Nurturing A Secure Attachment with Reflective Skills: Insights with Dr. Nicole Letourneau

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, my dear friend , welcome to another episode of
the Curious Neuron podcast.
Today is not just any episodeof the Curious Neuron podcast.
Today is the 200th episode ofthe podcast and, if you could
recall, 100 episodes ago we hadDr Bruce Perry in to chat about
resilience in children.
If you haven't heard thatepisode yet, you need to click

(00:20):
the link in the show notes.
Today we are bringing insomebody that to us here at
Curious Neuron is just asimportant.
Dr Nicole Letourneau is aresearcher that we all need to
know of, and all her researchneeds to be out there, and if
you haven't heard of herresearch yet, you need to click
the link in the show notes aswell.
We have written about herstudies in two blog posts up on

(00:41):
the website curiousneuroncom,and we also have reflection
prompts that we are starting tointegrate inside our blog posts,
which are reflection promptssimilar to what we think about
and work on within theReflective Club, which is our
new membership here atKirstenoron.
And so click the link in theshow notes and read about her
research, and if you don't havetime to do that, that's okay.
I have the most amazingdiscussion with her here on the

(01:03):
podcast.
And if you don't have time todo that, that's okay.
I have the most amazingdiscussion with her here on the
podcast, and so get ready, youmight want to take out a notepad
for this one or listen to ittwice.
It is one of my favoriteepisodes and her research
revolves around reflection,which is what I've been doing
now for at least a year, even upto two years with Curious

(01:23):
Neuron, where I've beenprompting you to take the time
to pause, because I think, asparents, we get stuck on this
autopilot function and we getstressed and overwhelmed and
saying things like you know,nothing's ever going to change.
It's always like this I justfeel so stuck, or I don't want
to do what I did, my parents did.
I don't know how to regulate myemotions.

(01:43):
We can continue saying thesethings, or we can start to
practice, learn, and we do thatby reflection.
And so if we can take momentsof pause as parents, we're going
to start noticing things.
We're going to notice patterns.
We're going to notice places orspaces that we can make changes
in how we react, how we respond, or spaces that we can make

(02:07):
changes in how we react, how werespond, how we think, how we
behave and act with our child,or how certain situations make
us feel or how certainsituations dysregulate us.
If we can feel like scientistsand start collecting this data
through reflection, then we canmake changes that are going to
make a difference not only inour well-being but the
well-being of our kids, becausewe're going to change the
environment.
We're going to make adifference not only in our
well-being but the well-being ofour kids, because we're going
to change the environment.
We're going to change how wehelp them feel, seen and heard

(02:30):
and soothed.
We're going to change ourrelationship with our kids.
So all of this is justfundamental to the work that we
do here at Curious Neuron, andI'm so excited that we had Dr
Letourneau come on the podcastfor our 200th episode, because
it is the essence of whatCurious Neuron is and her

(02:51):
research highlights just howimportant everything that we are
doing here at Curious Neuronand inside our membership is
Everything that you've beenlistening to on the podcast, if
you've been following us onInstagram, if you've been
listening to the podcast,reading our blog posts written
by researchers and graduatestudents, where we also
interview experts andspecialists for the articles

(03:14):
themselves.
That is all the learning aspectand learning here at Curious
Neuron.
The education that we put outthere for you is all grounded in
research and science.
It is so important to us, whichis why we have, by the way, our
two sponsors.
I'd like to thank theTannenbaum Open Science
Institute as well as theMcConnell Foundation for
supporting this podcast.
Without them, this would not bepossible, without you listening

(03:37):
to this podcast and sharing itand sharing episodes.
You know there's a buttonsomewhere, so I can't tell you
where it is, but it is there.
If you listen on Spotify oreven Apple Podcasts or Audible,
there are ways to share thepodcast.
So please do that as a gift toour 200th episode and guess what
, to celebrate again.
Like I said last time by the way, we onboarded a new parent that

(03:59):
got three months free of themembership I want to give
another one.
So, if you are listening tothis podcast and you are ready
to start practicing the skillsyou need in order to regulate
your emotions, if you are sayingto yourself my parents never
taught me how to regulate andnow, as an adult, I often
suppress and I don't say whatI'm thinking or try to suppress
that emotion and make it seemlike I'm okay, but I'm not, or

(04:22):
maybe you're the opposite ofthat.
Maybe you're just always losingcontrol of your emotions and
you have no idea why.
You know you get triggered incertain situations, but you
can't quite understand why it'shappening.
Maybe there's somethingunconsciously that's happening
and you don't know.
That is what the ReflectiveParent Club was all built on
helping you surface orunderstand all of these.

(04:43):
I want to give out one moresubscription, and so, if you
leave a review and share itsomewhere on a Facebook group,
talk about the podcast.
If you're part of a momFacebook group or a parent
Facebook group, share thepodcast and let them know why
it's important for them tolisten.
Send me the screenshots and Iwill give you three months free
a $79 value of this podcast.

(05:05):
I want to share it and letpeople come into the podcast.
In fact, if there are lots ofpeople that send me their
screenshots, I will pick up tothree people to give this for
free, because I know of theimpact that the Reflective
Parent Club is having on parents, where they feel less stressed
and more in control of theiremotions and even more in
control of their child'sbehavior, and so this is the

(05:27):
time where you're like I want tosee if this works for me.
Get it for free, send me anemail with screenshots one of
your review, because the reviewshelp the algorithm notice that
you care.
And if you don't want to dothis, just rate the podcast.
Just take a moment to rate thepodcast, because it makes a
difference.
And then, if you want to takeextra time and post it somewhere
, send me those two screenshotsand I will give you three months

(05:49):
for free.
In case you have never heard ofDr Nicole Le Tourneau's work,
she is a professor at theUniversity of Calgary, and not
only is she a professor, she's aprofessor in the Faculty of
Nursing and Cumming School ofMedicine.
Dr Le Tourneau holds theUniversity of Calgary Research
Excellence Chair in Parent andChild Health.

(06:10):
Formerly she was the Chair inParent Infant Mental Health, and
so, as you can see, just withher titles and having the top
titles that you can have in auniversity, she is very
dedicated to both and, similarlyto our vision here at Curious
Neuron, if we can focus a lotmore on the parent and support
their well-being, we canproactively support and nurture

(06:30):
their child's mental health andwell-being, and so it's truly
the mission that we have hereand the vision that we have here
at Curious Neuron and I'mclearly not the only one who
thinks her research is important.
She has attained $75 millionCanadian in research funding
just because of how importantthe work is that she is doing.
She's the founder of the Attachprogram I will put the link in

(06:52):
the show notes as well and aswell as the VidKids parenting
programs.
They are designed to helpstressed or depressed parents
support their children's healthydevelopment.
Attach is currently scalingacross the Canadian prairies,
brazil and Denmark.
All of these links will be inthe show notes and you will
learn more about these programsin our conversation.

(07:12):
I have talked in way too much.
I am excited about this 200thepisode.
You need to hear thisconversation with Dr Nicole
Lautourneau and I will see youon the other side.
Welcome back everyone and, likeI said in the intro, we are
here with a very special guestfor a very special episode the
200th episode of the podcast.
Dr Nicole Letourneau, welcometo the Curious Neuron podcast.

(07:32):
Thank you for having me.
It's terrific to be here.
Cindy, we have been followingyour work now for a little while
and are just fascinated by howrelevant it is to the work that
we do and the research we'retrying to put out there for
parents.
I usually ask people that Ihave conversations with in terms
of, like, what brought them totheir journey.
I'm interested in that for you,but I'm also interested in

(07:52):
terms of the driving force foryou, the why you've decided to
kind of focus in on, you know,reflective function.
So what led you to this?
Yeah, such great questions.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
Well, you know it's funny because I'm a nurse by
background and I remember in myundergraduate degree it seems
like a hundred years ago.
But the light came on for me inmy third year of the program of
my bachelor of nursing degreeand we talked to a public health
nurses and their roles andtheir roles to help families.
Help families in the early,particularly in the childbearing
years.

(08:20):
New mothers come home fromhospital.
Back in those days you'd have apublic health nurse would go
visit a mom and and it seemedlike a just seemed like that's
what I want to do and it alignedwith some a lot.
So much of my thinking, whichis which has persisted this way
over the years, is that so manynew families, they don't have
enough support to do the verychallenging work of parenting.

(08:42):
And you know, nursing is one ofthose disciplines, one of those
professions that has been thereat those important life
transitions.
You know, people become newmothers, families become you
know, there's mom and dad andchildren become siblings.
And nurses have been there.
Other healthcare and socialservice workers have certainly
been there too, but I've alwaysbeen interested in supporting

(09:03):
families, particularly when theybecome parents, in those key
early moments where people arevery receptive to learning and
wanting to do the best by theirchildren, no matter what
troubles they might have had aschildren or adults themselves.
It just seems like a, it's anoption for renewal and it's in a
key, like transition point.
You can really make a bigdifference in a child's life and
get them on a trajectory ofsuccess and health.

(09:27):
And even going back like before.
I was in my undergraduateprogram in nursing, I used to
work at parks and, honestly, Iwrote about this in my first
book actually, which is rightthere, but I wrote about this
question in my very first bookbecause why am I interested in
parenting?
I always observed that parentinghad such an important role to

(09:49):
play in children's lives.
I mean, we say that it seemsobvious, but given that I would
see kids in school or I wouldsee kids in my programs when I
was like a camp counselor and soon, and you could really tell
the ones that were thrivingversus the ones that were
struggling, often by the qualityof relationships they have with
their parents or the challengesthat their own parents faced.

(10:10):
So all that together, you know,has led me, honestly, on my
whole career, to focus on tryingto provide families with the
best start for their childrenand actually to help families
have the best lives they can,because I think so often we
forget about the important needsthat parents have.
You have to support parents tosupport their children.

(10:30):
You need to support childrenthrough their parents.
You can't separate the two, andso really I'm pretty much
devoted my whole career tounderstanding how parenting
influences children's health anddevelopment and to developing
and testing and scaling andspreading programs that support
families to provide the beststarts for their children and
that help the parents themselves, because I don't think those

(10:52):
things can be disentangled.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
And I don't think that we do that enough.
In terms of supporting theparents, I think they're still
missing a lot.
I think back to my own prenatalclasses and the support that
they offered me.
This was nine years ago.
Now I have a.
Three kids now have five, sevenand nine year old and I just
feel that, knowing the researchthat I know now, I wish there
was more in terms of supportingme in those moments, because it

(11:15):
was, you know, they would tellus how to hold a child and
nursing and all of that, whichwas important, but then they
didn't tell me what to think orhow to support myself in moments
when you had a crying baby allnight and you're like I'm at my
wits end and I don't know, and Ihave, you know, a lot going on
right now and I'm overwhelmedand stressed and tired, and so I
really think that there's stillroom for that, and this is why

(11:36):
we try to cover research likeyours.
That is, that parent firstapproach right, because, like
you said, that will trickle downto the child.
But so many parenting programsthat I hear about now, like it's
always focused on the tantrumsand how do we change and fix
that behavior?
Right, there's still so mucharound that.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, it's sort of yeah, I really recoil from the
attitude of fix my kid.
Yeah, exactly, I mean, kidsneed help too.
I mean sometimes you have tofix the kid, but more often than
not it's.
We need to support the family.
And if you look at the, youknow the genesis of so many.
You know mental health issues,cognitive issues, those sorts of

(12:14):
things in children.
It really comes down often tothe circumstances that their
families are in.
And one thing I've also learnedover my career is, you know,
I've done all kinds ofinterventions that I've
developed over the years mothersfor, mothers with depression or
mothers, you know, trying tofind out how to support mothers
when there's been violence oraddictions.
I've developed all kinds ofthings to support teen moms.
But what I have discovered isyou can you know you can't just

(12:36):
do a study and move on.
You never can stop advocating.
It seems like you constantlyhave to keep making the argument
that you need to supportparents.
And that's why I have aresearch.
I've always had a researchchair of one sort or another
over my whole career.
I've been very fortunate thatway.
You know, I've been a careerresearcher, which has been
unusual in nursing, but again, Ifeel so very fortunate, but I
always, when I was asked to namemy chair, I don't you know

(12:59):
instead of saying you know,research chair in child health,
health, because that's the focusin the end.
But with research chair andparent and child health or
parent infant health, like it'salways been, you can't, you
should not disentangle the twoand for some reason in our
society it persists in beingthat we are.
We want to help children, butnot their parents, like we blame
the parents when I yes, it'ssuch an unfortunate attitude.

(13:22):
It's really I a societalobligation to support families,
particularly in this new economythat we have now.
Things have changed a lot in thelast 5,100 years.
People, when they becameparents, used to be able to rely
on their extended families.
Their parents were around,their siblings were around who
had children of their own, andthey could rely on these sort of
expert parents around to givethem support, guidance.

(13:44):
In the middle of the nightthere'd be somebody to help.
You just can't rely on that.
Nowadays you have two parentfamilies, Both parents are
usually working and so muchstress and, if you really ask me
to dig into it, I think thesesorts of stressors and strains
are why we see so many childrennow in Canada having mental

(14:05):
health problems.
I don't know if you're aware ofthis, but the latest UNICEF
results show that Canada'schildren keep doing worse,
physically and mentally,compared to the other developed
nations, and I think right nowwe're 35th for mental health out
of 38 developed nations.
And I really think it's becausewe have not fully built out or

(14:27):
think it's important to supportparents in those early years.
We just assume that those oldsupports, those traditional
supports that parents haverelied on forever for eons, are
still there and they're just not, and you know.
And then layer that on top oflayer on top of that, you know
economic challenges and COVIDand everything else, and I think
we've got a, you know, a realmix that puts children at risk.

(14:49):
So, anyway, all that is to say,you seem to never be able to
stop advocating for this tosupport families, and
particularly the ones that aremost vulnerable.
In Canada.
You know the low-incomefamilies, parents that have been
struggling themselves becauseof mental health issues or
whatever that, in my mind, comefrom.
It's totally degeneration right, right.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
And you know what's interesting is that over the
summer I interviewed 100 parentsjust to kind of get a good idea
of what's happening.
You know a better idea ofwhat's happening inside homes
and the struggles that parentsare having.
And when I speak about parentalwell-being or mental health,
they say I'm fine.
I struggled to kind of get tothe bottom of that right with a

(15:30):
parent and what they wanted toknow was how do I support my
child?
I want to be the best parentfor my child.
Just give me like the list ofthings that I need to do to make
sure that I can be there for mychild.
And then, when we starteddigging a little bit deeper in
the conversation and looking atthe postpartum phase, then they
would say well, in retrospect,yeah, I was struggling.
Or in retrospect, I was verystressed, and actually I'm still
very stressed right now.
I'm overwhelmed and I'm alwaysyelling at my child and I go to

(15:51):
bed feeling guilty and I'm notgetting the sleep that I want.
And then they realized wait asecond, I don't think I'm well
Right through the conversation,but not seeing it as a priority.
Their priority is how do I makesure my child behaves a certain
way and that I could supportthem without realizing that
they're the sort of, you know,guiding light for that and that
we need to support them.
What has your researchsuggested?

(16:13):
Right, because, in terms ofmaybe, they look at it as
serious stuff you know, like youmentioned the depression and
mental health and if they don'thave a diagnosis or they haven't
experienced an ACE however manyhave they just don't see it as
something that they need tofocus on.
So what would you kind of sharewith a parent, given the work
that you've done, that feel thatyou know, maybe I'm not the

(16:33):
priority, it's my child.
Yeah, holy gosh.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, so you've really pointed out some really
important things that you know,I've observed in my research
program over the years, andclinicians have certainly.
New mothers in particular oftendon't recognize that they have
postpartum depression, andpostpartum depression it's
considered to be toxic tochildren's neurodevelopment.
I'll give you a little bit ofbackground here, but the Harvard
Center on the Developing Childcreated these metaphors to

(16:57):
explain, you know, things thatare important to early childhood
development.
And exposure to maternaldepression, exposure to family
violence and exposure toaddictions in the parents are
considered three toxic stressorsto children's neurodevelopment.
And it's interesting becausethe children don't have the
depression, they don't have theaddiction, they don't have the.
They see the violence.
They might not be exposed to itto themselves, but even just

(17:19):
seeing it is enough to produce aneurotoxic impact on the kids.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
So these are serious problems.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
But going back to depression, many women don't
recognize they have postpartumdepression and we know that in
Canada it's around 20% of womenpresent postpartum depression.
That's high.
If they went to their clinicianthey would likely be diagnosed,
which is really high.
And also I think it explainsthe problems that we have with
children's mental health rightnow.
And if I there's so manytangents, I could go on here

(17:48):
with you.
But going back to what we'rejust saying and about the value
of society and supporting newparents, the number one thing
you can do to prevent and treatpostpartum depression is social
support Number one thing Okay.
So if so, 20% of moms arepresenting around that now in
Canada with postpartumdepression is social support
Number one thing, okay.
So if so, 20% of moms arepresenting around that now in

(18:08):
Canada with postpartumdepression, and if we provide
them with adequate support, thatnumber will be way less.
So let me start with that.
But the key thing about moms is, I mean, or becoming a new mom,
even if you're a mom for thesecond or third time.
Each time you've transitionedto become a mother, you're tired
, you're having to reorganizeyour whole life, your

(18:28):
relationships are changing,everything is changing, and so
moms feel tired, irritable,anxious, all those things, and
confused, maybe even have somemental confusion, have low mood,
and they just attribute all ofthat to being on my new mom.
Of course I'm tired I'm notsleeping as much.
Of course I'm anxious while I'vegot an extra child.

(18:49):
Of course I am a littlementally uh, you know, not as as
sharp as I usually am, becausethere's so much going on and I'm
transitioning to, I'm changing.
It's a new situation.
So I this is not an illness,this is not something I need to
reach out to people to get helpabout.
This is just me transitioning.
So they are focused on theirchild, who's probably reacting

(19:10):
to the fact that mom is not asattentive.
Mom is really tired.
Mom is not responding in a waythat you would if you weren't
tired and overwhelmed, likesometimes moms who are depressed
.
They will overreact or they'reunder react, exactly you know.
And so babies start to adjusttheir behavior to those things.
And so, for example, a momwho's underreacting very low

(19:31):
mood, low energy because she'stired is more likely to have a
baby who acts out a bit, cries abit more, does things to get
more attention right.
This is one of the things thatcould happen, and so mom might
go for help for her baby.
I have a cry, I have a baby,that you know.

(19:56):
I can't settle, a baby whoneeds me much, or you know more
than I think might be, you know,typical.
So moms are going to get helpwith their child and they want
to be the best parents they canbe and make sure that kids are
the best start and ignoringcompletely and not it's not even
that they ignoring itintentionally, it's just that
they think it's typically, uh,just what happens when you
become a new mother.
And so one of the things that mycolleagues and I across Canada
have been advocating for foryears is screening mothers for

(20:17):
depression in the postpartumperiod and even in the prenatal
period, because, in addition tosocial support, one of the
biggest things that predictsdepression postnatally is
depression prenatally, andactually the thing that prevents
it as well is social support.
So if we were speaking there,getting making sure moms had the
kind of support they need intheir community if they can't
find it in their friend andfamily group, getting them some

(20:38):
care workers in there, gettingthem counseling, getting them
respite, whatever it is, theyneed to actually have their
symptoms be addressed and theirrelationship with their child be
protected and their child'sbehavior and developmental
trajectory being protected.
So, anyway, that's a long, longanswer to your question, but I
think it's sort of, and you know, the layer on top of that is

(20:59):
this is kind of bothersome to meas well.
But the layer on top of that is, sometimes we don't care about
families and society until whatthey're doing affects their
children.
You know what I mean.
I think we should care aboutpeople for being people, but
some, you know, it seems that insociety often and not just
Canada, but all around the worldthat we need that extra layer.
Oh, this kid is needing help,and so, yeah, okay, we'll help
the parent too.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Maybe that's why a lot of parents feel like fingers
are being pointed at them,right, because maybe it's when
the child is starting daycare orschool.
Then the teacher says yourchild can't sit down, you know?
And then they talk about likewas it my fault?
Is it screen time?
Is it versus if we can startfrom the beginning and truly
offer the parent the supportthey need.
What's interesting is you talkabout social support, where we

(21:42):
we took all the transcript fromthese conversations and what
stood out.
The first thing that stood outwas emotion regulation skills,
where parents said they just hadno clue how to regulate their
emotions.
The second one was loneliness.
Moms new moms specificallyspoke about being very lonely or
feeling very lonely, whichmeans that that one essential
item that you just mentioned,that social support is not there

(22:04):
.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, that's why they're lonely.
They don't have social support.
They're lonely, right.
I mean there's four types ofsocial support.
There's instrumental it's likehaving someone help you with I
don't know, childcare, dishes,letting you have a sleep.
You know, look afterinstrumental stuff.
And then there's informationgiving you information about
your child, you know, or youknow, and you being a new mom or
whatever, like informationabout where to get resources.
There's affirmational andemotional.

(22:27):
So people that are lonely areprobably not getting
affirmational and emotional.
Like you know, you're a goodmom, like gosh, that kind of
thing that you need to hear oncein a while.
Things don't always go well.
And emotional support justsomebody to listen to you and
hear you know what you'restruggling with.
And that opportunity as well,through reciprocity.
It's really powerful whensomeone can take from their own

(22:49):
experience and help anotherperson with sharing their
experience in a way that isinformative and helpful for the
person.
Oh, I had that and I survivedthese ways.
Why don't you try that?
That makes everybody feel good.
So, yeah, there's a lack ofsocial support.
Particularly emotional andaffirmational, I think are
really contributing to the kindof things you're observing.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Do you think that there's possibility, given what
you've seen in research, interms of changing that a little
bit, or are there still too manybarriers to say that this is
something we can actually offernew parents?

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh my gosh.
Well, you know, in Canada andit's better and worse in other
parts of the world.
But you know, but all I reallycan speak to is Canada and the
way our healthcare system isdeveloped.
It's, you know, healthcare isthe purview of the provinces and
it depends we call it a postalcode lottery sometimes like it
depends where you are when youhave a baby, the kind of
resources that you have accessto.

(23:41):
So if you're in a city and arelatively richer province, you
have more opportunities, moreresources available to you than
if you're in a rural, remoteregion in Canada.
So you know the thing with Iwas saying, like my colleagues
and I clinicians, researcherswe've been advocating for years
to promote screening women inthe postnatal period

(24:02):
particularly, but alsoprenatally, because without that
information it's very hard todevelop like national guidelines
around what provinces should beconsidering delivering
uniformly across the country tomake sure that all women, all
new childbearing people, haveaccess to the resources they
need, to have that support sothey don't end up with mental

(24:23):
health challenges.
You know like, for example, theprovince of Alberta does
screening, even though ourCanadian Task Force for
Preventive Health, healthcarekeeps recommending against
screening.
Really, it's a long story aboutthat, oh gosh.
But the Canadian, I'm part ofsomething called CANMAD it's the
Canadian Mood and AnxietyTreatment Group, and we just are
about to publish our ownrecommendations based on a huge

(24:44):
review, really mammothundertaking and recommending
screening.
And's a society ofobstetricians and gynecologists
of canada just recommendedscreening as well.
So this public health agency ofcanada, canadian task force on
preventative health care,they've got a very much more
narrow lens about the evidencethat they include in making
recommendations about screeningfor all sorts things like breast

(25:04):
cancer, whatever colorectal,perinatal, mental health
disorders, and they have.
They continue to recommendagainst.
But other bodies that involveclinicians and people with lived
experience and using a broaderswath but still rigorously
selected evidence, recommend for.
And I think this might help inCanada with these two reports
coming out very close in time, Ithink that these two reports

(25:26):
might actually help guideprovinces a little bit more to
allocate dollars to supportfamilies, and there's so many
challenges we face in Canada,like with the aging population
People.
You know there's not a lot ofmoney to go around for
everything and so sometimes themoney goes to.
It seems like it's acompetition, it's going to go
here or there instead of tofamilies.
But I personally think andactually beyond think.

(25:48):
I really believe that preventionis really the key to population
health.
If we don't have a healthypopulation, we're not going to
have a healthy economy, we'renot going to have people that
are able to work and contributeand I'm a professor at a
university.
I work with young people allthe time and the mental health
problems they are presentingwith now compared to 20 years

(26:08):
ago, there's not even acomparison.
And I'll tell you, we used tohave public health nurses.
Most provinces would go in andvisit families in the first days
of life and, as needed, to makesure they have the resources
that they need.
But now women are kicked out ofhospital super early and fast.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
And it's just assumed .
You'll figure it out.
It's true, and I think parentsfeel that right.
It's not enough support.
And we have here I'm inMontreal, quebec, and we do have
a nurse that comes, I think,three days after Well, they did
before, I don't know if theystill are, but I know that we
had that but it's still notenough.
And, honestly, she weighed thebaby, she made sure that we were
properly cleaning the umbilicalcord and that I was nursing

(26:43):
properly, and then she was gone.
There was no question of mymental health.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
It's such an underutilized like you know, we
could have a whole conversationabout nurse changes in Canada,
but you know it's like nursesare prepared to do so much more
than physical care, emotionalcare and connecting with
resources and doing really goodassessments like whole.
You know biopsychosocialassessments and even spiritual.
You know those sorts of thingsthat were completely

(27:10):
underutilized in this countryand so, um, totally constrained
in the kind of the thingsthey're allowed to do.
Unfortunately, now you go toother countries like Denmark,
like I was just we're doing.
We'll probably get to my attachintervention which is about
reflective.
I'm really looking forward totalking to you about that.
Our Denmark colleagues andnurses there are treated
completely differently.
They're the same education,honestly to say that.

(27:31):
Same education.
All right, there in Denmark, uh, every new family gets assigned
a public health nurse, I thinkduring the prenatal period, and
that nurse is with them for sixyears, five or six years and
that nurse is the one who checksin on them.
Doesn't matter whatsocioeconomic strata you are
either.
Everyone gets a nurse.
If you have problems withbreastfeeding, speech, language
concerns, food, like I don'tknow anything, like food bank

(27:53):
and any issues you have, that isyour go-to person and they have
a.
They have very good populationhealth and very good GDP and a
highly educated workforce andit's it's taken a lot of
investments and so on, but I toget there, and part of that is
public health, nursing,attention to families in the
early stages of life, and I'mnot saying it's all about
nursing.
I mean I'm biased, but thepoint is about having those

(28:16):
resources early on.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
I agree with you.
I wish we could one day havethat here.
I want to bring it to yourTATCH program and I think one
thing that we've spoken aboutnow that a parent might be
questioning is you spoke aboutthose early days and mental
health, and many parents arestruggling with, you know,
postpartum depression andanxiety moms and dads, if
they've heard this, and now youmentioned how this can impact
their child.
I know that there's a you knowsome, some worry in parents and

(28:39):
saying, like what if I do haveit?
I have noticed the differencesthat you just mentioned now.
So now what?
What are the possibilities?
Or perhaps I'm not noticingthose differences.
I need to be more mindful ofthat, but I know that that I
experienced a NACE and so I'mworried that this will impact my
child.
Let's start off with talkingabout.
You know what reflectivefunction is and how that sort of
came into your attached programand what results were you

(29:01):
seeing with parents?
Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm so gladwe're talking about this.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
I also wanted to just back up too, because I want to
reassure parents about somethingyou know it's not like you're
not fated you could be depressed, and you're not fated to have
your children struggle and havechallenges.
Thank you for saying that.
Well, one of the things Ididn't even talk about this, but
one of the other metaphors thatsummarizes all the literature
that the Harvard Center, thedeveloping child, created was
around a buffering of toxicstressors to become tolerable

(29:28):
and even positive stressors.
And I keep talking about socialsupport as being so important
to treat depression.
But social support is also thebuffer between the symptom and
the poor outcome in the child.
So if you are, if your motherwho has depression and we didn't
even talk about dads, but dadsare equally prone, we can touch
on that later.
But if you have a partner who'snot depressed and is an

(29:51):
excellent social support to youas a mother who is depressed,
that can overcome that toxicstressor, it won't be toxic,
it'll be tolerable.
So it's not something that isgoing to put your child
necessarily on that lifelongtrajectory of challenge.
So again, it goes back to it'sabout supportive relationships.
So if you have, if the childwho's affected by the.

(30:11):
You know the situation wherethe parent has ACEs.
If the child is has othernurturers around, if the mother
has people that are nurturingthem, it can regulate the
symptoms of depression and alsopromote the health outcomes of
the child.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, thank you for saying that and that's why I
wanted to bring that up, becauseI do know that sometimes even
just you know that might createthe fear of I shouldn't, I don't
, I hope I don't have anything,or maybe I should just avoid the
symptoms, right, and just kindof get through this.
But it's not about that.
It's about getting the supportand speaking to people about it
so that your child can get that,you know, support else, not

(30:44):
elsewhere, but in a way thatwill nurture their development.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, and we say fake it till you make it honestly,
fake it till you make it get thesupports you need around you
and you will make it.
Moms get through a depression.
It's very seldom that you'redepressed for the rest of your
life.
It's something that happens formany and then it goes away for
most.
And talking about dads for asecond, those partners, those
fathers, they really are superimportant to buffering the

(31:09):
negative impacts of potentiallyof depression on children.
And we've seen that in our ownresearch looking at dads
prenatally if a dad is there, ifa mom's depressed and dad's
there during pregnancy, theimpacts on the child, the
impacts on the relationship ofmother with the child, are
totally eliminated, reduced atleast.
So huge impacts of dads I can'tsay you know we don't talk
enough about dads.

(31:29):
Dads are super important, super, super important.
And and so you know one of thethings we've talked about in
other, you know other places.
You know it's like when wescreen moms for depression, we
should also screen dads, becauseif both parents are depressed,
we can't rely on that, offeringsocial support.
And you know there's a lot ofsuffering, like we can't ignore
all the suffering and dad'ssuffering.
So anyway, I just wanted to puta plug in for the you know

(31:51):
really big importance of fathersand screening and supporting
dads as well.
But then you're asking me about.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
How does reflective function?
What is reflective function, Iguess for people who haven't
heard of this.
And how did that tie into yourAttach program?
How did you bring all that intogether?

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's such a great question.
Well, reflective functioninglet's start with the definition
of it.
So it's about having insightinto your own thoughts and
feelings and insight intoanother person's thoughts and
feelings and their mental states, intentions, that kind of stuff
.
So particularly we'reinterested in parental
reflective function, so how aparent thinks about their own

(32:28):
thoughts and feelings and howmuch insight they have into
their child's thoughts, feelings, mental states, intentions,
that sort of thing.
And how did I get interested init?
Well, I'm really interested inattachment.
So I was initially, and I stillam, interested in how stressors
during parenting can underminethe quality of attachment
between a parent and a child.

(32:48):
So we want children to grow upsecurely attached.
Okay, a secure attachment islinked to a lifelong health and
development outcomes that aremore positive.
They have more healthyrelationships.
They even have they're lesslikely to have cardiovascular
and inflammatory conditions atage 30.
Like it's a whole trajectoryyou put children on of more

(33:11):
positive relationships, bettermental health and better
physical health if you have achild who's securely attached.
And you measure attachmentsecurity at one year of age,
right.
So for me, there are somereally profound studies that
show the impacts 30 years laterfrom that first from that
assessment at 12 months of ageor so.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
May I ask you how they would study that?
Because I think that there arelots of misconceptions around
what attachment is and I think alot of parents might feel like,
if your child is stuck to youat a year old, that you haven't
built the strong attachment withthem because they can't
disconnect and go see the newdaycare educator, whatever it is
.
I think that we need to justdefine that a little bit more.
What does that look like?

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, yeah, there is a lot of conceptual slippage
around attachment and peoplethink it is bonding too Bonding
in the first.
It's totally different thanbonding.
You bond with your baby whenthey're born and shortly, days
and weeks after, Attachmentreally starts to be observed the
nature of the attachment youhave with your child around nine
months of age.
If I was going to boil it down,we put children in a room with
a parent and a stranger and weseparate the child from the

(34:13):
parent and leave them with astranger and then reunite them.
We did this a couple of timesand we'd love to see how the
child is when the child is beingreunited with their parent, not
when they're being taken away.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
No Right, oh got it, thank you.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, yeah, not when they, when they be.
No, we don't measure that, wedon't really mean that.
You look at that, I'm sure youknow it's interesting.
But if you really want to knowwhat the attachment pattern is,
it's how the child reacts to theparent when they return to the
room.
Okay, so it's about returns andthe key thing is a child who is
securely attached to theirparent.
When the parent leaves, you seethe child.
You know usually they'replaying with some toys or

(34:46):
whatever.
You see the child playing andthen they'll see their parent
leave and they'll definitelynotice it and their play might
be a little subdued.
But when the parent comes backand they haven't typically cried
when their parent's gone it'salmost like because they rely on
their parent, they know thatthey're going to come back and
their parent wouldn't leave themin an unsafe situation.
So they're not really thatstressed.
They don't show a lot of stresscues.

(35:07):
So when their parent comes back, they might go to their parent
for comfort because like, ohyeah, they did miss them.
They go to their parent forcomfort, parent comforts the
child and then the child goesback to play.
That's a securely attached.
You know, in a nutshell, kindof the parent-child diet.
Now there's insecure attachmentpatterns.
There's the avoidant, and thenthere's the ambivalent resistant
and there's also disorganizedright.

(35:28):
So there's three other typeswhich we consider to be insecure
or disorganized types.
Attachment I feel like I'mgiving you a class lecture.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
I love it.
We need to cover this because Idon't think I've ever gone into
depth in terms of what it isand I just feel that there's so
much out there that is justmisinformation.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Yeah, yeah yeah, and there's like pop culture
conceptions of attachments, butthis is what we mean and we
measure this between like 12 and20, 22 months of age, 24 months
of age.
We measure this and how thechild reacts to the parent when
they leave and come back relatesto a whole host of other
outcomes down the road.
So the avoidant now thistypically is understood to be

(36:05):
behavior in the interaction withthe parent or the child
demonstrates because they've hada history with the parent, a
parent is typically not veryresponsive to them and a parent
who might be uncomfortable withcrying ignores crying, that kind
of stuff.
So a child whose parent leavesthe room and the child's
avoidant when the parent leaves,you can't even tell the that
kind of stuff.
So a child whose parent leavesthe room and the child's
avoidant when the parent comes,when the parent leaves, you
almost you can't even tell thechild the notice.
Sometimes, when the parentcomes back, they might look up

(36:26):
but they don't pay attentionmuch to their parent.
They don't go to their parentfor comfort and they just keep
playing.
It's like they, it's likethey're avoided, they avoid.
You know it's, they're do it.
But the funny thing is when youdo like a physiological
assessment to those kids.
They might not look stressed atall.
They're very stressed becausethey can't rely on their
caregiver to meet their needsunder stress.

(36:49):
And it is stressful even forthe secure child, maybe a little
less so because they've got ahistory of their parent has been
, you know, reliably responsiveand the insecure child doesn't
have that.
So that's what you see.
And then the C-ish child.
Well, there's other columns,there's A's for avoidant, and
then B for secure and C forinviolable and resistant.
And just a little aside, by theway, when the original studies

(37:14):
were done they originallythought that the A kids were the
healthiest because they were soun-rape, not needing attention.
That makes sense.
But now they've discovered that, no, it's the bees.
You have to be able tocomfortably express emotion and
expect others to comfortablyexpress it in return and
down-regulate and go on withyour life.
So the new kids, the avoidedkids they can't comfortably
express emotion, they can'tdown-regulate.
They've got no one to help themdown-regulate except themselves

(37:35):
.
They've got to figure that out.
It's a challenge for a baby,we're talking babies here.
They've got to comfortthemselves Because mom and dad
are going to.
And then we've got the otherones.
So these ones, you kind of seethem as a struggle.
So the parent leaves, the childwill freak out, sometimes throw
toys, and when the parent comesback they'll go to the
caregiver to be comforted.

(37:55):
But they can't seem to becomforted by the caregiver often
, so you often see it as astruggle, the caregiver often.
So you often see it as astruggle.
They want to be picked up, theywant to be down.
They want to be picked up, theywant to be down, and the
parent's kind of exasperated andthat's kind of an ambivalent,
resistant to down regulationkind of pattern.
And that comes from situationswhere the parent has been
inconsistently responsive.
So sometimes they respond andsometimes they don't.

(38:16):
And so what do you do?
It's just like gambling in away.
It's actually got some linkagesto reward, frequency.
That's sort of unexpected.
Sure, I get that, yeah, youknow you get when you gamble.
But the idea is that if youdon't reliably get the response,
so what you do is you ramp upyour display of emotion and need
so that you know it reallyramped up so maybe they will

(38:39):
attend to you, Okay, yeah, andand then when the caregiver does
respond, they just don't seemto be able to settle into it.
And then there's thedisorganized type where and
these kids are generally youknow, they've been in foster
care and they've had parentswith serious mental health
issues.
There's been abuse.
I mean not always, but there'salways exceptions, but there's

(39:05):
there's a disorganized children.
They can't when we, when theparent, comes back, you can't
even tell there's no organizedpattern.
They're not.
They don't see any of thosethings.
And sometimes, for example, I,you know, in my lab, you know
the, I'll be the, I'll be thestranger in some of these
strange situation procedures.
That's what they're called whenwe assess this and the, instead
of going to the parent forcomfort, they'll go to the
stranger, the parent, forcomfort.
They'll go to the stranger.
They'd never met me before andthey go up to me.
I'm the stranger.

(39:26):
And you can see how that couldeven relate to things like
children being precociously.
They're just too social.
It can cause all kinds of risksfor them in other ways.

Speaker 1 (39:32):
So anyway, this is a task.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
And when a pattern you have is thought to be pretty
stable.
If the environment is stable,it's pretty stable over your
life and it affects the kind ofrelationships you have with your
own intimate partners as yougrow older and so on.
So, anyway, so how did I get toreflective function?
Well, I was really keen ondeveloping some interventions
that focused on attachmentsecurity, promoting attachment

(39:55):
security.
So I wanted to do that.
I mean I had been doingintervention work with mothers
with depression.
I wanted to do that.
I mean I had been doingintervention work with mothers
with depression, teen mothers,mothers with addictions, mothers
affected by violence.
I was sort of trying to developall these unique interventions
for all these groups.
But then I realized that what Ireally want to do is promote

(40:16):
attachment security in thesesituations and what was common
to them.
And I was working with mycommunity partners too and they
were saying to me well, thesemothers, you can't break them up
.
You might have a mother who'sbeen in a violent situation and
she's also depressed, or a teenmom who's also depressed.
So it was artificial to breakthem up.
I said what's the underlyingcomponent?
And it was reflective function,what seemed to come out of some

(40:37):
of the literature that welooked at and the experience
that we had is that what wassort of common that we could
maybe work on with all thesefamilies was the reflective
function and in the past, likebefore, that we would do things
like teach people about, youknow, infant cues, child
development, treats ofattachment and all these sorts
of things.
We teach them to sing and makeeye contact and do those sorts
of things with their babies andwe had some success with those

(41:00):
interventions.
But we thought we needed tohave an intervention, a program
that's going to work withfamilies who have a variety of
risk factors.
It's going to promoteattachment, security and
community organizations would beinterested in delivering it
because it's for the clientsthat they see whole variety of
them right.
So we developed the ATTACHprogram and I have to give kudos

(41:20):
to my postdoctoral fellow who'snow the program manager for all
the ATTACH studies and at lastcount, we have about seven
studies going on through ATTACH.
Wow, you know we're scaling andspreading it in Brazil, in
Denmark, soon France, acrossCanada, and I had a conversation
today with maybe inMassachusetts again.
So anyway, we co-developed itand she was, you know, under my
supervision and I was like wehave to develop a program that

(41:42):
addresses reflective function,and it's a very simple program.
The cool thing about reflectivefunction is that what we
discovered is, as soon as youhelp a parent think about
thoughts and feelings of theirown and how that might impact
their child and vice versa, whattheir child is thinking and
feeling, they become.
They start doing all thosethings that we were teaching
people to do.
They become more sensitive andresponsive.

(42:03):
They sing to their baby more atthe right time when their baby
is receptive.
They make eye contact, theyplay with them in ways that are
more meaningful for the child.
All those things just happenand we don't teach any of it.
It almost happens naturally.
It happens naturally and sochanging how they think as
opposed to how they behave, Gotit.
But the thinking translates intobehavior because our attached

(42:25):
intervention has, you know, Ican go down the long list.
It improves parent-childinteraction, quality, attachment
, security.
It improves children's behavior, internalizing, which is
anxiety, depression,hyperactivity and attention,
Improves their sleep.
It improves the mother'sexecutive function.
So it improves you know how youwere talking about earlier
about mothers.
Yes, yeah, yeah, it improvesmother's ability to regulate

(42:47):
their own emotions and displaysof them.
And we took some blood, believeit or not, from mothers and
babies, Not a lot, but a little,A little blood, and we looked
at something called theconserved transcriptional
response to adversity, which isa, an mrna marker.
So it's, you know, it's in therealm of genomics and we found
that gene expression related toinflammation was down regulated

(43:12):
in the children whose mothersgot the program and in the
mothers themselves.
That is fascinating well, it'sreally cool right?
yes, so you know inunderstanding how attachment
relates to all these healthoutcomes over the lifespan, and
inflammation underpinscardiovascular conditions,
mental health conditions, and sowe think that we've tapped into
a way to reduce that chronicinflammation that can have

(43:36):
long-term impacts on mentalhealth and physical health
within the attached intervention, simply by helping people tune
into their own and their child'sthoughts and feelings.
And that's what attachedintervention does and that's why
we have so much interest in it.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
Right, congratulations on this and the
work that you've been doing withyour team.
Honestly, it comes down to whatwe kind of tell parents, that
self-awareness piece.
A lot of parents say thatthey're on this autopilot, you
know, day and night and justlike continuing every day and
week and month and year and andthings don't change and they
look for quick fixes.
You know, when it comes tosupporting their child or fixing

(44:12):
right I don't like that wordeither, but that is the language
that is still used and so if wecan show them you know how to
pause and reflect and truly lookat the moment, the environment
of that moment of that, andreflect on what happened before
and so on.
I think that's when you startmaking connections in terms of

(44:34):
patterns that you might have,that you might not have even
realized and really reallytapping into that, and that's
when we see changes in ourbehavior and our child.
So I love the work that youguys do.
It's fascinating.
You know you mentioned thesecognitive skills.
Can we touch on that a littlebit, because I do know that you
know some of the parents that wehave.
So we have 160,000 parents onsocial media.

(44:55):
You know about 15,000 downloadsa month and now we have a
membership that we started thissummer called the Reflective
Parent Club and that's trulyfocused on we've summarized your
research inside for our members, you know, just for them to see
like what's out there.
But we are trying to supportparents in terms of pausing and
truly understanding what's goingon in their home and with their

(45:17):
child, and what's interestingis that a lot of parents talk
about executive functions.
Many of the moms within ourmembership and our community
have recent diagnosis of ADHDand realize only now that this
might be contributing to themreally struggling with emotion
regulation skills.
What is the research aroundthat?
And if a parent is listening tothis, what's possible in terms

(45:37):
of improving that?

Speaker 2 (45:38):
Yeah, Honestly, that's such a great question and
I don't, frankly, know of arelationship between an adult's
ADHD and their own ability toreflect.
I don't know any.
I don't know of any research,but I bet there is a link.
Yes, yeah, I bet.
I also think like what's?
What's cool about Attach is ourintervention program is
everybody.
Everybody has the capacity tobe reflective, everyone does.

(46:00):
And when you have stress ormaybe a diagnosis like ADHD,
it's less natural, it's lesspracticed.
And when you're stressed weknow that there's literature
that suggests that when you arestressed you start to function
from your amygdala.
You're doing threatsurveillance, you're reacting so
that you can be safe and otherpeople in your environment can
be safe.
And that's just how we've beenprogrammed biologically and what

(46:24):
we're taking people that wework with.
They are stressed, so peoplethat are in domestic violence,
shelters or they've had it.
Like you know, they've beenliving with low incomes and just
can't manage all the stress andstrains of everyday life, so
they're functioning that way.
What we're getting them to dois practice a skill they already
have.
We're getting them to be intheir prefrontal cortex and sit
down in a session with us for anhour and just talk about
thoughts and feelings.
And I would suspect that evenif you had ADHD, even a serious

(46:50):
diagnosis, I bet we could getyou to a point where the
practice is just bound to makeit a little more natural to do
that a bit more often.
And in our intervention that'swhat we do for an hour with
people every week, once a weekfor an hour.
And I'll tell you, one of thecoolest things about this
program is people not just doesit work, people love it.
They love being asked what theythink and feel.
We're never asked over.

(47:17):
It's like, well, 10 sessions.
We might say, okay, we'll giveyou another one or two, but they
really, really benefit from it.
And so all we're doing isgiving people who are stressed
or have, I guess, maybe ADHDcould be a thing.
I would have attested this, butyou've given me a new
hypothesis.
I would hypothesize that thepractice would translate into
every day increased likelihoodof just being able to pay

(47:39):
attention a bit more to whatthey think and feel and what
their child's thinking andfeeling and how those two
connect.
And, by the way, so we've beendelivering this program with
community organizations allacross Canada and the world.
We are about to startdelivering it directly to
parents.
We have about we have at least50 facilitators trained in this
program now, just even inAlberta, and we're testing right

(48:01):
now that online delivery of theprogram.
You know, we've been veryfortunate with getting funding
from our Canadian Institutes forHealth Research to test this
program and we are testing it,the online version, right now,
and we've done some preliminaryanalysis showing that, yes,
online is as effective asin-person with improving
parental reflective function.
So with that knowledge, we areabout to create a company.

(48:23):
We're not for profit.
We also for profit, but I don't, you know, I just I'll be
talking of any sort, justwhatever we need to do to get
the word out.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
We have never made any money, we just get grant
money.
You want to support the parentsright, but we want to support
parents, yeah, and we work withcommunity organizations.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
so far, I get that the idea would be that we would
potentially be soon, in the newyear, be able to deliver this
program to parents directlythrough our um, our company.
So this is that's a new, newterritory for me, but it's um.
As a professor, I've never, youknow, I don't have experience
right building um companies.
This company, exactly, I getthat.
Yeah, it's a way to share thisknowledge in a way that I think

(49:02):
will be hopefully well received,because right now I don't know
of any other program like it,right, exactly, that could be
delivered.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
this way, right, yeah , so please share that with our
community.
I will put in the show noteslinks to your book and your
website.
I want to make sure that peoplehave access to everything that
you're talking about.
Like always, I put links to theresearch.
Our audience is very interestedin learning about the studies
and reading up on them.
One question that comes to mindyou've mentioned a few things,
so you've mentioned practice,and I think practice is one

(49:31):
thing that I believe in, in thesense that you know it's not
just parenting.
There's no playbook, but thereare skills that we can learn,
and from what?
What you know, the work, thatyou share this.
You know parental reflectivefunction is a skill and it's not
going to happen overnight, sameway that if we pick up a weight
today, tomorrow the musclewon't be there.
It'll take some time to buildthat, and so it's a skill that

(49:52):
we have to practice.
I'm thinking about parentsperhaps questioning what the
difference is between parentalreflective function and
mindfulness.
Is it the same or are theredifferences?

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Oh, they're quite similar.
They are quite similar.
Parental reflective function islike the we can't really
observe what's in your mind,right so?
But it's called mentalization,like.
It comes from Peter Fonagy,who's a psychiatrist in the UK.
He wrote a lot aboutmentalization and reflective
function being how we are ableto see it and how we measure

(50:25):
reflective functions.
We interview people about theirthoughts and feelings and you
can get a sense of theirreflective function by that.
But it's, I think it is.
It is definitely similar intheir own work.
When we publish it we do say,yes, like it can be a bit like
mindfulness, but mindfulness isoften more about oneself and
reflective function andmentalization is more about
yourself and others and how theyinteract.

(50:48):
Yeah, and there's a little bitof cognitive flexibility built
into how we get people topractice it too.
So we'll get people to say,well, what do you think?
You know your baby's thinking,you're feeling here and, and you
know, will give us an idea.
And then we go and kind of talkthat through and say, well,
what's another thing they couldbe thinking or feeling, and you

(51:08):
get them to and then, with thatchange, that new emotion that
they have attributed to whatthey just saw or that new
thought they've attributed totheir child, it changes
everything they're learning justby practicing that how they
think about something changes.
Everything Changes how theinteraction happens,
interpretation and the behaviorsthat come from that
interpretation change.

(51:29):
So I think that's a little bitdifferent than mindfulness in
that we're looking at thisdyadic thing.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
Yeah, Got it Given what you've been learning.
I'm just really curious rightnow in terms of how have you
applied this research to yourlife?
Is this something that you'vekind of brought in and said, oh,
I see the difference?
Now, like I'm doing this, youknow, with whatever relationship
, and have noticed the changes?

Speaker 2 (51:50):
Yeah, definitely, I've definitely life experiences
also contributed to me thinkingthis is really an important
thing that is missed.
You know, when you think ofthem, we often will talk about
what we think in ourinteractions with their kids,
and I have two sons, so I wouldalways sort of go to that and
now I often will think, okay, Ineed to ask them about what they

(52:12):
, what they feel, got it Right?
Yeah, so I'll try, I reallymake a concerted effort and I,
you know, I, I know I know thechallenges that all of the
parents face in our programbecause I think about it myself
a lot.
Yeah, you got to remember toask about feelings, but maybe
it's the opposite in your family.
You talk about feelings anddon't talk about thoughts.
So focus about that balance,right?

(52:34):
I trick the situation.
I try to emphasize how you feelabout things a bit more and
that makes for a betteremotional connection.
Someone knows that youunderstand how they feel about
things a bit more and that makesfor a better emotional
connection.
Someone knows that youunderstand how they feel.
It makes for a better emotionalconnection.
So, yeah, I think it's helpedmy and you know.
The other thing we've observedin the research and in our own
lives is.
I'm talking about all thefacilitators.

(52:54):
You know we've worked withfacilitators who see so many.
Dr Hartworth that calls themknock-on effects.
We haven't even measured butpeople will say, oh, the clients
in my care, you know, there'llbe a social worker that became
an attached facilitator.
She's a case manager.
So the clients in my carewho've had this program and I am
a facilitator, I can talk tothem and it makes our

(53:15):
relationship better.
I can be a better caseworkerwith this person.
Or I also hear that that motherwho went to the program has a
better relationship with thepeople in her social group her
own mother, her friends becauseshe's more in touch with her own
thoughts and feelings thantheirs.
And so we haven't measured thatyet, but we're looking at maybe
measuring conflict.

(53:35):
Does it reduce conflict inpeople's relationship relations?

Speaker 1 (53:39):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because, as you're
talking about what you'rethinking and what you're feeling
, that brings to mind theconflict resolution skills and
when you think of the cognitiveperception and emotional
perception right there's we'regoing to experience the
situation very differently.
You have a point you're tryingto put across, but you're also
going to experience thisconflict very differently in
terms of emotional you knowperspective.
So I think it makes sense.

(54:00):
It makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
Yeah.
So yeah, there are things thatwe you know, that we've got our
facilitators telling us and we'dlike to measure, and I think we
are in conflict now, but wehaven't analyzed the data.
We all considered conflict aslike, okay, you know, you've got
this ace in your life, but wedidn't actually imagine that it
might, the intervention mightalso reduce conflict.
You know, we're seeing it.

Speaker 1 (54:22):
I can't wait to see that.
Right, I want to be mindful ofyour time, but I have one last
question.
I always try to kind ofsummarize the conversation a bit
for parents who are listeningin terms of takeaways, right?
So, given what you know andwhat you've learned through your
research, what are some simpletakeaways that parents could
kind of practice and apply intheir own homes?

Speaker 2 (54:40):
you know, tomorrow, yeah, takeaways that parents
could kind of practice and applyin their own homes, you know
tomorrow, yeah, well, you know.
I always said, when you'rebecoming a parent or you are a
parent, I think you should neverbe afraid to ask for help.
I think it's a, it would be aterrible mark on a society if,
when parents ask for help, it'snot going to be offered in
return.

(55:00):
I mean it's you know.
So we need to be asking forhelp, we need to be advocating
as parents and feelingcomfortable asking for the help
that we need.
And that can mean in, you know,your community, in public
health services or, you know,talking to your family doctor or
your nurse practitioner or yourcounselor about what might be
available to help you.
But it also means beingcomfortable asking your friends

(55:22):
and family, and I think thatmight be the hardest thing for
some people is to ask yourfriends and family.
But you know there'll beopportunity to give back,
there'll be many opportunitiesto give back and I think you
have to remind yourselves ofthat.
And so you know, get all thesupport you can around you as a
new parent because you need it.
You need it.
You don't have to do it alone,don't feel guilty for asking.

(55:44):
You shouldn't have to do italone.
And I think you know partners,dads if they're, hopefully
they're there and and those dadsalso can be the advocates for
themselves and their partnersand their family unit.
So all this responsibility ofasking for help shouldn't just
be, you know, follow them all,let's go, but the whole family
should be comfortable asking forhelp and just trying to find
all the resources you can.
And that can mean, you know, ifyou're in a rural or remote

(56:06):
community, like you know, itcould be an online group you
might not get that instrumentalsupport something like picking
the baby up at night when you'retired but you might get that
emotional support that way.
So you're really taking sometime to figure out what you
might need, which I guess takesa little reflection, but and
then and then trying to find theresources to fill those gaps
and never feel bad about itbecause you need it and the

(56:28):
evidence shows, when you havethose resources in place, things
go so much better for parentsand for children and society.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
Right, exactly, and and you know, that's important
with kids of all ages, becausesometimes you do have the guilt
of stepping away or taking timeand we need to do that.
It's that recharge, I know,it's, you know, but it makes
sense.
Yes, oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
You know it's interesting yeah, whatever you
need, because some parent youknow self-care for a parent
might be, you know, taking sometime away.
Another parent would find thatreally stressful to be apart
from their child.
So it's also meeting your ownneeds.
So if you want definitelyself-care, figuring out what
that is and making sure that yougive it to yourself so your
mental health is protected.
Here's an analogy If you're inan airplane and the pressure of

(57:13):
the cabin changes, you put yourown mask on first, because
you're no good to anyone if youpass out.
It's true, it's the same youneed to put yeah, you tell it
yourself at first, and that'schallenging your moms too.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
I hope that can change slowly in society where
we realize we don't have to doit on our own, we don't have to
be that super mom or superparent that does it all.
We're not doing any justice toourselves and to our child, it's
okay.
And if a parent is saying, okay, I don't have any of these
skills that they just mentioned,and what does this reflect look
like?
Is it as simple as pausing, youknow, at the end of your day?

(57:47):
Is it having a notebook around?
Or your app?
You know an app on your phonewhere you can take notes?
What does that look like?
In a very small gesture thatcan make a difference in their
life?
I think the best way to.

Speaker 2 (57:56):
You know, one little tip would be to in an
interaction it.
You know, one little tip wouldbe to in an interaction it could
be with your child or yourpartner but just take a moment,
maybe every day, and just say,well, that was think of
something that they did.
You know, in the moment it'slike, oh, that was interesting.
And try to decide for yourselfwhy they might've done that,
what they might be feeling, whatthey might be thinking, and

(58:16):
then ask them what were youthinking when you did that, what
were you feeling when you didthat?
And I really think that littlebit could help.
Yeah, and that's what wepractice in the intervention,
right?
So that would be my biggest tip, as opposed to creating an
inventory of your emotions orsomething.
It's about being curious aboutyour own mental states and those

(58:39):
of others around you.
So I would just make an effortto try and do that once a day in
an interaction like you know,normal community, you know.
Or breakfast, you're havingcoffee or something, and I'm
just curious, why do you?
What are you thinking right now?
What are you feeling right now?
You know penny for yourthoughts, kind of thing.
But just take it to the nextlevel and I think and you know

(58:59):
the person who would be doingthis doesn't need to verbalize
their own thoughts and feelings,but just inquiring about their
partner child's thoughts andfeelings.
And I would try doing that oncea day to see how it goes.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
I think that's a good first step.
Thank you Again.
I will put everything in theshow notes.
I can't thank you enough forbeing a very special guest on
this 200th episode.
We will continue to summarizeyour research here for the
community and we look forward tothe next publications as well.
Thank you, Thank you and.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
I'll send you the links to the web page where
parents can sign up as soon asit's ready.
Fingers crossed, we'll get itready for the new year.
Got to get our ducks in a row.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
Yeah, thank you.
I hope you enjoyed thisconversation just as much as I
did.
Please take a moment to tap outof this episode, leave a rating
or just review it out of fivestars.
Three seconds of your time inorder for me to get more of
these top researchers to come onboard and experts that will
help you learn how to regulateyour emotions, how to lower your
stress, how to support yourwellbeing, and all of this with

(59:58):
the hopes or the goal ofsupporting your child's mental
health and well-being, which weknow is important to all parents
.
And so take a moment to rate itand, if you have a few more
seconds, review it.
Thank you for listening and Ihope you have a beautiful and
wonderful week.
There will be some replayepisodes.
Dr Bruce Perry will be replayednext week, in case you missed

(01:00:18):
it, and I will see you in 2025.
Happy New Year and happyholidays to all of you.
Thank you for being here.
See you next time.
Bye.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Nurturing A Secure Attachment with Reflective Skills: Insights with Dr. Nicole Letourneau

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Nurturing A Secure Attachment with Reflective Skills: Insights with Dr. Nicole Letourneau

On Purpose with Jay Shetty