Why Worry?

Teddi sits down with an expert panel to break down when to worry about our children’s worries and how worrisome it all truly is!

Award winning author of You Are a F*cking Awesome Mom, Leslie Bruce and Adolescent Psychotherapist Susan Zinn lend their expertise and advice to help us understand children with stress and anxiety.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Teddy t Pot. Hi you guys, welcome back
to Teddy Teapod. I am super excited about this week
one we have on Leslie and Bruce, who is a
number one New York Times bestselling co author of the

(00:25):
book You Are an Awesome Mom, Which how great is
that I've got Leslie with me right now. Hi, thank
you so much for having me. I'm so excited to
be here and we are going to be talking all
things children's anxiety. So I struggle with anxiety myself, and
then also my son has a form of anxiety that's

(00:47):
really just kind of cropped up in the past year
where he all of a sudden decided he could no
longer sleep in his own room. He didn't want to
go in public bathrooms, like all of these started kind
of changing in our life. And for about four and
a half months he was my husband in my roommate,

(01:07):
like we set up a full bed in our room
like for him, he camped out with us, and it
wasn't really until his teacher said to us, um, Teddy Edwin,
before the baby comes, you need to move him out
because you don't want to do it once the baby comes,
and then him feel like, oh, you're getting the boot

(01:29):
because you have a little sister that just arrived, and
then we'll have all these feelings towards her. So we
started doing our research on figuring out the best methods,
and the biggest thing that has worked for us has
been meditation with him. And I am like a terrible
meditator myself, like, but he craves it, loves it, is

(01:49):
obsessed with it, like sits there and it's like every
single night before we go to bed, he's like, Mom,
can we get Andy. That's the guy's name that speaks
on headspace. And he's become like our best friend. I
think we're at like minutes meditated in the last couple
of months. So really that's worked for us. And as
we've been doing Andy slash Headspace, everything else has kind

(02:14):
of shifted. He started being able to go back into
the public restrooms. He's not as frightened of certain things,
and I've started to learn that if I manage his
expectations in advance, we have less like chaos when it
comes down to it, right, did you notice is it
like a separation anxiety with with you or is it
like what is it? What? What kind of anxiety. Do

(02:37):
you think it is? We don't really know, because it's
it really has been changing so often, and you know,
at first, I'm like, is it even anxiety? Is it
when I'm working a lot? Is it when? But it
it didn't shift in regards to like, it wasn't like
when I was filming the show or not. You know,
it was kind of just but I had gotten pregnant,

(02:59):
right right, So I think that thing may have had
a way, a way bigger effect than I could have imagined,
right right. I definitely saw that with my I have
two kids. My daughter is five and my son is
now twenty months, and I definitely saw that, and it
was it's just change in general. I think with my
daughter and she has I mean, my husband and I

(03:21):
both have anxiety. I had horrible postpartum anxiety after my
son was born. UM, but during my pregnancy it was
a really it was a high risk pregnancy. I was
on bed rest bunch and um, so it sort of
manifests in the house, right And I feel like there's
like this uh like spillover effect. And so I saw
with my daughter any time that there's like major change,
any time that we're we're shifting her dynamic. It can

(03:45):
it can feel tense for her. And when I got pregnant,
we had that, and when we moved, we had that
new school, all of that, and it's just in the
key for our family. I think it's just the communication,
really setting expectations, this is what's going to happen. She
works well under kind of a a controlled controlled chaos. Right.

(04:05):
That's funny that you said that, because the same exact
kind of thing happened with me. I was with my
other kids. I was on a you know, partial bed
rest on and off. I started getting terrible postpartum anxiety
as well. So as you're as I'm hearing you say that,
I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm having complete flashbacks. But
then you know, I have my son who has you know,

(04:25):
for the last eight months kind of struggled with it.
And then recently my daughter um our dog passed away,
and she had a totally different form of I didn't
think it was anxiety at all. I thought maybe she
was sick until I took her to the doctor where
she kept saying, mom, I can't catch my breath. And

(04:45):
it happened, and it was all through the holidays and
she kept saying, I can't catch my breath, like, and
so I took her to the doctor and we've been
you know, I thought maybe it's acid reflux. I was
like doing research on what to give kids for USID reflux, etcetera, etcetera.
And we went into the doctor and I'm like, these
are her symptoms, and she like puts her on a
breathing machine, has a conversation with her, and then she

(05:08):
looked at slate and she goes, Slate, has anything been
bothering you recently? And she goes, yeah, my dog died,
and it's I've just been really sad. And I was
like immediately trying to reel it in because I wanted
to like break down at that moment. And the doctor goes,
you know, you're not sick, right, You're okay that whatever
you're feeling right now, it's just emotional. And she didn't

(05:31):
say just I said, jes, but she's like, it's emotional.
You know, maybe do some breathing, or you can do
some yoga with your mom or some meditation or different
things like that, but you are not sick. You are fine, right,
And I'm not kidding. The next day there was she
was fine. So it's such a different thing, like she

(05:51):
just needed someone to tell her you're okay, right, Whereas
my son, it's like we do this every night, we
do headspace. We're constantly you know, discussing things that you know,
walking into the dark room or walking into you know,
different spaces. But it's crazy how how different our kids
are and how they handle things completely different, even though

(06:14):
we're all in the same house, right, I feel like,
I mean, I feel like that goes across the board
with parenting, Like having how I raise one child it's
going to be completely different from how I have to
raise the other, and you know, same general guidelines and
morals and all that. But my daughter responds so differently
to things than my son does. And to have to
I mean, for me having to like figure out parenting

(06:35):
in general and then having to figure out parenting too,
different kids in two different ways. It often, um, it
can feel like a lot, but you realize that they
just respond so differently and so well to different things,
so you've got to, like, you gotta be flexible, flexible.
I know. Even the doctor was like, maybe you should
start meditating with slate as well, and we did it
that first night when we came home from the doctor,

(06:58):
and I go, let you want to do Andy, you
know with Cruise and I and she goes okay, And
then night to she goes, Mom, I don't need to
meditate anymore. I'm fine. I'm not having the breathing issue anymore.
Like she has wants nothing to do with it, and
she hasn't brought up the breathing thing again, whereas Cruise
is like, Mom, can we do three Andy's tonight, for

(07:18):
Andy's tomorrow? Back to three the next day? Like he
is so regimented. I love that. Do you think with
your daughter that it was did have anything to do
with like I feel like with my my daughter, I'm
having to explain death to her, and that's a really
I'm trying to figure out how to do it in
a way that's like appropriate for her age. I think

(07:39):
she was because she didn't properly. It wasn't like the
dog was sick, like a tragic thing happened to the dog.
We had dropped it off at a doggy daycare place
and the woman had an accident with the dog and
the dog passed away, and like we were out of
town and we came back and the dog was gone,
like there was no goodbye, there was nothing. And the

(08:00):
first week we were all emotional about it, like we
were on and like Leaky Faucett's like crying one day, laughing,
you know, like grieving. But then she didn't talk about
it anymore. So then I was like, oh, maybe she
this has past for her. But then it just creeped
back in and I think she didn't know how to
express it and I and I should have asked, you know,

(08:22):
And in hindsight, I should have been like, how are
you feeling? But I was like, oh, she's not talking
about it. Maybe maybe we don't need to talk about
it anymore, because then I don't break down and not
you know. But it was probably avoidance on all of
our part, and you know, she was internalizing it somehow. Yeah,
that makes sense. So before we take a break, I
want to introduce our next guest who's actually going to

(08:44):
help us dig into all of these anxiety and stress
questions when it comes to kids. Her name is Susansen.
She is a psychotherapist um She works in California and
New York. She has a private practice and she specializes
in working with teenagers, a young adults, and families. So
I am so excited we had. I can't even tell
you how many listener questions. This topic was above any

(09:08):
other with questions like my inbox was flooded. So let's
get to it right after we take a break. So
here we are. We are back with Susan and Leslie,
and we are talking all things anxiety. So I mean, selfishly,

(09:30):
I want to ask about my own kids first, my parenting,
so I want to dig kind of right into this.
So something that's kind of gone on with my son,
which I gave a little backstory before you came in,
but he was having trouble going into his own room.
So for a while, my husband and I kind of
just let him sleep with us in our room. We

(09:50):
called him our roommate. And then we've recently transitioned him
to his own room because we didn't want to do
it right when the baby came. So we are a
about a month into it. But it truthfully has to
be one of us at night doing meditation for at
least twenty minutes why he falls asleep. We have a

(10:13):
reward chart for him in the morning every night, you know,
after you know wakes up, then we praise him we
give him that, but I mean it is a constant
battle because he's extremely scared about his dreams. So I
was wondering if you had any other advice for us
and things that we could do. We also talk you know,
we have faith, so we talked about like, you know,

(10:36):
you're being you're protected, everything's good, but he's like I prayed,
it's not helping. I think it's so important to normalize
their behavior and what's happening in their nervous system. Kids
also love science, so to really kind of have them understand, oh,
this is normal for you to feel like going into
your room without mom and dad, maybe something scary when

(10:59):
he's five, right, Um, is really important. UM. And so
I think you're doing a great job of really working
with a reward system and kind of getting him to
a routine and habit of how to go to sleep
and actually feel safe. But UM, you know, keep talking,
just like as you talked about with your daughter, is
normalizing this behavior, um, And so he can kind of

(11:21):
keep gaining that skill of really kind of feeling, um
that he's capable of going to sleep and capable of
actually mastering the skill on his own, which is going
to give him a great sense of agency, right, that
confidence that he can do it. Yes, I mean in
that same to a girlfriend of mine her daughter has

(11:42):
recently just started bedwedding again. Could that be a form
of anxiety? Yes, for sure. And the thing is is
that we with children, we don't really um. They don't
have the maturity to really understand oftentimes what their emotional
states are and to be able to articulate them. So
they come out and behaviors and actions, and so it's

(12:05):
really up to us as parents in order to help
them to correlate the language with what's actually going on,
being curious about it, being curious about certain actions that
are happening during their day that may be resulting in
an action um. And also not shaming we take back
steps as children, we take forward steps. It doesn't always

(12:26):
have to be kind of on this sort of linear
trajectory of doing everything perfectly. UM. So I think it's
really just about being calm and being able to connect
with our children, um, and being able to help them
with language to understand what's happening. Well, how do you
as a parent, how are you able to figure out
if it's something is a behavior or if they are

(12:48):
developing or suffering from an anxiety. How can you figure
it out in order to help them? Yeah, I mean
the first step is always going to your pediatrician and
making sure that there isn't any medical issue that's coming up. Um.
But the other issue that I'm super passionate about is
I think that we're limiting our language for this generation
and for our children of their feeling states. They are

(13:09):
allowed to be happy, they are allowed to be sad,
they're allowed to be anxious, and they're allowed to be depressed.
And that's kind of how we talk about language with
kids with feelings. We label so many things as anxiety
when they actually might be excitement. Right, because in our
feeling state, anxiety, love and excitement feel exactly the same.
We get the hard palpitation we get, we might even
get sweaty, we might get excited, um, but we limit

(13:32):
that and UM, I think it's really about expanding out
feeling states for our children, to really give them a
range and be able to kind of connect with different
things that are happening. They may be frustrated, they may
be annoyed, um, they may be super excited, but they
have a hard time kind of connecting those things, and
that's really what our job is. Should we be avoiding

(13:53):
using the word anxiety in front of our kids? I
actually think so. I think that we overuse it in
our society and they do too. I mean, we love
to label things in order to understand them in our brains, right,
But UM, I think that being expansive on kind of
what different feelings are so important. There's actually a great
book called the Human Emotion UM Book, and I think

(14:16):
it's a UM. It goes through just the various types
of emotional states and there's some really crazy ones that
you haven't even ever thought of. And I think kind
of exploring that with our children, of um, can we
really expand these out is super important because the popular
thing that is coming up for pretty much everyone I

(14:36):
know is how do you help learning slash identifying I
mean other than going to your pediatrician. But like if
as somebody who struggles with anxiety, I am hyper focused
when I think it might be anxiety, So how do
you identify it with your child without creating a bigger issue? Right?
I think that what you're talking about is so important

(14:58):
because you have to really look at what is yours
and what's theirs? Right. So first I'm packing that the
fact it is is, oh, am I feeling anxious about this?
Am I feeling anxious that they're not transitioning? Am I
feeling anxious that Cruiz is not in his bed and
we're having a baby in a month? Or is this
really about him right? Or is he ready for it too?

(15:18):
That's also a big part of it. Um you know,
he's not going to go to college sleeping in your bed.
I mean, you know, those morning hugs are pretty great.
It's funny that you say that because actually, my um
my sister went through a divorce in her eleven year
old still is now with my brother out of the house. Uh,

(15:42):
he's he's developed an attachment to her where he has
to be in bed with her. And now he's eleven,
and she has the guilt of not letting of the
change that's happened, and so she's allowing him to kind
of be in the room and but she doesn't know
when it's what's a healthy amount of sort of uh
time time and cuddling and all of that, and then

(16:04):
when does it get to the point of, Okay, now
it's time to transition into our next chapter, Like, how
do you navigate because it feels like it's such like
a it's a tight rope. You don't want to say no,
you don't want to say yes, you know, you want
to do the right thing. I think that's the hard
part about parenting, right. It's all individual and we all
love to judge one another. Two um. So it's really
when it's starting to interfere either with their functioning or yours. Right.

(16:26):
So the fact is, if it's interfering with your life,
are your sleep or whatever it may be, then that's
the time to actually really work on transitions. If it's
not and it's working for the family, then it's embracing it.
And also when it comes to kids, oftentimes you'll see
a child say, oh, I hurt my arm or my
foot or my toe or my whatever. I can't go

(16:47):
to pe or I don't want to go to dance
class today because my leotard hurts my you know arm,
you know whatever it may be. Is that a form
of anxiety or is it attention or what is that? Right? Again,
I think this goes back to the question of overusing
that word anxiety, But it's also really about being attuned

(17:09):
and being curious about what's going on with a child
and impacking that because it may be a fear base.
And the fact is is our our nervous system does
what a nervous system should do UM with anxiety, which
is keep us alive and keep us safe. And so
oftentimes it missfires right. And so the fact is is
that going to the dance class may feel terrifying to

(17:30):
a child, which causes them anxiety, or it may be
something else that actually is really going on. But I
think for us to really kind of move into our
child and explore, so, why do you get a stomach
ache every single time you're going to dance class? What's
going on with that? UM? Is there something that I
can help navigate with you and really bring down UM
to their level their understanding of what's going on with

(17:52):
them internally. But a lot of times your kids will
say nothing, no, not if if you get to that,
then what's your next question? What's your next plan? Right? UM? Yeah?
Because they oftentimes don't know, and so it's really up
to us to kind of be able to UM investigate,
to be curious, to be talking to the teachers, maybe
to other parents, to observe and see what's going on

(18:15):
that may be causing our child conflict and then moving
into asking them about those specific issues. Is there a
certain time a day or a certain situation where you
think is the best time to talk to your kids
about those kind of things in the car? In the
car um, I think oftentimes when there's too much focus,

(18:36):
that's really when it gets into those feelings of moving
back and maybe I'm embarrassed about this, or maybe I'm
feeling shameful. So when they're coming home from school and
you're driving them home from school, or maybe they're having
a snack, or maybe it's before bedtime, um, whatever it
may be, when they're actually really calm, is to moving

(18:56):
into having them to have that conversation about out dropping
down and and and what's what's going on with them
and during their day, just the communication. I had heard this,
and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I had
heard the statistic or the study that said that as
a parent, if you can connect twenty five minutes uninterrupted
every day with your kid, no phone, no outside anything,

(19:17):
and just be in front of your child, that there's
not a lot that can get past you. That you know,
whether it's depression or bullying or whatever it is, that's
going on in their life. If you're connecting with them
for twenty five minutes a day, UM, that that that
you'll be able to catch anything that's going on. And
that felt like a really attainable number to me. I'm like,
I could do that. Yeah, do that. I think it's

(19:40):
really about also teaching them how to be present, right, UM,
So because with all the social media and being overscheduled, UM,
and the meadow commitments that we all have. Now you know,
we're teaching our children how to be competitive at very
young ages. UM. There's a lot of pressure on them
to achieve, both in school, sports, whatever it may be. UM.

(20:00):
Really giving them that gift of presence is so important.
So if you have that twenty five minutes to really
connect with them, really be curious about what's going on
with them, really ask them the questions to know them,
you're doing a great job as a parent. What verbage
would you give our listeners to somebody who's their child
has a big game or a big test, because a
lot of the times you hear about a child will

(20:22):
go in and become paralyzed. We even take a test
because they're so nervous about not doing well in it
or they you know, don't even try and practice because
they're so frightened that they might have to go into
the game. So like, what is the verbage we should
put around it so that we take the pressure off.
But we're also you know, we're there for them, right.

(20:44):
I always go back to science when we're talking to
our kids, right because they understand it from a very
young age. But their brain is doing what a brain does.
And but the problem is isn't misfires all the time,
so it doesn't know the difference between a test and
something really exciting. UM. So I think realizing that behavior
and going look, this could feel really scary for you

(21:04):
to be going into but you've got it. You've trained,
you've you've done the work, You're ready for this, UM
and now it's just about breathing and calming down your
nervous system in order for you to be able to
do the best of you can. How do we how
do we communicate that to like younger children, like to
like the four or five six year old where maybe

(21:24):
the talking of the science might be a little bit
over their head. How do we help them to sort
of get their you know, wrap around their emotions. I
actually disagree with that. I think they get it at
a very young age. I think you can name it UM.
Sometimes it's even really great to call their magdalumas firing
as something Amy or Joe or whatever it may be, UM,

(21:45):
in order to give them a language around that for
them to feel more agency and control. So the earlier
that you're actually really teaching them that UM, that they
can feel safe in their bodies UM and this is
just their brain misfiring. UM. We get out of that,
you know, talking about anxiety and talking about fear bees
and talking about lack of safety, and we get it
really into feeling more in control. And I mean, maybe

(22:07):
I did this wrong, but Cruz has been having a
little bit of a tough time with his letters, and
so I said to him, Hey, Bud, if every day
this week we work on the letters in the morning,
we'll do a little check mark, and then you can
get a gift at the end of the of the
week because you you know, you're committing to do the time.
I'm not kidding. Within two minutes he was like a

(22:28):
basic big So I'm not kidding. For months, I've been
worried about this, like he's not getting the letters, they
brought it up to meet blah blah blah. But the
second I did the reward, But then am I also
pressuring him? See it? Like it's conflicting? So then I
as a mom, I'm like, well, am I always going
to have to bribe him to show me what he knows? Like?

(22:50):
What is happening? I mean, we talk about motivation all
the time, right, and so he was super motivated to
learn his letters to get that reward. Like three minutes.
I was like, you've got I mean, he but then
I'm curious is he fibbing to his sisters and I
because I'm not getting thirty twenty minutes before, we were
all kind of playing around on his board and he

(23:11):
could not do it, and he was like kind of
playing around, and then he was like, I don't know
is that a jay? Is it a j? You know,
like all that type of stuff. But then the second
reward came in. He knew all of it, But then
how do you get it when it actually counts? Because
he's doing that at school as well. For him, I mean,
I can't go walking around with like the Amazon pulled

(23:31):
up on my phone like hey, here you go, buddy.
He's hussling. He's hussling. Well, it's also teaching our kids
about internal and external reward, right, Um, So the goal
is as a parent right now, you're giving him external
reward to hopefully kind of start building the internal um.
And that's what makes a self reliant and uh child

(23:53):
later on and what are really gold as a parent
is But I think that, um, each kid is different
and trying to find that motivation. Um, whether they're feeling
sort of that sense of confidence that they can master
something which is amazing, or they're needing some kind of
push from a parent in order to kind of get
them there. But you can't kind of measure every situation

(24:14):
as being the same either. So as a mom, you've
got to give yourself a little bit of a break,
um and not think that every single situation that he's
going to learn is going to actually need to seem
exact formula. I'm really bad at that. I'm really hard
on myself when it comes to the kids because I want,
I don't know, I guess I have this fear of
like making a mistake that will do damage. You know,

(24:37):
even though I know you trust, you trust your instincts
and you you know all of those things. But I
think also because I'm pregnant that like, I just want
kind of them to feel happy, and so when those
types of little things happen, then I'm like, what am
I doing wrong? What I take? I take it personally right.
I think you mentioned something really important there is you

(24:58):
just want them to be happy. Well, we're never one
constant emotional state. They're going to feel different ranges of
emotion and you have to be okay being uncomfortable as
a mom that they're not always going to be happy.
And that's actually really teaching your kids important things too,
that they don't have to chase these constant states which
causes anxiety. Well, speaking of that, what is the answer

(25:21):
to temper tantrums? If your child is prone to having
major temper tantrums? Like what, in your opinion is the
best way to handle it. Each child is really different,
and I think sometimes not focusing on it is the
most is the best way to go, because when we
hyper focus on anything, it can either give them a
reward right because they're getting that they're getting the attention

(25:43):
that they want, or they're feeling a tremendous amount of
shame about not being able to have the control over
their emotional states. UM, and children really need to learn that.
They need to learn how to control, um, how they're feeling.
They need to learn how to have the coping skills
in or to sort of they're manage their emotional states. So, uh,

(26:04):
it's really kind of coming up with them together about
figuring out how to get in front of it. Because
when they are having a tantrum, it is actually they've
flown the coop. There's nothing that's coming back. You just
have to let them kind of work it out in
order for them to come back, because there's no prefrontal
cortex actually working for them to give them any sort
of ability to think through, thinking through logical ways of

(26:26):
coping with what they're feeling. At this point, they're just
reacting in a really really big way. UM. So, really
strategizing up front, coming up with routines, coming up with
a structure ahead of time in order to manage the
things that you realize that do tend to cause the
tantrums is super important. What about for a child who
becomes violent with their parents, that is really kind of

(26:47):
bringing in professional help when they do become violent from
the very first time. Yes, um, because they are so
out of control with their emotional state that they can
actually calm themselves down. And you're really going to need
their party in there to give you to help you
as a parent with the coping skills and the tools
in order to manage. And there may be other factors
that are going on for them to be feeling that

(27:08):
they have to be that violent, uh, in order to
sort of express their feelings or to be able to
manage what's happening. And I would recommend getting either counseling
from school or professional help in in order to to
help you, because it's just too difficult as a parent,
is too much pressure for you and you don't want
to be in conflict with your child in that way.

(27:29):
Can we define violence? Because when I took my daughter
to Disney on ice before the holidays and I got
her a k CD instead of a Hamburger, and her
frustration was like so real that she bit my hand
because she didn't know how to commune. She's like, mom,
I asked for hamburger. I asked for hamburger. You got mad,
like whatever and she bit my hand. Is that is

(27:52):
that violence that we go to? I think as a parent,
you've got to be able to judge right. So if
it was something that she has room more straight afterwards,
you're you work it out and and so much of
conflict that you have between your child is really about
teaching them communication and repair. So for her for you
to say to her, you can't do that, you can't
actually bite me when you're that frustrated. You've got to

(28:13):
be able to talk about your feelings. We've got to
figure out how to cope with things and manage things
together is a better way. Um. But if you're finding
that she's repeatedly biting you every time she gets frustrated
or angry, that's really when you need professional help to
step in, right, And what iss your daughter? Again? She's
five five? Because you'll sometimes see you know, I'll be
at the park and you'll see a kid like kick

(28:35):
their parents or you know, but they're frustrated. But if
it becomes a pattern exactly, or the parents are not
managing it well too so exactly, or being emotionally or
verbally abusive, that's the other factor that fuels it, and
then we're just bringing in that cycle of shame. Could

(28:55):
you give our listeners some sort of idea like things
they could be said that are verbally abusive, that they
don't realize. There's so many different ways that we do that. UM.
I think that really it's about UM comparing our children
to other people, UM, and saying, well, you know, Johnny
does them a lot better than you do, and and

(29:16):
really kind of shaming our child into something. UM. I
think that we can talk about their behavior as being
something really negative or bad or evil. UM. We can
talk about them being insufficient or lacking in some capacity. UM,
anything that's going to really knock a child self esteem

(29:37):
or confidence. UM, that's going to sort of prey on
their insecurities as they're sort of developing who they are
as human beings. I feel as emotionally abusive and really tough. Well,
on that note, we have to take a little break,
but UM, we'll come back and really a little more. Okay,

(30:03):
now we're back, and since we've asked all of our questions,
I think, I mean, not all of ours, but all
we have time for our questions. I want to kind
of rapid fire do some of our listeners questions. You're ready, yes, Okay,
Why do kids bite their nails? Kids bite their nails
for various reasons, it can be from boredom um to

(30:23):
to really managing stress because it is a self soothing
mechanism UM. And so fifty of children bite their nails
and a lot of parents just ignore it. But um,
when if it becomes problematic or you're finding that the
behavior is becoming too too problematically, some kids actually bite

(30:44):
them down to there's actually sort of to their cuticles
and it's actually becomes painful, then you really need to
kind of start to come up with different tactics, whether
it's putting nail polish or varnish on or manicure um
in order for them to sort of create different ways
to manage their their their stress than actually through nail biting. UM.

(31:07):
One listener had written in that there's six year old
granddaughter saw an image of a man who was shot
on TV and has had anxiety ever since. How do
we help our children if there's you know, when they're
hearing the news or the things on the outside. Right,
The hard thing with media now is that they have
so much exposure to it, and our brains don't know

(31:29):
the difference between reality and fiction. So when a child
is actually going to see a horrific image, it actually
feels as if it's something that's happening to them now. UM.
And so it's a really kind of normalizing that behavior
with that child and sort of have them understand that
this is the world is unsafe and unfortunately this is
something that they saw way too early and too soon. UM.

(31:52):
But just to reinforce their their a feeling of safety
in the world is going to be so important for
that child in order for them to start link calm again. UM.
And I really am a big believer and understanding what's
appropriate media for children at what age? Um. And if
if a child is experiencing any sort of anxiety or trauma,

(32:14):
it's a no no for any type of violence, um,
anything that's going to kind of cause their bodies to
sort of to to misfire in that way. UM. So
I like to say, lots of rainbows and ponies that
they get to watch. In the same token, loud noises
really upset my toddler. What are some ways I can

(32:34):
keep him calm? Right? There's there's separate ways to really
think about it. And one of the things we have
to really think about is what type of personality does
a child have? Um? And sometimes that kids could be
on the spectrum, or they could be more of an
introverted child that loud noises and lots of people tends

(32:56):
to upset them more So, Again, it's being curious about
who your child is is um, but to figure out
how much they can tolerate coming up with a plan
ahead of time. I know you love routines and schedules,
but this would be really about if you're going to
a family function, how much can they actually manage? Um,
Putting them in situations that they may be able to
tolerate for shorter periods of time, then to kind of

(33:18):
keep them there and keep them hyper aroused or overwhelmed
the whole the whole time is really important. While you
said spectrum, what are what is something a parent should
do or like, what are signs that maybe your child
is on the spectrum and what are the steps they
should take right. Um. Again, I think this is a
term that we're overusing in our culture at this point

(33:39):
about talking about people being on the spectrum, because we're
all different and we all have kind of a range. Um,
it's really important to be working with a professional at
the point if you should just suspecting anything out of
the norm is going on with your child with spectrum
issues rather than misdiagnosing or are getting into kind of
a language around to right. But you said a loud

(34:02):
noise would possibly be a child being on the spectrum.
So for a parent hearing that, if all of a
sudden I heard this, then I would go, oh, well,
my daughter is afraid of loud noises. So I'm just
trying to give them some sort of range of other
things to keep an eye on before you rush to
the doctor, because you know that can also be they

(34:23):
have sensitive ears or you know, there's so many different things. Yeah,
I think that's a good point. Is really kind of
sensory issues. See difficulty time with connecting with other peers
or within the school, ability with eye contact, UM, feeling withdrawn,
I'm not engaging, not seem to be paying attention. Um,

(34:44):
there's there's a there's a big there's a big range
of it. But it's really kind of seeing that they're
not able to kind of connect in the way that
maybe other children are. UM. And also to that high
social anxiety being around certain individuals or situation is causing
them a tremendous amount of stress. Those would be signs
that we would start to really need to pay more

(35:06):
attention to You talked to a few moments ago about
UM the importance of reassuring our children in their safety,
especially when seeing medium images. So what about a child
who has fear at home, who is so worried at
night that she's checking doors to make sure that they're locked,
making sure that she's safe or he's safe in her home.
How can we reassure safety for our children Right when

(35:28):
a child is going through repetitive behavior like that and
it's becoming something that's really compulsive, I'd really be curious
about what else is happening. There may have been a
traumatic event, There may be in something that happened UM
that there needs to be further exploration around, because they're
trying to feel agency and control of safety by checking

(35:50):
the locks ten times uh in order to break the
pattern once we understand what's causing it. In order to
break the pattern really is just about getting them to tolerate.
So may you're taking that down from ten to nine
to seven to six over time in order to really
allow them to stay calm, in order to feel the
sense of agency and control in their family. But I'd
be really curious about what's going on in order to

(36:13):
cause that kind of problem. Does the same go for
like ticks, Yes, yeah, I'm normally triggered by something that's happened. Yeah,
and and and the and the fact is ticks usually
go away. But the more that we hyper focus on them,
the more attention we bring to them, and the more
that usually the tick actually happens as well. So um,
but it's children don't always have the language to communicate

(36:34):
what's going on, so we it comes out in behaviors.
And same thing for self harm. Yes, yeah, when you
can't tolerate the emotional state becomes so overwhelming that the
only way for you to manage it is by harming yourself. Um.
And whether that's cutting, or whether it's over exercising, eating disorders,

(36:56):
whatever it may be. And uh, that's really important to
get a professional involved if there's any suspecting any kind
of self harm is going on with your child in
terms of you know, what things that we can do
to offer our children support beyond um, beyond just the communication,
to do something like a weighted blanket. Can that help
with anxiety with children? I am a huge believer in

(37:18):
weight to blankets. I have probably five in my house. Um. Yes.
The one. The one issue to really worry about is
coming from a trauma lens, which I'm always going to
come from, is if there was any sort of situation
where a child had suffocation or felt like there was
something that happened where a weighted blanket could actually cause

(37:39):
them to feel more unsafe and could cause more anxiety. Um.
But what it really does is that they were designed
for children on the spectrum with sensory issues in order
to calm down their nervous systems so they weren't flaring
around at night. And it's the same thing with anxiety.
If we're moving around the whole night. Uh, you know,
having some weight on our body is really going to
allow us to calm down, and don't of a system

(38:00):
to calm down. I just got a way to blanket
over the holidays. I've never slept so good in my life.
They're amazing. I like it, well, I like one now
because I tried it and it has like a cooling
thing in it. Before it didn't and I was getting
very hot. But now with this one, I'm like, okay,
I like this and my son likes it as well,
but only some nights he'll tell me he's like, I
don't want the blanket tonight, and he can also not

(38:22):
have his feet covered. Sometimes it was what I find children,
so they just have a partial. They also have smaller
ones they can just put on their chest, or they
have stuffy animals, so they'll find if kids have a
hard time traveling in the car, or maybe it's transition
going to school and they have their way to blanket
on the or their weighted stuffy animal as they're going
to to uh to school and they find a lot

(38:42):
of comfort in that. Do you think anxiety is a
learned or inherited trait? That's nature versus nurture. Right, we
know about epigenetics. We know that in utero what gets
transmitted trauma gets transmitted to a to a child. So
there is a factor of that if there's been any
stress or trauma um how that gets transmitted to a

(39:03):
child's brain. But there's also in the environment. If if
you if you are of a parent that is struggles
with anxiety, there's going to be certain behaviors that you
really that that that the children are going to learn
around you. So it is both it's not either or
are there certain like supplements or I know a lot

(39:23):
of people talk about oils or something like that to
help our children cope with these with these feelings. I'm
not a doctor to actually prescribe, but there are things
that I do really love and my probably my favorite
is Holy basil. So it's it helps with adrenal health
and so especially with anxiety. What we wanted to do
is we want to calm down our journals. UM. So

(39:45):
they have it in tuh, they have it in little
droppers that you can put in water. UM. I often
recommend it to parents. What about CBD or E M
d R. I hear a lot about those things. So CBD,
I would say, now, there's not enough science. We don't
we don't really know what's going on around it. We

(40:07):
love to market anything that's new. There's plenty of data
to support various various issues that it has supported. But
as a general practitioner at some point, I wouldn't be
recommending that for anxiety at this point. But to each
their own right. UM, E M d R are various
modalities for to help children or families. There's UM internal

(40:30):
family systems, there's havening technique, there's somatic experiencing E m DR.
These are all great modalities to help with trauma, to
help with anxiety, but it really just depends on the individual,
so it's not just one thing that actually is going
to help everyone. Um it would try them out and
work with your practitioner and see what actually works for you.
I'm a big believer right now in having technique. I
really love it Havening technique. I don't know that please

(40:55):
shed some light. We have no idea. I mean what
it what it really does is it helps to um
interrupt that neural network that happens when we do experience
trauma or we're experiencing anxiety, because we wire things together,
we wire patterns together, and so it didn't interrupted by
actually kind of teaching really simple things like you know,

(41:18):
doing the alphabet A to Z with animals, or doing
cities and countries at counting steps in your mind, doing
imagery because our brains can't be hyper aroused and feel
that we're in a threat straight state and being actually
doing higher level thinking at the same time. So it
really helps with that and I've seen so many people
really get tremendous amount of results that I've struggled with anxiety,

(41:39):
struggled with trauma and it's it's something I'm super excited
about right now. Maybe this is going way over my head,
but like, what is an example, sa mom brain, I'm like,
what is like having? Is it a practice then that
you're it's it's a it's a it's a therapy practice
that we teach our clients, but it's something that you
can teach haven. I'm like, I've got to go to

(42:02):
Google dot com my professional that I deal with on
a daily basis. I'm happy to talk to you more
about it too. No, it sounds cool, and I know
this is going to sound a little bit weird, but
like I've also noticed when kids are on electronics a lot,
they almost become like zombies and so therefore you can't

(42:25):
even tell their actual behavior because it's like a detox
right after they get off of it. Do you think
it's all tied hand in hand? Do you think that
there should be a limit, like what is the limit? Um?
I love custodio apps that you can be tracking what
your kids are doing UM and how much time they
are on you can set all those limitations for it

(42:47):
and what they can see and what they can and
to your point, yes, their brains do not know the
difference between reality and fiction, and when they're getting into Fortnite,
they're feeling the same way as if they were actually
going to be a drone operator. I just looked at
Leslie like this. I mean my son, actually he's never

(43:10):
played Fortnight except he went to one point we were
at like somebody's house and they he saw him playing.
And he has asked me every day just watching one boy,
much older boy play Fortnite for fifteen minutes. He's now
asked me for probably over six months, can I have Fortnite?
Can I have for like, what do they put in
there that like gets into kids brain. I'm like, no,
you cannot have Fortnite. That stop asking. It's not going

(43:33):
to happen. But like for it to have that big
of an impact from just watching somebody else play a game,
I don't even get it. Well, a jacks are nervous system, right,
and we're gonna get We're going to get adrenaline rush
from it. Um. So there's a part of it that's
really exciting, the fact is that you're shooting things and

(43:53):
you're feeling all exhilarated, but to your point is getting
them off it's it is, it's addictive. Um, there's a
social currency around it too. That's really really hard and
these are hard things to navigate. And that's what I
love about that website because I think she really does
a great job explaining from the from the brain science
of what actually is going on with our children that

(44:13):
we can't argue with and and they can't argue with.
It's not kind of Johnny gets to do this or
or someone else is doing it. It's really kind of understanding, Hey,
this isn't good for you, and this is why we're
not doing it as a family. This is a decision
that we've made, even though it's a hard one to do. Um.
But I think it's all talking about moderation and what
your child can tolerate and what they can't. What what

(44:34):
does moderation look like? Because sometimes if I'm trying to
cook a meal and I have two kids running around
the house, like I just need a thirty minute episode
of like Pop Patrol too so I can get to
take the edge off. Yeah, I think that's a great
h that's a great time frame to you're not it's
not two hours, it's not you know, all day they
have unlimited amount of time. You're giving them a finite

(44:54):
period of time. There may be even a reward system
around it, and maybe once you get your homework done
then you get this reward um. But giving them a concrete,
finite period of time that you're consistent is so important
around media for children and really again monitoring it, know
what's going on. There's a lot that's happening that so

(45:14):
many parents don't know how is happening, and then it
creeps up on them and then you have a really
big problem. So it's based on like an hour, like
the the amount of time like I'm trying to figure
out because I feel like just in practicality, like what
is a good with a good time frame to to
help parents? I mean parents tend I tend to sort
of say, like do thirty minutes of chunks. But it
really depends on you, um that because sometimes when you

(45:37):
get into an hour, then it's the snowball of transitioning
out of is so difficult, depending especially depending on the
age of a child, and you really have to look
at where their maturity is. Five year old is going
to be very different than as sixteen year old, and
how if if you have a bunch of kids, and
you have one child who's really struggling behaviorally, how do

(46:00):
you we we know now we've kind of talked to
you about what to do for the child that's struggling,
But what about the other kids? Yeah, that's such a
hard thing that I see in my practice a lot too,
is just the focus and the hyper focus on the
child who's struggling, and then the child who is not
or the children that are not I feel ignored or
their needs are not really met, and then later on
it it kind of creeps up on the family. Um

(46:23):
So I think it's so important to constantly be checking
in with them to know what's going on, seeing what
the impact is. Even having other people if you don't
have the time or capacity because your child's needs, one
of your child's needs is so great. That's really where
you're kind of bringing resources of your child's your your
children's teachers or their after school activities, of their coaches. Hey,

(46:44):
can you just check in with them to make sure
that they're doing Okay. I'm really stressed about this one
particular child, and I really need to help. We have
to work together as a community and as a tribe
and really nor to support our kids. And you know
a lot of times her mom's I'm just saying moms,
but I'm sure it's parents say, like, the only way
that I can get my kids to listen to me
is when I raised my voice. What are your thoughts

(47:05):
on that? Like, what are your thoughts on actually snapping
at your kids or even if it's plan a planned snap,
what are the repercussions of that? I mean, we've come
to a time where things have shifted so much from
like how I was raised that that was like, I
mean a lot different. But I'm just curious because what

(47:30):
is the okay way now? Right? I think it's so
important to teach our kids about repair and saying sorry
and apologizing and accountability and we're and that we're human
and as a parent, we're going to make mistakes all
the time, and to really communicate that to our children
is you know what I messed up. I should have

(47:51):
said something different, I should have acted different. This is
a way I wanted to do it. I just got
really frustrated. Um, you're going to make mistakes, and I
think to be kind to yourself as a parent is
so important. The other factor, though, if it becomes sort
of a pattern that the only way you feel that
you can get your child to do something is by
screaming about them. Is what you're really teaching them as
a vowed dominance and control, and that's not healthy for

(48:14):
a child, is a fact, as in order to be
louder and bigger you have to in order to get
what you want is not a great way to be parenting.
So to really be checking in with that and maybe
working with someone in order to support how to communicate
with your children differently. One question that I think is
interesting is when do you push your kids to and

(48:34):
through a new situation or a situation that might feel
a little scary for them versus not forcing them into it.
I know my daughter with like rides and stuff, I
get Disneyland, certain things they're really scary to her when
they shouldn't be. When do you sort of encourage it
and when do you back off? Yeah, I think it's
looking at the situation. Um, if it's something that's going
to feel terrifying and their nervous system and you it

(48:54):
makes sense to you why they would be fearful of
doing it. Maybe it might not be age appropriate for
them at that time. Maybe that ride is she's just
too young for at this time, and maybe when she's
ten she'll be super psyched to go on the roller coaster.
But I think it's also about setting it up for success.
We talked about it ahead of time. We set up
the goals, we set up what's going to happen. We

(49:15):
love imagery in our brains, and so if they can
imagine what's going to happen, it's going to calm them down.
And then it's going to really make them feel excited
and and and feel so proud when they actually are
accomplishing it. And then it's just doing the repetition. Once
they've got it down, Let's do that again. Let's do
that again, and keep doing it until it becomes something
that they've self mastered. Because I know I've fallen too
fault to that. When it's like they don't want to

(49:35):
try it's something from like the new slide at the park,
like I don't want to try it, I'm like, let's try.
Let's try it with mommy. First, boom we go. There's
crying at first, and then okay, I want to do
it again. But then I'm like, did I just push
them too far? No, you didn't. You taught them about
that they can actually take risks and they can take
care of themselves. I mean that's a great parenting, okay,
But at what point then if my like this ride

(49:57):
and I'm sorry to make this about me, but if
there's like ride that she wants to go on and
that is you know, she's tall enough for her friends
are going all of this, and now it's sort of
at what point did she create? Are you creating like
a monster in their head that oh, I don't want
to do it, I don't want to do it, and
you sort of just take them down the slide, like
Teddy said, and you show them that it isn't this
big bad thing again. I think that's really about kind
of doing the imagery with them ahead of time. She's

(50:19):
seen the ride, she can even look at it on
the internet. She can talk to her friends about their
experiences and set that up for success, figure out where
there may be kind of traps or she's just not
ready for maybe she's she hasn't kind of worked through
her feelings yet about it. But I think if she
can imagine what it's going to be like, then that's
going to actually encourage her to actually want to take
those steps in order to do it, and then when

(50:40):
she does it, I mean it's all array, you know,
so proud of you. Let's go do that again. And
she may be on that ride three or four times
at Disney that day. What about when it comes to
like a security blanket or toy or stuffy or whatever
it may be. Now, oftentimes in school, they're not letting
your kids bring those things in. Yeah, that's really tough

(51:01):
because you've got school policies. But we were talking about
children and their development is all going to be different,
and they're gonna have different life factors. They're going to
have new babies and brothers, or they're going to have
a death in the family, and if those things bring
them comfort and they soothe them, it's tough. Um. So
I think it's really meaning your child where they're at

(51:21):
and try to really work with a school. Um. I know,
I'm a mom and I when we moved to California,
my daughter was in third grade and was having a
tough time and we ended up having a hamster in
the science lab that it really helped her to kind
of connect friendships and to talk to people. And I
worked with a school in order to make that happen.
I mean ended up being like the highlight of the
third grade as well too. UM. But it's thinking beyond

(51:44):
just sort of what the structure of the school looks
like and seeing if they can really work with you
to accommodate your family. Did you talk to the actual teacher?
Did you talk to the headmaster? Like what was the way?
What was your approach to actually make that happen? Um?
I actually did both. UM. I have an introverted child.
I gave them Susan Kaine's book on Quiet and talk

(52:06):
to them about just you know, this is overwhelming for
her to being kind of a new environment and UM
and really advocated for her as a as a parent
to help her and said, hey, you know, how can
we sort of set this up her success and in
order to kind of have her connect with people in
different ways? And so snowball became the popular animal to
be taking home on the weekends. UM. And it became

(52:29):
something that was a tradition and people knew that that
was my daughter's Hamstern really allowed her just to to
to thrive. We've talked about the about younger children, what
about teenagers that are kind of suffering um from anxiety, Like, uh,
a fifteen year old who's not sleeping, or a fifteen
year old who's moved to a new location and they're
now having this Like, what are ways that that we

(52:51):
can help our teenagers, especially when they're like I don't
like the therapist you took me to and it happens repeatedly. Right, So, unfortunately,
one third of our teenagers ages thirteen to eighteen are
going to experience anxiety. We know that college freshmen statistics
are forty one. We're seeing rates going through the roof

(53:12):
for our our youth at this point. I mean, anxiety
is a real problem for them. Um, and it's hard
because they're around it so much and there's so much
conversation around it that actually even causes more anxiety. UM.
So it again, I think it's really about educating them.
I work with a ton of teenagers and they feel

(53:34):
so empowered to really understand how their bodies and brains
are working and learning coping skills in order to kind
of manage that. So, whether it's pinky breathing in order
for them to learn abdomen breaths, um, whether it's using imagery,
whether it's doing various techniques tooling them up in order
for them to keep grabbing at things in order to
calm them down. Um. The other really interesting thing that

(53:56):
I brought up earlier too, is about labeling emotions. Had
so many kids come in and they're telling me they
have a panic attack before they're going to their first
dance or their prom or their first kiss, and they've
labeled that as something that's scary and terrifying versus something
that's so exciting. And so we really have to kind
of shift them to understand that they have a capacity

(54:18):
to have more feelings than just four and that is
okay for them to feel exciting, to have heart palpitations,
and to be nervous about a first kiss. That's a
good thing. And we've got to kind of start warring
our brains in that way. How do you know, as
a parent, though, if your child is just having that nervous,
excited energy, like I know if I'm about to go,
like speak to a group of people, or that I'm

(54:39):
not having anxiety. I'm excited, and that's a good thing,
and it means that I'm going to deliver well. That
being said for a kid or you know, a teenager
who could possibly be having like a true blown panic attack.
How do you know if that's happening versus the other.
I'm not saying that they're not having a panic attack

(55:00):
about going to the prom. I'm saying that they have
actually not allowed themselves to even imagine the fact that
they could feel excited. They've just kind of limited their
feeling states to just these few things. UM. That's one
of the really big issues. But the other issue, to
your point, is just the amount of pressure we've got
to take the pressure off for these kids. They have.
They feel like they have to have everything figure it out.

(55:20):
They have to be masters, they have to know where
they're going to college, they have to be experts in
their sports. Single sports that they're having burnout, um, they're
having injuries, um. And and we have to kind of
say it's okay if you're not getting the A, it's
okay if you're not being the top athlete. It's okay
if you're not you know, succeeding at everything. They just

(55:41):
feel this tremendous amount of pressure. So we really need
to be able to hold the emotions that they're not
able to carry. That's our job as parents. UM. And
in order to help them launch and in closing, because
I know we're running out of time, what would you
say the key piece of advice you could give to
any parent out there on anything in regarding this topic,
like the one takeaway, The one takeaway, it's just really

(56:05):
about being curious about your children, understanding and connecting with them,
and being present with them to really to really to
really allow them to feel like they have a safe
space that they can really talk about their feelings, they
can talk about things that are hard um and then
really trying to teach them how to resource and come
up with solutions to combat these issues that they're not

(56:27):
carrying around these nervous states and their bodies all the time.
That's a good takeaway, absolutely, and I think it's a
good thing for us to think about too. I mean,
how often do we think we're present but we're not
necessarily present as parenting all the time. I'm like, I'm like,
because it has you know, sometimes like I'm like, Okay,

(56:49):
I'm putting the phone completely down, it's our time, we're
doing this, and then my mind will wander and I'm
not actually fully my body is there and I'm not
looking up the phone, but I need to, you know,
continue and I write that down like as like in
my goals or like my daily goals is like be present.
And I have the same thing with adults with everything,

(57:12):
and so I think that's such a huge thing for
all of us to think about, is like really figure
out a way that works for you that you can
be present when you're doing things. If not, we're just
going through the motions and like not really living the
life that we want to live. And I think to
your point, like being present in ways that like you
feel like you can be present for like I don't

(57:33):
know if that's like if you're you can sit down
and play old made with your kids or legos or
whatever are something that like you can actually in engage
with as well. So it's it's so it's sort of fun.
So it's no, like I'm not a craft gal, Like
I'm not the one that like wins the like our
kids never win craft day because I'm not the mom
that's like gonna be killing it at that. But like
I love to like take my family and like family

(57:55):
hikes or we play soccer, or we're doing you know,
bike rides those types of things. Whe we can laugh
talk about our favorite songs like that for me is
my like best way to just spend time with the kids.
But I know some moms who can get down on
the ground and like they can honestly play barbies for
two hours. That's not my strong suit. So it's kind
of knowing your strong suit and formulating around it, right,

(58:19):
I mean, at least that's what I'm telling myself. I
think you're making a great point too, because it may
be that your family is a ping pong family, or
you may be swimmers, or you maybe having Friday night
game nights. Um. And also to you, using humor is
so important for kids. Um, so just laughing. You mentioned
that it's just so important. So have fun, be present,

(58:42):
do things together, try not to take ourselves too seriously.
Oh my gosh, you guys, thank you so much for
coming on today. I truly appreciate it. And I think
we I think we got through a lot of the questions.
I think we we we hammered through. So I hope
you guys keep sending in your questions no matter what
the topic is, we will get to it. I love this,
So thank you guys for listening, and I'll talk to

(59:03):
you next week. Thanks for listening. Subscribe to Teddy t
Pot on I Heart Radio, or wherever you listen to podcasts.