August 4, 2025 • 13 mins
“My daughter says she doesn’t like being alone with her thoughts at night… so she plays music to drown them out.”
In this episode of the Happy Families podcast, we explore a powerful listener question from a mum worried about her anxious child using music as a form of avoidance. Is it helpful? Harmful? And what can we do instead? We unpack the fine line between healthy distraction and long-term avoidance - and share tools to help your child build emotional strength, even in the dark.
KEY POINTS
- Avoidance can reinforce anxiety - but sometimes, gentle avoidance is okay
- Music can be an effective short-term tool, but shouldn't become the only coping mechanism
- The risks of long-term distraction at bedtime (poor sleep, more anxiety)
- Strategies to help:
- Essential oils (yes, really—there’s research!)
- Gratitude practices before sleep
- Thought downloads/journaling to ease mental clutter
- Default Mode Network activity and its role in rumination
- Gradual tolerance toolkit—moving away from music to mindfulness
- Normalising and validating nighttime anxiety
- Parental presence and conversations to address the underlying worries
QUOTE OF THE EPISODE
"Sometimes kids feel like they’re swimming with metaphorical sharks. They want to get out of the water—but we know they’re just dolphins. It’s our job to keep them swimming."
RESOURCES MENTIONED
- Chatter by Ethan Kross
- Research on essential oils and anxiety (referenced but not directly cited)
- happyfamilies.com.au
- Leave us a voice memo for the podcast here
ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS
- Let your child know their racing thoughts at night are normal—and you're there for them.
- Collaborate on a bedtime plan: gentle music, meditation, or calming scents.
- Encourage journaling or a “thought download” before bed to externalise internal chaos.
- Add in a nightly gratitude ritual—simple and connecting.
- Over time, help your child build tolerance for their thoughts without needing constant distraction.
- If things remain tough, reach out to a GP or psychologist for professional support.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've said this many times on the podcast. I've written
about it in my books. Avoidance reinforces anxiety. When our
children are having a hard time and they avoid the
thing that's causing them difficulty, it can reinforce the anxiety
by making them feel better because they avoided it, hence
reinforcing the avoidance and making everything feel better. It's a
(00:20):
vicious circle when we want our children to be strong
and resilient but they're struggling. But sometimes avoidance is exactly
what you need because there's a certain threshold, and once
something causes a certain level of anxiety, we need to
go a lot more gently and find otherwise. In fact,
sometimes it's completely reasonable to avoid things altogether. For example,
(00:41):
I'm kind of afraid of sharks. I have higher levels
of anxiety if there's a shark in the water, I
don't want to surf anymore. Avoidance reinforces the anxiety, but
that's a good thing because it's keeping me safe. Our
children sometimes feel like they are swimming with metaphorical sharks.
They want to get out of the water, but we
know that they're not sharks. They're friendly dolphins, and it's
our job to keep them swimming. Today on the Happy
(01:04):
Families podcast, we answer a tricky question from a mum
dealing with exactly that challenge.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Stay with us today what to do when.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Your child has anxiety and will not confront the demons
that are scaring them. Hello and welcome to the Happy
Famili's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every day. It's Australia's most
downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Colson and
if you're new to the pod, welcome. We're so glad
to have you along. We continue to see new people
coming on board and having a listen. We hope that
you'll stay. We hope that it makes your family happier.
(01:40):
Every Tuesday on the podcast, we answer your tricky questions
about family and relationships and wellbeing and screens and mental
health and discipline and all that stuff. If you would
like to submit a tricky question, we've got a really
simple system at Happy Families dot com dot a. You
You just scroll down to where it says podcasts, click
the record button.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And stay talking.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Like Samantha from Brisbane, my daughter said she doesn't like
being alone with her thoughts at night, so she plays
music to drown them out. How do I help her
learn how to deal with or direct her thoughts.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Okay, I really appreciate this question, Samantha from Brisbane. And
the reason for it is because avoidance is one of
those things where we feel uncomfortable and we just rather
not confront the scary dog that's barking at us. We
don't want to go up and put her hand up
there and let it sniff our hand and become familiar
with it, get closer. There is a lot of research
that shows that the best way to overcome anxiety is
(02:40):
to move towards rather than a way. So the anxious
response is to move away. The anxious response is to
flee or flight. But research seems to indicate that the
more we can move towards the thing that scares us,
the better having And that's the whole idea of exposure therapy,
right the person who's afraid of spiders, So then we
look at one in a book, and we have one
(03:00):
in ajar on the other side.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Of the room, and we move closer and closer.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
The difficulty with something like this is we don't know
exactly what your daughter is worried about, firstly, and secondly,
exposure therapy is usually best conducted by somebody who has
the appropriate training. It's not great when a parent says, oh,
you're afraid of this, Well here, let's get your nice
and close to it really fast.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So let's talk.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
About whether or not listening to music and avoiding what
could be going through your mind is effective or not.
So the first thing that I want to emphasize is
that listening to music and distracting yourself distraction is an
effective short term choice. Like sometimes when I'm really upset
with one of my children, or when I'm having a
bad day, I'll sit down and I'll watch some cycling
or some surfing on YouTube, or I'll play a game
(03:43):
on my iPad because.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
The distraction is relief.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It feels like I get to just recalibrate my brain
and my physiology, my system.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
But a distraction is something that you would do from
time to time correct as opposed just something that's happening
on a daily basis, because we're avoiding what's actually really
going on.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, which is why I say it's an effective short
term choice. But the drawbacks are it should never be
a long term choice, and having music on it at nighttime
potentially impacts lost sleep ability to be peaceful means more
tiredness tomorrow, which could be associated with even greater anxiety,
and it does make avoidance the primary coping strategy. So
I would suggest that there's other stuff we can do here,
(04:28):
one thing that you I'm just I'm stumbling around here
because I'm going to sound a little bit woo woo.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
No, I think it's not that you're going to sound
woo woo. I think it's that you have to acknowledge
that I was right. That's what I think the problem is.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
All right, So essential oils, I'm just going to say it.
I'm just going to say the word. No, I don't
sell them. No, we're not trying to flog anything here,
because anything with network marketing kind of get some people's
hair standing on end. But we have found essential oils
to be incredibly effective, and I've shifted on it completely.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Don't terror anyone. Oh gosh, there is actually research.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You don't hear about it much, and I think it's
because of the connotation and the woo woness. But once
upon a time nobody talked about mind from us meditation
either because it was too woo wu. And now it's
a central pillar of well being. Research, and I think.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I really do believe.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
In fact, I just picked up a book recently by
Ethan Cross from.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
A unifor of Ethan says it, then it must be
true the University.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Of Michigan, and he runs the emotional control Emotion Control
Lab at Michigan University, and even he's talking about how
using fragrances can be anxiety reducing.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So the research evidence is there. Now.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Anyway, we need to talk about some other ones. Let's
do that after the break. We're gonna get a little
bit loser.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
I was going to say my thing.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Oh sorry, anyway, that's me just getting it out there
and sat that it could be helpful.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Well, I have a few extras and these were really
beneficial to me as a teenager. Right, So, I think
one of the most important things to do when our
kids are struggling is to actually take time in that
quiet space to sit with them. And if they're not
open or willing to chat about what's actually going on,
they might not even know what's going on. One of
(06:11):
the best things I think we can do is point
them to gratitude and just having a few moments each
night where we can sit together and talk about the
things that we're grateful for. It changes the mental construct
that our children then fall asleep to.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, So I'm just going to put one gentle caveat
in there, and that is that if you have a
child who is highly elevated emotionally, that's not the time
to say if you just think of some things you're
grateful for, you'll feel better.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
No, no, no, no, that's not what I was suggesting.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, it's got to be in a different context altogether.
We're just talking about what's good in our old.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
So, whether you're religious or not, you have a prayer
with each other, or or it's just about quiet time.
It's just about connection. What are you grateful for today?
And if they're struggling, you could share the things that
you're grateful for the other thing that I think is
really important. She doesn't want to sit with her feelings, right.
The problem we have is when they're inside, they're trapped
(07:03):
and they just go around. A friend talk to me
about the monkey brain literally just going around in this
kind of just whirlwind of thought and we can't actually
put words around it. And so she taught me to
just do what we call a thought download. Literally there's
no filter to it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's just just just.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Journal and white. And as a child, I used to
do this all the time. Didn't realize it was a thing,
but I literally I read my journals now and think,
poor person who has to read this in one hundred
years time, because it was literally.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Poor little Kylie.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
If there wasn't anything scary, it was just I wrote
everything and I couldn't actually go to sleep until I'd
done it. But I think that that was a really
important part of my progression as a teenager.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
All right, so quick summary.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
We've got music can be effective, we've got the woo
woo essential oils, we've got gratitude, and we've got a
journal emotional dump of sorts. I just want to quickly
highlight that whole getting it out thing. The default mode
network is part of your brain. Oh several components of
your brain that switch on when all the screens and
everything else switches off. And it's really important for kids
(08:11):
to figure out who they are that their default mode
network is active. Unfortunately, too many kids today have suppressed
default mode networks because their brains are always fixed on
screens and they never get to do the inner work
and the deep thinking that's necessary to figure out who
you are and what your life is about and find
meaning and purpose and so on. That was a lot
to say this. Sometimes kids have an overactive and maladaptive
(08:34):
default mode network, and it sounds like Samantha's daughter is
in that boat. So where we really that's where the
rumination comes in. The default mode network kicks in and
it doesn't know how to apply the brakes to unhealthy
and maladaptive thoughts, and so all of these strategies are
designed to do that. I've got three more quite psychologically
(08:55):
oriented ones right after the break. Okay, Kylie, we've got
a list of regulation tools. It's quite solid, quite solid,
quite solid.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
I was gonna say, is that another word? I haven't
heard that way?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
No, it's quite solid. Let me say that again. Oh
my good. We've got a salad list. We've got a
list of.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Now, I just want to emphasize we're not trying to
eliminate difficult thoughts. What we're trying to do is have
a healthy relationship with them. So three more ideas that
will be helpful here.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
The first is.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
To normalize and validate the experience. So when your daughter
is experiencing these really big negative, horrible thoughts. We don't
have to fix it. We just want to say, yeah,
sometimes being alone with racing thoughts is pretty uncomfortable, isn't it,
And that will move us through and help to.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Regulate those skills better.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Anxiety often peaks at night because we're in the dark
and distractions.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Aren't there anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So I think by normalizing it by literally saying to
your daughter, this is normal, a lot of people struggle
with nighttime thoughts. We're not trying to eliminate the discomfort.
We're trying to build tolerance for it. In the same
way that when I'm doing my breathing exercises, because I
like to hold my breath for a long periods of
time with free diving, I want to build up my
tolerance for CO two in my blood. We don't you know,
(10:17):
when you hold your breath and you want to breathe,
it's not because you need oxygen. It's because you need
to get rid of the CO two. And so by
holding my breath for a longer periods of time, I'm
just building up that CO two tolerance. It's the same
at nighttime in bed. We want to build up our
tolerance for the discomfort. Around some of our thoughts, recognize
that it's normal and recognize.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That good thoughts arrive as well.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Second one that I've got is that we want to
build a what would I call it a gradual tolerance toolkit.
So instead of taking away the music entirely, I'd be
working collaboratively to come up with other options. Maybe it's
starting with music that gradually becomes quieter and more calming,
and then experiment with other.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Maybe you could add meditation to it. So yes, there's
a form of music in the background, but it's not
the main thing. Starting to train her thoughts to think differently,
or nature sounds.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I mean, I always joke about how my mum used
to make us listen to Tonio kind of CDs that
she brought from the post office when I loved that.
Do you remember those with that kids with all the
rivers and the birds chirping and the waves crashing on
the ocean. Mum used to be into deepat Choprah and
Stuart Wilde and Anthony Robbins, all those people. And I
just think involving her in creating these solutions rather than
(11:32):
imposing them one other things would help you feel calm.
What would you like to try that kind of discussion,
not in the moment, but out of the moment.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, having a bath with Ebsence salts and using magnesium
to kind of help calm touch. I don't think we
put enough emphasis on the empert touch and how important
that is to helping co regulate.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And as much as I want to say this could
be very serious and professional help might be useful, I'd
be spending a little bit of time on all of
these solutions. First, There's one more that I'm going to
quickly throw in, and that is that we as parents
need to address the underlying thoughts, not just the symptoms.
And I'm sure that Samantha's doing this. I just think
a lot of these nighttime struggles stem from unprocessed worries
(12:20):
and anxieties and fears that have occurred during the day.
So we want to create lots of opportunities where she's
able to process what's on her mind with us. We're
not trying to solve everything. We're just saying, hey, tell
me what's going on. I'm here for you. I just
want to I want to hear. I don't want to
leave you alone with your thoughts. Sometimes the racing thoughts
(12:40):
are less about the specific content and more about just
feeling overwhelmed and unsupported. I don't think that that's case
in Samantha's situation, but it's worth highlighting. Having those chats
in the car or going for a walk, spending time
in nature and doing the things that we've talked about
in that very comprehensive list I think will move the
needles substance. And if it doesn't, of course, the advice
(13:01):
is to go and get help, have a chat with
the GP, have a chat with the psychologist, a school counselor,
and see if there's something that you can do about it.
We really really hope, Samartha, that's been helpful, and for
any parent who's dealing with anxious kids, hopefully there's some
ideas there that are going to make a difference for you.
Thank you so much for the question. If you have
a tricky question for us, jump online Happy families dot
com dot you just scroll down to where it says podcasts,
(13:23):
click the record.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Button and start talking.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
We'd love to hear from you, or you can set
us a voice note to podcasts at happy families dot
com dot You The Happy Families Podcasts is produced by
Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides research, admen and
other support, and if you would like more information and
resources to support your family better, visitors at happy families
dot com, dot you
I've said this many times on the podcast. I've written
about it in my books. Avoidance reinforces anxiety. When our
children are having a hard time and they avoid the
thing that's causing them difficulty, it can reinforce the anxiety
by making them feel better because they avoided it, hence
reinforcing the avoidance and making everything feel better. It's a
(00:20):
vicious circle when we want our children to be strong
and resilient but they're struggling. But sometimes avoidance is exactly
what you need because there's a certain threshold, and once
something causes a certain level of anxiety, we need to
go a lot more gently and find otherwise. In fact,
sometimes it's completely reasonable to avoid things altogether. For example,
(00:41):
I'm kind of afraid of sharks. I have higher levels
of anxiety if there's a shark in the water, I
don't want to surf anymore. Avoidance reinforces the anxiety, but
that's a good thing because it's keeping me safe. Our
children sometimes feel like they are swimming with metaphorical sharks.
They want to get out of the water, but we
know that they're not sharks. They're friendly dolphins, and it's
our job to keep them swimming. Today on the Happy
(01:04):
Families podcast, we answer a tricky question from a mum
dealing with exactly that challenge.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Stay with us today what to do when.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Your child has anxiety and will not confront the demons
that are scaring them. Hello and welcome to the Happy
Famili's podcast, Real Parenting Solutions every day. It's Australia's most
downloaded parenting podcast. We are Justin and Kylie Colson and
if you're new to the pod, welcome. We're so glad
to have you along. We continue to see new people
coming on board and having a listen. We hope that
you'll stay. We hope that it makes your family happier.
(01:40):
Every Tuesday on the podcast, we answer your tricky questions
about family and relationships and wellbeing and screens and mental
health and discipline and all that stuff. If you would
like to submit a tricky question, we've got a really
simple system at Happy Families dot com dot a. You
You just scroll down to where it says podcasts, click
the record button.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
And stay talking.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Like Samantha from Brisbane, my daughter said she doesn't like
being alone with her thoughts at night, so she plays
music to drown them out. How do I help her
learn how to deal with or direct her thoughts.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Okay, I really appreciate this question, Samantha from Brisbane. And
the reason for it is because avoidance is one of
those things where we feel uncomfortable and we just rather
not confront the scary dog that's barking at us. We
don't want to go up and put her hand up
there and let it sniff our hand and become familiar
with it, get closer. There is a lot of research
that shows that the best way to overcome anxiety is
(02:40):
to move towards rather than a way. So the anxious
response is to move away. The anxious response is to
flee or flight. But research seems to indicate that the
more we can move towards the thing that scares us,
the better having And that's the whole idea of exposure therapy,
right the person who's afraid of spiders, So then we
look at one in a book, and we have one
(03:00):
in ajar on the other side.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
Of the room, and we move closer and closer.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
The difficulty with something like this is we don't know
exactly what your daughter is worried about, firstly, and secondly,
exposure therapy is usually best conducted by somebody who has
the appropriate training. It's not great when a parent says, oh,
you're afraid of this, Well here, let's get your nice
and close to it really fast.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So let's talk.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
About whether or not listening to music and avoiding what
could be going through your mind is effective or not.
So the first thing that I want to emphasize is
that listening to music and distracting yourself distraction is an
effective short term choice. Like sometimes when I'm really upset
with one of my children, or when I'm having a
bad day, I'll sit down and I'll watch some cycling
or some surfing on YouTube, or I'll play a game
(03:43):
on my iPad because.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
The distraction is relief.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
It feels like I get to just recalibrate my brain
and my physiology, my system.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
But a distraction is something that you would do from
time to time correct as opposed just something that's happening
on a daily basis, because we're avoiding what's actually really
going on.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Yeah, which is why I say it's an effective short
term choice. But the drawbacks are it should never be
a long term choice, and having music on it at nighttime
potentially impacts lost sleep ability to be peaceful means more
tiredness tomorrow, which could be associated with even greater anxiety,
and it does make avoidance the primary coping strategy. So
I would suggest that there's other stuff we can do here,
(04:28):
one thing that you I'm just I'm stumbling around here
because I'm going to sound a little bit woo woo.
Speaker 4 (04:34):
No, I think it's not that you're going to sound
woo woo. I think it's that you have to acknowledge
that I was right. That's what I think the problem is.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
All right, So essential oils, I'm just going to say it.
I'm just going to say the word. No, I don't
sell them. No, we're not trying to flog anything here,
because anything with network marketing kind of get some people's
hair standing on end. But we have found essential oils
to be incredibly effective, and I've shifted on it completely.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Don't terror anyone. Oh gosh, there is actually research.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You don't hear about it much, and I think it's
because of the connotation and the woo woness. But once
upon a time nobody talked about mind from us meditation
either because it was too woo wu. And now it's
a central pillar of well being. Research, and I think.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I really do believe.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
In fact, I just picked up a book recently by
Ethan Cross from.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
A unifor of Ethan says it, then it must be
true the University.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Of Michigan, and he runs the emotional control Emotion Control
Lab at Michigan University, and even he's talking about how
using fragrances can be anxiety reducing.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
So the research evidence is there. Now.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Anyway, we need to talk about some other ones. Let's
do that after the break. We're gonna get a little
bit loser.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
I was going to say my thing.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Oh sorry, anyway, that's me just getting it out there
and sat that it could be helpful.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Well, I have a few extras and these were really
beneficial to me as a teenager. Right, So, I think
one of the most important things to do when our
kids are struggling is to actually take time in that
quiet space to sit with them. And if they're not
open or willing to chat about what's actually going on,
they might not even know what's going on. One of
(06:11):
the best things I think we can do is point
them to gratitude and just having a few moments each
night where we can sit together and talk about the
things that we're grateful for. It changes the mental construct
that our children then fall asleep to.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, So I'm just going to put one gentle caveat
in there, and that is that if you have a
child who is highly elevated emotionally, that's not the time
to say if you just think of some things you're
grateful for, you'll feel better.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
No, no, no, no, that's not what I was suggesting.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yeah, it's got to be in a different context altogether.
We're just talking about what's good in our old.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
So, whether you're religious or not, you have a prayer
with each other, or or it's just about quiet time.
It's just about connection. What are you grateful for today?
And if they're struggling, you could share the things that
you're grateful for the other thing that I think is
really important. She doesn't want to sit with her feelings, right.
The problem we have is when they're inside, they're trapped
(07:03):
and they just go around. A friend talk to me
about the monkey brain literally just going around in this
kind of just whirlwind of thought and we can't actually
put words around it. And so she taught me to
just do what we call a thought download. Literally there's
no filter to it.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
It's just just just.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Journal and white. And as a child, I used to
do this all the time. Didn't realize it was a thing,
but I literally I read my journals now and think,
poor person who has to read this in one hundred
years time, because it was literally.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Poor little Kylie.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
If there wasn't anything scary, it was just I wrote
everything and I couldn't actually go to sleep until I'd
done it. But I think that that was a really
important part of my progression as a teenager.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
All right, so quick summary.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
We've got music can be effective, we've got the woo
woo essential oils, we've got gratitude, and we've got a
journal emotional dump of sorts. I just want to quickly
highlight that whole getting it out thing. The default mode
network is part of your brain. Oh several components of
your brain that switch on when all the screens and
everything else switches off. And it's really important for kids
(08:11):
to figure out who they are that their default mode
network is active. Unfortunately, too many kids today have suppressed
default mode networks because their brains are always fixed on
screens and they never get to do the inner work
and the deep thinking that's necessary to figure out who
you are and what your life is about and find
meaning and purpose and so on. That was a lot
to say this. Sometimes kids have an overactive and maladaptive
(08:34):
default mode network, and it sounds like Samantha's daughter is
in that boat. So where we really that's where the
rumination comes in. The default mode network kicks in and
it doesn't know how to apply the brakes to unhealthy
and maladaptive thoughts, and so all of these strategies are
designed to do that. I've got three more quite psychologically
(08:55):
oriented ones right after the break. Okay, Kylie, we've got
a list of regulation tools. It's quite solid, quite solid,
quite solid.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
I was gonna say, is that another word? I haven't
heard that way?
Speaker 2 (09:13):
No, it's quite solid. Let me say that again. Oh
my good. We've got a salad list. We've got a
list of.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Now, I just want to emphasize we're not trying to
eliminate difficult thoughts. What we're trying to do is have
a healthy relationship with them. So three more ideas that
will be helpful here.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
The first is.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
To normalize and validate the experience. So when your daughter
is experiencing these really big negative, horrible thoughts. We don't
have to fix it. We just want to say, yeah,
sometimes being alone with racing thoughts is pretty uncomfortable, isn't it,
And that will move us through and help to.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
Regulate those skills better.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Anxiety often peaks at night because we're in the dark
and distractions.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Aren't there anymore.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
So I think by normalizing it by literally saying to
your daughter, this is normal, a lot of people struggle
with nighttime thoughts. We're not trying to eliminate the discomfort.
We're trying to build tolerance for it. In the same
way that when I'm doing my breathing exercises, because I
like to hold my breath for a long periods of
time with free diving, I want to build up my
tolerance for CO two in my blood. We don't you know,
(10:17):
when you hold your breath and you want to breathe,
it's not because you need oxygen. It's because you need
to get rid of the CO two. And so by
holding my breath for a longer periods of time, I'm
just building up that CO two tolerance. It's the same
at nighttime in bed. We want to build up our
tolerance for the discomfort. Around some of our thoughts, recognize
that it's normal and recognize.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That good thoughts arrive as well.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Second one that I've got is that we want to
build a what would I call it a gradual tolerance toolkit.
So instead of taking away the music entirely, I'd be
working collaboratively to come up with other options. Maybe it's
starting with music that gradually becomes quieter and more calming,
and then experiment with other.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Maybe you could add meditation to it. So yes, there's
a form of music in the background, but it's not
the main thing. Starting to train her thoughts to think differently,
or nature sounds.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
I mean, I always joke about how my mum used
to make us listen to Tonio kind of CDs that
she brought from the post office when I loved that.
Do you remember those with that kids with all the
rivers and the birds chirping and the waves crashing on
the ocean. Mum used to be into deepat Choprah and
Stuart Wilde and Anthony Robbins, all those people. And I
just think involving her in creating these solutions rather than
(11:32):
imposing them one other things would help you feel calm.
What would you like to try that kind of discussion,
not in the moment, but out of the moment.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
Yeah, having a bath with Ebsence salts and using magnesium
to kind of help calm touch. I don't think we
put enough emphasis on the empert touch and how important
that is to helping co regulate.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
And as much as I want to say this could
be very serious and professional help might be useful, I'd
be spending a little bit of time on all of
these solutions. First, There's one more that I'm going to
quickly throw in, and that is that we as parents
need to address the underlying thoughts, not just the symptoms.
And I'm sure that Samantha's doing this. I just think
a lot of these nighttime struggles stem from unprocessed worries
(12:20):
and anxieties and fears that have occurred during the day.
So we want to create lots of opportunities where she's
able to process what's on her mind with us. We're
not trying to solve everything. We're just saying, hey, tell
me what's going on. I'm here for you. I just
want to I want to hear. I don't want to
leave you alone with your thoughts. Sometimes the racing thoughts
(12:40):
are less about the specific content and more about just
feeling overwhelmed and unsupported. I don't think that that's case
in Samantha's situation, but it's worth highlighting. Having those chats
in the car or going for a walk, spending time
in nature and doing the things that we've talked about
in that very comprehensive list I think will move the
needles substance. And if it doesn't, of course, the advice
(13:01):
is to go and get help, have a chat with
the GP, have a chat with the psychologist, a school counselor,
and see if there's something that you can do about it.
We really really hope, Samartha, that's been helpful, and for
any parent who's dealing with anxious kids, hopefully there's some
ideas there that are going to make a difference for you.
Thank you so much for the question. If you have
a tricky question for us, jump online Happy families dot
com dot you just scroll down to where it says podcasts,
(13:23):
click the record.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
Button and start talking.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
We'd love to hear from you, or you can set
us a voice note to podcasts at happy families dot
com dot You The Happy Families Podcasts is produced by
Justin Ruland from Bridge Media. Mimhammonds provides research, admen and
other support, and if you would like more information and
resources to support your family better, visitors at happy families
dot com, dot you
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