Season 3 - Episode 2: So, What I'm Hearing Is I'm Your Travis Kelce!

Anyone's Amy G can make an appearance at anytime...sometimes Fronnie just isn't around to help out. But that doesn't mean it's the end of the world. Building strong foundations in your relationships makes moments when Amy G appears out of nowhere a little easier for everyone to handle.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Welcome to What's Happening Here. Thisis a podcast for finding the perfect imbalance
of being a parent, a partner, and a person without losing the things
that matter most to you in theprocess. Like you're Sennity, you might
know me as doctor Sarah the BrainGal. I'm a pediatric neuros psychologist and
mom of two who translates brain scienceto everyday life. I see all kids,
really all people like little brains.You probably don't know me. I'm

(00:24):
Kevin, Sarah's partner in crime,Bourbon Afcinado, discusser of all things,
and father of two. We startedthis podcast because we saw a big gap
between research and practice, especially whenyou have a unique family structure like ours,
and we wanted to share what wehave learned and hopefully what we continue
about navigating our lives through the lensof brain science with a big old helping
of reality. Next day, weknow there are lots of families that look

(00:47):
like ours, we're kind of likeour, or maybe look nothing like ours,
which makes finding a single source ofguidance and advice so hard. But
we're going to try to help you. So join us as we try to
figure out what's happening here pick keV. I've been meaning to apologize to you
just a little bit. Well,I feel like earlier seasons you got the

(01:08):
Amy G Wrath title more so thanI did. I had this like shiming
Frannie crown at some point, whichfor those of you who haven't followed the
podcast too much, we'll let youknow. Frannie's the frontal lobe with the
brain right, she's control regulation.Amyg's I picture like a pupperfish. She's
like just like woop, she there, she goes. She's our migdalve of

(01:30):
the brain. She's our motion center. And we talk a lot on this
podcast about the relationship between Frannie andAmy G. And I think we often
talk about you, well, yes, Amy G, and usually Frannie,
but not all the time for me. And so I thought i'd kind of,
you know, give myself away herejust a bit, because I know

(01:53):
you often are wondering where your Frannieis, especially you know, throw back
to getting kicked out of the kid'sdeck hockey game. I'm not going without
yo, honey, so you're goingunder the bus with me. But you
know, I just thought I wouldmention this because people ask I was like
two years ago. It was twoyears ago, but it still feels like

(02:15):
yesterday, and your mother remembers itlike it was yesterday too, so it's
lovely to talk to her about ittoo. The funny thing is, you
know, I just love the exampleof amy G. You know what it
actually I was thinking about this whenwe were watching the Super Bowl earlier in
the year and watching Travis Kelce loseit in the middle of the game,

(02:38):
right with Andy Reid getting up inhis face yelling and screaming, and my
first thought was, there's Amy G. You know. But it was interesting
to watch people's perspectives on this,you know, there was everywhere from if
you're a Travis and Taylor fan likeI am, I can't get enough and
listen, I just want to sayeverybody should back off on them, like

(02:59):
there's no re in that everybody needsto get all up in their business.
They just need to tell me.I don't need to tell anybody else.
It'll be completely fine. I thoughtyou were just going to be like,
they don't have to get married,there's no rush, no no no,
no, no, no no no. They I'm sure they'll get married.
I'm sure they will in their owntime. They are probably I would recommend
them doing having their therapists, hopefullymarry them because I wanted to last forever

(03:22):
and they have beautiful babies if that'swhat they want. Whatever they want together
is what I would love to seefor them. I really love the balance
of being so good in their feelbeing able to respect each other. That's
a hard thing to find, soI hope that that lasts forever. But
back to change, I could go, I could go on forever about Yes,

(03:43):
I know which. By the way, we should also thank Travis and
Taylor Swift because they have brought mecloser to Carter, my son, and
you also because just like all ofthese things you see on you've seen on
Instagram, I am now very interestedin watching certain football games and I want
to hear about things. And mypoor son, you know, is now

(04:06):
you know, so happy. Onthe one hand, I think he's happy
that I'm interested. In the otherhand, I think he's like, oh
mom, but kind of in agood way. So it brought us closer
too, So there's only good thingshappening with Israeli. You're like all those
seven and eight year old girls whoare now watching football with their dads.
Yes, exactly. With your husbandand her son exactly exactly, and yeah,

(04:29):
loving kind of every minute of ittoo. You know, we were
lucky enough to be able to.I was lucky enough to take both girls
to Taylor Swift also, so wehad that experience, so now to be
able. She's just wonderful. Ijust love her very much. She's always
connecting me in my life to lotsof things. We'll do a whole episode
at some point. I'm going totake a drink break delor Swift. But
anyway, watching him, you know, get up in Andy Reid's face.

(04:53):
When I talk about this with grouplarge groups of people when I'm doing talks
there, there's so many different viewson this. You know. Some people
are like, well, it happensand he apologized or something like that,
and then there's other people that willsay he's entitled. You know, how
could he present that kind of behavior. He's a role model as if at

(05:15):
that moment Frannie was anywhere to befound, right. And it's very interesting
to me because we are pretty veryfew Frani's on a football field, right,
And you kind of don't want themeither, you really don't. And
I talk actually there's one person youwant to have Frani that's your quarterback,
and you and probably the coach.Yeah yeah, but everybody else amy away,
right, because if you don't havethat injury, there's no drive to

(05:36):
get smushed, right, which Idon't know, Well, it's it's a
scary game. You almost have tohave your amyg in there so that you
forget how much danger you're putting yourself. Right. We talk a lot about
testosterone and about what that does,you know, and the adrenaline and me
right, you need all of thatto be channeled and moved forward to get
you somewhere. And interestingly, Ithink you know, when listening to the

(06:00):
podcast afterwards, the New Heights podcast, which is fabulous, by the way,
everybody should listen to that too.It's fun to listen to the way
that they talk about those experiences,you know, and he would say,
or he said on that podcast thathe would she was channeled, He channeled,
took that and channeled that back intothe game. And you know,
I always say, you can't havethe kind of romance that him and Taylor

(06:23):
have, you know, with thesmoochies and all that emotion without you know,
that going overboard at times. Andthen also you don't get the drive
to win. And we've talked aboutthis too, you know, without the
level of passion that you have.You know, that goes two ways.
I know it bothers you at timeswhen it goes in a way that you
see is too far in the negativesense, but it also gives you the

(06:46):
positive side that someone like me,who doesn't have a huge range, you
know, envies on some level tobe able to get to that point and
be that that emotional And you know, I think that I don't know if
it's being with you and being ableto find my own AMG a little bit
more just being able to be moreindependent, you know, after my divorce
and find finding myself and professionally findingmyself that I've been able to tap into

(07:10):
my AMG. It was all Franniefor a while in a bad way.
I didn't know what I wanted,I didn't know what I liked. But
now the interesting process for me isthat I have found miamig, which has
been a great thing. I knowwhat I like more. I even just
to know what I want for dinner, or know where I want to go,
or know what you know, kindof vacations I want, know what
activities I want to do. Soall those things have been good, but

(07:32):
I've also noticed the other side ofAMG at times too, because it's not
really a switch that's easily turned onand off. It kind of have to
find that now clinically, I realizeI can turn it off. You know,
I could be in a session witha patient or with a teacher,
or you know, even like givinga talk, and you could say the
craziest things to me, or youcould say the most emotional things. And

(07:53):
I do hear a lot of youknow, a lot of angry or upset
or any of those things, andthere's no I don't feel that I've learned
how to separate that a bit andbe able to help focus on helping that
person through that. But in myown life, when it comes to people
I love or places, I'm verycomfortable turning off that AMG can be tough,

(08:16):
and especially in stress times, andso I just wanted to talk about
the fact that nobody is perfect atthis. I studied this forever. I
can tell you how it's supposed tobe done. I could tell you which
books to read, you know,I could, you know, we talk
about all the time on the podcast, but one of the rules that I
have seen is that perfection is completeimperfection. You know, if you if

(08:37):
I see families where the parents grewup in houses where things were absolutely perfect,
things were soaked into the rug,everything's always happy. You know,
they have no idea how they feel, They have no idea how to help
their kids through it, and manytimes their kids are struggling with more severe
mental health issues. You know.Now, I think, and maybe this

(08:58):
is just me leaning on the conceptof needing teachable moments on a lot of
levels for my own sanity, butI think it's important to be to be
flawed and to have times where youlose it. When I look at someone
like Travis Kelsey, I think,you know, you don't get to that
level. You can't push yourself thathigh without losing your Amyg. It's almost

(09:22):
if you you know you're going toif you're pushing yourself, have those moments
where Frannie's going to be a littleoverloaded and Amyg is going to win.
And I had one of those momentsrecently, and I thought I would share
it because it really demonstrates this pointof Listen, I've been very lucky lately,
We've been very lucky lately in beingable to do things that make us

(09:46):
happy, go on certain trips,even getting married and having all of the
you know, we now have fourchildren, which gives us joy, but
also stressors in scheduling and just tryand figure out what everybody needs. And
so I've noticed that there are certaintimes that I get very stressed, and
I kind of call it like mymom secta. It's like when I'm stressed

(10:07):
or thinking about something at work,we are running late, we have to
go, and then something changes,like some plan changes. I feel like
I'm fairly good at pivoting otherwise,but when those other pieces are high,
when my emotions are high for otherreasons, I tend to lose it.
So it was one of those days. And my son, Carter also has
this issue with eating. If hehasn't eaten, he becomes like it's like

(10:30):
a Snicker's commercial. He is weknow somebody else, Yes, we do,
Stephen, And he really does mimicthat at times. And when I'm
very stressed and busy, I don'talways catch those kinds of things early either,
And so it was just one ofthese days where Carter came home and
he's sitting at the counter, andyou know everything's in No, No,

(10:52):
I don't want to do this.No, I don't want to do that,
which he means that way anyway.But he gets particularly ornery or shut
down when he's hungrier, when something'sbothering him. And so I am losing
my tolerance very quickly because we needto leave fast. And I am like,
you know, I'm frustrated, andI go into the pant I run
into the pantry, which just almostout of the house, and I'm look
at my daughter and I'm like,what is wrong with him? Like,

(11:15):
what the heck is wrong with him? Why is he being like this?
Why is he being such a Andthis is probably where I should have stopped,
but I did not. Why ishe being such an asshole? Switch
To my daughter's credit, she didn'teven bat any and she just looked at
me. She's like, I don'tknow, mom, I know you're you're
stressed. She goes, maybe he'shungry. And what I love about this
is the fact that she can takesome of my frannie over right. She

(11:39):
has heard it enough that she's likejumping right on board for problem solving.
And I was like, you're right, and I walked back in and I
handed him food and I said,I will talk to you after you eat
two bites, and it does thesame thing he does every time. I'm
really gosh, and I know atthis point this is all amy G talking
and I need to walk away toget his Frannie back. I come back
problem thirty seconds later, because itreally literally only takes thirty seconds, and

(12:03):
he's all smiles. It's like theSnicker's comercial. It's like a totally different
person. And I uh come inand he just looks at me head mom,
like are you almost ready to go? He's like, yeah, I'm
just gonna finish this to get myshoes on and I'll leave. And I'm
like, Carter, you're driving mecrazy, and he goes, I know,
Mom, I heard. He said, you know, next time you
call me an asshole, can youjust do it where I can't hear you,

(12:26):
because I know that you need toget the amy g emotion out,
but then my amyg goes up.But if I can't hear you, then
that doesn't happen. And so justin case you worried that, you know,
I always say, im a psychology. I'm gonna screw my kids up.
But yes, so it was notmy shining moment, and of course
I apologized, you know, sorry, Carter, I yeah, I will

(12:46):
absolutely call you an asshole out ofyour shine. But I think that's the
you know, that's the point,like, not my shining moment. But
at the same time, like Imean, when you think about what that
boy learned, well, it's clearlyhe knew that you were frustrated with him,
but you didn't hate him like you'renot. You were frustrated with him,

(13:11):
but he wasn't taking that to heart, you know, like he knew
he recognized post situation and a fewbites with food, you know, like
that what was going on, whichis really remarkable for a kid his age.
Well, he's worked very hard.He was what I call an audi
instead of it any So audi's willthrow their emotion out to you and he's
will keep it in. And youknow this, he's still an AUDI at

(13:35):
times, but he worked very,very hard to keep more of it in,
almost now to the point where toomuch of it's in. I think,
yeah, he's gone the other way. But so I do think he
has a certain level of emotional intelligence. But I think what you said about
foundation is really important. There's somany books like say this, not that,
you know, do this, notthat, But I think you make
a great point about foundation. Youknow, I can't tell you how many

(13:58):
times I might slip and be like, I'm gonna kill you. Oh my
god, right, all of thesethings are driving me crazy, you know,
stop being an idiot, you know, like these kinds of like quick
comments, which when you have afoundation with your kids where they know you
love them, they know you arein their corner, they know you fully
support them, and that you know, in my case, I'm going to

(14:20):
be honest with you about you know, your behavior and also like your strengths
and your weaknesses because I'm honest aboutmy own. That model builds that foundation,
and I think we've seen that acrossthe board, you know, even
with you know, working with likeRuby as well, you and Ruby in
particular, because you two are verysimilar people. Yes, And I think

(14:41):
in the one that is something sheabsolutely loves. She loves being like your
daddy for sure, and you bothhave a very special relationship with an incredible
foundation. But I think that alsoallows you to take things out on each
other at the same time or anythink. Yeah, I think we do I,
you know, there was a situationrecently where I was having a rough

(15:03):
day at work and I had toget them somewhere, and I felt like
I wasn't necessarily in the loop withwhere they're going, which happens to us
a lot, because it's even hardernot living together sometimes with the community.
I know it's hard living together tocommunicate too. But as we're trying to

(15:24):
find our relationship and how everybody fitstogether, we've been working on this.
I've been working on this too.You know. I was used to driving
the ship myself. You were usedto driving the ship yourself. So now
we're like driving it together, andwe sometimes forget to tell each other the
pieces that we both want to knowall of Yes, so I think this
was one of those. Yeah,And I you know, I was frustrated

(15:46):
when I picked her up, andI was frustrated with my day. I
was also frustrated with the situation whereyou know, what was going on,
So like you had a button hitfrom the situation, because I think that
is a button, not like onethen you were already upset at work,
right, That's what I'm forgetting whathappened something at work? And then that

(16:06):
like the error. I was pickinga rap at a friend's house, a
mom's house versus a dad house afriend's house, and so you went to
one spot and she was at theother. So it's like three again,
the three things that like just tippedyour ag. Yeah, so you know,
and I was frustrated with her,but I also you know, at
some point I said, I'm frustratedbecause i haven't had a bad day at

(16:27):
work, right, but I'm alsoreally annoyed because of this scenario. You
know, so she knew to adegree that it wasn't all. I wasn't
yelling at her. Would you sayit would have been an overreaction to the
situation had you not been upset aboutsomething else. Perhaps, okay, just

(16:48):
making sure we're on the same well, And I think I think that again,
that that's a neat team building,Like we talk about team building,
especially with all the kids being insports. But what a cool thing to
be able to say, like,yeah, I have I'm a person too,
I have feelings too, so likeI'm mad about something else, and
yes, this tipped me over.I'm still annoyed, but probably not to

(17:11):
that level. But what I lovein that scenario is we had talked about
these kinds of scenarios and Ruby wouldyou know, we in therapy, and
Ruby's done a phenomenal job of It'slike it's like a sports team for her,
Like she's just what you always callher, like very coachable, right
like. And so she just dida wonderful job of recognizing that because I

(17:32):
think that knowing those patterns, thedynamic used to be she'd come back at
you because she would feel like,why is it all my fault? And
you you wouldn't tell her what wasgoing on because you might not have even
recognized it, to be very honest, and so then you two have a
big blow up, and of coursethat always comes back around and you all
you both end up getting your foundationback. But by identifying that pattern,

(17:53):
Ruby was able to recognize, ohwait, he just told me he's angry
about something else. So this isn'tme, which her button it being her
right, Yeah, So she wasable to calm down and support you by
not saying anything, you know,texting me but not saying anything, which
is perfect. And you gave herthe opportunity to do that, knowing we
had talked about you know what whoyou can texted that moment what that can

(18:15):
look like. And even when shetalked to me about it later, you
know, I could say to her, listen, you know, he told
you what was wrong. This isa step in the right direction. Right.
You didn't go back at him.That's a step in the right direction.
And I think she said something like, well, yeah, but I
still don't like getting yelled at.And I said, okay, well there's
another step, you know, becauseyou can still be open and vulnerable about

(18:37):
your what you're working on right withyour kids, and still be an authority
figure. Yeah, and I don'tlike the yelling. You don't like the
young, you know, I hatethat I do it, and sometimes you
know, I Frannie is not thereto help and it comes up. But
I think, yes, it's interestingthat you don't like the young. So
this doesn't feel better to you afteryou feel worse. It depends on who

(19:02):
I'm yelling. Yeah, whenever Iyell at my kids, I always feel
worse afterwards. Well, you doit with me, but it's not at
me. It's to me, yes, and that feels good. I'm venting
to them too, but about them. So it's just a matter of just
titling it. But I'm not yellingat you. I'm just venting about you

(19:25):
to you. I'm gotta try thatnext thing. You should try that Ruby
would probably laughing. It would probablyhelp. But you know, that's a
really interesting it's that you know we'vetalked in past podcast that's about a frame
like it's almost like the frame ofthat really does help because you're allowed to
be boisterous and loud and all ofthose things. You shouldn't have to change

(19:48):
your entire personality, but for peopleto understand that, you know, for
for Ruby to help be able tohelp you and say you know everything okay,
and allow you to be like,oh wait, I should look inside
sea and then about without it beinglike snarky and nasty that you've talked about
it, when you're calm and you'reworking on it together. That's such a
neat model. I don't know.It's just a self preservation for me and

(20:12):
for us, because we have toomany wheels circling around other wheels, too
many pivot points, too many thingsthat can trigger our EMGs that if we
don't all work together as a unitof six and help each other when we
go off, we wouldn't we wouldn'tmake it. Yeah. So you know,

(20:32):
I think the I don't know whatthe lesson learned to you. Well,
I think the lesson learned is,you know, if you're working on
it, you don't have to beperfect, yeah, you know, and
you're allowed to have slip ups.You're allowed to have failures, and you
can the people you're with if you'recommunicating to them about what you're working on

(20:56):
and you're showing them that you're workingon it, you know it. It
creates this environment where you're allowed tohave to mess up, and it makes
the process of you know, messingup, apologizing, hearing the apology,
moving on, you know, andthat being mutual mutual being key, right,

(21:18):
being mutual where you know, likeyou said, really didn't get mad
at me for blowing up, Carter, didn't get mad at you because they
recognize that we're working on this andit's something that you know, we give
them the space to mess up andhave moments and to not flip out on
them. You know, like ithelps us because we start digging in a

(21:41):
little bit more and thinking, waita minute, what else could this be,
you know, finding that skill theyneed to build or you know,
I think what you said about failureis really important. Like failure is an
opportunity for growth. So if you'renot failing, you're not growing. And
when you have that, you know, perfection being your goal, or putting
on a face all the time,or not allowing your self or your kids

(22:02):
to have these a meg moments likewe talked about with Chelis Kelsey, it
you're not growing, right. Sotaking those those failures as opportunities for growth
and using them as teachable moments whenyou're the parent or if you're in a
classroom, if you're a teacher,I think allows your kids to learn that
they can do that, like yousaid, allows them to grow, and

(22:25):
it creates this concept of growth mindset, which we talk about a lot in
the field about being able to growand not being fixed mindset. So it's
not you have it or you don't, but it's that you're working towards it.
You can accept and expect growth.And I think we've talked about this
before too. We sometimes forget aboutthe fact that our kids are not stagnant.
They're not who they are, youknow, at the middle school age

(22:48):
especially. You know, my motheralways used to say this, and she
was very right about it, thatkids try on things and leaven the more
out this clinically, It's absolutely true. They try on friends, they try
on clothing, they try on behaviors, they try on emotions, attitudes,
for sure, activities, and theymove through them. So what they're doing

(23:11):
now is not what they might do. I mean, think about yourself in
middle school, high school versus now, I mean, very very different.
But when they're in front of you, sometimes you think, you know,
even you see another kid on thesports field or something like that, and
you have these thoughts like, oh, that kid's a jerk, right and
you realize, like that kid isn'tbeing very nice right now. But are
they jerks forever? Or do theyneed to grow? Do they need to

(23:34):
build some skills, learn some thingsto be able to come out of this?
And as I watch our kids friends, you know, they go in
and out of phases. You know, sometimes they are the ones that anybody
wants to hang out with, andthen sometimes all of a sudden they become
people who look around and want tohelp other kids. And so, you
know, I think we have foundthat in our relationship to allow ourselves to

(23:56):
grow even at these ages, andtip provide that kind of environment for your
kids really lets them reach their fullpotential in the ends, right, And
I couldn't agree more. I thinkby allowing them the space to fail and
to grow, you raise their ceilinglove them. Yeah, and I think

(24:17):
that's what we're trying to do middleschool, high school or early college years.
You know, especially, you're buildingindependence in your kids. You're trying
to help them make their own decisions. And it's such a shift in parenting
style because you have to let themfail so much so they are interacting with
kids you don't like, getting involvedin a group of friends that aren't really

(24:37):
your favorite. And you know,you can respond as a parent in one
way by just yanking them away,or you can have a conversation like,
hey, you know, I'm notreally sure about these people. They make
me a little anxious. But likein heads up, keep your eyes open,
you know, and how do theymake you feel when you're with them?
You start to ask questions of gettingthem to think about these things themselves.

(25:00):
Once you yank a kid from somethingand you just take them away,
you limit the thought their ability todevelop their own thought processes. Right,
will you limit the learning? Youknow? Like you limit there, You're
lowering their ceiling. You're not givingthem the space to learn and to grow
right, and you're And the reasonit pushes them towards groups of people,

(25:22):
towards the bad decisions is because nowit becomes about a battle with you,
right, It becomes a not wantingto be controlled by somebody instead of it
being a question about do you reallylike this? Do you think that this
is valuable? And it's hard asa parent to watch. I think it's
it's hard as a teacher to watchyou know, your kids knowing that that's
not going to end well, butalso allowing them to be able to come

(25:45):
to that decision themselves. The processtakes longer. It can be six months
to a year. It can takea while for them to realize that.
But when you allow them that andyou can put boundaries around it, like
if you're worried about a kid's friendgroup, you know, you might say
you need to be home by ninenine thirty instead of sleeping over or kind
of drive it being around a lotmore, having them over your house a

(26:07):
little bit more, like you canstill have boundaries around it. But the
more you allow your kids to makethose decisions, the better that they'll be
in the long run. So ifyou're worried about your kids, you know,
if you think that they're vulnerable tomaking bad decisions or you think people
take advantage of them, this isespecially true for them to learn, you
know, you have to let themdo it and try, you know,

(26:29):
and I think I think you're rightthat failure, it's very important, very
hard to watch at times, butwhen you model that as a parent,
it becomes this open scenario with thisteam approach that you can really work on.
So cheers to failing and learning andgrowing and moving your ceiling up.
I like that one, raising theceiling, raising the ceiling. Well,

(26:53):
thanks for joining us for this episodeof What's Happening Here? Don't forget to
subscribe to our YouTube page. Youcan follow me on Instagram at doctor Sarah
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