I grew up
on a dairy farm, both my parents dairy farmers. Always
grown up, you know, I don't get asked how I felt,
and Catherine become resilient and I'm going to help you
in this space. I was told get hard, get over it.
If it's not if it's broken, we've got vasiline, you know,
like it was like that. Everything was my mum's answer everything. Yeah,
(16:20):
that was the magic poem in So I didn't grow
up with. But what I did is I went out
with my friends and my siblings, and I naturally learned
this stuff. But you're right, we're being told to shut
down our feelings, not feel them, and there's this beautiful
wave of people coming out telling us. And I love
(16:41):
it that we're being told to feel these things and
it's okay to not be okay, and it's okay to
feel these feelings. But what we've got to be careful
of is saying, oh, you're feeling these feelings, so you
don't have to have any stress in your life. Going
to take all stress away. What we've got to do
is bring that pendulum back to that beautiful middle spot.
And that means still having some emotional stress. So we
have to bring it back to the middle here. But
(17:03):
I love the fact that we're swinging away. You get
over at Carber Concrete, that sort of stuff that didn't
help anyone. They weren't necessarily coping, they were just associating
and shutting down.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well. Also, it's probably an example of how people who
thought they were coping because they'd shut off their feelings,
that they were stronger, but where in fact they were
still you know, I think the ability to show your
feelings and to feel emotions is actually it's a superpower
rather than their inability to express, you know, to feel
and and go through a course of emotions which might
(17:33):
have been suppressed and generations gone by, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, but they wouldn't have gone through their emotions. They
would have literally suppressed them, so they wouldn't have felt
the joy or the stress. So it's a really good
place to be that we get to feel our emotions
and talk about our emotions. And but yeah, it is
a it is easier for some people to switch them off,
but then we don't get the beauty of life.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
We'd love your cause on this, if you've got any
sort of rules of fun that you follow with your
kids when it comes to menaging their stress, because you know,
I think, as we know, kids all have to learn,
and sometimes the school of hard knocks can be a
good teacher and other times it can be a little
bit harsh. Where do you draw the line? How do
you recognize it? Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
We'd love to hear your stories. If you'd like to
(18:18):
give us a call, you can text on nine two
of nine two nine two. Of course, we'll be back
in just a moment. It's twenty five past five news talks.
He'd be I guess, welcome back. This is the weekend
collective Unton Beverage. My guest is Catherine Burkett. This is
the Parents Squad. We're talking about helping your children cope
(18:39):
with stress. How much is too much? Of course, you know,
because right now they've well, actually not right now. It's
probably almost old news. They've gone through their exams pretty much,
or I'm pretty sure the exams are just about gone.
But that's a classic example of stress that might get
to be too much. Catherine, I I don't like to share.
I'm always trying to be careful about sharing stories about
my own kids, just because their own privacy, so you
(19:00):
usually just but I think this is a safe enough one.
I just had a a little while not too long
ago with my daughter, one of my daughters, who was
just she raised a problem late at night when it
was lights out and was kind of you know, she
was a bit emotional and something was bugging her. Ands
I'll confess I found it kind of irritating that she
(19:22):
had raised it so late, and I sort of told
her of and said, look, I'm not dealing with this
right now. This is if you were really worried about it,
you would have told me a couple of hours ago.
And I walked out, shut the door and said good night,
and I went back in. Of course, I got the
Gilts fifteen minutes later, and she had actually just recovered
and was calm, and we had a cuddle and sort
(19:44):
of things like that. But I felt like a really
crappy parent. Make me feel I'm not that bad, but
it's such a okay example.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Of Yeah, I mean, let's get real. For all, we're parents.
We're humans, We're not robots. And until we've got AI
robots raising up kids, which isn't going to be a
healthy space anyway. What you did is and our kids
often do that. It's when they have brains actually start
to slow down. Lots of different chemicals happen at night,
and then you actually do start reflecting on your day,
(20:18):
and it is when those thoughts come up, so it
is quite normal. But what you did was quite clear.
That's it. And then you went back in and you've
shown her such an amazing example of you making mistake
and repairing it. You know, you doing something and coming
back and talking, so our kids have got it. That
is a much better example for her than actually the
sitting down and then hopefully, you know, the next day whatever.
(20:40):
You had a bit of a chat about it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Oh, she was and she resolved the issue. And the
funny thing is, though I wondered if what I did
was right though, because I did give her this, because
I think in my she would have I'm not sure
it would have helped her if I'd stuck around and given.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It emotionally all into it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Well, and yeah, I mean, you know that hormones are
coursing through bodies and all that sort of stuff. But
it was interesting because she did regulate herself and then
we had a nice little chat, and then I followed
it up the day later. So sort of I felt
like what I did was wrong, and yet I thought
what I did was right. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
So what we want to do, I mean, if we
get into the psychology of it, what we want to
do is we want to make sure that over time,
we are increasing our kids' capacity to deal with these
things with lease help from us. So again they go
to the gym, they can lift higher weights and they
don't need us helping them, and you've done that. So
I'm guessing from there on in if the next night
she cried again, and then next night she cried again,
(21:40):
and then we've got a problem. But she hasn't. She's
become more resilient, she's become more able to do it herself,
and we can get quite You're right at that time
of night when all those thoughts are going around, and
sometimes during the day, sometimes when they're tired, we have
to cut that off. We have to say this is enough.
We'll come back to it later when we're not quite
so emotionally activated. And sometimes that's a really positive thing
to do as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Actually, I think there's also room for a parent because
she did tell me vaguely what the issue was that
she was dealing with, and I think I must have
in my mind assessed look this. I know that you
feel this is a huge problem, but I'm I don't
think this. Look, for instance, if something terrible at school
had to happen, there've been I don't know, imagine some
of the worst tragedies that could happen to a friend
(22:22):
or something like that. It wasn't something like that, And
I think you know there is a bit of a
lesson and sort of using our own life experience to realize, Okay,
you're tired, et cetera, you're emotional. Even though I walked
out of the room, of course I was bloody annoyed.
That was my fuck, that was my mistake. I think.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Now it's showing human behavior. It's showing that you get
stressed and that you have emotions, and that you calm
down and you come back in. It's a great modeling moment.
We don't model this stuff enough. We think we need
to keep all this stuff away from our kids and
they can't see it. Well, how do they learn to
be normal humans and that normal humans have bad days
and get things wrong if we don't mindel it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Funny thing is, there's a couple of times if the
thought to myself, Catherine Burke would probably say that was
the right thing to do, then you're my little Jiminy cricket.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Actually, the other side of that getting away from the
extremes is dealing with things when your kid wants to
give something up. So, for instance, they've made a commitment
to be part of a soccer team or a sports
team through the winter, and then they something's not really
going according to their dreams and not being realized, or
(23:36):
they're what they imagine it would be like and they
don't enjoy it. They want to pull out. And that's
a sort of stress where I mean, should you I've
got my quite reasonably strong opinion on this, which I'll
hold back on, but should you listen to them or
let them finish up or tell them they're finishing up
what they signed up for? The commitment.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
We have that big thing is that they have to
finish what they've committed to, Especially for our younger kids,
when they commit to something, they have no capacity in
their brain to know what that commitment actually look like.
They have no ability to know that this is going
to be every night or every week and this sort
of stuff. They actually signed up because they enjoyed the
first practice and it sounds fun, and then after a
while it's not fun. Why I'm saying that is because
(24:19):
we can't actually hold them to it, because until they're
really fourteen fifteen, their brains can't really look into the
future and truly imagine it. So we have asked them
to commit to something that they haven't truly been able
to envision. But there is a point where you've got
to decide again tolerable to push through or not. And
my daughter was, and she'd been doing cart for a
while and she got to that early adolescent time, and
(24:41):
that early adolescent time when the body's changing, the hormones
are changing, there's a real change in how you feel
about others and yourself. And she did want to leave,
but she sort of wanted to leave, and I pushed
her through it, and I would take her in the
car and get her in there, but she wasn't eating it.
She was like grumble, grumble, And then at the end
she had enjoyed it. Grumble grumble. At the end she
enjoyed it. So I pushed through. Then I didn't have
(25:03):
to keep pushing. She ended up becoming a black belt.
She stayed, she did it, but I did have to
push you through, not against your will, but I could
really tell that it wasn't an absolute terror. But for
some kids they might be going, they might really hate it,
and it isn't. You don't need to keep them going
just because they've committed.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, the reason I also mentioned it is because I mean,
my girls are older, so at the college they go
to and people know it's buried in college. I've talked
about it on are But they do have a thing
for team sports, and this is an interesting thing about
understanding the commitment. So they say, if you are signing
up for a team and you pull out during the season,
(25:42):
you may not represent the school that in that term
or whatever in any other team. So they say you're
in or you're out, and I don't I quite. I
don't mind that because it's explaining to them these are
the rules. And obviously if you have to pull out,
then you're out, but you're out of the other team
that you wanted to be part of, which does sound
kind of old school, But I guess does that.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Did you say a term? So they sign up for
each term? Ah?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, I mean if you sign up for a team
for a winter sport or something, if you're playing if
you were playing netball and hockey and you side, I
don't want to play hockey any longer, they're right, you're
out of netball, then.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
You're in. I mean, it's a learning curve. I mean,
if we looked at the brain, it's like again, it's
not it's not that like.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
The not that I'm asking you to comment on that
specific policy, but it's just no, no.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
But it's a learning curve and it's not the worst
thing in the world. It's teaching kids they've been given
a choice ultimatum and yeah, in a choice, and if
they do that, they do that, and that's something that
they're going to learn. I've got no problem with things
like that. What I'm saying is we shouldn't. If you've
got a kid who's hating a sport and saying no,
you committed to it, so therefore you must continue. Because
you committed, they actually didn't have the capacity to truly
(26:52):
understand what they were committing to. So and again up
to you as a parent if you think it's right
or wrong. But I think that example is setting a rule,
setting a precedent. They do it, and they learn from it,
so next time they will think more carefully about it,
and it'll probably be a good life lesson.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Actually, to be honest, I don't think the school adhere
to the policy when it comes to legitimate reasons why something,
you know, it's just you know. I think probably they've
learned over the course of time that the fickle sort
of like I wouldn't mind giving that ago and then oh,
I'm tired of that. I'm going to give up. I
think that's what they're trying to address. It's not so
much questions that, you know, if you're being bullied or
something terrible's happening, you have to stick with it. I
think that obviously there'd be some some grown up thinking
(27:31):
around that. But it's an interesting idea, isn't it. Just
understanding that the nature of commitment. And part of the
thing is that The reason I like it is that
when we had to make decisions for our girls, and
it meant that we actually sat down with them and said, okay, right,
this is what it's going to involve. You know, practice here,
practice there. Do you think you can do that? Yes? Okay,
because if you want to do that other thing and
then they go in, there's never been you know, they
(27:54):
might think about not doing it next year if they
don't like it, I guess, but they stick.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
It out beautiful. But you've put You've helped them visualize
that rather than expecting them to be able to visualize it.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I think I've just realize that what the school is
cunningly doing is actually just enlisting the parents to make
sure that they explain what commitment is good move. You
go look, just worked it out. It's twenty two minutes
to twenty two minutes to five. News talks here. But
we're going to come back and we're going to have
a chat about Australia, which has just banned social media
use for under sixteen years old. I and my fellow panelists,
(28:28):
we've all decided that we quite like this move. We're
going to talk about that and whether it's a good
move for us in New Zealand. And I have a suspicion.
I think I know what Catherine's going to say. But
you know what you can find out after the break.
It's twenty two minutes too Sorry what did I say?
Twenty two minutes to five, twenty two minutes to six,
can't read the clock. There we go back in a
mow Yes, welcome back. I don't forget for the sports rap.
We actually I haven't told you about this yet, but
(28:49):
we're joined by Andrew Ordison who will be coming to
us from the Cricket. But before that, we are talking
with Catherine Burkett. She's a clinical psychologist at Engaged Training
and we're talking about kids managing stress. I've got one
before we move on to our social media question. In Australia,
somebody's texted just saying kids stress, question mark, exclamation mark
(29:09):
Are you for real? You too? Sound perfectly normal? How
are you brought up? Have you tried employing a young
person lately? I think I'm not sure what they're saying,
but I think they're saying, well, how are you brought up?
You survived? Maybe there's an implication where cod link kids
too much, Catherine, I.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Think what I've done a lot and it's potential and
again it sounds to me I've done a lot of
work with people who are employing younger people who haven't
had tolerable stress. We literally have to have employees in
HR now that deal with parents who ring up about
their kids in the business. Who are you know? They
jump in for them, things for them, so goodness if
(29:50):
potentially I'm guessing that this person is an employer has
had some young people who literally can't have any feedback
that's potentially negative, can't handle not being told they're wonderful
every days. And that's some kids. I mean, I know
Soun's back is out and work and he's dealing with
things quite well. You have caught up as well, now
a lot with that's what.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
No, not yet, not at all.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
He's having trouble and I'm not jumping in, right, I'm
not jumping in. I have to let him deal with
it himself. But we do now a lot. So I'm
guessing that that person is having issues, which I've done
a lot of work with employment places and stuff to
understand that we sort of have to meet them in
the middle. But I get it. It is a bit
frustrating when you get these young people coming in with
a very different way of seeing the world.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Because I would say that, look, every generation has its stresses,
and we used to worry about all sorts of things
from nuclear, water whatever. In these days kids are worrying
about climate. But it does time to this next one.
The one thing no generation has ever had is the
proliferation of information and social stress that comes with social media.
So that's my lovely little segue. So Australia has just
(30:57):
banned social media use for under sixteen year olds. Many
parents are urging New Zealand to follow suit. I didn't
have a problem I did that with us either, because
I don't see that it would be depriving my kids
of anything other than giving them some more time to
be normal. What do you think about it?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Gosh, that word is so important, That word is so important,
So obviously you could spend normal. That word normal is
so important because well, I mean, there's so much around
social media. There's so much about the fact that even
the fact of sitting on social media keeps us still
and we're not getting movement, and there's a lot of
things in our body that needs physical movement in order
(31:38):
to develop, especially for our young kids. We are being
bombarded with things that teach us that everyone's incredibly happy
or incredibly sad, and we don't see normal the images
that are coming. I don't know if you saw that
research on the lady who from Christchurch and she became
a thirteen year old. She did a thirteen year old
profile and she's asked for things for Taylor Swift and
(32:00):
horses and bunnies or something, and within twenty minutes she
had incredibly disturbing information sent through to her as a
thirteen year old. It's an article that was just published recently,
and she signed up as a thirteen year old and
got bombarded with horrific stuff and she didn't look at
anything that was horrific. So these things are not going
(32:20):
by what our kids want. They're going by what their
algorithms are sending them. And I do not want my
kids having to deal with that. And you're one hundred
percent right what they're seeing, what they're able to access.
And you mentioned nuclear will. When I was a kid
in their age, I was obsessed with nuculear oar and
I found a book that I'd written all these stories
about people dying, but all I had was my imagination
(32:41):
and a little bit of news. If I'd been able.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
To google, Okay, that can.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
You imagine how disturbing that it is for a brain.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
At that that's not going to be solved. That's not
going to be solved by this law because the Internet
is the Internet, isn't it? But that's an example of
how much it can. You know, there's so much stuff
out there, so you.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Do so much for them to deal with.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
So what do you I mean, Look, you know, let's
not get too excited about these things with you and
I are not making the laws. But if the New
Zealand government explored and you know, let's not argue about
is it enforceable. Basically, it's one thing to tell kids.
I mean, there was people saying we can't ban phones
from school. Most parents are going anteaches and everyone, even
(33:21):
the kids, I think, are quite happy about it. Generally,
should we be looking at a band for social media?
Speaker 3 (33:28):
If you are the boss, we should be looking for
a band for everything, for any and especially information that
they shouldn't be seeing. We should be easily being able
to ban that. There should be a massive firewall between
certain information that should never be able to get onto
our kids' devices, but social media, but a lot of content. Absolutely,
it's just that their little brains are at a space
(33:50):
where they get dophamine from everything way more than we
get from it. So they're so much more addictive, and
they're trying to build their brains into these adult brains
doing all this new learning, and all they're doing is
sitting on these devices, and it's creating brains Like that
person who wrote in as an employer. Often we've got
young people who haven't got the ability to think outside
(34:11):
the square or be imaginative. And by the way, there's
heaps that do. There's lots of pearance that keep their
kids away and a little bit of device time is
not a problem. We all do things that are not
wonderful for our brain. But when we're talking about this
death scrolling and doom scrolling and all of the information
that's coming into their brain and making them think that
the world is just not okay.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, I mean, and no matter what the political causes
as well. I mean, you focus on too much of
the doom and gloom. It can be really unhealthy.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
It's scary. It's really scary, and you hear the way
that they're talking. So I would love to be able
to protect them from that until their brains are ready
to process it in a better I can't even do it.
I read it, and I realize I'm getting a bit down,
so I stop myself doing it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Hey, Catherine, thank you so much for joining us. So
people want to catch it check out your work they can, well,
they can google you pretty easily. Catherine with a K
and a Y, and away we go Gage training dot
coded and said, is that right?
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Gage training? Yeah? Can I just say I'm not a
clinical psychologist? How long have we not need to? Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Did I say clinical? Sorry?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
You see clinical psychologist? Psychologist?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
That's right? Sorry about that?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
NERO, Sits all right, I'll just get in trouble again.
They keep telling me.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That's not that was that was a mistake here, So
my apologies for that.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Well, so stop the email. So that's coming my way.
But yeah, you can look at Engage training and over Christmas,
I've got some downtime off work, so I'm going to
be I've got some free videos up on my website,
but there's going to be a bunch of videos for parents,
for educators and stuff. So keep an eye out the
if you would like some.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Sorry about the most description of your job there, Catherine,
but have a merry Christmas and we'll look forward to
catching up with the new year.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah you tell you all right, take care okay.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Bye bye. We'll be back in the morow with to
wrap Sport with Andrew Ordison. It's eleven and a half
minutes to say.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to news
Talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Weekend Collective podcast from News Talks dB.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yes, welcome back to the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage.
Enough you missed any of our previous hours, we had
a raucous I think rucus Was that a fair way
to sat? You never know if it was raucous actually,
because it felt raucous on the brakes, that's for sure.
But it was Our panelists Wilhelmina Shrimpton and Neiva Ritti
Marnoo had had a great chat with them for the
panel at three o'clock and chick It Out Where podcast.
The Weekend Collective iHeartRadio is a great starting point and
(01:01):
the one roof show just now with Deb Roberts from
Whose Investment Coach with Property Apprentice talking about the o
CR fixing, floating and the whole shebang. But right now
we're moving on because it is the Parent Squad and
joining me is she's a clinical psychologist at Engaged Training
and her name is Catherine Burke at Catherine Hello, How
are you? Hello?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Tim? I'm good, Thank you.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
You're looking at looking like a bright heard and brushy tail,
like you've been out exercising on something of very summary.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
It's it's a beautiful Wellington day, as per usual, wouldn't
it be? Brother?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Are you saying that.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
It is a beautiful day? I might be saying, you know,
as per usual, with a little bit of a hinter psychasm.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, well, lovely, even if it's sunny, even if it's Wendy,
it can still be sunny, of course. And let's not
play let's not play that that cliche any further anyway,
because it's probably a bit tiresome for you guys. You
must get sick of the old Wendy Wellington thing, don't you.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, I think Auckland has more windows than us if
you actually look at the stage as just might be.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Oh okay, right, let's let's let's just pretend that's true.
I'll google the stats and the break.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Hey.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Now, look, we want to talk about stress and kids
and how much you should lay your children to have. Stuitively,
we'd all have an instant response, well, of course they
probably should have some sort of stress, because that's how
they learn. But then again, they are parents who want
to try and avoid having their kids suffering any sort
of stress. They want them to sort of have a
nice sort of sunshine and Rainbow's life at the start
(02:28):
and find it very difficult to let their kids experience stress.
And so I guess, you know, the conversation is always
around the sweet spot, but how much stress should you
allow your kids to have? And I guess, sir, how
much does that? It obviously changes because you can become
more resilient. And I guess I'm answering my own question
in a way that resilience only comes from practice exactly.
(02:55):
But yeah, I mean it's but it's not easy.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
It's not easy, and it's not easy because, especially as parents,
we're actually so connected with our young people. We become them,
and so if there's something that really makes us upset
or triggers us or makes us anxious or whatever, then
they actually experiencing it makes us experiencing it. So we're
trying to avoid the feeling ourselves. So the way I
(03:22):
put it into a really easy concept is if you
went to the gym, you'd find a weight. If you're
wanting to increase your muscle capacity, you'd find a weight
that was tolerably difficult to pick up. And that's not
the same for all of us. And also it's not
the same every day, like you might go to the
gym one day and actually, I'm not in a good
space today, so I'm just going to down my weights
(03:43):
or down my reps a little bit. So that's where
it becomes tricky, because we get books and we get,
you know, all this information. We say, this is how
much a seven year old can do, this is what
a fifteen year old should be doing, this is what
my friends are doing. And actually it's just up to
the individual stress response system. What's tolerable for the individual.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, so how would you work out what is tolerable
because some people give the appearance of tolerating stress quite well,
but it possibly could be eating them up. And then
you get the ones who are the drama queens, who
something's gone slightly wrong and you'd think the world was ending.
But you know, I've seen this with parents where you
with kids who are really looking upset and mom just
(04:24):
goes on, I should be fine, don't worry, Just give
her a couple of minutes where I'm thinking, don't you
need to intervene because they have the dramatic flare.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, it's more I find it's much easier to sort
of look at the body, so the heart rate, the
lungs are sort of going into activation. It's the fight
flight response. The shoulders will be up. Eyes actually dilate,
which is quite a big one because you can't I
dilate your eyes on purpose. You can't sort of attend
that one.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Unless you turn the lights down if if they're if
they're stressed and the dark.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Ye, I suppose if you want to go to that ever,
one of the fairest pewl to do and put the thermometer,
you know, put the heater on as thermometer. You know,
you can go to certain levels that you could pretend
to be stressed, I guess. But yeah, it's more in
the body, but it's also really separating from your child
and looking at them with a really objective space and
just saying, actually, do I think that they are actually upset?
(05:18):
And also, by the way, if they're having a screaming fit,
that's not necessarily not tolerable. Do you see what I mean?
Like if a kids having an absolute fit in the
supermarket because they can't get something they want, that's the
end of the world. That's not going to damage their
stress response system to the point where they're going to
become an anxious child that will highly likely be a
(05:38):
learning space. So it's really important that the parents try
and step back and look at it with an objective
iron think. Do I think this is a learning curve?
Do I think they're going to come out of a
stronger or do I think it's so high it's going
to damage them.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
That's quite funny in a way as a parent, when
you say step back and look at it objectively, that's
a big battle for many parents, full stop. Isn't it
objectively one hundred percent? Because you do tend to You
do tend to ride the waves a little bit, don't you.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
We are our kids, and we're so connected to them,
and like you said, we want them to have no
bad things happen. But our kids work this out, and
in fact, we're not doing them a service. We're not
doing them any favors by allowing them to get everything
that they want through activating into that stress response. It's
not actually a good method of going through life.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
It actually reminds me of I mean, there's always anecdotes
around the stuff, but the thing that comes to mind
in terms of early moments with parents and kids and
stress is the first time you drop your child off
at kiddie care, and all the teachers who handle preschool
kiddie care, they're all well practiced at basically distracting the
(06:54):
child and looking at mum or dad and saying go
now while they're not focusing because you know, they see
mum and dad about to leave and they start crying
and all that sort of thing, and to the parent,
that looks like the child is going through an intolerable
separation sort of anxiety, when in fact, as soon as
mum's gone and they've managed to distract them, you usually
(07:14):
learn that that child has had a pretty good day,
with exceptions of course.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Is that an example, of course, and there's one hundred
percent and what you want to do, and if so,
you trust the teacher, hopefully your trust where they've gone.
And by the way, of course, it's hard to separate.
We don't like giving things away. But as soon as
they go and we go, okay, that was over that now.
And so if that happens and you're talking to the teachers,
what you want to get a sense of is that
(07:40):
over time it's getting less that we're not increasing, it's
not sort of maintaining a really high level. And as
long as it's getting less, then that's showing that the
young person is improving their own ability to activate back
to calm, So they're getting better, their muscles are getting stronger.
So yeah, it's definitely part of learning because.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Actually there would be the kids who really do struggle
in it, and they actually might be miserable for the
whole day, and that give rise if the parents were
to thinking, I can't drop them off at daycare. But
there has to be a way where you do actually
acclimatize them to that sort of thing. It's just you
just have to use a different maybe a few different
techniques perhaps, or do something a bit more gradually.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
There are some young people, or not many, but there's some.
You know, we're all so different. There are some young
people who don't like to be at a kindergarten with
lots of other kids and maybe they haven't got anyone
they feel safe with there. I mean, it's highly unusual
because our kindy teachers are just usually is at least
one of them that's just you know, very connected with
that kid. But it could be that fact, it could
be something about the environment. I'd then make sure that
(08:43):
I was having times for that young person to be
separated from me if as their parent at other times.
But yeah, but mostly our kids can acclimatize to that,
but we have to, yeah, put them through the strength training.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Okay, well, so what you mentioned, what are the signs
of intolerable stress? I mean, you hardly. I wouldn't actually,
to be honest, know what an abnormal pulse was for
a start with kids. I mean, what would be the
first sign that would be obvious to a parent, Because tears,
I don't think can necessarily assign your child is not coping.
Teas are part of the coping response naturally anyway, aren't they.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
And I can turn tears on. I mean that's a
pretty easy one. That's a pretty emotive one. So kids
learn those ones pretty quickly. And I'm not saying tears
aren't a signed, but they're not what I'm looking for.
What I'm looking for is the body going into a
phase where it believes it's going to have to protect
itself from an attack, and so that's the eyes dilating,
Their ears change so they hear high and low sounds,
(09:44):
the shoulders go up, the mouth can go really dry
because we shut down saliva production, stomach starts to feel
really sore. Bathrooms needed. They sweat, They can get quite sweaty.
That's something that they can't turn on or off on purpose.
Their skin gets quite sensitized. They sort of get a
bit itchy, specially on their back and stuff like that,
and the arms and the legs and shoulders get more blood.
(10:05):
So you sort of see that fidgeting or moving or
quite agitated sort of body. That's actually shows the body
is activating into stress, and that's when we know there's
an actual physiological change in the body.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Actually, did you just tell me that you can turn
on tears when you want?
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Really?
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Surely you've well, Catherine Burkey, you've just shared that with us.
You should try it on the show sometime when I
think and make me think that I've asked the wrong
question one too many times. Oh my god, that would
traumatize me. But kids can turn them on, can't.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
They Just remember I was in New York and I
had to go do something for my passport and they
were being really difficult, and I said to the kids,
because I don't cry, I said to the kids, as
they were quite young, we're walking up the stairs, I said,
just be keep I'm going to cry because it's it's
necessary to get this done, so don't worry about it.
And I boiled my eyes out in front of them
and I got there. I wanted to say, that's.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Just so naughty and fantastic. At the same time, I've
what are the effects that it will have? I mean,
just so we can get the picture on kids dealing
with intolerable stress, what are the effects that can have
if you if your child is actually experiencing something that
they are struggling to tolerate. I don't want to be
(11:29):
dramatic and saying intolerable stress because that's just sounds horrendous,
but you know what I mean, they're battling with coping.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
Yeah, and that's when if you again go to the
muscle analogy, if you enter the gym and you continue
to pick up a weight that was really beyond your capacity,
you're going to actually start really damaging your muscles. Do
you know if you did it once, it's not a problem.
I've definitely put my kids into intolerable stress a number
of times as a parent. You know, like I haven't
been perfect, but every now and then is not a problem.
(11:58):
But if you started to see damage done to the
stress response system, and that's when we start to see
ongoing stomach issoes or boweler shoes or skin isshoes, or
heart rate issues, and they can all come from other
places too. But if I started to see that, because
I work in the area of trauma and that's what
we're actually looking for when we're trying to establish if
(12:20):
trauma has occurred, as we look more at the physiological
signs from an over activated stress response. So if you're
starting to see that as a parent, that's when I'd
start to really think we need to do something about this.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I think that one of the obvious questions that comes
up is, Okay, your child is going through something where
they are struggling with the stress of it. Sometimes it's
not necessarily avoidable, I mean, as the answer to try
and help them through that stress, or is the answer
to try and remove that stress. I mean, I know
(12:53):
it's a sort of I tend to think it's probably
something that depends on the situation, but there are going
to be times when something's happening and you really can't
help the fact that this is something that they're going
to have to deal with, So helping them it versus
you know, removing something that really is transitory.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
One hundred percent. And as an adult, and even as
a teenager and older adolescent, there are times when we're
going to have things that are really difficult, really difficult,
you know, I have them in my life as an adult. Still,
what we need to understand for our kids is they're
going to bounce better as a young person. So if
they're going through something that you think is getting close
(13:32):
to intolerable, you can put some support in. And again
with the gym analogy, if you saw someone you know
lifting the bar, you'd help them, you'd spot them, you'd
help them as little as possible. So we can say
to our kids, what about this, I'll give you this
advice or maybe try this. Not jump in and say
to the teacher, don't ever mention that again, or don't
ever make them do that again. Say to them, okay,
(13:54):
next time, you could ask for this, or maybe we
could change it a little bit. I could support you
a bit. So that's that's scaffolding, that support in there.
But you're one hundred percent right, if we take everything away,
I mean we've got prize given coming up, right, if
we take that away, Oh, kids aren't allowed to fail.
So everybody's going to get a certificate or everybody's going
to get a prize. That's not teaching our kids the
actually life is full of disappointment and hard life. You know,
(14:17):
that's it's where we should be learning it. So let's
not take these things away. Let's increase their ability to
tolerate it.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
What if they are what are the what happens if
they are given put in situations where they are struggling
to cope for too many times too often? What are
the signs that you know that you might notice as
a parent.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
And so I said, when that that physical stuff might
start happening, and we often talk about their I'm.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Thinking longer term sort of thing in terms of their resilience.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
They wouldn't grow resilient, so everything would start to be
difficult to emotionally tolerate. You know, they would they would
find so many things difficult, and that's not fair on
the young person. And as a parent is our job
to increase the tolerance and increase their ability to get through.
So you would start seeing them avoiding anything that's activating
(15:11):
any level of anxiety, anger, frustration, sense of failure in
their life. And that's that's going to be good for
them if they avoid every emotional moment.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yeah, because I mean there would be those that sort
of I don't want to say the old school sort
of thought because that's just not helpful at all. But
you know, there would have been people who appearents themselves
have gone through some very difficult times who will say, well,
I coped without necessarily recognizing will actually maybe maybe if
you'd got a bit more help through those tougher times,
(15:46):
you wouldn't necessarily be saying that. You know, people have
grown up through the school of hard knocks sometimes might
be might not recognize the problem one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And this is the different This is the pendulum swift,
the swing that we've gone through. So I grew up
on a dairy farm, both my parents dairy farmers. Always
grown up, you know, I don't get asked how I felt,
and Catherine become resilient and I'm going to help you
in this space. I was told get hard, get over it.
If it's not if it's broken, we've got vasiline, you know,
like it was like that. Everything was my mum's answer everything. Yeah,
(16:20):
that was the magic poem in So I didn't grow
up with. But what I did is I went out
with my friends and my siblings, and I naturally learned
this stuff. But you're right, we're being told to shut
down our feelings, not feel them, and there's this beautiful
wave of people coming out telling us. And I love
(16:41):
it that we're being told to feel these things and
it's okay to not be okay, and it's okay to
feel these feelings. But what we've got to be careful
of is saying, oh, you're feeling these feelings, so you
don't have to have any stress in your life. Going
to take all stress away. What we've got to do
is bring that pendulum back to that beautiful middle spot.
And that means still having some emotional stress. So we
have to bring it back to the middle here. But
(17:03):
I love the fact that we're swinging away. You get
over at Carber Concrete, that sort of stuff that didn't
help anyone. They weren't necessarily coping, they were just associating
and shutting down.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Well. Also, it's probably an example of how people who
thought they were coping because they'd shut off their feelings,
that they were stronger, but where in fact they were
still you know, I think the ability to show your
feelings and to feel emotions is actually it's a superpower
rather than their inability to express, you know, to feel
and and go through a course of emotions which might
(17:33):
have been suppressed and generations gone by, you know what
I mean.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Yeah, but they wouldn't have gone through their emotions. They
would have literally suppressed them, so they wouldn't have felt
the joy or the stress. So it's a really good
place to be that we get to feel our emotions
and talk about our emotions. And but yeah, it is
a it is easier for some people to switch them off,
but then we don't get the beauty of life.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
We'd love your cause on this, if you've got any
sort of rules of fun that you follow with your
kids when it comes to menaging their stress, because you know,
I think, as we know, kids all have to learn,
and sometimes the school of hard knocks can be a
good teacher and other times it can be a little
bit harsh. Where do you draw the line? How do
you recognize it? Oh, eight hundred and eighty ten eighty.
We'd love to hear your stories. If you'd like to
(18:18):
give us a call, you can text on nine two
of nine two nine two. Of course, we'll be back
in just a moment. It's twenty five past five news talks.
He'd be I guess, welcome back. This is the weekend
collective Unton Beverage. My guest is Catherine Burkett. This is
the Parents Squad. We're talking about helping your children cope
(18:39):
with stress. How much is too much? Of course, you know,
because right now they've well, actually not right now. It's
probably almost old news. They've gone through their exams pretty much,
or I'm pretty sure the exams are just about gone.
But that's a classic example of stress that might get
to be too much. Catherine, I I don't like to share.
I'm always trying to be careful about sharing stories about
my own kids, just because their own privacy, so you
(19:00):
usually just but I think this is a safe enough one.
I just had a a little while not too long
ago with my daughter, one of my daughters, who was
just she raised a problem late at night when it
was lights out and was kind of you know, she
was a bit emotional and something was bugging her. Ands
I'll confess I found it kind of irritating that she
(19:22):
had raised it so late, and I sort of told
her of and said, look, I'm not dealing with this
right now. This is if you were really worried about it,
you would have told me a couple of hours ago.
And I walked out, shut the door and said good night,
and I went back in. Of course, I got the
Gilts fifteen minutes later, and she had actually just recovered
and was calm, and we had a cuddle and sort
(19:44):
of things like that. But I felt like a really
crappy parent. Make me feel I'm not that bad, but
it's such a okay example.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Of Yeah, I mean, let's get real. For all, we're parents.
We're humans, We're not robots. And until we've got AI
robots raising up kids, which isn't going to be a
healthy space anyway. What you did is and our kids
often do that. It's when they have brains actually start
to slow down. Lots of different chemicals happen at night,
and then you actually do start reflecting on your day,
(20:18):
and it is when those thoughts come up, so it
is quite normal. But what you did was quite clear.
That's it. And then you went back in and you've
shown her such an amazing example of you making mistake
and repairing it. You know, you doing something and coming
back and talking, so our kids have got it. That
is a much better example for her than actually the
sitting down and then hopefully, you know, the next day whatever.
(20:40):
You had a bit of a chat about it.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Oh, she was and she resolved the issue. And the
funny thing is, though I wondered if what I did
was right though, because I did give her this, because
I think in my she would have I'm not sure
it would have helped her if I'd stuck around and given.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
It emotionally all into it.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Well, and yeah, I mean, you know that hormones are
coursing through bodies and all that sort of stuff. But
it was interesting because she did regulate herself and then
we had a nice little chat, and then I followed
it up the day later. So sort of I felt
like what I did was wrong, and yet I thought
what I did was right. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (21:19):
So what we want to do, I mean, if we
get into the psychology of it, what we want to
do is we want to make sure that over time,
we are increasing our kids' capacity to deal with these
things with lease help from us. So again they go
to the gym, they can lift higher weights and they
don't need us helping them, and you've done that. So
I'm guessing from there on in if the next night
she cried again, and then next night she cried again,
(21:40):
and then we've got a problem. But she hasn't. She's
become more resilient, she's become more able to do it herself,
and we can get quite You're right at that time
of night when all those thoughts are going around, and
sometimes during the day, sometimes when they're tired, we have
to cut that off. We have to say this is enough.
We'll come back to it later when we're not quite
so emotionally activated. And sometimes that's a really positive thing
to do as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Actually, I think there's also room for a parent because
she did tell me vaguely what the issue was that
she was dealing with, and I think I must have
in my mind assessed look this. I know that you
feel this is a huge problem, but I'm I don't
think this. Look, for instance, if something terrible at school
had to happen, there've been I don't know, imagine some
of the worst tragedies that could happen to a friend
(22:22):
or something like that. It wasn't something like that, And
I think you know there is a bit of a
lesson and sort of using our own life experience to realize, Okay,
you're tired, et cetera, you're emotional. Even though I walked
out of the room, of course I was bloody annoyed.
That was my fuck, that was my mistake. I think.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
Now it's showing human behavior. It's showing that you get
stressed and that you have emotions, and that you calm
down and you come back in. It's a great modeling moment.
We don't model this stuff enough. We think we need
to keep all this stuff away from our kids and
they can't see it. Well, how do they learn to
be normal humans and that normal humans have bad days
and get things wrong if we don't mindel it.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Funny thing is, there's a couple of times if the
thought to myself, Catherine Burke would probably say that was
the right thing to do, then you're my little Jiminy cricket.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
Anyway.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Actually, the other side of that getting away from the
extremes is dealing with things when your kid wants to
give something up. So, for instance, they've made a commitment
to be part of a soccer team or a sports
team through the winter, and then they something's not really
going according to their dreams and not being realized, or
(23:36):
they're what they imagine it would be like and they
don't enjoy it. They want to pull out. And that's
a sort of stress where I mean, should you I've
got my quite reasonably strong opinion on this, which I'll
hold back on, but should you listen to them or
let them finish up or tell them they're finishing up
what they signed up for? The commitment.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
We have that big thing is that they have to
finish what they've committed to, Especially for our younger kids,
when they commit to something, they have no capacity in
their brain to know what that commitment actually look like.
They have no ability to know that this is going
to be every night or every week and this sort
of stuff. They actually signed up because they enjoyed the
first practice and it sounds fun, and then after a
while it's not fun. Why I'm saying that is because
(24:19):
we can't actually hold them to it, because until they're
really fourteen fifteen, their brains can't really look into the
future and truly imagine it. So we have asked them
to commit to something that they haven't truly been able
to envision. But there is a point where you've got
to decide again tolerable to push through or not. And
my daughter was, and she'd been doing cart for a
while and she got to that early adolescent time, and
(24:41):
that early adolescent time when the body's changing, the hormones
are changing, there's a real change in how you feel
about others and yourself. And she did want to leave,
but she sort of wanted to leave, and I pushed
her through it, and I would take her in the
car and get her in there, but she wasn't eating it.
She was like grumble, grumble, And then at the end
she had enjoyed it. Grumble grumble. At the end she
enjoyed it. So I pushed through. Then I didn't have
(25:03):
to keep pushing. She ended up becoming a black belt.
She stayed, she did it, but I did have to
push you through, not against your will, but I could
really tell that it wasn't an absolute terror. But for
some kids they might be going, they might really hate it,
and it isn't. You don't need to keep them going
just because they've committed.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, the reason I also mentioned it is because I mean,
my girls are older, so at the college they go
to and people know it's buried in college. I've talked
about it on are But they do have a thing
for team sports, and this is an interesting thing about
understanding the commitment. So they say, if you are signing
up for a team and you pull out during the season,
(25:42):
you may not represent the school that in that term
or whatever in any other team. So they say you're
in or you're out, and I don't I quite. I
don't mind that because it's explaining to them these are
the rules. And obviously if you have to pull out,
then you're out, but you're out of the other team
that you wanted to be part of, which does sound
kind of old school, But I guess does that.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Did you say a term? So they sign up for
each term? Ah?
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, I mean if you sign up for a team
for a winter sport or something, if you're playing if
you were playing netball and hockey and you side, I
don't want to play hockey any longer, they're right, you're
out of netball, then.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
You're in. I mean, it's a learning curve. I mean,
if we looked at the brain, it's like again, it's
not it's not that like.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
The not that I'm asking you to comment on that
specific policy, but it's just no, no.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
But it's a learning curve and it's not the worst
thing in the world. It's teaching kids they've been given
a choice ultimatum and yeah, in a choice, and if
they do that, they do that, and that's something that
they're going to learn. I've got no problem with things
like that. What I'm saying is we shouldn't. If you've
got a kid who's hating a sport and saying no,
you committed to it, so therefore you must continue. Because
you committed, they actually didn't have the capacity to truly
(26:52):
understand what they were committing to. So and again up
to you as a parent if you think it's right
or wrong. But I think that example is setting a rule,
setting a precedent. They do it, and they learn from it,
so next time they will think more carefully about it,
and it'll probably be a good life lesson.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Actually, to be honest, I don't think the school adhere
to the policy when it comes to legitimate reasons why something,
you know, it's just you know. I think probably they've
learned over the course of time that the fickle sort
of like I wouldn't mind giving that ago and then oh,
I'm tired of that. I'm going to give up. I
think that's what they're trying to address. It's not so
much questions that, you know, if you're being bullied or
something terrible's happening, you have to stick with it. I
think that obviously there'd be some some grown up thinking
(27:31):
around that. But it's an interesting idea, isn't it. Just
understanding that the nature of commitment. And part of the
thing is that The reason I like it is that
when we had to make decisions for our girls, and
it meant that we actually sat down with them and said, okay, right,
this is what it's going to involve. You know, practice here,
practice there. Do you think you can do that? Yes? Okay,
because if you want to do that other thing and
then they go in, there's never been you know, they
(27:54):
might think about not doing it next year if they
don't like it, I guess, but they stick.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
It out beautiful. But you've put You've helped them visualize
that rather than expecting them to be able to visualize it.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
I think I've just realize that what the school is
cunningly doing is actually just enlisting the parents to make
sure that they explain what commitment is good move. You
go look, just worked it out. It's twenty two minutes
to twenty two minutes to five. News talks here. But
we're going to come back and we're going to have
a chat about Australia, which has just banned social media
use for under sixteen years old. I and my fellow panelists,
(28:28):
we've all decided that we quite like this move. We're
going to talk about that and whether it's a good
move for us in New Zealand. And I have a suspicion.
I think I know what Catherine's going to say. But
you know what you can find out after the break.
It's twenty two minutes too Sorry what did I say?
Twenty two minutes to five, twenty two minutes to six,
can't read the clock. There we go back in a
mow Yes, welcome back. I don't forget for the sports rap.
We actually I haven't told you about this yet, but
(28:49):
we're joined by Andrew Ordison who will be coming to
us from the Cricket. But before that, we are talking
with Catherine Burkett. She's a clinical psychologist at Engaged Training
and we're talking about kids managing stress. I've got one
before we move on to our social media question. In Australia,
somebody's texted just saying kids stress, question mark, exclamation mark
(29:09):
Are you for real? You too? Sound perfectly normal? How
are you brought up? Have you tried employing a young
person lately? I think I'm not sure what they're saying,
but I think they're saying, well, how are you brought up?
You survived? Maybe there's an implication where cod link kids
too much, Catherine, I.
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Think what I've done a lot and it's potential and
again it sounds to me I've done a lot of
work with people who are employing younger people who haven't
had tolerable stress. We literally have to have employees in
HR now that deal with parents who ring up about
their kids in the business. Who are you know? They
jump in for them, things for them, so goodness if
(29:50):
potentially I'm guessing that this person is an employer has
had some young people who literally can't have any feedback
that's potentially negative, can't handle not being told they're wonderful
every days. And that's some kids. I mean, I know
Soun's back is out and work and he's dealing with
things quite well. You have caught up as well, now
a lot with that's what.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
No, not yet, not at all.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
He's having trouble and I'm not jumping in, right, I'm
not jumping in. I have to let him deal with
it himself. But we do now a lot. So I'm
guessing that that person is having issues, which I've done
a lot of work with employment places and stuff to
understand that we sort of have to meet them in
the middle. But I get it. It is a bit
frustrating when you get these young people coming in with
a very different way of seeing the world.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Because I would say that, look, every generation has its stresses,
and we used to worry about all sorts of things
from nuclear, water whatever. In these days kids are worrying
about climate. But it does time to this next one.
The one thing no generation has ever had is the
proliferation of information and social stress that comes with social media.
So that's my lovely little segue. So Australia has just
(30:57):
banned social media use for under sixteen year olds. Many
parents are urging New Zealand to follow suit. I didn't
have a problem I did that with us either, because
I don't see that it would be depriving my kids
of anything other than giving them some more time to
be normal. What do you think about it?
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Gosh, that word is so important, That word is so important,
So obviously you could spend normal. That word normal is
so important because well, I mean, there's so much around
social media. There's so much about the fact that even
the fact of sitting on social media keeps us still
and we're not getting movement, and there's a lot of
things in our body that needs physical movement in order
(31:38):
to develop, especially for our young kids. We are being
bombarded with things that teach us that everyone's incredibly happy
or incredibly sad, and we don't see normal the images
that are coming. I don't know if you saw that
research on the lady who from Christchurch and she became
a thirteen year old. She did a thirteen year old
profile and she's asked for things for Taylor Swift and
(32:00):
horses and bunnies or something, and within twenty minutes she
had incredibly disturbing information sent through to her as a
thirteen year old. It's an article that was just published recently,
and she signed up as a thirteen year old and
got bombarded with horrific stuff and she didn't look at
anything that was horrific. So these things are not going
(32:20):
by what our kids want. They're going by what their
algorithms are sending them. And I do not want my
kids having to deal with that. And you're one hundred
percent right what they're seeing, what they're able to access.
And you mentioned nuclear will. When I was a kid
in their age, I was obsessed with nuculear oar and
I found a book that I'd written all these stories
about people dying, but all I had was my imagination
(32:41):
and a little bit of news. If I'd been able.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
To google, Okay, that can.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
You imagine how disturbing that it is for a brain.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
At that that's not going to be solved. That's not
going to be solved by this law because the Internet
is the Internet, isn't it? But that's an example of
how much it can. You know, there's so much stuff
out there, so you.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Do so much for them to deal with.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
So what do you I mean, Look, you know, let's
not get too excited about these things with you and
I are not making the laws. But if the New
Zealand government explored and you know, let's not argue about
is it enforceable. Basically, it's one thing to tell kids.
I mean, there was people saying we can't ban phones
from school. Most parents are going anteaches and everyone, even
(33:21):
the kids, I think, are quite happy about it. Generally,
should we be looking at a band for social media?
Speaker 3 (33:28):
If you are the boss, we should be looking for
a band for everything, for any and especially information that
they shouldn't be seeing. We should be easily being able
to ban that. There should be a massive firewall between
certain information that should never be able to get onto
our kids' devices, but social media, but a lot of content. Absolutely,
it's just that their little brains are at a space
(33:50):
where they get dophamine from everything way more than we
get from it. So they're so much more addictive, and
they're trying to build their brains into these adult brains
doing all this new learning, and all they're doing is
sitting on these devices, and it's creating brains Like that
person who wrote in as an employer. Often we've got
young people who haven't got the ability to think outside
(34:11):
the square or be imaginative. And by the way, there's
heaps that do. There's lots of pearance that keep their
kids away and a little bit of device time is
not a problem. We all do things that are not
wonderful for our brain. But when we're talking about this
death scrolling and doom scrolling and all of the information
that's coming into their brain and making them think that
the world is just not okay.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Yeah, I mean, and no matter what the political causes
as well. I mean, you focus on too much of
the doom and gloom. It can be really unhealthy.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
It's scary. It's really scary, and you hear the way
that they're talking. So I would love to be able
to protect them from that until their brains are ready
to process it in a better I can't even do it.
I read it, and I realize I'm getting a bit down,
so I stop myself doing it.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Hey, Catherine, thank you so much for joining us. So
people want to catch it check out your work they can, well,
they can google you pretty easily. Catherine with a K
and a Y, and away we go Gage training dot
coded and said, is that right?
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Gage training? Yeah? Can I just say I'm not a
clinical psychologist? How long have we not need to? Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Did I say clinical? Sorry?
Speaker 3 (35:13):
You see clinical psychologist? Psychologist?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
That's right? Sorry about that?
Speaker 3 (35:17):
NERO, Sits all right, I'll just get in trouble again.
They keep telling me.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
That's not that was that was a mistake here, So
my apologies for that.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Well, so stop the email. So that's coming my way.
But yeah, you can look at Engage training and over Christmas,
I've got some downtime off work, so I'm going to
be I've got some free videos up on my website,
but there's going to be a bunch of videos for parents,
for educators and stuff. So keep an eye out the
if you would like some.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Sorry about the most description of your job there, Catherine,
but have a merry Christmas and we'll look forward to
catching up with the new year.
Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah you tell you all right, take care okay.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Bye bye. We'll be back in the morow with to
wrap Sport with Andrew Ordison. It's eleven and a half
minutes to say.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
For more from the Weekend Collective, listen live to news
Talks it'd be weekends from three pm, or follow the
podcast on iHeartRadio.
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