July 14, 2022 • 42 mins
Licensed psychologist Dr. Zack Blumkin provides Katie an in-depth walk through of validation for children, and how we can teach kids to acknowledge their self-worth.
The Clinical Director addresses how to express validation, both verbally and through body language. He also outlines when it is a good time to validate children versus be stern, and when it is time for a child to be in therapy to further help develop such validation.
Plus,what activities can your child engage in to further develop internal validation? Tune in for details.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda land Audio
in partnership with I Heart Radio. When somebody is learning
something new, to indicate what they're doing well, and not
to just say good job, but good job for pain
in the party, it makes me so happy, kind of
using the frame exactly labeled exactly what they're doing, saying
how it makes you feel. As a parent, that could
be really effective at changing behaviors. Now, you absolutely do
(00:25):
not want to praise every single minute on every single issue,
because then you know it might be really difficult for
the children to actually build their own internal ability to
praise themselves and to recognize that they're proud for themselves
and they won't necessarily always seek it externally. But certainly
most parents aren't praising enough. Hello, everybody, Welcome back to
(00:53):
Katie's Crib. I am sitting across the screen from somebody
who I have so many mutual friends with that I man,
I've I think so highly of you without knowing you
because the people we share in common. My best friend
Amy Rosof Davis, who has been on this podcast, the
incredible Sasha Sagan who's been a guest on this podcast.
(01:16):
I love them both so much and they speak so
highly of you. Zachary K. Blumpkin. Guys, we're talking today
about children's feelings and internal validation. I know we're going
to talk about it in terms of parenting and children,
but I feel like this goes a very long way
with adults as well, and across every department avenue of
(01:38):
your life. UM. Doctor Zachary Kay Blumpkin is a licensed
psychologist and the clinical director of the Columbia Day Program
at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Midtown Manhattan. In
addition to his clinical and administrative roles, Dr blump Can
coordinates the evidence based treatments courts for the psychology trainees
and psychiatry fellows in the Division of Child and ADELA
(02:00):
since Psychiatry at c U I m C, and he
specializes in working with children at a lessons to young
adults and adults. Zack, thank you so much for coming
on to Katie's crib. I think this might be my
most important podcast episode, UM, only because I do think
(02:21):
that if we can get this one pretty good, it
really helps everything else that might be right. Yeah, Well,
first off, thanks for having me for introduction and dropping
Amy and Sasha's name whom I whom I love. UM,
I agree. I think validation and talking about emotions with
children is such an important topic. I think it's something
(02:43):
that we don't often UM hear a lot about and
get a lot about a lot of instruction on how
to kind of um do this effectively in a way
that really helps our children and avoid maybe some fitfalls
that we do as parents that actually kind of impact
their ability to understand their emotions, recognize them, and really
important to learn to cope with them. You have kids yourself.
(03:07):
I have three boys. Oh, I mean, we should just
do an episode on three boys. What are their ages?
So I have seven recently seven recently, five last week,
and then I have a COVID baby who's going to
turn to in September. So my home not only is
it the wild West, but it often smells like urine
in different places, and we have no idea why oh yeah,
(03:29):
just let it go mt A bathroom. Yeah, you know,
we just are. We can't have nice things, That's what
I say. We can't have nice things. We can't have
nice clothes, we can't have a rug, we can't it's
just get involved in not knowing where the pee smell
is coming from and survive you know, Okay. In researching
and preparing for this episode, I really there are so
(03:51):
many things I want to ask you, but let's start
with um on psych hubs ask the expert series. You
mentioned the difference, so let's start here between validation and praise.
What is the difference? Yeah? So this this is really
really important for parents to pick up praise as a
parent to a child, or you know, a husband to
(04:13):
uh their partner, or wife to their partner, whomever, is
indicating to somebody that you're happy or you like what
they did. I think that was good. You make me
so happy, Thank you for doing that. It makes me
feel good. Phrase is really really important because it communicates
the individual. What's you, what you want? So it instructs
your kid what you want to see and what's nice? Right.
(04:35):
I think that the issue that we have generally in
our society, I think is twofold one is we like
to criticize more than praise, and most parents are actually
using many more criticisms to praise. Usually it's about ten
criticisms to one praise, when research indicates we want to
try for four praises to one criticism. Now, I want
(04:55):
to be clear, I'm gonna talk a lot about what
parents should do, and I'll recognize I don't even do
it all the time. Try my best. Of course, three
boys under seven is really really hard, and at the
same time, we want to try to praise whenever we can.
When I hear a lot of parents say good job
all the time, it kind of like drives me nuts,
Like good job you Pete on the potty or whatever,
(05:17):
and like that's good the first year obviously, but like
if we're still doing this for like a seven year old,
Am I wrong to think that like that? There are
parents that overpraise. They're definitely parents and and people in
general that I think when they praise, they don't always
use it as effectively as possible. So absolutely, when somebody
is learning something new, to indicate what they're doing well
(05:39):
and not to just say good job, but good job
for Pete in the potty, it makes me so happy.
Kind of using the frame exactly labeled, exactly what they're doing,
saying how it makes you feel as a parent, that
could be really effective at changing behaviors. Now, you absolutely
do not want to praise every single minute, on every
single issue, because then you know, it might be really
difficult for the children to actually build that own internal
(06:00):
ability to praise themselves and to recognize that they're proud
for themselves, and they won't necessarily always seek it externally.
But certainly most parents aren't praising enough. And I would
agree with you. You don't want to praise for every
single thing all of the time for many, many years.
It's probably not going to be helpful. Wow, so most
parents are not praising? What are they? What is a
(06:22):
criticism sound? I think I do criticize a lot, now
that I'm thinking about it. I think my criticism in
my household came about much more post two years old,
and definitely went the introduction of my second uh, my daughter,
because so much of it is like, don't do that.
You can't touch her body like that. Listen to the
(06:42):
sound she's making. She doesn't want to be touched like that,
she doesn't want to be hugged. You have to take
the toy. Like everything got more complicated. And you're right,
it is a lot of criticism. What what is validation?
What's the difference? So validation is very different, and I
think validation is really important because we don't. You're a
lot about it, and it often gets confused with praise.
(07:03):
Validation is communicating to somebody that you hear them, that
you understand them. And let's think of it specifically in
the sort of sense of you understand their emotions. I
understand how you're feeling, I understand how you're thinking. I
might even understand how you engaged in a certain or
why you engaged in a certain behavior, even if I
don't agree with any of those. So it's the skill
(07:25):
of really listening and hearing somebody else out, which is
hard to do, m okay. So an example would be,
let's say my son has a complete temper tantrum because
his sister took a toy that he had been working
(07:45):
very hard on. Um validation would be would be something like,
I hear that you're really upset right now, and I
understand that you're very angry that she took your toy
and that stinks. You know, that's really hard for you
for her, and I'm sorry. Like, is that validation is
that the vocabulary would sound like yes, exactly. It sounds
(08:07):
like you were already trained up, you know exactly what
you're doing. And I imagine many parents and call are
going to say, wait, wait, wait, slow down, he just
took her toy. What are we talking about here? So
just to be really clear, a lot of the work
on validation was sort of formalized in dialectical behavior therapy.
And I don't know how much we'll get into that today, um,
but dialectical behavior therapy is the idea that what dialectics
(08:31):
is the idea that two opposing ideas can both be
true at the same time. I love this, this is
my marriage, I love this, we are both things can
exist and happen simultaneously. Yes, it is an amazing therapeutic
or theoretical orientation therapeutic a set of skills developed by
Marcea Lenahan for adolescents by Jill Rathus and Alec Miller.
(08:55):
And and the idea is exactly what you said, A
child took the toy, so we would want to focus
on the dialectics of change. You're not allowed to take
somebody else's toy without asking, so we're actually not going
to permit that to happen. And acceptance. I will also
accept how that young child feels in that moment. And
if I validated your son or you validated your son,
who said, I know you're really angry. I know you
(09:16):
really wanted to play with the toy, and it makes
sense to me that maybe, um, you got really upset
by this. Hopefully your son would become more regulated, will
feel heard, and then himself recognized maybe I shouldn't have
taken that toy. I really reflected on the idea that
his behavior on getting that toy wasn't super effective, and
he's more likely in the future to do something differently.
(09:38):
It could be a really validation could be a really
helpful tool in bringing people down and helping them feel
more regulated, more heard, so they can now process new
information and make more effective decisions in lies. And by
the way, you can use this with your kids, you
can use this with partners, you can use it with anybody. Um,
validation is an amazing tool. Now. The trick here, though, Katie,
is sometimes you don't always agree, and that's okay. You
(10:00):
don't need to agree with somebody to validate them as
long as you can hear them. You wouldn't want to
validate the invalid which is a whole another path that
you have to be careful about. What does that mean?
So if somebody is stating something that is false or inaccurate.
You wouldn't want to validate that because that would reinforce
an inaccurate version of what is likely to happen. So
(10:22):
sometimes people will come to anything, Zach, I'm really scared
to fly because the plane is going to crash. Would
never validate that the plane is going to crash because
it would be really unlikely that it's going to crash.
But I could validate that it's really really difficult to
get into a plane, yeah, and get shot into the
atmosphere if you don't know anything about jet propulsion and
you haven't done in a long time, uh, and you
have a history of anxiety. Of course, you validate, validate, validate,
(10:47):
and hopefully that individual will feel a little bit more
comfortable with the idea of getting plant and then can
use skills to effectively cope while they're in the plane.
Invalidation is something that inevitably we all do, and it's
communiqu geating too. In this case, our children that their thoughts,
their emotions, and their behaviors are wrong for a situation,
(11:09):
all right, And so if you're constantly telling in a child,
you know you shouldn't think that way. You know that
that's not the way to think about it. That's wrong
to think about it that way, or don't feel that way.
You should change how you feel. That's not helpful. If
you continue to um kind of bombard them with that
invalidation or the communication that what they're thinking or feeling
is wrong, that can actually dramatically impact how they understand
(11:33):
and see the world because they're constantly then questioning how
they're feeling and how they're thinking. But here's the other
key piece. They know how they feel. So if they
feel guilty and people tell them repeatedly, don't feel guilty,
don't feel guilty, don't feel guilty, don't feel guilty, well
they know that they feel guilty. So not only are
they going to struggle with understanding their own emotions and
(11:54):
why they're feeling this way, but they're gonna stop trusting
other folks and why other folks are communicating this to me?
Because I know I feel guilty. So, Katie, why are
you telling me to stop feeling this way? It's feeling
this way because this is how I feel. Yeah, I'm
very careful, you know with boys, and you know they
say if somebody is really sad, you know and and
(12:14):
saying it's okay, it's okay, you're okay, you're okay, just
stop that this. We're not crying right now like any
of that stuff. It's like, no, like if your kids
upset or sad about something, you know, you're like, I
hear that you're really sad, and I'm that's let's just
be sad for a little bit. I'll say here, I'll
be sad with you for a while. Let's be sad
until we're not sad anymore, you know, absolutely, And again
(12:36):
just to kind of emphasize this, when you tell that
child not to be sad, you're telling them what they're
feeling is wrong, even though they're feeling that way right.
So they lose that trust in themselves that I know
what I'm feeling is accurate. But they also lose trust
in what other people are saying to them because they
also know that they really feel sad and nobody's listening.
(12:59):
So it really if it's if it's done chronically and severely,
it can really lead to some negative outcomes in sense
of self self esteem and other areas. M I always
equated to and tell me, like, you know how you
yawn and someone else yawns. So if my son, for
(13:20):
all of you listening, we have a lot of listeners
who have toddlers and young children, and if my kid
is having a freak out about something, validation always helps
me at least try to be calm and then like
a yawn. I hope that at some point he is
better matching my calmness and regulated validation than if I
(13:45):
were to also start yelling, which, by the way, I
am fucking guilty of as well. I think sometimes it's
so hard that I have a parenting podcast because I
know what I'm supposed to be doing, but that doesn't
mean that I'm always working at that vibration. It's hard.
It's hard. Sometimes you just really want to yell, and
then they yell too. It's like I'm trying though. Um Okay,
(14:08):
we did through a step by step breakdown. I think
we should do this again because you're talking about dialectics,
but let's talk about the body language. So the first
things you could do if you were validating someone's tantrum,
I see that you're upset, I hear that you're upset,
something like that, immediately you're trying to It almost feels
like from an acting standpoint like empathy, right, like put
(14:31):
yourself in someone else's shoes. What is the body language
for validation? Look like yeah, so, I mean the first
step really is non verbal, and you want to kind
of walk over to them, sit down, You could rub
their back, took their heads, get down to where they
are and make that eye contact, show them that you're
really listening and look at similar to you. I understand
(14:53):
in this moment, we really need to get to sarcer practice.
We're late for the birthday party, we really need to
get to the airport, and you do not want to
get in your fucking car seat class absolutely not, absolutely not,
and this is likely going to be in One of
the most effective ways to actually get them moving quickly
is to actually sit down, get with them, get to
(15:13):
their eye level, really show them that you're listening. Can
be a super effective way of starting validation and validating
in itself. The next piece you're gonna want to do
is what we would call kind of reflection or accurate reflection.
You're gonna want to ask them what's going on. I
know you don't want to get into your car seat
because it's uncomfortable. If you got it right on the
(15:35):
first job on the first shot. That's great. They're gonna
not They're gonna say yes, if you got it wrong,
it's okay because you can then ask them, oh, why
don't you want to get in your car seat? Because
it's too hot in the car. Okay, so let's see
what we can do to fix that. In that moment,
reflecting back to them, I know it's not always comfortable
in the car because it gets hot. I get that,
And let's talk about some ways to maybe make the
(15:58):
car a little bit cooler for you during the right there. Yeah, see,
my son doesn't get in the car seat. I could
be completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure my son doesn't
like anything where he's not in the position of power
or autonomy. Right, So, like he doesn't want to get
in a car seat, he doesn't want to get dressed. Um,
which is like classic four year old ship show. I
(16:21):
mean we've gotten I don't take him to school in
his clothes ever, I drop him off in pajamas. There's
a stack of guys listening. This is like I have
I can't believe the mother I am. I can't believe it.
But in the in the in the battles, I can't.
I can't. I can't do it in the morning. I've
realized that I am not operating at a high vibrational
(16:41):
place where I can do validation and all this ship
when I just need him to get dressed and get
out the door. So his preschool was like, forget it,
bring him in his pajamas will change him. At some point,
He's not going to wear his pajamas to school when
he's a teenager because he's going to care what people think.
Maybe absolute I mean, and what you're talking about, Katie,
(17:01):
is a beautiful skill of picking your battles. So my
five year old, I almost said, four you because it
just his birthday, just had his birthday, Happy birthday, Yeah,
thank you. He he's just started to refuse to wear shorts.
So in New York right now it's about ninety degrees
and he's just wearing jeans right now. It's so hot.
(17:23):
But you know what, it's absolutely I'm just not going
to pick that battle, because you're absolutely right. He will
eventually transition to shorts. He will get hot, he will
get uncomfortable, and he'll do it in that moment. I'm
just not going to pick that battle, which is a
really important parenting strategy to to think about, because sometimes
they really do need that control in that autonomy, and
that's important. And as long as you're okay with pajamas
(17:44):
at pre school and I'm okay with jeans in the summer,
which I would never do, then we're good. Just let
you know, we're just gonna let it go. And I
had to really look at why I was upset about
the pajamas to school, and it really was about my grandmother,
like like literally, like if I really looked at it,
I was like, why is this such a sticking point
(18:05):
that he has to wear clothes to school? And it's
because I hear are wonderful nanny who's very traditional and
cares a lot about like appearances, and my grandmother the same.
And I was like wow, Like I felt like inside
like I was failing that I was going to show
up with my kid in school. He's in his Christmas
pajamas today with light bulbs all over it from a
Christmas tree, and I literally look at us, like, but
(18:26):
he's happy. He's happier than on the mornings where I
forced him to get dressed. And it gets like physical
and awful and just emotional and it's a fucking nightmare.
This has been so much better. What is emotional disregulation
(18:48):
versus regulation? Yeah, so a lot of times we're going
to see our our younger folks, right are toddler's latecy
age kids, and obviously teenagers and adults as well, in
kind of a state of disregulation, meaning that their mood,
their emotions, maybe their thoughts, maybe their behaviors or what
(19:11):
we would consider out of control in a way that's
not effective, not helpful, and like like likely for for parents,
pissing us off, right, And so we're going to see
that and in that moment we can kind of reflect it.
They are not in control in this moment. And you
want to actually think about two different types of disregulation,
because we see this, but we don't always recognize the
(19:32):
second type. The first type is underregulated. So these are
individuals that are having that tantrum. We all know what
a tantrum looks like. I know what a tantrum looks
like with all three of my boys. But another type
of disregulation is what we would call overregulation, and these
are individuals that are so regulated that they're not even
allowing themselves to feel anything. So I want you to
(19:52):
think about. And it's hard to see in a toddler,
but it might be easier for for us to think
about with maybe some unfortunately some of our our friends
or FAMI the members who have been really really depressed
and can't get out of the bed and sort of
pull the covers over your head. Or what you can
see is you see toddlers who are severely, severely anxious.
They're overly regulated. So they're not moving there, not sort
(20:13):
of um putting their emotions out there. They're controlling everything
to the best of their ability, whether that's controlling what
they're eating, controlling how much they're speaking, controlling whether they're
going to the bathroom. Oh yeah, I've heard about that.
Oh my god. So these are individuals who are so
out of control that they become overregulated in a way.
And we miss those kids sometimes because sometimes those kids
(20:36):
are actually performing well on a superficial level. It's like
they're doing all the rules, they're doing what they're supposed
to be doing, so no one looks or even thinks
to look that something could be wrong. Wow, that's really interesting. Yeah,
So you want to be mindful for that and kids
that kind of meet that level and you can tell
they're just really really anxious or they're really just trying
(20:58):
to hold it together, and that's how they is that
and then what's under that's overregulated? What's underregulated? Okay, screaming, yelling, throwing, kicking, okay,
and so then any so your goal is once we've
crossed into that, the most important thing is getting them
(21:20):
to a regulated level. Like that's your job as a parent.
And I tried to express this expresses to my husband
all the time. He had to learn that when you
are not regulated, you are either overregulated or underregulated. Is
not the time for a teaching moment. No, no, Katie,
you're you're absolutely right. Um. Although you know, I don't
(21:42):
blame or judge your husband because I think we in
those moments, we're also frustrated. We just want to say, hey, kid,
you see that wasn't working for you right exactly. That's
when my husband's like, what, like now is the time
to have like a twenty minute conversation about like why
you can't have this at that point, and I'm like,
he is not hearing you. He's out of his fucking
mind right now. He's literally a sociopath. Absolutely, at that moment,
(22:07):
they're so disregulated. And I want us as adults to
think about that time when we were waiting for a
plane and it got canceled, and in the moment right away,
we're disregulated. We can't even think about what is the
next step that I need to take to solve this
problem that my plane was just canceled. I'm so disregulated,
I'm so upset, i can't even think. And that's why
if you use validation to help your child get to
(22:29):
a regulated state, they may be able to either accept
the help that you're offering or that you could offer
to solve the problem, or again, more importantly, they could
come up with a solution learned that this is a
more effective way to deal with the difficult situation. How
the hell are parents supposed to know not only timing
of it. You know, if your child is in a
(22:51):
disregulated moment, it might be a time to use validation
as a tool to get them to a regulated spot.
But how do you know that it's a good time
to bevalidating versus when is it a time to be
stern or fix a situation? Yeah, so I would come
back to the idea of dialectics where I'm going to
try to do both at the same time. And you
(23:12):
know this also bleeds a little bit into what you're
talking about about modeling. Whenever I'm trying to set a
limit with my boys, I am trying to do it
from a calm perspective, from a perspective that that shows
them that I am in control of my emotions. I
know what I'm feeling. And at the same time, what
you did broke a rule in the home, so there
needs to be consequences. Just to be clear, I don't
(23:34):
do that. I try to do that, and I tell
people I do that. Damn that's good though, Like up,
you broke a rule in the house, and so unfortunately
there's going to have to be consequences. Well and then
and we're gonna jump in about it and coming back
just coming back to this kid, because I want to
really own this. My wife says to me all the time,
but you're an expert in this, aren't you. How come
you're not doing what you tell people to do all
the time? Right? So I get that all the time
(23:54):
at home. At the same time, I strive to be
able to validate at the same time saying I know
this is difficult, I know this is not going to
be fun. And at the same time, I need you
go into time out for hitting the broad right, that's
what that's what we're gonna do. They go into time out,
they get disregulated, they get upset. At the end of
time out, I walk up to them. I validate their emotions.
I get why you're upset. I totally do. And you know,
I think what what sometimes I hear in our society
(24:16):
is we're being too soft on our kids. We're being
too you know, we're being too easy on them. And
maybe they're right, maybe they're not. I personally think, as
um somebody who does a lot of behavioral parent training,
what I'm doing in that moment is trying to help
my child get more regulated so they can learn how
to be more effective. And at that age it's really
really great. They can learn a lot on how to
(24:37):
be um you, how to be more skillful in the future,
and it's such a it's such a crucial time to
be able to teach them how to deal with that.
So as much as I can and try to validate
to get them in a regulated place so they can
learn from it. This is making me feel much better
because you're a professional and now I'm going to tell
people that. But I do feel guilt about not being
(24:59):
stern enough, especially around older generations, like on family vacations
with my parents or my grandmother or you know, I
have a very um extroverted son who you know people,
I hear people say like, oh, you're gonna have to
look out for that one, or you think he's hard
(25:19):
now like or or or you're gonna have to show
you This one's classic, Like you're gonna have to show
him whose boss now because later, you know, things like
that um always perk up my ear a lot, and
I worry that. Yeah, I think the older generation was like,
throw him in his fucking room, lock the fucking door,
let him scream and cry. He just hit his sister,
(25:40):
Like that's unacceptable. Where I'm trying to do more of
what I learned here from experts, and I'm praying that
y'all are right that that I say, Oh, okay, you
know what, you touched your sister's body in a way
that's unacceptable. It's not how we treat people. And now
me and you're SI or we're going to go play
(26:00):
over here because we don't want to be or whatever
I do you know, like you're going to have to
have a time out and sit in your room and
think about it. And you can be upset. You're allowed
to be upset, but we're not going to treat people
like that. I don't allow. And then I come back
and then we repair them rupture a few minutes later,
and he says he's sorry, and I say, I appreciate
that you're sorry, and but it still doesn't make it
right that you hit her. We can't. I don't hit
people's bodies. You don't hit people's bodies. But I do
(26:23):
this over over and over again, and I pray that
he will just be a good person. Yeah, yeah, I
think you know. I think what you brought up is
really important that we as parents. It's really hard to
navigate our family relationships while we're parenting at the same time,
whether it's on trips or or folks are coming to
(26:43):
visit us or whatever we're doing. And you're just going
to try to do the best you can buy, really
using these skills and strategies and recognize that they weren't
necessarily developed or talked about or utilized in our generation.
And and that's okay. I'll still do something a little
bit differently with my kids. And as long as you're
finding that balance of making sure that you are doing
(27:05):
some limit setting, because there needs to be some limit setting,
and you're also having some acceptance of this is the situation,
this is my child, this is their strength, and these
are their areas of growth, then I think you're doing
You're doing the right thing here. And it's stressful. We
just acknowledge that, Oh my god, is it stressful? Um
this book you mentioned a lot which I think is
(27:25):
a book. It's called The Rabbit Listened. It's the fucking
best for adults and kids alike. Can you tell us
what happens in this book and why it's so important?
Everyone who is listening, who is pregnant, has a small baby,
has an older baby, has a team. I don't care
get this book if you don't have The Rabbit listen
(27:47):
to get it. I love this book. I think it
does such a nice job of describing validation and one
of the major pitfalls we as parents um succumbed to
um with being in validating. But but really, in this book,
there is this child, uh, and this child has you know,
(28:07):
I won't give the whole premise away but this child
has something bad that happens to them, and so different
animals come in and try to fix it. And we
as parents do that too often. Too often, when a
child is hurt, child is upset about something that happened,
we come in and we say things like, oh, it's okay,
it'll be better tomorrow, or don't worry about that. I
(28:27):
have a solution, or here another favorite one in our country.
Here have a cookie that will make you feel better. Right,
that's all actually invalidating. And I know a lot of
parents in the call and they say, WHOA, I'm trying
to help them. You're telling me that that's invalidating. It
is because in that emoment, in that moment, your child
is feeling a specific emotion. It's really important for us
to allow your child to sit in that emotion and
(28:50):
for you to sit with that emotion with your child
as well, and allowing that to happen can help your
child deal with that emotion, feel it and allow it
to receive like a wave, because emotions hit us like
waves hit us hard, and then they eventually go away, right,
And it allows them to grow and to then change themselves.
(29:11):
And so what you see in this book is a
lot of different animals come in and try to fix
the problem. Young child is not getting what they need
until one animal comes in and just listens. And I
also want to be really clear, Katie, it is hard
to just listen to your child and the negative emotions
that they're feeling. Right. We had a first incident of
being bullied at five years old. It was one of
(29:33):
the most difficult things I had to listen to. Right here,
my child talk about being bullied at school. And all
I want to do was fix it, right. All I wanted,
it'll be better when you get when you get this age,
and I'll call it the principle, and I'll call it
the parent and this, And all I needed to do
in that moment was just sit in that emotion myself,
which was really difficult. And by the way, we have
a technical term for this. It's called sitting in the
(29:55):
ships because it sucks so much. It sucks so much.
But instead of trying to pull your child out of
the ship, tell them how to get out of the ship,
just go in and sit with them, Just sit with
that and allow them to feel it, to learn how
to cope with it, and then they will get up
and out themselves. And this book does an excellent job
describing that. And then also our goal in this in
(30:18):
sitting and ship versus being like the other animals in
the book where you're the other animals in the book
are all coming in like you so eloquently said it,
just they're they're using different tactics of how they're going
to fix it for the kid. But is the goal
of just sitting in the ship and listening and maybe
sitting at the same level as your child having body
language that's open. Uh? Is the goal for them two
(30:43):
learn themselves how to fix it for themselves because we're
not always going to be there to fix it anyway. Um,
But is the goal? The goal is for them to
learn validation for themselves, like to self validate absolute. I mean,
the goal I think includes um includes many aspects. One
(31:06):
goal is for them to just feel the emotion and
sit in it, so we don't try to change the emotions.
So then there right right exactly, So they can't tolerate
right and so you know the movie inside out right,
they can't tolerate sadness, cannot tolerate sadness. So we need
to help our children learn how to tolerate sadness, because unfortunately,
sadness is a part of life. Guilt is a big one,
(31:29):
shame is a big one. We need our children to
be able to sit in those emotions and feel them.
I don't want them to wallow in them for weeks
and weeks and weeks, but feeling that emotion and learning
how to tolerate it and learning how to get out
of it is so important. And if you can model
that and help guide that, then absolutely the goal is
that they'll acquire that skill and then be able to
generalize in other situations when we're not around, because we
(31:50):
will not always be around to be able to do that.
Are there any activities that help kids develop internal validation
besides you modeling it. Yeah, there's not a lot of
activities that I necessarily can think of off the top
of my head. I mean, I think that this really
is about awareness and mindfulness, which also is kind of
a piece that's a huge component of dialectical behavior therapy
(32:13):
or DBT. And they're not doing DBT with toddlers or
anything like that, but it's certainly um a therapeutic set
of skills that I've I've utilized when I'm doing behavioral
parent training. It really is about awareness of how you're feeling.
I think that's a big piece because you need to
be able to understand what emotion I have. So I
think it's important to and again coming back to the
movie Inside Out, they do a great job of sort
(32:36):
of taking away the stigma of difficult emotions and whether
you're watching Inside Out or making sure you're reading books
about different emotions or you know, with my seven year
old in my five year old, we're gonna start reading
Harry Potter this summer, right, so I'll hopefully be able
to ask them questions. It's not gonna be every page,
what emotion is ron feeling? What emotions? But it's really helpful. Yeah. Sure,
(32:58):
having that open conversation with or watching films or watching
reading books and doing different activities with them help them
kind of engage in the understanding of these are emotions
and these how these are how emotions in these fields.
(33:18):
You know, my husband and I were such actors and
we've been in therapy for like twenty years and we
just love it just because I whether or not I'm
having good weeks bad weeks, are actually struggling, struggling with
things I've been diagnosed with or whatever. For me, it
just makes me a much better mother, daughter, wife, because
I have somebody else listening to my stuff. UM. When
(33:42):
is it time for a child to have therapy or
should I don't know. So it's that's a tougher question
to answer because it can be so individualized. And at
the same time, if you're concerned about about emotions or
behaviors or even thinking patterns and styles, if you're concerned
(34:04):
that any of those three areas are impacting one of
the areas of life for for a very young child,
friendship UM, academics, ability to engage in social activities, umby
ability to connect with other folks, UM, sort of all
the different facets within young children. That's probably the time
to seek UM some advice on yeah, if we if
(34:27):
we want help. You know the really nice thing about
many childhood psychiatric issues, if we intervene early, the outcomes
are tremendously positive for many of them, UM. And at
the same time, we're not always great at catching them.
You know one thing that that we hear a lot
about that's that's always really sad for me is children
(34:48):
with selective mutism. Right, So, there's some children who don't
speak in different areas. Maybe it's at school, Uh, maybe
it's with specific family members, but it's certain settings they
just don't speak. And what you'll hear sometimes from healthcare professionals,
whether it's you know, an m D or maybe even
a therapist, is or don't worry, they'll grow out of this.
(35:09):
But this is actually a pretty severe and significant issue
that needs to be addressed with a specific type of
therapy um and and needs to be addressed as quickly
as possible. And when addressed, the outcomes are really tremendously positive.
But sometimes we don't always recognize these things. Wow. I
would go so far as to say too for anyone listening, Like,
(35:30):
I just feel like if you instinctually feel like something
is off in any area, I'm like the first person
to go running to, like anyone who's a professional, do
you know what I mean? It's like I'm just like, well,
let's just at least go and ask, you know, like
poke around a little bit, um, how would you know
(35:50):
that somebody was a fit? Yeah, So I'm I will
say I'm biased in this and that I'm more of
a fan of especially with children during adolescents, even our
our young adults who seem to be struggling more and
more these days, UM with evidence based interventions and really
thinking about different psychiatric treatments that are supported by research,
(36:17):
and so I think that's kind of the first step.
There's a really good website that that I really often
guide individuals too, and it's just called Effective Child Therapy
dot org UM. It's through the Society of Clinical Child
and Adolysts and Psychology. It's related to UM Association for
Behavior and Cognitive Therapies. But there you can look up
(36:38):
some of the symptoms that your young child is struggling
with and find the recommended treatments, and from there you
can even look up different therapists that are offering those
treatments and really finding a therapist that not only is
trained in evidence based practices, but who's also collaborative. You know,
if you have a therapist that's meeting with your child
(36:59):
and not giving you updates on how things are going,
maybe not weakly right, but you're hearing and you know
what the treatment plan is and the goals, and they're
and they're giving you feedback. That's important for for child
and really for adolescent therapy as well. There might be
cases where really we want the adolescent to have that autonomy,
but that's being explained to you why and what's going on.
But for the most part, you're gonna want a therapist
(37:20):
that's collaborative and speaking with you and giving you feedback
and giving you some guidance. And the other piece that
that I think we really struggle with, as I know
I struggle with as a provider and as a parent,
is often child interventions include the parents, which means not
only you know, there could be up to two sessions
a week where the child is going in once and
you're going in with your partner or on your own
(37:42):
ones as well. Um, And that's a lot of work,
and at the same time the can be tremendously helpful
and with a lot of positive outcomes if you're with
the right provider and in the right treatment. Again, I
know that this is for kids, but it's like if
we get back to basics of like body language, taking
(38:02):
a breath, getting down on our kids level, making the
space to just listen, and then using your fancy dialectic
I think was the word um, but words that are
not trying to change the emotion or change the experience,
but sitting the experience and essentially respect that they're in
(38:24):
it and that they're going through it. Like I hear
that it is really hard. Oh my gosh, speaking about
two things at once. My son was saying the other day,
I got oh, he kicked me in the eyeball, so
that's fun. He was so pissed that I was face
he My son's behavior goes from shipped to shittier whenever
(38:48):
I'm on the phone or on FaceTime, right because it's
it's I'm not paying attention to him. Even though to
be fair, he's very good at independent play and he's
very good at those things. It's just for some reason,
like when I'm face timing with my mother and he
wants my attention, ship gets real crappy quick. So he
hit the phone out of my hand, and I was like, uh,
you know, I really didn't like that. This is an
(39:09):
expensive piece of something that I need for work, and
blah blah blah, and then he tried to kick it
out of my hand but missed and kicked me in
the eyeball. So I said, oh, Mom, I'm gonna have
to go. I'm I'm really angry, right, now, and I
tried to keep myself very regulated. I turned off the
phone and I said, um, that was unacceptable. You hurt
(39:33):
my face, you hurt my eye. I could have gotten
really hurt. And I'm so upset right now that I
actually I can't, I can't be with you right now.
I'm going to go to my own room and sit
because I'm I don't want to be really, really really angry.
I'm so angry and my eyeball hurts. So I excused
myself because I was like so fucking pissed. And then
(39:54):
he's like screaming and he only wants me, and he's
so sorry, he's so sorry, so sorry, and I'm like,
I'm I'm really appreciate that you're sorry and you feel
bad about what you've done, it's still I'm still mad.
For example, both things are true, like you are sorry,
I accept your apology. I'm still angry. I'm not ready
(40:16):
to let this go. But he also said, after we
kind of got through it a few days later, he
was like, when you were really angry, you didn't love
me then, And I said, oh, that's actually not true, buddy,
I said, I can I can be angry at you.
I can be sad with you, I can be disappointed,
I can feel all those things, and I can still
love you at the same time. In fact, that's like
(40:37):
how I feel about you all the time, Like I
love you all the time even if I'm angry or
piste off or cranky or whatever. But two things being
true at one time, I feel like is parenting? Yeah, well,
I think I think from my reflection on the story
that you told, I love that you took space and
(40:58):
in some ways that's why we do time outs right.
And by the way, I am an advocate for time out.
I think time out is gonna be really really helpful.
Using the time out in that moment was is, in
my opinion, the right thing to do. And this is
how you use it dialectically, right, So the dialectics that
I'm talking about is acceptance and empathy plus change. So
(41:18):
the time out is the change. So getting off the
phone with your mother expressing how you feel in that moment,
putting him in time out, are you taking time out
and then taking some time and then coming back to
that situation and explaining why it was so hurtful, why
it bothered you, And at the same time you know
that sometimes it's really hard for him when you're on
(41:39):
the phone in finishing up parenthood is it's really challenging,
and it is also something that everybody can be successful
at when getting the right support. Yeah, that's so true,
and I really hope that this podcast provides a little
(41:59):
bit of that. Obviously, all of the clients of zach
Ka Blumkin are definitely getting that. I'm so appreciative of
you taking the time. I know you're very busy saving
lives and children and parents mental health. It's very, very,
very important, and I'm so appreciative of you taking the
time to me on Katie's Crib. Thanks for having me.
(42:26):
Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode.
I want to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns.
Let me know. You can always find me at Katie's
Crib at Shanda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a
production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from Shannalan Audio, visit the I Heart
(42:47):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda land Audio
in partnership with I Heart Radio. When somebody is learning
something new, to indicate what they're doing well, and not
to just say good job, but good job for pain
in the party, it makes me so happy, kind of
using the frame exactly labeled exactly what they're doing, saying
how it makes you feel. As a parent, that could
be really effective at changing behaviors. Now, you absolutely do
(00:25):
not want to praise every single minute on every single issue,
because then you know it might be really difficult for
the children to actually build their own internal ability to
praise themselves and to recognize that they're proud for themselves
and they won't necessarily always seek it externally. But certainly
most parents aren't praising enough. Hello, everybody, Welcome back to
(00:53):
Katie's Crib. I am sitting across the screen from somebody
who I have so many mutual friends with that I man,
I've I think so highly of you without knowing you
because the people we share in common. My best friend
Amy Rosof Davis, who has been on this podcast, the
incredible Sasha Sagan who's been a guest on this podcast.
(01:16):
I love them both so much and they speak so
highly of you. Zachary K. Blumpkin. Guys, we're talking today
about children's feelings and internal validation. I know we're going
to talk about it in terms of parenting and children,
but I feel like this goes a very long way
with adults as well, and across every department avenue of
(01:38):
your life. UM. Doctor Zachary Kay Blumpkin is a licensed
psychologist and the clinical director of the Columbia Day Program
at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Midtown Manhattan. In
addition to his clinical and administrative roles, Dr blump Can
coordinates the evidence based treatments courts for the psychology trainees
and psychiatry fellows in the Division of Child and ADELA
(02:00):
since Psychiatry at c U I m C, and he
specializes in working with children at a lessons to young
adults and adults. Zack, thank you so much for coming
on to Katie's crib. I think this might be my
most important podcast episode, UM, only because I do think
(02:21):
that if we can get this one pretty good, it
really helps everything else that might be right. Yeah, Well,
first off, thanks for having me for introduction and dropping
Amy and Sasha's name whom I whom I love. UM,
I agree. I think validation and talking about emotions with
children is such an important topic. I think it's something
(02:43):
that we don't often UM hear a lot about and
get a lot about a lot of instruction on how
to kind of um do this effectively in a way
that really helps our children and avoid maybe some fitfalls
that we do as parents that actually kind of impact
their ability to understand their emotions, recognize them, and really
important to learn to cope with them. You have kids yourself.
(03:07):
I have three boys. Oh, I mean, we should just
do an episode on three boys. What are their ages?
So I have seven recently seven recently, five last week,
and then I have a COVID baby who's going to
turn to in September. So my home not only is
it the wild West, but it often smells like urine
in different places, and we have no idea why oh yeah,
(03:29):
just let it go mt A bathroom. Yeah, you know,
we just are. We can't have nice things, That's what
I say. We can't have nice things. We can't have
nice clothes, we can't have a rug, we can't it's
just get involved in not knowing where the pee smell
is coming from and survive you know, Okay. In researching
and preparing for this episode, I really there are so
(03:51):
many things I want to ask you, but let's start
with um on psych hubs ask the expert series. You
mentioned the difference, so let's start here between validation and praise.
What is the difference? Yeah? So this this is really
really important for parents to pick up praise as a
parent to a child, or you know, a husband to
(04:13):
uh their partner, or wife to their partner, whomever, is
indicating to somebody that you're happy or you like what
they did. I think that was good. You make me
so happy, Thank you for doing that. It makes me
feel good. Phrase is really really important because it communicates
the individual. What's you, what you want? So it instructs
your kid what you want to see and what's nice? Right.
(04:35):
I think that the issue that we have generally in
our society, I think is twofold one is we like
to criticize more than praise, and most parents are actually
using many more criticisms to praise. Usually it's about ten
criticisms to one praise, when research indicates we want to
try for four praises to one criticism. Now, I want
(04:55):
to be clear, I'm gonna talk a lot about what
parents should do, and I'll recognize I don't even do
it all the time. Try my best. Of course, three
boys under seven is really really hard, and at the
same time, we want to try to praise whenever we can.
When I hear a lot of parents say good job
all the time, it kind of like drives me nuts,
Like good job you Pete on the potty or whatever,
(05:17):
and like that's good the first year obviously, but like
if we're still doing this for like a seven year old,
Am I wrong to think that like that? There are
parents that overpraise. They're definitely parents and and people in
general that I think when they praise, they don't always
use it as effectively as possible. So absolutely, when somebody
is learning something new, to indicate what they're doing well
(05:39):
and not to just say good job, but good job
for Pete in the potty, it makes me so happy.
Kind of using the frame exactly labeled, exactly what they're doing,
saying how it makes you feel as a parent, that
could be really effective at changing behaviors. Now, you absolutely
do not want to praise every single minute, on every
single issue, because then you know, it might be really
difficult for the children to actually build that own internal
(06:00):
ability to praise themselves and to recognize that they're proud
for themselves, and they won't necessarily always seek it externally.
But certainly most parents aren't praising enough. And I would
agree with you. You don't want to praise for every
single thing all of the time for many, many years.
It's probably not going to be helpful. Wow, so most
parents are not praising? What are they? What is a
(06:22):
criticism sound? I think I do criticize a lot, now
that I'm thinking about it. I think my criticism in
my household came about much more post two years old,
and definitely went the introduction of my second uh, my daughter,
because so much of it is like, don't do that.
You can't touch her body like that. Listen to the
(06:42):
sound she's making. She doesn't want to be touched like that,
she doesn't want to be hugged. You have to take
the toy. Like everything got more complicated. And you're right,
it is a lot of criticism. What what is validation?
What's the difference? So validation is very different, and I
think validation is really important because we don't. You're a
lot about it, and it often gets confused with praise.
(07:03):
Validation is communicating to somebody that you hear them, that
you understand them. And let's think of it specifically in
the sort of sense of you understand their emotions. I
understand how you're feeling, I understand how you're thinking. I
might even understand how you engaged in a certain or
why you engaged in a certain behavior, even if I
don't agree with any of those. So it's the skill
(07:25):
of really listening and hearing somebody else out, which is
hard to do, m okay. So an example would be,
let's say my son has a complete temper tantrum because
his sister took a toy that he had been working
(07:45):
very hard on. Um validation would be would be something like,
I hear that you're really upset right now, and I
understand that you're very angry that she took your toy
and that stinks. You know, that's really hard for you
for her, and I'm sorry. Like, is that validation is
that the vocabulary would sound like yes, exactly. It sounds
(08:07):
like you were already trained up, you know exactly what
you're doing. And I imagine many parents and call are
going to say, wait, wait, wait, slow down, he just
took her toy. What are we talking about here? So
just to be really clear, a lot of the work
on validation was sort of formalized in dialectical behavior therapy.
And I don't know how much we'll get into that today, um,
but dialectical behavior therapy is the idea that what dialectics
(08:31):
is the idea that two opposing ideas can both be
true at the same time. I love this, this is
my marriage, I love this, we are both things can
exist and happen simultaneously. Yes, it is an amazing therapeutic
or theoretical orientation therapeutic a set of skills developed by
Marcea Lenahan for adolescents by Jill Rathus and Alec Miller.
(08:55):
And and the idea is exactly what you said, A
child took the toy, so we would want to focus
on the dialectics of change. You're not allowed to take
somebody else's toy without asking, so we're actually not going
to permit that to happen. And acceptance. I will also
accept how that young child feels in that moment. And
if I validated your son or you validated your son,
who said, I know you're really angry. I know you
(09:16):
really wanted to play with the toy, and it makes
sense to me that maybe, um, you got really upset
by this. Hopefully your son would become more regulated, will
feel heard, and then himself recognized maybe I shouldn't have
taken that toy. I really reflected on the idea that
his behavior on getting that toy wasn't super effective, and
he's more likely in the future to do something differently.
(09:38):
It could be a really validation could be a really
helpful tool in bringing people down and helping them feel
more regulated, more heard, so they can now process new
information and make more effective decisions in lies. And by
the way, you can use this with your kids, you
can use this with partners, you can use it with anybody. Um,
validation is an amazing tool. Now. The trick here, though, Katie,
is sometimes you don't always agree, and that's okay. You
(10:00):
don't need to agree with somebody to validate them as
long as you can hear them. You wouldn't want to
validate the invalid which is a whole another path that
you have to be careful about. What does that mean?
So if somebody is stating something that is false or inaccurate.
You wouldn't want to validate that because that would reinforce
an inaccurate version of what is likely to happen. So
(10:22):
sometimes people will come to anything, Zach, I'm really scared
to fly because the plane is going to crash. Would
never validate that the plane is going to crash because
it would be really unlikely that it's going to crash.
But I could validate that it's really really difficult to
get into a plane, yeah, and get shot into the
atmosphere if you don't know anything about jet propulsion and
you haven't done in a long time, uh, and you
have a history of anxiety. Of course, you validate, validate, validate,
(10:47):
and hopefully that individual will feel a little bit more
comfortable with the idea of getting plant and then can
use skills to effectively cope while they're in the plane.
Invalidation is something that inevitably we all do, and it's
communiqu geating too. In this case, our children that their thoughts,
their emotions, and their behaviors are wrong for a situation,
(11:09):
all right, And so if you're constantly telling in a child,
you know you shouldn't think that way. You know that
that's not the way to think about it. That's wrong
to think about it that way, or don't feel that way.
You should change how you feel. That's not helpful. If
you continue to um kind of bombard them with that
invalidation or the communication that what they're thinking or feeling
is wrong, that can actually dramatically impact how they understand
(11:33):
and see the world because they're constantly then questioning how
they're feeling and how they're thinking. But here's the other
key piece. They know how they feel. So if they
feel guilty and people tell them repeatedly, don't feel guilty,
don't feel guilty, don't feel guilty, don't feel guilty, well
they know that they feel guilty. So not only are
they going to struggle with understanding their own emotions and
(11:54):
why they're feeling this way, but they're gonna stop trusting
other folks and why other folks are communicating this to me?
Because I know I feel guilty. So, Katie, why are
you telling me to stop feeling this way? It's feeling
this way because this is how I feel. Yeah, I'm
very careful, you know with boys, and you know they
say if somebody is really sad, you know and and
(12:14):
saying it's okay, it's okay, you're okay, you're okay, just
stop that this. We're not crying right now like any
of that stuff. It's like, no, like if your kids
upset or sad about something, you know, you're like, I
hear that you're really sad, and I'm that's let's just
be sad for a little bit. I'll say here, I'll
be sad with you for a while. Let's be sad
until we're not sad anymore, you know, absolutely, And again
(12:36):
just to kind of emphasize this, when you tell that
child not to be sad, you're telling them what they're
feeling is wrong, even though they're feeling that way right.
So they lose that trust in themselves that I know
what I'm feeling is accurate. But they also lose trust
in what other people are saying to them because they
also know that they really feel sad and nobody's listening.
(12:59):
So it really if it's if it's done chronically and severely,
it can really lead to some negative outcomes in sense
of self self esteem and other areas. M I always
equated to and tell me, like, you know how you
yawn and someone else yawns. So if my son, for
(13:20):
all of you listening, we have a lot of listeners
who have toddlers and young children, and if my kid
is having a freak out about something, validation always helps
me at least try to be calm and then like
a yawn. I hope that at some point he is
better matching my calmness and regulated validation than if I
(13:45):
were to also start yelling, which, by the way, I
am fucking guilty of as well. I think sometimes it's
so hard that I have a parenting podcast because I
know what I'm supposed to be doing, but that doesn't
mean that I'm always working at that vibration. It's hard.
It's hard. Sometimes you just really want to yell, and
then they yell too. It's like I'm trying though. Um Okay,
(14:08):
we did through a step by step breakdown. I think
we should do this again because you're talking about dialectics,
but let's talk about the body language. So the first
things you could do if you were validating someone's tantrum,
I see that you're upset, I hear that you're upset,
something like that, immediately you're trying to It almost feels
like from an acting standpoint like empathy, right, like put
(14:31):
yourself in someone else's shoes. What is the body language
for validation? Look like yeah, so, I mean the first
step really is non verbal, and you want to kind
of walk over to them, sit down, You could rub
their back, took their heads, get down to where they
are and make that eye contact, show them that you're
really listening and look at similar to you. I understand
(14:53):
in this moment, we really need to get to sarcer practice.
We're late for the birthday party, we really need to
get to the airport, and you do not want to
get in your fucking car seat class absolutely not, absolutely not,
and this is likely going to be in One of
the most effective ways to actually get them moving quickly
is to actually sit down, get with them, get to
(15:13):
their eye level, really show them that you're listening. Can
be a super effective way of starting validation and validating
in itself. The next piece you're gonna want to do
is what we would call kind of reflection or accurate reflection.
You're gonna want to ask them what's going on. I
know you don't want to get into your car seat
because it's uncomfortable. If you got it right on the
(15:35):
first job on the first shot. That's great. They're gonna
not They're gonna say yes, if you got it wrong,
it's okay because you can then ask them, oh, why
don't you want to get in your car seat? Because
it's too hot in the car. Okay, so let's see
what we can do to fix that. In that moment,
reflecting back to them, I know it's not always comfortable
in the car because it gets hot. I get that,
And let's talk about some ways to maybe make the
(15:58):
car a little bit cooler for you during the right there. Yeah, see,
my son doesn't get in the car seat. I could
be completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure my son doesn't
like anything where he's not in the position of power
or autonomy. Right, So, like he doesn't want to get
in a car seat, he doesn't want to get dressed. Um,
which is like classic four year old ship show. I
(16:21):
mean we've gotten I don't take him to school in
his clothes ever, I drop him off in pajamas. There's
a stack of guys listening. This is like I have
I can't believe the mother I am. I can't believe it.
But in the in the in the battles, I can't.
I can't. I can't do it in the morning. I've
realized that I am not operating at a high vibrational
(16:41):
place where I can do validation and all this ship
when I just need him to get dressed and get
out the door. So his preschool was like, forget it,
bring him in his pajamas will change him. At some point,
He's not going to wear his pajamas to school when
he's a teenager because he's going to care what people think.
Maybe absolute I mean, and what you're talking about, Katie,
(17:01):
is a beautiful skill of picking your battles. So my
five year old, I almost said, four you because it
just his birthday, just had his birthday, Happy birthday, Yeah,
thank you. He he's just started to refuse to wear shorts.
So in New York right now it's about ninety degrees
and he's just wearing jeans right now. It's so hot.
(17:23):
But you know what, it's absolutely I'm just not going
to pick that battle, because you're absolutely right. He will
eventually transition to shorts. He will get hot, he will
get uncomfortable, and he'll do it in that moment. I'm
just not going to pick that battle, which is a
really important parenting strategy to to think about, because sometimes
they really do need that control in that autonomy, and
that's important. And as long as you're okay with pajamas
(17:44):
at pre school and I'm okay with jeans in the summer,
which I would never do, then we're good. Just let
you know, we're just gonna let it go. And I
had to really look at why I was upset about
the pajamas to school, and it really was about my grandmother,
like like literally, like if I really looked at it,
I was like, why is this such a sticking point
(18:05):
that he has to wear clothes to school? And it's
because I hear are wonderful nanny who's very traditional and
cares a lot about like appearances, and my grandmother the same.
And I was like wow, Like I felt like inside
like I was failing that I was going to show
up with my kid in school. He's in his Christmas
pajamas today with light bulbs all over it from a
Christmas tree, and I literally look at us, like, but
(18:26):
he's happy. He's happier than on the mornings where I
forced him to get dressed. And it gets like physical
and awful and just emotional and it's a fucking nightmare.
This has been so much better. What is emotional disregulation
(18:48):
versus regulation? Yeah, so a lot of times we're going
to see our our younger folks, right are toddler's latecy
age kids, and obviously teenagers and adults as well, in
kind of a state of disregulation, meaning that their mood,
their emotions, maybe their thoughts, maybe their behaviors or what
(19:11):
we would consider out of control in a way that's
not effective, not helpful, and like like likely for for parents,
pissing us off, right, And so we're going to see
that and in that moment we can kind of reflect it.
They are not in control in this moment. And you
want to actually think about two different types of disregulation,
because we see this, but we don't always recognize the
(19:32):
second type. The first type is underregulated. So these are
individuals that are having that tantrum. We all know what
a tantrum looks like. I know what a tantrum looks
like with all three of my boys. But another type
of disregulation is what we would call overregulation, and these
are individuals that are so regulated that they're not even
allowing themselves to feel anything. So I want you to
(19:52):
think about. And it's hard to see in a toddler,
but it might be easier for for us to think
about with maybe some unfortunately some of our our friends
or FAMI the members who have been really really depressed
and can't get out of the bed and sort of
pull the covers over your head. Or what you can
see is you see toddlers who are severely, severely anxious.
They're overly regulated. So they're not moving there, not sort
(20:13):
of um putting their emotions out there. They're controlling everything
to the best of their ability, whether that's controlling what
they're eating, controlling how much they're speaking, controlling whether they're
going to the bathroom. Oh yeah, I've heard about that.
Oh my god. So these are individuals who are so
out of control that they become overregulated in a way.
And we miss those kids sometimes because sometimes those kids
(20:36):
are actually performing well on a superficial level. It's like
they're doing all the rules, they're doing what they're supposed
to be doing, so no one looks or even thinks
to look that something could be wrong. Wow, that's really interesting. Yeah,
So you want to be mindful for that and kids
that kind of meet that level and you can tell
they're just really really anxious or they're really just trying
(20:58):
to hold it together, and that's how they is that
and then what's under that's overregulated? What's underregulated? Okay, screaming, yelling, throwing, kicking, okay,
and so then any so your goal is once we've
crossed into that, the most important thing is getting them
(21:20):
to a regulated level. Like that's your job as a parent.
And I tried to express this expresses to my husband
all the time. He had to learn that when you
are not regulated, you are either overregulated or underregulated. Is
not the time for a teaching moment. No, no, Katie,
you're you're absolutely right. Um. Although you know, I don't
(21:42):
blame or judge your husband because I think we in
those moments, we're also frustrated. We just want to say, hey, kid,
you see that wasn't working for you right exactly. That's
when my husband's like, what, like now is the time
to have like a twenty minute conversation about like why
you can't have this at that point, and I'm like,
he is not hearing you. He's out of his fucking
mind right now. He's literally a sociopath. Absolutely, at that moment,
(22:07):
they're so disregulated. And I want us as adults to
think about that time when we were waiting for a
plane and it got canceled, and in the moment right away,
we're disregulated. We can't even think about what is the
next step that I need to take to solve this
problem that my plane was just canceled. I'm so disregulated,
I'm so upset, i can't even think. And that's why
if you use validation to help your child get to
(22:29):
a regulated state, they may be able to either accept
the help that you're offering or that you could offer
to solve the problem, or again, more importantly, they could
come up with a solution learned that this is a
more effective way to deal with the difficult situation. How
the hell are parents supposed to know not only timing
of it. You know, if your child is in a
(22:51):
disregulated moment, it might be a time to use validation
as a tool to get them to a regulated spot.
But how do you know that it's a good time
to bevalidating versus when is it a time to be
stern or fix a situation? Yeah, so I would come
back to the idea of dialectics where I'm going to
try to do both at the same time. And you
(23:12):
know this also bleeds a little bit into what you're
talking about about modeling. Whenever I'm trying to set a
limit with my boys, I am trying to do it
from a calm perspective, from a perspective that that shows
them that I am in control of my emotions. I
know what I'm feeling. And at the same time, what
you did broke a rule in the home, so there
needs to be consequences. Just to be clear, I don't
(23:34):
do that. I try to do that, and I tell
people I do that. Damn that's good though, Like up,
you broke a rule in the house, and so unfortunately
there's going to have to be consequences. Well and then
and we're gonna jump in about it and coming back
just coming back to this kid, because I want to
really own this. My wife says to me all the time,
but you're an expert in this, aren't you. How come
you're not doing what you tell people to do all
the time? Right? So I get that all the time
(23:54):
at home. At the same time, I strive to be
able to validate at the same time saying I know
this is difficult, I know this is not going to
be fun. And at the same time, I need you
go into time out for hitting the broad right, that's
what that's what we're gonna do. They go into time out,
they get disregulated, they get upset. At the end of
time out, I walk up to them. I validate their emotions.
I get why you're upset. I totally do. And you know,
I think what what sometimes I hear in our society
(24:16):
is we're being too soft on our kids. We're being
too you know, we're being too easy on them. And
maybe they're right, maybe they're not. I personally think, as
um somebody who does a lot of behavioral parent training,
what I'm doing in that moment is trying to help
my child get more regulated so they can learn how
to be more effective. And at that age it's really
really great. They can learn a lot on how to
(24:37):
be um you, how to be more skillful in the future,
and it's such a it's such a crucial time to
be able to teach them how to deal with that.
So as much as I can and try to validate
to get them in a regulated place so they can
learn from it. This is making me feel much better
because you're a professional and now I'm going to tell
people that. But I do feel guilt about not being
(24:59):
stern enough, especially around older generations, like on family vacations
with my parents or my grandmother or you know, I
have a very um extroverted son who you know people,
I hear people say like, oh, you're gonna have to
look out for that one, or you think he's hard
(25:19):
now like or or or you're gonna have to show
you This one's classic, Like you're gonna have to show
him whose boss now because later, you know, things like
that um always perk up my ear a lot, and
I worry that. Yeah, I think the older generation was like,
throw him in his fucking room, lock the fucking door,
let him scream and cry. He just hit his sister,
(25:40):
Like that's unacceptable. Where I'm trying to do more of
what I learned here from experts, and I'm praying that
y'all are right that that I say, Oh, okay, you
know what, you touched your sister's body in a way
that's unacceptable. It's not how we treat people. And now
me and you're SI or we're going to go play
(26:00):
over here because we don't want to be or whatever
I do you know, like you're going to have to
have a time out and sit in your room and
think about it. And you can be upset. You're allowed
to be upset, but we're not going to treat people
like that. I don't allow. And then I come back
and then we repair them rupture a few minutes later,
and he says he's sorry, and I say, I appreciate
that you're sorry, and but it still doesn't make it
right that you hit her. We can't. I don't hit
people's bodies. You don't hit people's bodies. But I do
(26:23):
this over over and over again, and I pray that
he will just be a good person. Yeah, yeah, I
think you know. I think what you brought up is
really important that we as parents. It's really hard to
navigate our family relationships while we're parenting at the same time,
whether it's on trips or or folks are coming to
(26:43):
visit us or whatever we're doing. And you're just going
to try to do the best you can buy, really
using these skills and strategies and recognize that they weren't
necessarily developed or talked about or utilized in our generation.
And and that's okay. I'll still do something a little
bit differently with my kids. And as long as you're
finding that balance of making sure that you are doing
(27:05):
some limit setting, because there needs to be some limit setting,
and you're also having some acceptance of this is the situation,
this is my child, this is their strength, and these
are their areas of growth, then I think you're doing
You're doing the right thing here. And it's stressful. We
just acknowledge that, Oh my god, is it stressful? Um
this book you mentioned a lot which I think is
(27:25):
a book. It's called The Rabbit Listened. It's the fucking
best for adults and kids alike. Can you tell us
what happens in this book and why it's so important?
Everyone who is listening, who is pregnant, has a small baby,
has an older baby, has a team. I don't care
get this book if you don't have The Rabbit listen
(27:47):
to get it. I love this book. I think it
does such a nice job of describing validation and one
of the major pitfalls we as parents um succumbed to
um with being in validating. But but really, in this book,
there is this child, uh, and this child has you know,
(28:07):
I won't give the whole premise away but this child
has something bad that happens to them, and so different
animals come in and try to fix it. And we
as parents do that too often. Too often, when a
child is hurt, child is upset about something that happened,
we come in and we say things like, oh, it's okay,
it'll be better tomorrow, or don't worry about that. I
(28:27):
have a solution, or here another favorite one in our country.
Here have a cookie that will make you feel better. Right,
that's all actually invalidating. And I know a lot of
parents in the call and they say, WHOA, I'm trying
to help them. You're telling me that that's invalidating. It
is because in that emoment, in that moment, your child
is feeling a specific emotion. It's really important for us
to allow your child to sit in that emotion and
(28:50):
for you to sit with that emotion with your child
as well, and allowing that to happen can help your
child deal with that emotion, feel it and allow it
to receive like a wave, because emotions hit us like
waves hit us hard, and then they eventually go away, right,
And it allows them to grow and to then change themselves.
(29:11):
And so what you see in this book is a
lot of different animals come in and try to fix
the problem. Young child is not getting what they need
until one animal comes in and just listens. And I
also want to be really clear, Katie, it is hard
to just listen to your child and the negative emotions
that they're feeling. Right. We had a first incident of
being bullied at five years old. It was one of
(29:33):
the most difficult things I had to listen to. Right here,
my child talk about being bullied at school. And all
I want to do was fix it, right. All I wanted,
it'll be better when you get when you get this age,
and I'll call it the principle, and I'll call it
the parent and this, And all I needed to do
in that moment was just sit in that emotion myself,
which was really difficult. And by the way, we have
a technical term for this. It's called sitting in the
(29:55):
ships because it sucks so much. It sucks so much.
But instead of trying to pull your child out of
the ship, tell them how to get out of the ship,
just go in and sit with them, Just sit with
that and allow them to feel it, to learn how
to cope with it, and then they will get up
and out themselves. And this book does an excellent job
describing that. And then also our goal in this in
(30:18):
sitting and ship versus being like the other animals in
the book where you're the other animals in the book
are all coming in like you so eloquently said it,
just they're they're using different tactics of how they're going
to fix it for the kid. But is the goal
of just sitting in the ship and listening and maybe
sitting at the same level as your child having body
language that's open. Uh? Is the goal for them two
(30:43):
learn themselves how to fix it for themselves because we're
not always going to be there to fix it anyway. Um,
But is the goal? The goal is for them to
learn validation for themselves, like to self validate absolute. I mean,
the goal I think includes um includes many aspects. One
(31:06):
goal is for them to just feel the emotion and
sit in it, so we don't try to change the emotions.
So then there right right exactly, So they can't tolerate
right and so you know the movie inside out right,
they can't tolerate sadness, cannot tolerate sadness. So we need
to help our children learn how to tolerate sadness, because unfortunately,
sadness is a part of life. Guilt is a big one,
(31:29):
shame is a big one. We need our children to
be able to sit in those emotions and feel them.
I don't want them to wallow in them for weeks
and weeks and weeks, but feeling that emotion and learning
how to tolerate it and learning how to get out
of it is so important. And if you can model
that and help guide that, then absolutely the goal is
that they'll acquire that skill and then be able to
generalize in other situations when we're not around, because we
(31:50):
will not always be around to be able to do that.
Are there any activities that help kids develop internal validation
besides you modeling it. Yeah, there's not a lot of
activities that I necessarily can think of off the top
of my head. I mean, I think that this really
is about awareness and mindfulness, which also is kind of
a piece that's a huge component of dialectical behavior therapy
(32:13):
or DBT. And they're not doing DBT with toddlers or
anything like that, but it's certainly um a therapeutic set
of skills that I've I've utilized when I'm doing behavioral
parent training. It really is about awareness of how you're feeling.
I think that's a big piece because you need to
be able to understand what emotion I have. So I
think it's important to and again coming back to the
movie Inside Out, they do a great job of sort
(32:36):
of taking away the stigma of difficult emotions and whether
you're watching Inside Out or making sure you're reading books
about different emotions or you know, with my seven year
old in my five year old, we're gonna start reading
Harry Potter this summer, right, so I'll hopefully be able
to ask them questions. It's not gonna be every page,
what emotion is ron feeling? What emotions? But it's really helpful. Yeah. Sure,
(32:58):
having that open conversation with or watching films or watching
reading books and doing different activities with them help them
kind of engage in the understanding of these are emotions
and these how these are how emotions in these fields.
(33:18):
You know, my husband and I were such actors and
we've been in therapy for like twenty years and we
just love it just because I whether or not I'm
having good weeks bad weeks, are actually struggling, struggling with
things I've been diagnosed with or whatever. For me, it
just makes me a much better mother, daughter, wife, because
I have somebody else listening to my stuff. UM. When
(33:42):
is it time for a child to have therapy or
should I don't know. So it's that's a tougher question
to answer because it can be so individualized. And at
the same time, if you're concerned about about emotions or
behaviors or even thinking patterns and styles, if you're concerned
(34:04):
that any of those three areas are impacting one of
the areas of life for for a very young child,
friendship UM, academics, ability to engage in social activities, umby
ability to connect with other folks, UM, sort of all
the different facets within young children. That's probably the time
to seek UM some advice on yeah, if we if
(34:27):
we want help. You know the really nice thing about
many childhood psychiatric issues, if we intervene early, the outcomes
are tremendously positive for many of them, UM. And at
the same time, we're not always great at catching them.
You know one thing that that we hear a lot
about that's that's always really sad for me is children
(34:48):
with selective mutism. Right, So, there's some children who don't
speak in different areas. Maybe it's at school, Uh, maybe
it's with specific family members, but it's certain settings they
just don't speak. And what you'll hear sometimes from healthcare professionals,
whether it's you know, an m D or maybe even
a therapist, is or don't worry, they'll grow out of this.
(35:09):
But this is actually a pretty severe and significant issue
that needs to be addressed with a specific type of
therapy um and and needs to be addressed as quickly
as possible. And when addressed, the outcomes are really tremendously positive.
But sometimes we don't always recognize these things. Wow. I
would go so far as to say too for anyone listening, Like,
(35:30):
I just feel like if you instinctually feel like something
is off in any area, I'm like the first person
to go running to, like anyone who's a professional, do
you know what I mean? It's like I'm just like, well,
let's just at least go and ask, you know, like
poke around a little bit, um, how would you know
(35:50):
that somebody was a fit? Yeah, So I'm I will
say I'm biased in this and that I'm more of
a fan of especially with children during adolescents, even our
our young adults who seem to be struggling more and
more these days, UM with evidence based interventions and really
thinking about different psychiatric treatments that are supported by research,
(36:17):
and so I think that's kind of the first step.
There's a really good website that that I really often
guide individuals too, and it's just called Effective Child Therapy
dot org UM. It's through the Society of Clinical Child
and Adolysts and Psychology. It's related to UM Association for
Behavior and Cognitive Therapies. But there you can look up
(36:38):
some of the symptoms that your young child is struggling
with and find the recommended treatments, and from there you
can even look up different therapists that are offering those
treatments and really finding a therapist that not only is
trained in evidence based practices, but who's also collaborative. You know,
if you have a therapist that's meeting with your child
(36:59):
and not giving you updates on how things are going,
maybe not weakly right, but you're hearing and you know
what the treatment plan is and the goals, and they're
and they're giving you feedback. That's important for for child
and really for adolescent therapy as well. There might be
cases where really we want the adolescent to have that autonomy,
but that's being explained to you why and what's going on.
But for the most part, you're gonna want a therapist
(37:20):
that's collaborative and speaking with you and giving you feedback
and giving you some guidance. And the other piece that
that I think we really struggle with, as I know
I struggle with as a provider and as a parent,
is often child interventions include the parents, which means not
only you know, there could be up to two sessions
a week where the child is going in once and
you're going in with your partner or on your own
(37:42):
ones as well. Um, And that's a lot of work,
and at the same time the can be tremendously helpful
and with a lot of positive outcomes if you're with
the right provider and in the right treatment. Again, I
know that this is for kids, but it's like if
we get back to basics of like body language, taking
(38:02):
a breath, getting down on our kids level, making the
space to just listen, and then using your fancy dialectic
I think was the word um, but words that are
not trying to change the emotion or change the experience,
but sitting the experience and essentially respect that they're in
(38:24):
it and that they're going through it. Like I hear
that it is really hard. Oh my gosh, speaking about
two things at once. My son was saying the other day,
I got oh, he kicked me in the eyeball, so
that's fun. He was so pissed that I was face
he My son's behavior goes from shipped to shittier whenever
(38:48):
I'm on the phone or on FaceTime, right because it's
it's I'm not paying attention to him. Even though to
be fair, he's very good at independent play and he's
very good at those things. It's just for some reason,
like when I'm face timing with my mother and he
wants my attention, ship gets real crappy quick. So he
hit the phone out of my hand, and I was like, uh,
you know, I really didn't like that. This is an
(39:09):
expensive piece of something that I need for work, and
blah blah blah, and then he tried to kick it
out of my hand but missed and kicked me in
the eyeball. So I said, oh, Mom, I'm gonna have
to go. I'm I'm really angry, right, now, and I
tried to keep myself very regulated. I turned off the
phone and I said, um, that was unacceptable. You hurt
(39:33):
my face, you hurt my eye. I could have gotten
really hurt. And I'm so upset right now that I
actually I can't, I can't be with you right now.
I'm going to go to my own room and sit
because I'm I don't want to be really, really really angry.
I'm so angry and my eyeball hurts. So I excused
myself because I was like so fucking pissed. And then
(39:54):
he's like screaming and he only wants me, and he's
so sorry, he's so sorry, so sorry, and I'm like,
I'm I'm really appreciate that you're sorry and you feel
bad about what you've done, it's still I'm still mad.
For example, both things are true, like you are sorry,
I accept your apology. I'm still angry. I'm not ready
(40:16):
to let this go. But he also said, after we
kind of got through it a few days later, he
was like, when you were really angry, you didn't love
me then, And I said, oh, that's actually not true, buddy,
I said, I can I can be angry at you.
I can be sad with you, I can be disappointed,
I can feel all those things, and I can still
love you at the same time. In fact, that's like
(40:37):
how I feel about you all the time, Like I
love you all the time even if I'm angry or
piste off or cranky or whatever. But two things being
true at one time, I feel like is parenting? Yeah, well,
I think I think from my reflection on the story
that you told, I love that you took space and
(40:58):
in some ways that's why we do time outs right.
And by the way, I am an advocate for time out.
I think time out is gonna be really really helpful.
Using the time out in that moment was is, in
my opinion, the right thing to do. And this is
how you use it dialectically, right, So the dialectics that
I'm talking about is acceptance and empathy plus change. So
(41:18):
the time out is the change. So getting off the
phone with your mother expressing how you feel in that moment,
putting him in time out, are you taking time out
and then taking some time and then coming back to
that situation and explaining why it was so hurtful, why
it bothered you, And at the same time you know
that sometimes it's really hard for him when you're on
(41:39):
the phone in finishing up parenthood is it's really challenging,
and it is also something that everybody can be successful
at when getting the right support. Yeah, that's so true,
and I really hope that this podcast provides a little
(41:59):
bit of that. Obviously, all of the clients of zach
Ka Blumkin are definitely getting that. I'm so appreciative of
you taking the time. I know you're very busy saving
lives and children and parents mental health. It's very, very,
very important, and I'm so appreciative of you taking the
time to me on Katie's Crib. Thanks for having me.
(42:26):
Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode.
I want to hear from you. Let's chat questions, comments, concerns.
Let me know. You can always find me at Katie's
Crib at Shanda land dot com. Katie's Crib is a
production of Shonda Land Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from Shannalan Audio, visit the I Heart
(42:47):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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