Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Kids coming out of these communities a lot of times are really struggling with resilience, being able to adapt to a failure, being able to adapt to something they can't have. And a lot of times it's because their parents with good intentions didn't let them go through this process enough. And so the main day to day way that parents help children to metabolize and process and move through their feelings is firm but loving no's at the right time. And that creates what we call the adaptive process that creates resilient kids.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: I'm Diana Earley, and I've spent most of my life learning firsthand what privilege actually costs.
The legacy control, the family expectations, the guilt of feeling trapped in a life everyone thinks you should be grateful for. If you've ever wondered why having everything still feels like something's missing, you're in the right place.
Welcome to pressures of privilege.
Todd Sarner has spent 22 years asking question, why do some families feel calm and others feel stuck even when the parents are doing everything right?
He's a licensed therapist. He trained under Dr. Gordon Neufeld, one of the biggest names in attachment science, and taught at the Neufeld Institute himself. Over the past two decades, he's worked with more than 2,000 families. His new book, the Calm and Connected Parent, his hit number one this past November in new releases in Parenting on Amazon. Today's whole approach starts with one idea. Behavior is the branches, connection is the root, fix the root, and the branches take care of themselves.
Today we're going to talk about what that actually looks like in families who have every resource in the world and still can't seem to get it right. Welcome, Todd.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: Thank you, Diana. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Oh, so welcome. I'm so excited that our paths crossed.
[00:01:57] Speaker A: Yeah, me too. And it's always interesting with the intros. I'm like, yeah, that's a question I ask a lot. But I asked this one.
It's been a long journey, but always happy to talk to someone interested in the same things, like how do we, how do we get the greatest potential out of our kids? You know, and I guess I come from a place of believing that each kid has their own unique potential and that our main job as parents is to get out of the way of that potential and, and let them become their most fully realized selves. And everyone who has multiple kids knows that they all are different. Right? So that, that's fascinating to me. How do we help that happen? And, and why is it that with the families I primarily, primarily work with that tend to be very resourced and have a lot and give their kids so much, still come up against the same problems over and over again. So always interesting to me to talk about it and hopefully you have five or six hours because I can go on.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: I wish I could. I love this topic and I'm fascinated by this behavior. How you refer to behavior as the branches and the connection is the root.
So when a parent comes to you and her kids won't listen or they're, they're misbehaving at school, or there's, oh God, I think your kid's got adhd. They're just not able to focus. What, what's the very first thing you look at?
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Oh, gosh. You know, usually in a first session I'm, I'm trying to get a three dimensional understanding of the child and most of the time people are asking me about one kid the most. You know, it's usually their most sensitive kid that doesn't always show up as if they're sensitive, but almost always I'm taking my notes and Neufeld trained me to like, I don't do this anymore this way. But he would give us case studies and we'd highlight things that were being said that indicated certain things developmentally. And, and that's what I'm always looking for in a first session. I'm looking for kind of a three dimensional view and I'm, I'm looking about how this kid is showing up.
So you mentioned, you know, kids not listening or kids acting up at school. There's always a reason, there's always something underneath and the behavior is just the surface. So to answer, I think two, two things that are in there that you said is to, to talk directly about the developmental approach. The me Developmental psychology uses the metaphor of a plant or a tree a lot.
And I think it can be simplifying and give hope when parents understand that their main job. You're not a sculptor, your job is not to take the branches and tie them and manipulate them and things. It, it can seem like parenting would have hundreds of things like how do I make sure my kid does this? How do I make sure they don't do that?
The, the job of a parent is more like a gardener, which is if, if something's not developing the way it should, or if a child is presenting with issues like not listening or acting up at school.
I want to get curious why, like a gardener wouldn't yell at the plant or, or punish the plant or put it in timeout. The, the the gardener would say, is it, is the plant getting enough space? Is it getting enough space, light? Is it getting the nutrients it needs?
Because at the end of the day, a child's behavior is almost always a completely logical outcome of their age and their stage and their sensitivity and what's going on inside of them and what's going on around them. It's not usually willful, it's not usually intentional. Does that make sense so far?
And it can be a really empowering way to look at it. Because.
Because otherwise parents are awesome at thinking that they're screwing up or something is their fault or they're not doing something right. And it's almost always, no, this behavior makes sense given where the kid is and what's going on around them. And so in the first session, I'm, I'm really looking like, what are those things? What, what's the beneath the surface thing?
And we can get into any of these specific dynamics, like not listening, which is the most common thing I hear.
You know what I hear all the time, Dan, like from my clientele. Like, I have an assistant, Kelly, and she's been with me a long time. And I used to have her do these yearly surveys where it was like, hey, figure out what's going on with these parents right now on our socials and our email list. And we stopped doing them because every year she presented me the same summary.
I'm a good parent. I try my best. I read all the books, I listen to the podcasts. I'm trying to do everything I can. These kids have a good life, but sometimes they just won't listen to me. They won't cooperate. And we have things to do. And so I eventually raise my voice and I yell and I. Then I feel really guilty and bad about myself, you know, and, and we stopped doing the survey because that was the most common thing we heard every single year. Because it's so common.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I identify with that. I remember. Yeah, I, I'm a parent, you know, I've got 22 year olds and 26
[00:07:30] Speaker A: year olds and tomorrow I have a 23 year old. So, yeah, I, I been there.
You can teach it all day and then at the end of the day you could be thinking, I'm, I'm doing so much for you. And I'm, I'm, I'm really. Your life is not hard. Why are you losing it right now? Or why are you? You know, and we all can get there, but I find one of the most powerful things is just a little bit of education. About child development and kind of looking at things in a different way helps a lot.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, I also think that as if we have accumulated emotions through life and we haven't had a chance to get rid of them through this is my own belief about sort of trauma work. Getting rid of some of the, the emotions that have built up in our bodies. Stealing from Bessel van der Kolk, that we don't have any capacity left for the new stuff that's coming.
[00:08:23] Speaker A: Absolutely. But.
And that's profoundly true. And it's at a couple different levels. And you're singing the song I sing every day.
I've done work with Bessel van der Kolk. I helped him do some webinars back in the day when webinars were new. Because there's some other associations I have. I love his work. I, Peter Levine's work is very important on the day to day level.
We all accumulate difficult emotions. We all, let's just focus on frustration.
We all want things, we all want to be close to those we love. We all, we all want to have happy relationships where I feel like I can be welcomed in your presence, whether you're my mom, my dad, my best friend, my sister.
And not being able to do that well all the time or perfectly or because life is complicated and people are complicated, leads to a lot of frustration. And the frustration, let's just say, for a younger child isn't something we always relate to as an adult. Because as adults we're worried about financial matters and spiritual matters and, you know, our marriages and, you know, politics and things. For a five year old, it's, I kind of want to stay home with mommy today.
My friend didn't want to play with me at school today because he was already into what he was doing. And so he told me to go away. The teacher accused me of doing something I didn't do. Daddy just doesn't seem to be available to me right now. And, and we all, on a day to day basis accumulate frustration. Usually that has to do with our attachments with our closest people. Does that make sense so far?
And so on a day to day basis, we accumulate this frustration. And in the, in the literature they talk about it as frustration tolerance. Right. Neufeld taught me to, to, to think of it as a septic tank that we all accumulate this kind of frustration or these difficult emotions. And we need on a day to day basis to, to kind of process these emotions. I, I usually say metabolize. Right. Because to me it's just like the, the digestive process. And here we can get into an area that's a little gross, but, hey, you can take it. But we. We take in food, and our body keeps what it needs, and our body expels what it doesn't need. Is that clean enough?
[00:10:58] Speaker B: And it's.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: It's the exact same thing with emotions. We all accumulate emotions. We all accumulate, say, frustration.
And we need to learn from these experiences. There. There are nutrients in our experiences, even difficult, bad ones and things that we wouldn't have wished happened, but we need to metabolize those feelings and we need to let go of what doesn't serve us. And daytoday, not the trauma level you're speaking of, Diana, but daytoday, the number one way my parent can help me with that, because I don't want to do that.
People do not want to feel those feelings, right? That's just a human condition. I don't want to feel the things I can't be, I can't change, I can't do, I can't have.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: Have.
[00:11:47] Speaker A: Nobody wants to feel those things.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: It.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: It's not just a privileged thing or whatever. Nobody wants to feel those yucky, yucky feelings when they're at their worst.
So what a parent can do is be like a midwife of those feelings, be a Sherpa of those feelings, engage them, help the child feel them, and help the child move through them, which usually is. I'm finding a point where my child is frustrated, where they're poking, where they're prodding, where they're asking me for ice cream for dinner, where they're in the store melting down if I don't give them a candy bar or something.
And I recognize that is my. My focal point where I need to apply a firm, clear, but also empathetic no. I need to set a limit. I need to say no. I need to mean no. I don't need to read them the riot act and tell them about how.
What kind of future are you going to have if you can't handle a no? And you. I mean, you can't have a job and you won't have, right? All that stuff that spills out of our mouths sometimes when we're frustrated. No, say no, mean no. But also show some empathy, some care for their experience, because what they're going through right now is very real to them. And if you don't show some empathy, it won't be effective.
So parents often, though, are going on this pendulum. They're avoiding the hard feelings. They're not engaging with them. They don't know how to because nobody did with them. Or they think they'll be a bad parent if they say no to their kid or they absorb so much of that for so long of sucking it up and not saying that, they explode and they react. Does that sound familiar too?
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: And so the main day to day way that parents help children to metabolize and process and move through their feelings is firm but loving nose at the right time.
And that creates what we call the adaptive process that creates resilient kids. Everybody's talking about resilient everything out there, especially in the communities I work with.
Because as you might know, Diana, I I've talked to college counselors, including one just the other day who's in a business program I'm in and they're taking kids from the nicest areas in America. I, I came up in Marin County, California, right above San Francisco, where there's a lot of tech wealth and people doing very well for themselves, also a beautiful area.
And kids coming out of these communities a lot of times are really struggling with resilience.
They're really struggling with being able to adapt to a failure, being able to adapt something they can't have. And a lot of times it's because their parents with good intentions didn't let them go through this process enough.
Right now I've gone on for a while like I told you I would, but I just want to at least note here, the trauma layer is just another layer of that. There's the day to day and then the trauma layer is what if I've been holding on to some of that stuff for a long time? What if I experienced a death or a loss or something that wasn't held in my family system, wasn't allowed, I couldn't feel it.
Something really devastating a lot of times. And trauma, of course, goes on from little T to very big T traumas. It's not just the big obvious ones like divorce. Divorce? Oh, it really depends.
One of the things I try to honor about trauma is not to assume anything.
I can tell you I had very mixed feelings about my parents divorce.
I remember at 13 years old, which is probably the number one factor of why I went into psychotherapy.
Not only psychotherapy at the time, because the court ordered it, because my parents did a very, very messy divorce.
But why I went into being a therapist was my experiences at that time.
And I remember being conscious of, oh God, thank God these people are breaking up, because this is destructive. I remember having that feeling.
And it also caused all sorts of Pain and trauma. And I, I don't think money is everything at all. But we went from my dad was a millionaire, doing very well to my parents were losing everything, fighting each other in, in their divorce, like literally lost the house for legal fees and all these things. Right. So it was a mixed bag. Right. But divorce tends to come with certain things that we have to keep an eye on.
Most of the parents I work with are intact, living under the same roof, and they can have all sorts of problems with not being on the same page. Right.
But in divorce situations, and we can unpack any aspect of this that you want. There's some obvious things. What if I have a hard time moving back and forth? What if I have a hard time with different routines? What if I'm not getting what I need because my parents aren't being consistent about consequences day to day, which to me consequences are not punishment. They're the day to day teaching of cause and effect.
That also is something I worry about in the population of people I work with sometimes.
What if mom does it one way and dad does it another way? What if mom is trying to set some limits in a healthy way, but dad isn't at all because he's trying to be cool dad or the other way around, whatever. Right.
Well, then obviously that is going to create a lot of developmental issues for the child. Right. But are there no parents that do that well? No, there are some that do it well. You know, I, I've seen over 400 couples as a couples counselor, and I only work with parents.
Most of the situations where I worked with people as a couples counselor went well, meaning they got through their negative cycles, they got into more positive cycles with each other. They became better parents to their kids because they were more in sync. I love that, I love that outcome.
But I can think of a handful of people that I know divorced after couples counseling that ended up doing it very well because of what they learned in couples counseling, you know, so that exists too. But yeah, there are certain things. And again, any of these things that you want to dive a little deeper into.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: There's, there's so much because I want to go back to the image of the gardener and the needs that the child, the child has to grow, you know, his branch, the branches properly. Like if a. Not getting enough light, the branch will either won't grow or will try to seek light and grow strangely. Right.
Or, or if there's not enough water, the, you know, the leaves will turn yellow and then, you know, the kid will be punished for Having yellow leaves or be shamed into thinking, oh, you know, he's the problem in the family, instead of, oh, this kid's just not getting the fertilizer or the water that he needs. So, I mean, I grew up in a. In a generation, and same as you, where emotional needs were really a thing, I mean, we, you know, getting food and water and getting educated and getting medical care, we're probably like, you're a good parent if you do that. But what about the emotional needs?
[00:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
So much to unpack. But in. In Neufeld's developmental model, one of the greatest gifts I think he's given to the field was not all original thought, but was something that he presented internationally. You know, I know. I remember early on when I was working with him, he went to Germany to do a worldwide congress of pediatricians, and he presented this material that he says there's basically that the roots of attachment are the. Are the roots. And that's a ever deepening sense of connection between people that starts off as purely physical. When a baby's a baby, a baby can't relate. You can't say, mommy's gonna go away for three months, but I'll be back. And don't worry about it. Like, a baby knows it can see you or it can't see you. So it's very much about holding and staying with a baby when you can, giving it object permanence.
But over time, the roots of attachment are meant to go into deeper and deeper psychological and emotional ways of relating to each other that don't depend on me just being with you.
They're us being the same as each other. Us belonging to each other, us being special to each other, us loving each other, and us being known by each other or you knowing me.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: And that is a deepening level, deepening levels of relating to people.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: When a child is two, they don't care about being special. They don't. They want to be in the group.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: But when they're three or four, they start deeply wanting to be special. You know, and if. If you have a new baby, then that baby's competition for my special. In my head, not. Not to you, my mom, you're just like, okay, this baby needs more time because it's a baby.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Right? Oh, but those.
[00:21:19] Speaker A: Those, yeah, we can again, unpack any of that, and maybe I'll come back for three or four episodes.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: I had twin brothers at three, so that explains a lot.
[00:21:27] Speaker A: And there's so many things we could talk about with twins. Like, twins often Struggle in unique ways with specialness, especially when they're identical. But not just identical because they're referred to so often as the twins, you know, or whatever. And that's just a practical day to day. They're the same exact age and you talk to them.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: But sometimes especially identical. They don't get enough of that specialness that they need. I remember twins in my kindergarten class, Tyler and Alden. I still remember their names and it's been a long time, but I couldn't tell them apart. I'm not their mom, I'm not their family member. I wasn't their best friend. But.
So how does that affect your. It. It has benefits too. But getting back to your question, Neufeld's, because I want to give him credit for it because it just fits and it's based on lots and lots of research he just synthesized it is that over time the number one thing is that parents help their children become more and more comfortable with the deeper and deeper levels of attaching, understanding that that takes thousands of reps. You can be a great dedicated parent and you don't have a secure five year old that doesn't exist. You have a child who's in progress, working on it. Right. But that as we help them feel deeper and deeper levels of connection with us, that, that they can rely on, that they know it's there, that it's, it's when they reach out, when they're scared or tired or overwhelmed or feeling like they're too much or they're not enough, that they keep getting the answer. You are loved.
You are not too much. You are. I am here for you.
That not perfectly but consistently, that the tree grows from those roots and that most of parenting is about growing those roots and helping our children feel securely attached over time. Now I, I want to say here to help it all fit together.
One of the things that bugs me the most about parenting content and things out there is it often is just taking one slice of the pie or one aspect of things and presenting it like it's the whole thing, right?
And so some people can take what I just said and go, oh. Todd says all we do is make sure a kid feels securely attached. And that's all we have to do. And a lot of times those are the gentle parents or whatever. And I'm not making fun of them. Most of the gentle parents I know have great intentions and some of them do it very well and they understand what I'm about to say. So we can't just. With one fell Swoop, say gentle parenting is bad. The intention of it is wonderful, but parenting on the front end is mostly about our main focus is connection in the moment, not assuming it and helping the attachment deepen over time, but that there's a back end too. That day to day, I'm teaching you cause and effect through consequences done the right way that are non punishing. And when I recognize that you're frustrated where that septic tank is getting full, that I get in there and I set a firm but loving limit and I get you to cry, which is a part I didn't say before, because I'm not going around poking you and prodding you and making you cry for no reason.
But how do human beings adapt?
They try to avoid their feelings. They try to avoid their feelings. They.
ELIZABETH KUBLER ROSS MODEL I, I get angry, I deny, I negotiate, I get depressed. But then eventually I accept. And that acceptance usually comes with tears.
And when I have those tears, those adaptive tears, because I can't change what's already happened and I accept it, that's where I become resilient. That's where I become adaptive. So the point I'm trying to make is attachment. First parenting is what I call it, because if you and I don't feel, you're my spouse, you're my best friend, Diana, you're my mom, you're my child. If we don't know that we are okay and that we are connected, nothing else applies. So that has to come first.
But I also teach day to day cause and effect. I also recognize when you're frustrated and I get it out of you.
And sometimes I think of things like goodwill hunting, where the big emotional payoff at the end was Robin Williams created an alliance and gained the trust of this very angry young man who had a lot of trauma from abuse.
And what does he do at the end? He gets him to cry, right? He says, it's not your fault, it's not your. I get teary eyed, like thinking about this seed.
It's not your fault. It's not your fault. And I gained your trust and you know I care about you. And then finally you release it and you get it out and you cry. And every single person who watched that seed seen, you do not have to be a podcast host, you do not have to be a psychotherapist. You do not. You just know, he's gonna be okay now.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: God, you made me cry, Todd.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I honestly, I feel it when I say it. Like I feel the tears welling up.
But that's the adaptive process. It was amazing to me that these two young punks in at Harvard.
Not punks, but these two young kids at Harvard were able to write that movie. And I know Robin Williams had a big part in some of that. But that's the adaptive process. And a whole model of parenting is I put attachment first. I do not assume connection with you. I do not walk into the room and assume you feel connected to me. Again, we can go into not listening a little bit more, because there's two very important developmental reasons for kids resisting and defying. Two very important reasons, but attachment first. Because like everywhere in the world, you don't just jump into something with somebody. You just don't tell them what to do. You connect, you make small talk. You kiss on the cheeks, you bow. Like when I spend time in Japan, there's all these different ways of bowing and greeting each other.
You get into connection first. And if I'm your parent, I'm honoring your deeper connections and trying to help you with that. But I also have the backend. And that's not mean, and that's not punishment.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: I've written a memoir of my entire life, which I haven't published yet, and I was able to write down everything in detail. And yes, it was difficult, but I didn't cry in the process. Then I went into a trauma workshop, and the therapist created a safe space where I felt connected with my therapist. And all of a sudden, she had me talk and I couldn't stop crying. So it's like, why?
[00:28:11] Speaker A: That's part of the job.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: I'm able to write it down. I'm able to fill out a questionnaire and put all my aces down. Like, adverse childhood.
What is it?
[00:28:20] Speaker A: Experiences.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Yeah, experiences. And I don't cry when I'm filling it out, but when I'm with a therapist where I feel safe and connected, I'm able to cry.
[00:28:29] Speaker A: It's just something about the human experience, Diana, that I can cry on my own. You could cry on your own. There's conditions in who we can't. I. I'm a crier, like I used to. We joked when I was in that first cohort of Neufeld trainees. He decided he wanted to kind of move into training. And I was lucky enough to be in his first intern group. And it was supposed to be a year. It turned into two and a half, and then it turned into an A faculty membership for a couple years.
We did the level one intensive training first, which was 40 hours. We did the level two 40 hours. Which is more complex childhood issues.
And then we used to joke amongst each other and it's inside joke. But that level three was just going to be us sitting around drinking wine and crying and watching sad movies. Because there's such an emphasis in his model about how important it is for human beings to feel their feelings and release them. And that usually means crying, you know.
And I, I work with a lot of very powerful men. I work with celebrities sometime, not every day, all the time, but celebrities, politicians, actors, at times people that are CEOs of big corporations. Is a lot more common in, in my day to day.
And I have a list of 30 or 40 movies that make men cry because I find myself going, hey man, you need to watch this. And a lot of times they're war movies and sports movies, but. Or my favorite of all time, Life is Beautiful with Roberto Benini. It's just men, a lot of times don't think of themselves as emotional in some ways, I would argue. The research shows Bessel van der Kolk's work, Jacques Panksep's work, that men are emotional. Emotion comes before logic. Emotion is primary. Logic is secondary. A lot of the men I work with think they're not emotional, but it's just they control their emotions by being logical, if that makes sense, you know. But man, there's a lot of simmering, holding on energy and anger that can be underneath there. Why? Because socialization.
Men are taught not to cry from a very young age, even if their parents are not doing it. They're called you're being a girl. Or more explicit things at school if they're being emotional.
You don't have to cry to everybody, but you do have to be able to go to someone. And that's maybe me finishing the point. I started off with and went over here, we could cry on our own, but I really think we're designed to process these things in relationship to someone else.
And sometimes I say to people, I'd rather not have a job as a therapist. Like I love my parent coaching work. I love doing couples work for a couple's work is a lot harder.
It can be draining in our hurt, man, can we be destructive with each other?
You know, and it can be hard work, but I, I, I love the, the outcomes and I like working with individuals too.
But sometimes I joke with my individual clients. I wish you didn't need me. I want you to, to have the ability to go to your closest ones in your life. Your mom and your dad, they're still around. Your husband, your Wife, I want you to be able to do that. But if in the meantime, the therapeutic relationship creates the structure and the safety like Matt Damon needed in the movie, like Will Hunting needed in the movie, then great, great.
But even when I was working in group homes with boys whose parents were a mess, who were taken out of their homes because their parents were such a mess, I knew I was not supposed to be the Robin Williams to those kids or Robin Williams in Dead Poet Society. Right. Like the kids at the boarding school were all, you know, he was the hero. He wasn't supposed to be the hero. The parents are supposed to be the hero. Right.
And so even when I was working with kids in difficult situations, I didn't want to be the hero. I was looking for their aunt or their uncle or their cousin that was older or their, their grandma who could take that role because I knew that was a more sustaining, you know, thing for them.
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Yeah. That it doesn't have to be the biological parents. It can be the aunt, the uncle, the grandparents.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I, again, on a personal note, I love my mom. She's still with us. She's about to turn 80 and she sacrificed a lot and did a lot for us, and I didn't always appreciate her methods or approach, and I didn't always appreciate it as a kid, you know, but I look back and I say, mom, man, you, you had to be the mom and the dad and you kept us in the same neighborhood even when things weren't economically as good.
And it was hard in, you know, San Jose and South San Jose and the tech explosion, you know.
And I love my dad who passed a few years ago in a different way. He was very difficult in, in very explosive.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: But as a kid, I was more focused on dad's not around and mom's a pain in the butt sometimes and not what I want her to be sometimes or whatever. And then when I got like into my 20s, I went, okay, but I can see what they did provide.
And my Aunt Renee was always there, my Uncle Dick was always there, my grandma, my nana was there, you know, and they were just such good people, you know, and it's easier for them to relate to me because I'm not the pissy 13 year old at home all day with them.
[00:34:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:17] Speaker A: But my Uncle Dick was this stoic old marine, but he also was like a just a good hearted person. And my cousins were good people and they were older than me. And so, yeah, I, I can look back and go, oh, gosh, okay. But that teacher was there and My aunt was there and my uncle was there, and my cousins were good presences, you know, So a lot of times that's the case. But what we tend to focus on and look at is what we don't have, you know, and that's just kind of human nature.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Well, what happens if you have a parent who's alcoholic or maybe who's narcissistic?
I mean, I'm using the term narcissistic loosely because I know that, you know, you'd have to be diagnosed with that to actually be a narcissist. But there are some people who behave narcissistically, especially alcoholics can behave narcissistically.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: You know, that would be a lot to unpack. And we can talk about more specifics. You and I talked about this a little while ago when we first met a little bit. But I tend to think most of us as human beings are a little narcissistic. Right?
Because we know we. What it's like to be in our experience. And. And we all have drives to take care of ourselves. And a little bit of narcissism is kind of part of human nature. And maybe as good people, we just kind of notice it, and we notice the. The tendency.
And. And so we go, okay, I will take care of myself, because that's fine.
But if I want to be in relationship with other people, I have to have, you know, the Martin Buber I thou relationship. I have to understand, like, again, Diana, if you and I are in any kind of relationship, we're good friends. I have to realize there's a me, and I'm important and my needs matter. There's a you, and you're important and your needs matter. And there's an us, and I have to respect the us. And an us means a healthy me and a healthy you.
That's a challenge, but that's what we should be striving for. But then obviously, there's super narcissistic people that could be diagnosed with narcissism, and there's everything in between. Right.
And so when you're a kid, I mean, I guess the. The way I first want to respond to your question is when I'm a kid, I take things personally because it's just a coping mechanism. When my parents divorce, my parents can tell me, no, it's not your fault, it's not your fault, it's not your fault. And I might still have in me when I'm frustrated, a tendency to think it must be my fault, because I remember that time they were Arguing over me or over how to respond to me. You know what I mean? And that's just a coping mechanism because kids tend to not be able to handle the fact that their parents are fallible.
Because parents seem all powerful and knowledgeable and wise and they've been around for a long time.
And I need to depend on you. It's like it's deeper than psychological and emotional. It's a survival instinct wired into us that I need to be able to depend on those in charge. Right.
But because of that, I might think my dad's narcissism or my dad's anger or my parents fighting is my fault because I can't handle that they're fallible. Does that make enough sense?
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe. I always thought maybe it comes from powerlessness. You're powerless as a kid to deal with these parents going crazy around you.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: You honestly ask great questions, Diana. You've clearly walked with these. These issues.
But, yeah, that's one of the most distinguishing aspects of trauma, is you're stuck.
Okay. And like, two of the things that, um, I'll oftentimes distinguish trauma is. I didn't see it coming. I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense in some way. And two, I'm stuck. I'm trapped.
So whether we talk about sexual or physical assault, we talk about war, you know, people being pinned down in a situation that they can't get out of, it's one of the aspects of trauma, is that you're stuck in it. And so when I'm working with people with trauma, a lot of times this happened yesterday.
You're. You're reminding them you're not stuck. You actually have choices. You actually have autonomy. You can make a choice to leave the situation. You. Right. You couldn't, though. When you're a kid. When you're a kid, you're stuck. And that's part of. That's. I mean, it is a very insightful question to ask that there, because as a kid, part of why I do that, and I make it my fault or I take it on, is because I am stuck. I can't leave. I don't have that agency yet. And that's part of why childhood trauma is childhood trauma.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: So I. I've heard sometimes tr. Children. Children, as they get older, they want to recreate that thing that made them feel powerless so that they can maybe figure it out as adults, because that will give them the key to. Oh, no, I understand why my parents.
[00:39:19] Speaker A: Which is a. A very tricky topic. Right. Because it absolutely could be done in a constructive way, positive, healing way.
And unfortunately, people get stuck in that loop for years and years and years.
And this can be everything from sexual activity, you know, where, you know, people are in bdsm, things like this, and, and they're trying to play out and be empowered more. And I, I've talked to people that they did that in a very positive, conscious way.
And then there's people, you know, we can think about cliche things, Diana. Like, my dad was unavailable.
I'm a woman and my dad was unavailable. And a lot of it was that he was an alcoholic. And he would come home and he'd give me so much attention at first, and then he'd withdraw his attention or he'd get angry. So I learned to try to like, keep on his good side and keep him happier longer and.
[00:40:16] Speaker B: Right.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: And so then I'm in my late teens and early twenties and I keep going after unavailable men, right. And I know it's a cliche, but it's like I go after the man who's emotionally unavailable. I go after the man who's married, you know, and again, this is not just women, it's all of us.
But I could play that out and play that out and play that out trying to get a different result, right? And then hopefully at some point I go, oh, crap, that's what I'm doing. And hopefully I don't overly compensate in and go after somebody I'm not interested in just because they're not challenging. It's all a journey, right? And you know, it can be complicated. But yeah, I'm not thinking of the exact term that explains repetition. Compulsion might be the, the phrase I'm looking for, but. But yeah, we repeat over and over again trying to get a different result. But if we're not gleaning new insights and we're not able to act on new things and we're not able to have that kind of mindfulness about it, then it can just be a trauma loop that reinforces itself.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: I took you off course a little bit from parenting. I was thinking about the resistance and defiance that often shows up in sort of, you call them high capacity families and that it's not the parents fault.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: So yeah, let's talk about that. Do you mind, though? If for my own brain, I just say one more thing first that, that I think ties back to something you said that I even wrote down because I was like, oh, I want to come back to that is you talked about again, a very insightful thing. You said that if we're using this tree metaphor that the branch could alter, right. Instead of going into it. Right. And that's.
I don't want this to be guilt inducing for anybody. I. I just want it to be like, understand this. A lot of personality development stuff is normal when you're a kid. When you, you do this a little bit differently or do this because you're trying to adjust to a situation. Coping mechanisms, things. But personality development, a lot of times is those branches going into directions that they're not supposed to. Right?
And Carl Jung called it archetypal alterations. You know that I have this potential and there's three different main potentials I'm looking for that we, we might look. Loop back to later. Adaptive potential, which is what we talked about earlier. I can metabolize feelings and move through them.
Emergent energy, which is I want to learn and explore and play and figure things out. And I don't get bored with myself. And, you know, and integrative energy. I can look at situations and weigh things out and go, this is true. But this is also true. And I can weigh that out, which a child before 5, 6, 7 doesn't have at all. They don't even have the hardware for it.
I want to see those three branches growing. I want to see kids that are emergent. I want to see kids that are adaptive, and I want to see kids that are integrative. Right?
And that if kids have those things, they're going to be okay.
They're gonna be okay.
And sometimes, though, the branches go this way because I've gotten into a repetition compulsion or I've got into. I'm gonna be a pleaser because that's how I get my needs met. Right? And so as parents, the thing that we can do in most situations is not freak out and not think it's all us and it's all our problem.
It's a lot of this is your kid's sensitivity and a lot of this is what's going on around them. And a lot of them is an imperfect world, and humans are imperfect. But if I notice an alteration, I just want to recognize it and I want to see what I can do to get it back.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Right?
[00:44:08] Speaker A: And I want to increase the security. I want to compensate for the message that my kid is developing or they're developing this strategy, and I want to completely relieve them of that. You do not need to impress me to make, you know, to be loved.
[00:44:23] Speaker B: Right?
[00:44:24] Speaker A: And so that's a, again, a bigger topic, but you mentioned it and it felt really important and I think it tied into the trauma piece too.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: Yeah. But also, I would think that, like, resistance and. And defiance would be like a branch that's going. I mean, they might stay resistant, defiant forever, right? Or not ever forever.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: But like, that it can become part of our personality. Now, there are two developmental reasons why kids resist and defy.
The number one reason is what we talked about before. If I don't feel connected to you right now, I am not supposed to listen to you.
That is true for kids, and that's true for adults, but just in a really stark way of explaining it, which is not meant to be alarmist or whatever.
And I use this example all the time because I haven't come up with a better one.
If you walked away from your child at the park because you thought it was like a safe park and good people, and we're fine. I just have to go to the car really quick. And you. Your kid was out of your sight, and a stranger walked up to them and said, hey, little boy, come with me. I have ice cream. 99.9% of kids will go, no, you're not my mom. You're not my dad. And they will do that instinctively, and we want them too.
And that is a wired in instinct that children have to not listen to somebody that is not in my village, not somebody I am attached to. And so not only am I not going to listen to you, and it's not just scary situations like that that don't really happen. Like, stranger abduction is statistically, like, less than, like, bear attacks or something. You know, it's like, it doesn't happen that much. It's almost always somebody that the child knows. But it's also people influencing your kid that you don't want to influence your kid. If your bond with them is strong and you're in the. The alpha position, you're their leader. They're attached to you, not to others. They will instinctively say no to someone they're not attached to in the moment, and that is a protective mechanism that they're meant to have, and we don't want to punish that out of them. You're not listening to me. You're not listening to the teacher. You never listen. You have to listen to adults. You know, if we barrage them with those things they d.
Their instincts that they have that they're supposed to have. Does that make sense so far?
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, that makes sense.
[00:46:46] Speaker A: But the main. The main problem that parents have is they are connected to their kids. In general, kids do love them, but in the moment, instinctively if they start ordering their kid to do something or guiding them to do something or directing them to do something, when in the moment they're not connected already, the first brain instinct in the child is going to be to resist.
Okay? They're just going to do it. Just like you and I, right? If somebody in your life just goes, dang it, come on, do this. You. You might bristle and be like, no, right?
Especially if it's like an ex husband or it's a, you know.
Oh, God, right.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: Wait, you know me.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: Well, when people fall in love, how often do they say no to each other?
Almost. Not at all. But when people are fighting or divorced, how often do they say no to each other? It's an attachment instinct. Okay?
And so we need to understand as. As parents, that 80%. And that's not a clinical research statistic. That's. I have had 2400 clients in 23 years, and that's not even workshops and. And webinars and things. I'm telling you, 80% of the time, a kid resisting is because you didn't bother to. To connect first. And we're meant to. And that's why everywhere in the world. You're an internationally aware person, Diana. Everywhere in the world, every culture has rituals of connecting. You know, everywhere everybody sits and talks and has three cups of tea before anything else. They have certain greetings with each other. You don't start a business meeting and just tell people what to do. Hey, Diana, how you been? How are the kids? Oh, didn't you travel?
[00:48:35] Speaker B: Right.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: We make small talk first. We. We take time to get that green light on, I call it. Right.
But the other instinct that kids have to resist is about developing their own will. That kids experience, especially the younger they are, is being told what to do all the time. There's no room for their agency almost at all. Get up at this time, go to school, do these things, do your homework, do your chores, go to bed when we tell you, eat what we tell you. And most of that is the way it's supposed to be.
Most of that is.
My kid was a good eater growing up, but if I just said, what do you want to eat? He'd say burrito or pizza every time, you know? But it's not my job to, like, elicit what he wants all the time. But just understand the nature of childhood is you don't have a lot of your own. Say you don't have a lot of your own voice. You don't have a lot of your own agency. And so over Time kids will push back against us, especially when we're very connected to them because they need to make a little room for what they think, for what they want for their own agency. And we want them to go out into the world with that.
But I often joke with my parents, they want them to magically develop it when they go off into the world. They don't want them working on it in the house day to day, you understand what I'm saying? Because they experience it as pushback. So what parents do in that case is they just consciously give more choice to their children, but in ways that are attachment friendly. So I say do you want to do this first or that first? I say do you want, you know, this or that? I'm giving them a B choices that are both. Okay, but I'm not just open ended going hey, what do you want for dinner? Because that never goes well, right? But I'm help the kids have a little tiny bit of will. When people say my 4 year old is strong willed, they go, well no they're not. That there's will is a good thing.
Will is I want to accomplish a goal, I want to get something done. I'm going to do this sacrifice to build my business or the sacrifice to get into that school. That's a good thing. What parents are usually experiencing is what Otto Ronk called counter will.
The experience that you are trying to impose your will on me and so I'm pushing back against it. And that's what parents are usually experiencing. So if they understand that in one case it's you didn't get connected first, do a better job of getting that green light on first. Take a few moments to get the eyes and the smile and the nod and do a little especially after transitions, but then over time, especially when they're nine years old and then especially when they're teenagers and you just had a couple of them, I'm trying to give opportunities for them to have greater responsibility, greater choice, greater things that they can be in charge of because and, and I'm trying to really help them with creative outlets. Like when my kid was 13, 14, he really wanted to take pictures. He wanted to be photography. I'm not great at photography, I'm really good with my iPhone. But I found a friend that was a professional photographer and I paid her a few hours to teach my son how to use his camera. And to and he, to this day he again, he's turning 23 tomorrow as time we record this. And by the way, I bought him a really nice New camera, though.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: Don't worry. This appears after his birthday. The.
[00:52:09] Speaker A: The thing is, is helping in encourage and create space for their creative voice and vision is also a part of what I can do about this second kind of counter. Does that make the resistance and defiance thing make more sense? That there's developmental reasons why it exists, but parents usually take it personally. And all of that education and all that stuff I just said, which is what I say to my clients, you know, part of it is because I know if I educate them about that, they don't see it as, as personal and they don't react to it as much. Because the second you take it personally and you take it as disrespect, you're going down a path that's not going to work.
You know, but if you can pause and go, oh, did I connect with this kid first? Oh, I didn't. Okay, that's on me. Or, oh, are they trying to exercise their, their own will? Okay, I need to make a little bit more space for that. I might still hold the limit, but I need to make a little bit more space for that.
[00:53:03] Speaker B: A way to connect with kids. Would it be validation? Like, oh, I can see that you're really angry. I could. I mean, it makes sense. You're angry. You had a really tough day at school. Like, I get it.
[00:53:13] Speaker A: Yeah. What you're talking about is, you know, we could call it mirroring. Right. The psychological term, you know, day to day connection. I'm basing on those different levels of attachment. Day to day connection is.
I'm trying to get into your experience.
I'm trying to understand where you're coming from. I'm just saying hello, I'm offering a little touch of proximity. Whether it's a word I say, it's something I say about, oh, man, you're playing with Legos. I used to love Legos when I was little and I used to be build them for hours. I love watching you play. It's just some kind of touch. And that touch can be physical. That touch can be my words. But I'm just offering some kind of connection.
[00:53:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:53:56] Speaker A: That's dayto day.
Often the mirroring that you're talking about can be when they're frustrated.
If. If you were, if you were my child and you were really frustrated and you're mad because nothing's going your way today, and mommy and daddy don't seem to be making it better.
If I went up to you and I'm like, oh, Diana, you're so frustrated, aren't you? Oh, my gosh, that's just gonna make me mad, right?
Because a parent could think, oh, I'm just trying to make it better. I'm trying to, like, be positive or whatever. But if I'm feeling upset, I don't want you to make me. I want you to understand.
I want you to empathize. And so I might go, oh, man, you are so mad at daddy right now, aren't you?
You're just. I just keep saying no to you, don't I? I'm.
I'm a bad daddy sometimes, aren't I? You know?
Yes, you are.
And things actually mellow out a lot of the time because I at least just recognized how you're feeling.
And this comes up more in couples counseling. But I, I say the term almost every day. Empathy does not mean you agree.
And, man, is this hard for the CEO guys I work with and stuff.
[00:55:07] Speaker B: They, they.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: I don't see it the same way. She's saying, I'm like, you don't need to.
You just need to try to understand where she's coming from. Right.
And that can go both ways. But, yeah, mirroring is. I'm just trying to reflect back how you're feeling, and that's very validating for people. And that's why therapy is not going
[00:55:27] Speaker B: to go away, which would what I was thinking, when a parent can afford to hand off a hard moment, like, more screen time, more activities, like, more like, here's. Go to your nanny, go to your babysitter, you know, like, like, like I grew up in a, In a household where kids are to be seen and not heard. That would get in the way of connecting with the kid. Right?
[00:55:46] Speaker A: It would get in the way of connecting, and it also would lead to a lack of resilience sometimes. And again, I don't know how siblings you have. I don't know your exact journey and, or, you know, I have a brother and a sister, and we all had very different journeys with the same, you know, parents. And.
But it, it would also lead to possibly a lack of resilience for the reasons I said earlier, because the nanny is less likely. I know some of them do. I've known lots of nannies. But a nanny is less likely to sit there and confront you in the right way and get your feelings out. Because especially these days, they're like, if I'm tough with these kids, they're going to complain. The parents are going to not be up. The parents are going to be upset with it. You know what I mean?
[00:56:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, in my family, Paid more to punish us. So in a way, it was kind
[00:56:38] Speaker A: of, that's why I wanted to allow for that experience. But in the situations I deal with almost every day these days, I'm working with like Marin county parents, San Francisco parents, and parents sometimes nationally and internationally that are doing well, but they're having a hard time getting the right help, you know, and consistent help. And a nanny who doesn't go back to Guatemala or South America or wherever their, you know, nanny is from right now.
And a lot of times there's language differences and cultural differences and a lot of times people intuitively from their own culture know what we're talking about here, but then they come here and they see it's not the same and so they kind of stuff their own instincts. Does that make sense? Like, I find this a lot with immigrant families that they get here and they go, oh, we're being told not to be mean to our kids. So okay, good, you're not, you shouldn't be mean to your kids. But setting a firm but loving limit is not mean. It's necessary. Right. And that, that's a subtle thing that not a lot of people know how to do properly. And so they tend to go overly harsh or overly soft, but they don't find that balance point. And to find a good nanny who can do that is, is hard.
[00:57:53] Speaker B: Our nanny was British trained, so she was a British nanny. So what? You know, Mary Puffins. Although, although Mary, ours wasn't as nice as Mary Poppins.
[00:58:01] Speaker A: But yeah, now, now I'm gonna have a spoonful of sugar in my head all day. Thank you for that.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: I wanted to get to parenting because you say kids need parents working from the same map, but not the same style. Like, so what happens when you have two successful, strong willed parents and they can't agree on that map?
[00:58:19] Speaker A: It's not that I, I think there's nothing to parenting styles. It can be helpful if.
Oh, this is what I think and this is why. Right.
And out of the typical styles, authoritative is more close to what I talk about. Right? That you're not authoritarian, but you're authoritative. You know that you're in charge, you're the boss.
But again, with working with thousands of these families, I find that most of the debates about we have a different parenting style and all these things are usually just byproducts of lack of education or bad communication.
You know, and so a kid is displaying the same behavior issues all the time. They're resisting and defying and it leads to blow ups and it's not set gender roles or whatever, but just for the sake of illustration, like, let's say mom goes, you know what the reason we're having this problem is we don't spend enough time with them, and, and they don't feel connected enough, and we really need to spend more time with them. So then she'll say she has an attachment style, or she, you know, attachment parenting style, or she say she has a, you know, a, A gentle parenting style.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: Right?
[00:59:36] Speaker A: And dad sees the same situation and goes, these kids are spoiled. These kids. We never say no to them.
We don't, we don't let them. Like, we don't give them boundaries. We don't give them limits at all. And he says he's an authoritarian or he might think he's authoritative or whatever. And then they're fighting about what their different parenting styles are.
To me, that is a completely false argument. It's a completely.
It, it, it's. It's that usually the problems between couples are boundary and communication issues and regulation issues.
I am affected by what's going on with my kids. And my style of dealing with it is I, I go this way with my own anxiety, and I go this way with my getting puffed up and authoritative. Right, but those are regulation styles. Those are dealing with stress in different ways. And then I'm mad at you for your stress and adaptation, and I'm mad at you for yours. Does that make sense?
And because a shared map doesn't require that we're both exactly the same, it just means we understand this kind of what I'm calling attachment first approach. And what I said earlier, number one thing, mom, in that scenario, yes, you're right. Your instinct that these kids need more connection, and it's probably separation anxiety and frustration that's causing these problems. And natural, everything's coming together, Diana.
Natural, you know, instincts to defy those things are all coming together. And understanding that not being connected is going to lead to a lot more of that good. Mom, you're right.
But dad, you're also right. Kids do need consequences and they do need limits.
I would just usually talk to that dad and go, but dude.
And I will call him dude sometimes.
She's right that you do need to probably make sure the green light's on first. That you need to make sure these kids feel connected and things. Because otherwise the metaphor I'm using, and I just am putting out a new YouTube thing, that's a long YouTube video that I just finished last night, that it's like the faucets turned on all the way, and our sinks over flowing, and we're just arguing about how to mop. Right. And. And nobody's going over and turning off the sink. You know, it's a metaphor I heard a long time ago from a medical professional talking about Western medicine, and I just. I always loved it. Right.
[01:02:06] Speaker B: I've heard it in addiction medicine, too. Like, do we stop?
We do. Do we do prevention or do we do treatment? Like, where should we focus? Yeah.
[01:02:13] Speaker A: And if you've been in the field a long time, you've been following us a long time, you know, all the funding goes to prevention for a while, and then when it's not working enough, it goes to react, you know, and that happens in the child realm, too. So I would talk to that dad, and I would go, hey, dude, you're right. Like, these kids do need limits and they do need consequences. I would just argue that out of your own frustration and your own powerlessness in the moment, you're being too harsh about it. Okay? And you're not concentrating on this. So let's get that green light on first. Let's build a culture in our home where people feel connected more often, because that's the root of most problems. But let's also have a healthy, loving backend where I teach you cause and effect.
Because not only do the kids and the families I work with often go off to college without a lot of the resilience muscle, they often don't have the cause and effect muscle either. They don't have the, if I do this, this happens. If I don't do this, this happens.
And so usually when I talk to both those parents, I'm telling you, it's like magic. Like, after the first session, they come into it. And I've usually talked to each of them separately before the first session, and they're all. But he just. He's so harsh with them. Oh, but she's too easy on them. And then we have that first session, and I do a little, like, explanation of attachment history and what attachment is and what defensive detachment is and. And how it's supposed to be this and this. And they all go, he's agreeing with me.
You know, And I'm a. But I'm not just agreeing with you. I'm telling you a whole model. And that's why I talk about a shared map.
You can be a little warmer or more effusive. You could be a little bit more like, hey, we need to set the line. But neither one is a complete model. A complete model is how to build a culture that most of our parenting is not what we do in a moment to react to our children.
Most of parenting is what we do proactively to build the culture and to build the structure and to have a shared understanding about what kids need with consequences and limits that we do proactively.
And that reactivity is only supposed to be 5 or 10% of parenting. And in those cases, I have to understand most behavior if I'm taking care of connection and I'm taking care of structure.
Most behavior is simply what a kid doesn't know how to do yet.
That's it. I don't know how to handle my frustration. I don't know how to handle my anxiety. I don't know how to figure out this dynamic of my sister or my friend. And so punishing me is not going to teach me that, you know, guiding me is right. But most parenting is supposed to be, you know, the same root word in Latin as discipline is disciple. It's meant to be a good teacher. It's meant to create the right container, and it's meant to have the right culture and doing things again proactively.
[01:05:09] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:05:10] Speaker A: I told you I could talk.
[01:05:11] Speaker B: Diana, I know. You're amazing. You teach that repair beats perfection. I mean, for parents who are used to being right and in charge, like the CEO types everywhere else in their life, is it harder for them to admit fault at home?
[01:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
Like in couple. I don't know why I go here in my brain, but you're getting to know me. At this point, when I'm having couples try to talk constructively to each other, I'm. I'm not. I'm not trying to be like, hey, go out in the world and be perfect in how you speak all the time or whatever, but I am kind of telling them, hey, do you notice when you make things personal, when you attack, when you criticize your partner, when you tell them what their motives are or how they're feeling? Have you noticed it never goes well?
So don't do that, because naturally, all human beings defend themselves, especially when it comes to attachment relationships, because, again, attachment relationships are so important to us, they're so critical to our survival that we have instincts, instincts that, as a man, I could be a CEO in the boardroom, and I'm kicking butt and I'm not taking things personally. But then my wife is upset with me after.
After work, and I go on a tirade about how it's not my fault and how I did this and how I did that. Right.
So that's just my long way around. But not as long as some of my answers of saying people naturally are very defensive of their parenting of things because it's, it, it feels, it can bring up so many feelings of shame. It can bring up their childhood stuff. And I just so don't want to be my dad. And all of a sudden I'm being my dad or I'm being my mom or don't accuse me.
[01:06:56] Speaker B: Right?
[01:06:56] Speaker A: And that's just a natural thing that happens with people.
You do not have to be a self flatulating like I am so awful and I'm the worst parent.
And you don't have to be perfect. It doesn't exist.
And I say this every single day, 10 times.
There's no such thing as perfect parenting. And if you were perfect, it would absolutely not prepare your child for the world. Because people are not human. I mean, people are not perfect. Humans are messy.
One of my greatest teachers was Stan Tatkin, the, the couples counselor. And he's such a loving, kind, smart presence, but he just says all the time, oh my God, as human beings, we are a man mess. And he means it with love. Right?
But like the Buddha, right? The story of the Buddha was his life was perfect and he didn't see death or, or disease or poverty. And one day he snuck out and he saw all of it on the streets of India and he just had a, had a, a break because he couldn't handle it. Right?
Your kids don't need perfect. They also don't need you to be a total mess. That's not correcting yourself when you notice things wrong. They just need you when things go wrong, to own it, to not put it on them and to move forward. And if you need to hold a limit still, because that's one of the biggest mistakes I see. A parent goes over the top with the limit because they're taking things personally or they're frustrated so they say no and they get loud or they get mean or they yell or whatever and then they throw away the limit as part of the repair. You don't need to throw away the limit if the limit counts, keep it if, if it's what's best for your child. Because that's what alpha parenting is. That's what it. My job is not to be your best friend and my job is not to be, make you happy.
My main job is to take care of you.
The good news is if I love you and I, I, I take care of you, you're more likely to be Happy. If I'm. If you're able to process your feelings and get them out, you're more likely to be happy. That's happy. Happiness is not this blissful state where nothing ever affects you. It's that bad things happen, you adapt to them, you release them, and then you feel better. That's how people are more likely to be happy. So if I tried to never let you feel your feelings, you wouldn't be. So just to answer your question, if I do something I regret and I feel bad about it, a little guilt and a little shame is a normal part of my consciousness. If I feel a little guilty, if I feel a little shame, that's okay. That's my conscience telling me I didn't want to do that. That's not who I want to be. And so I can go to my child and say, hey, listen, I love you. I got really loud there. That is not your fault, and that's not how you should be spoken to. Now. The limit is still the limit because I mean that, and that's, that's what's needed in this situation.
But the way I talk to you isn't. Okay? And I'm working on it. I was just frustrated. Okay.
[01:10:02] Speaker B: I'm sorry. Beautiful. That's it.
[01:10:04] Speaker A: That's it. That's all.
[01:10:06] Speaker B: You modeled that beautifully. Like, I'm gonna, like, cut that part out and send it to people.
[01:10:11] Speaker A: I know, but. But the thing is, I find that people are almost always. They have a, A piece of it. Right. Or they do this piece today and they do this piece tomorrow, and they. Right. It's not that people are totally lost with knowing, like, how would you want it? How would you want your friend or your partner to apologize and repair with you? How would you have wanted it? Growing up, almost everybody would tell me. It's what I just said.
I don't want my parent to go, oh, my God, I'm so bus. My life is so hard right now, and I'm so.
My boss is so mean. And your, your father. Don't even get me started with your father. And whatever, but I'm sorry.
Like, that's, that's not helpful, right? That's just putting a burden on the child, saying, I'm sorry. You don't deserve that. I'm working on it, but the limit holds. And I, I, I am sorry. I didn't mean to talk to you that way. That's it. And I don't say, but because you talk back to me or because you did this, because then it makes it like you did it right. And that's not helpful.
[01:11:19] Speaker B: That's really helpful. Thank you so much. Someone's listening today only. And they change only one thing this week. What should it be?
[01:11:27] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, that's always a big question. I. In the first session, I always tell people, because I don't know your story, I don't know what you're challenged with right now. Person who's listening.
So I'd say if you just rededicated yourself in all of your important relationships to getting that green light on first before every anything, especially after transitions, especially, you've been at work, they've been at school, whatever. Do not just go into automatic mode. Get their eyes, get their smile, get their nod, get that sense of registration that, hey, we're here, we're here together.
I don't know of a more powerful day to day thing to do. People always go, okay, great, but what about this and what about I'm no, start with that. Because people like, you know the old saying, people don't care what you know until they know that you care.
That is how we are wired. We are wired to, I don't assume connection with me, even if you love me. Even if I love you, even if we're married, like the marriage research shows it unequivocally, whether it's David Snarch's Hugging till Relaxed or Stan Tatkin, one of my mentors, welcome home exercise. That the couple who stops what they're doing when one of them comes home and has a good hug and a moment of connection and just takes the time to say, hi, how are you? How's your day? What can I do? What can we do here to help that couple who takes the two minutes to do that? The likelihood of them fighting tonight just went down like exponentially.
So if that's true for us as adults, if that's true for us in adult, like business meetings, how much more true of it is for your kid who sometimes we just take for granted that they love us and we love them. Yes, of course. But the connection is not to be assumed. And everywhere in the world, cultures know that. It's just I find the more developed the place, the more affluent, the more higher up on that hierarchy of needs we are, the more often we drop some of that stuff, you know, and we can't take it for granted. So that's the one thing.
[01:13:40] Speaker B: I love it. Or they could also buy your book, the Common Connected Parent.
[01:13:43] Speaker A: Oh, beautiful. Exactly. I take back everything I just said. Go spend. Go spend the 20 bucks and get the book. Yeah, the common connected parent is people asked me for 20 years to write a book and I said, I don't need to. Neufeld wrote a great one. And hold on to your kids. And I find that taking in, taking in, taking in, taking in, taking in books and podcasts and all these things in. I love podcasts. I listen to them every day. And I wanted to be on yours because I love what you're doing. I think you're. You're talking to specific people about specific issues that are real, that aren't being talked about enough.
But I find that sometimes parents are just loading on, loading on, loading on, loading on knowledge.
But then if you're losing it in the moment, you have no access to that knowledge. You have no access to your virtues, you have no access to your values. You don't have access to your knowledge because your brain is offline. You're in your amygdala, you're in your brain stem. And so what I wanted to do is write a book that one reviewer on Amazon said I felt myself calming down when I read it. And I love that one because there's some great ones from authors and experts on there. And that one, I'm like, good. That's what I was trying to do. But I also wanted to add the extra context of how screens and social media and AI are kind of making some of these things that we talked about harder, how they specifically are making those, those three branches of maturity a little bit more difficult to develop. And I'm not anti technology. I'm a Silicon Valley boy. You know, I grew up with programmers living next to me, and I was on a TV show about video games when I was 13, and I was on a documentary about computers when I was 12 for the BBC. I'm not anti technology, but we do need to understand how technology and AI are affecting these adaptive processes and these integrative and these emergent processes, because they very much are. I mean, most adults I'm talking to these days are going, AI is making me dumber because I, I don't want to think about anything anymore. I just type it in. Right.
We have to understand how it affects the developing brain.
[01:15:55] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much, Todd, for being on this. We're going to have to maybe do another episode and get into the technology
[01:16:00] Speaker A: and take that five or six hours that I threatened at the beginning.
[01:16:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been a joy and a pleasure to have you on, and I look forward to reconnecting.
[01:16:09] Speaker A: I've loved the conversation and thank you so much for the questions, Diana. I tend to pick who I talk to. Well, um, I don't do these every day, but very, very insightful questions. And it's so clear, like I said before, that you've walked with a lot of these issues in these materials, and I'm sure a lot of it was hard earned, but is part of being adaptive and resilient to then try to do something positive out of it, like having these conversations? And I've listened to several of of the conversations, including you talked to another Todd recently, which I'm.
There's not a lot of us.
But thank you for what you're doing, because I think most therapists I know are doing what they did because of their own experience. And it's very clear that your own experience informs what you're doing here and that you're trying to make a positive impact. So thank you for that.
[01:17:00] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. You're encouraging me to publish it.
[01:17:04] Speaker A: Do it.
[01:17:05] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Good. All right. Thank you. You thank Todd.
[01:17:08] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:17:11] Speaker B: If this episode landed for you, share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you haven't already, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming. But here's the real thing. I want you to know if you're carrying something you can't talk about, if you have every resource except someone who actually understands what wealth costs. I work one on one with people like you navigating exactly that. You can reach me@diana oehrli.com. thanks for listening.
