Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times

Are you looking for practical strategies to help your kids face the challenges of a scary world? Join us for a conversation with Melinda Wenner Moyer. She is an author, contributing editor at Scientific American, a regular contributor to The New York Times, and a former faculty member at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. Her new book is titled Hello, Cruel World: Science-Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times.

In this episode we discuss:

Why is raising kids in today’s world is so challenging and potentially terrifying for parents.

What are the fears kids are feeling in today’s culture?

What are some of the clues parents and caregivers should look for to tell us our kids might be struggling with fear or anxiety?

How does a parent or caregiver’s fear impact our ability to raise our kids in what feels like a terrifying world?

How do we balance protecting our kids from the world with equipping them to handle the hard things about today’s world?

• When and how do we start “lifting the shield”?

The book’s framework for raising kids in these challenging times includes these three pillars: coping mechanisms, connection techniques, and cultivation practices.

• Coping Mechanisms
  • How to manage anxiety and fear.
  • Self-regulation
  • Emotional literacy
  • Examples of coping strategies for one or two ages
• Connection Techniques
  • Parent-child attachment as a protective factor
  • Importance of being emotionally available and validating
  • Routines, rituals, and conversations that build trust
  • Examples of fun and playful connection techniques
• Cultivation Practices
  • How to practice optimism, gratitude, curiosity, and moral reasoning
  • Encouraging healthy risk-taking and autonomy
  • Examples for how we parents can model ethical and resilient behavior

What additional or special considerations for those of us raising kids impacted by trauma? How can we adapt some of these strategies?

Examples of how a parent’s approach should evolve as their child grows in age or ability by age/stage:

• Infants & Toddlers (0–3)
• Preschool (3–5)
• Elementary (6–11)
• Tweens & Teens (12–18)

Resources for Parents & Caregivers:

• Practical Tips to Help Your Kids Manage Stress
• Practical Ideas to Boost Your Child’s Social-Emotional Learning

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Hello and welcome to Creating a Family. Talk about adaptive, foster and kinship care.
Whether you've been listening here for a while or you're brand new, we want to say
welcome and thanks for joining us. I'm Tracy Whitney. I am co -hosting today's
conversation about raising terrific kids in a terrifying world with our executive
director Dawn Davenport. As many of you have heard by now, Dawn is retiring this
year after 18 years is serving as our executive director. I'm co -hosting because I'm
still learning the ropes of how to take over the hosting position. We're glad you're
here and we hope you enjoy this conversation. We're anticipating it to be an
excellent one. Thanks, Tracy. Yes, indeed. I am retiring. And while I'm approaching
it with some mixed emotions, I am not at all -- I have no mixed emotions about
turning the hosting job over to Tracy. She's been with us for,
is it Tracy? Nine years? Ten years? Nine years now. Nine years. She in many ways
is the voice of creating a family. She has been writing much of our content in our
articles. I always say, Tracy can't help but connect to people. It is who she is.
She is a connector. She is a natural and I cannot wait to see where she takes
the, takes the podcast. All right, now enough about me and now back to the purpose
of this show. We're going to be talking with Melinda Winner -Moyer,
and she is a contributing editor at Scientific American, a regular contributor to the
New York Times, and a former faculty member at New York University's Arthur L.
Carter Journalism Institute. Her first book was called "How to Raise kids who aren't
assholes. And she writes a substack at Now What. Her new book is called Hello,
Cruel World, Science -Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times.
Welcome, Melinda, to creating a family. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so
excited to be here. I must say I love the title of your first book. Certainly one
of my goals was raising my crew was to not raise an asshole.
So there you go.
Oh my goodness. How long do you want me to talk, right? Yeah, exactly. Name about
just the high points, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I know. Parental anxiety is really
high right now. It's been really high since the pandemic. And I think it feels like
there's just a lot of rapid change happening that is affecting both us and our
kids. So, I mean, digital technology, social media, and all the landscape there,
changing very rapidly. We have anxiety over climate change. We have concerns about
school shootings, other mass shootings, political instability, economic inequality and
uncertainty. There's, I mean, there's just, there's so many things, right? - Yes, yes,
so many things. - Parents are juggling a lot. And it is a lot to think about, you
hear the saying parenting is like wearing your heart on the outside of your sleeve
everywhere you go. And when you think about it in those terms, there's a lot out
there for us to be afraid about. But what do you tend to hear that kids in
today's culture are fearful of? Yeah, it's a good question. I wish I had seen good
data on this. So a lot of this is sort of what I've been hearing from parents.
You know, there's a lot of concerns about academics, like getting into college is a
big fear that I actually hear from a lot of kids. They know that it's harder to
get into a lot of schools than it used to be, and there's a lot of pressure on
them to get good grades and do all the extracurriculars. So that is just excelling,
I think, is a big concern. I know climate change as well. And gun violence,
my kids are nervous about that. They talk about that, they had a little bit of a
scare at their school, nothing terrible, but there were fireworks going off, then
they didn't know if it was gunshots, and there was just like, wow, there was a lot
of fear there. And I think they also, they sense our anxiety very,
they're very keen observers. And when we know that parental anxiety is so high,
we know that kids are sensing that, seeing that, responding to that. And in some of
the ways that we parent, we're kind of communicating that we're scared for them and
they're just sort of picking up on that general feeling. So yeah, there's a lot of
different reasons for kids' fears. So what are some of the things that we as
parents and caregivers can kind of be on the lookout for that would clue us into
the fact that our kids maybe are either picking up on our fears or kind of mulling
over and stewing over their own fears. - Yeah, you know, child anxiety can manifest
in so many different ways and it does depend on age as well. So, you know, with a
toddler, you might see a lot of clinginess. You might see it sort of slow to warm
up in new situations, you know, slow to feel comfortable with other people and with
transitions. My kids, when they were younger, their anxiety manifested as a kind of
rigidity and a need for stability and for predictability.
So anything that was new or unexpected would cause meltdowns. They wanted to know
exactly what was coming when. There was this need for rigidity and for this sense
of knowing what's to come. Sometimes with older kids, you might hear them talking
about their fears, but you might also see them kind of shutting off, going into
their rooms, being quiet, not wanting to talk as much. So it can, it can show up
as like a, a distancing or an irritability. Yeah, there's, yeah,
there's a lot of different ways that it's hard to tell, you know, it's hard to
tell what's what with kids, right? Because different kids will show things
differently. But yeah, there's a lot of ways it could show up. And sometimes that
fear will look different than anxiety. - Very true. - The fear and the anxiety will
look the same in their outward behavior, but internally, fear and anxiety can be
very different for their experience internally. - Right, right. Yeah, it can be hard
to pick it all apart. - Crack that nut. - Yes. - I'm glad you talked about how we
as parents are our fears and legitimate fears, there are things about this world
that really are terrifying, and that how our fears are impacting our kids.
I was so glad you raised that. So how do we balance protecting our kids from the
world, which we want to do. We want our kids to have the proverbial perfect
childhood or at least happy childhood. And we think that we don't want this
terrifying world to interfere with that. But how do we balance protecting them from
the world with equipping them to handle these hard things? Because the reality is,
I don't suspect they're going to go away. Yeah. It's a really hard balance to find.
And it does, of course, depend on your family, your child, you know, different kids
can handle different things, different types of conversations at different ages. But
In general, what researchers say is that it is often more helpful to talk to kids
about what's going on in the world than to fully try to protect them from it.
Because the fact is kids hear a lot from peers, they overhear things on the radio
in the news, they see things on their iPads. And if something's going on in the
world and we've really tried to shield them from it, all we're really ensuring is
that what they do learn about it, they're not learning from us. They're learning it
from whatever source of information. It might be a friend who is telling them
something that's not really accurate. So what researchers generally say is that as
long as you do it in a way that ensures that kids still feel safe and also,
you know, if you can find a way to bring in a sense of hope and agency, it is
really helpful to talk to kids about the big things going on in the world to be
very sort of just straightforward, like here's something that happened, you might hear
about it at school and I just want you to know what's going on and also know
what's not going on in case you hear something that might be inaccurate, but also
to do it with this sense of ensuring that your child feels safe and sometimes like,
here's what we can do about it. You know, if it's something going on that you're
not happy with in the world, you can say, okay, well, let's think about what we
can do to push against this, to challenge this. You know, could we call our
representatives together or, you know, whatever it is to give kids this sense of,
okay, this is not futile, this is not hopeless. We still have agency, even though
there are these things going on. - You talked about lifting the shield and obviously
age has to be a major consideration. But each kid is made different. It may be all
coming.
child is or maybe if they have experienced trauma, you really want to ensure that
they feel safe. And so you might be a little more careful in how you talk about
things. You might leave out some of the details that might just be too overwhelming
for them at whatever their age is or whatever their temperament is. You might really
talk about why they themselves are safe, how you're keeping them safe.
And then again, like kind of really try to spend more on the the hope side of it
than on the doom side of it, right? But you know, there are certainly some
situations in which you, you know, you might think my kid just really, this is
going to send him down a spiral. This is not a good time. I mean, that's another
thing too is like finding the right time, talking to your kids about things when
they're calm, when they're not exhausted when they're not already, you know, wound up
about something else and doing so in a really calm way as well as it's super
important, like trying to keep our own emotions in check, which could be hard. I
know. Yeah. But to the degree that we can do that, you know, that also is really
important for these more like temperamentally sensitive kids. And keeping in mind that
oftentimes kids who've been impacted by trauma, even if they seem more world wise,
are often emotionally younger than their same age peers. It's just something to note.
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So you mentioned that there's times that we would consider
holding back the information or waiting a while to share that kind of information
with our kids. What's the balance of that? Then if there's a need to hold some
information back, how do you decide what information to put forth? Yeah,
that's a great question. Yeah, I know. That's not an easy question. It's not, right?
I mean, I think about, you know, is my child likely to hear something about this
through friends? That's what I'm thinking. Exactly. If they're going to hear about
it, then I want to be part of it. I want to be the one that they hear it from.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, you can also, I'm a big proponent of
asking kids questions about, you know, what they've heard, what they know about
something, and then using what they say in response as a kind of gauge for what to
say next. So yeah, if you're worried that they might have heard something already
about an issue or something that happened, you can always say, Hey, have you heard
anything about something, you know, anything going on in the world today, or have
you heard anything about X, Y or Y or Z. And if they say no, then you can
decide, well, do I want to introduce them to it? Or do I maybe not want to tell
them that much right now? And they haven't heard about it, so it's OK. Of course,
you run the risk of them saying, well, tell me more about it. You know what did
happen? But you can, of course, pick and choose the details that you share. Again,
I think being honest is important, but you can also be selective in how much
information you're sharing. - Yeah, that's actually something that we've done in
several scenarios of late. We will say, here's what we know, here's what we think
is important for you to know. We'd like you to be able to trust us that there's
more to the story, but we don't feel like this is the right time or place to talk
about the more and we'll let you know when it is. - That's great. I love that.
That's so simple And so clear and honest. I love that. Yeah. And then also say if
you have more questions come to me Yeah, right. I'm gonna give you better
information Yes Hey, I hope you're enjoying this interview as much as I am I wanted
to just pause for a minute and remind you that we are now on YouTube in video
format So if you hop over to the creating a family channel. On YouTube, you can
see me. You can see our esteemed guests. You can see Dawn when she's hosting with
us and get to take another perspective on the creating a family. Talk about
adoption, foster care, and kinship care podcast interviews. Thanks so much. Let's go
back to the interview.
Okay. In your book, Hello, Cruel World, Science -Based Strategies for raising terrific
kids in terrifying times. I always include the subtitle because I usually get more
out of subtitles than the actual title. Anyway, in the book, you include a framework
for parents to use in figuring all of this out. And you talk about the three
pillars, so to speak, coping mechanisms, connecting techniques, and cultivation
practices. And this is getting into the practical, which is what I so appreciate
about the book because I'm all about theory is great, but when you're in the
trenches and actually parenting, it really helps to have something to fall back on.
So this is helpful. So can you take us through each of these three things, coping
mechanisms, connecting techniques and cultivation practices? First, tell us what you
mean by them and they give us some examples. Let's start with coping mechanism.
- Yeah, I mean, and just also to give a sort of view from 10 ,000 feet with the
book, I really wanted to focus on what seemed like the most crucial skills and
characteristics that we can help to foster as parents and our kids so that they can
thrive in this world today, in this complex world. And so yes, and I thought, well,
let's also think about, I have 10 skills, but let's break it down into sort of
these three main pillars. So the first one is cope. And this is really about,
what can we do as parents to help kids develop the coping skills, the various
coping skills that will allow them to manage difficult situations,
difficult people for their whole lives. So it's really like, it's a lot of talking
about emotional regulation. How does that develop, what are some other ways in which
kids can find balance in their lives to help them with their mental health and just
generally cope with everything that the world throws at them. So that's part one,
is cope. - Okay, cope, excellent. - You have any examples of coping mechanisms that
maybe have some really good solid evidence behind them as effective for kids? But
with emotional regulation, we know that letting kids share how they feel,
what they're dealing with, and really just listening in response and validating in
response rather than necessarily jumping in with, "Let's fix this." But really just
letting our kids feel heard and communicating to them that whatever feelings they're
having are valid, that is super helpful and that helps kids get in the practice of
both recognizing their feelings and being able to sit with them and then over time
realizing and learning what coping skills work for them. Like for my daughter, I
have a 10 year old and she knows that when she's feeling stressed she wants to
squeeze something. And this is something she's learned over time because we've had a
lot of conversations. She's tried a lot of different things and she's like, I'm a
squeezer. I need something to squeeze when I'm feeling upset. And so it's great.
Like over time, she has learned that that is what makes her feel better. But
everybody's different. You know, everybody has different ways of coping, right? With
different feelings. And it's all kind of, it's all about giving kids the opportunity
to figure out what works best for them. So I hear you saying a lot of kids need
this emotional language or this emotional intelligence. But I've found in my kids
when I pair it with something physical. So, you know, let's go out and shoot hoops
and kind of talk while we're shooting hoops or let's go walk the dog. So that
physical outlet paired with the emotional exploration labeling and then talking about
it. That's what I'm hearing you say. - Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and kids are really
good at pairing the emotional with the physical, they're often better than adults,
in terms of also where they're feeling feelings in their body, like a physical
manifestation of feelings. Kids can be very good at that, like saying, I feel this,
you know, I'm scared and I feel it in my stomach and I feel this like not in my
stomach and they're really good at recognizing that too. So yes, pairing the physical
with the, you know, talking and emotional parts can be really helpful for kids. Can
you give us, first of all, tell us what you mean by connection techniques? I think
I know, but it would help to hear how you're defining it, and then give us some
examples of that. Yeah. So connection, that feeling of being connected,
a feeling of relatedness to others is so important for mental health, for resilience
as well, like having a strong relationship with someone, at least one person is so
important for the development of resilience. So I really wanted in this section to
explore what we can do as parents to help kids develop the skills they'll need to
build and maintain connections with other people. So friendships, other kinds of
relationships. And along with that, you know, how to help them learn to treat others
with compassion and respect and, you know, sort of what can we do to nudge empathy
in the right direction. So, you know, that section is really about like what we can
do to help kids build and maintain strong relationships.
You talk about the parent -child attachment is a protective factor as well.
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. So we know when parents and kids have a strong bond,
it, I mean, it's so powerful for so many reasons. I mean, it helps kids develop
better self -esteem, it helps them with emotional regulation. So it's funny, I have
these three sections of the book, but they're all interrelated. So we know that
connection is also a big part of coping, that the more connected you are with
others, the better you are at coping with things that are difficult. So it's not
like these are silos that don't interact, they are definitely all integrated, but
yeah, connection is hugely important. It's something that you talk about that I so
appreciate and we talk about it a lot. And that is the importance of routines and
rituals, things like that, that it's such a safety mechanism for many of us,
myself included. Yes, routines, kids love routines. I mean, if you think about life
as a kid, you don't have a whole lot of control. You have people telling you what
to do all the time, whether teachers or parents. And one way that kids can feel a
sense of stability and control is through having a routine, through knowing what's
coming next, knowing, you know, I have breakfast with mom every morning, and then I
get on the school bus, whatever it is. And my kids, especially who were anxiety
prone and have always been, they have really, they love having a routine. And when
we go on vacation, they're like, "Can we write out a schedule for tomorrow, which
is sometimes challenging because sometimes I don't know what we're doing tomorrow,
right? But then like, well, at least can we go through, you know, we're going to
have breakfast together and then we're going to go do something and then we're going
to have lunch. They just like knowing what's coming because it gives them the sense
of safety and the sense of, you know, control. Yeah, absolutely. It's hard to say
as a parent because and it's especially hard if you yourself are not a routine
focused person. I always said that that was the gift my first child gave me.
Took some of the spontaneity, but I found that I actually thrived with less
spontaneity as well, and she certainly did. So she was a gift in many ways.
That's really neat. Yeah, we learn so much from our kids, right? Yeah, yeah. Growth
is painful, but it's important, and that was a growth area. Yes. And also, something
else you talk about, and I love you give some examples, is having fun and being
playful as ways to connect with our kids. Yes, play is such a wonderful way to
engage with our kids. I talk a lot about playing different ways in the book. I
mean, yeah, because I think our culture now is sometimes,
I mean, we just talked about the value of routine and scheduling, but sometimes over
-scheduled too, where too, where we're constantly wanting to put kids in these
structured activities that are adult led, when they really need a lot of time to
sort of explore and play and be playful. And they learn so much through play,
whether it's playing with us or playing with other kids, where they have to do
social problem solving and they have to learn to communicate. If you're playing an
imaginary game, know, you have to figure out how am I going to talk about the
rules as a kid with another kid? You really, it's just using all sorts of parts of
the brain. But yes, it's also a really powerful way for parents to connect with
kids. It's just to sort of play a little bit with them. It doesn't have to be a
whole lot every day and engage in a playful way with them. You know, it gives them
this sort of, it's creative. It's also a feeling of safety that they get, I think,
when they sense that we're being playful and we're kind of like on their level and
it's just a great way to connect. Yeah. I always say, find something that you truly
like to do as a parent and bring your kids in on that too. Because sometimes it's
one thing to play with your kids, you know, you're playing My Little Pony or Hot
Wheels, but you're really not enjoying it. Right. Are you thinking, okay, how much
to play as, you know, okay, if you said a couple of minutes, Okay, I can do five
minutes here. But things that you enjoy doing, maybe you like to jump on the
trampoline, or the classic one is game night, at the beginning you have to give
more, yes, you have to play Candyland, but maybe you can talk them into shoots and
ladders, which is infinitely better than Candyland, in my opinion. So you can
progress upwards into things that you enjoy, or movie night, are going out for pizza
are just things that are that you would actually look forward to I think kids can
genuinely tell when we are having a good time with them and there's nothing better
for connection than to know your parents enjoy you yes yes absolutely mm -hmm I'll
be the first to admit I struggle so much with the fun part I am constantly walking
that balance of structure and routine and how to fit fun into that and just kind
of let it go and cut loose and have fun. We tend to do kitchen dance parties
where sometimes I'll just put some crazy music on and we'll just dance in the
kitchen while I'm cooking because it's kind of an easy way for me to have fun and
of course who doesn't like to laugh at their mom and her ridiculous old lady dance
moves. So it's kind of the mode that helps me usher in.
But it's still very connecting because I'm being vulnerable and they're enjoying that
vulnerability. And I feel like connection and vulnerability have to go hand in hand,
especially when you're parenting kids that have experienced trauma or chaos or
neglect. It gives them the message that it's okay to be vulnerable themselves, which
then further builds that connection. So good reminder to put more fun into my life.
It's a good point, though, you're making because it's a playfulness. It doesn't have
to mean that, yes, you're sitting down playing, you know, doing block building with
your kids if you don't like that. But it's just like, are there subtle ways you
can bring in some playfulness into your day? Whether it's, yeah, I mean, I love the
kitchen dance party. I love a good kitchen dance party in my home too. And so it's
not like you have to sit down and like play a game with your kid if you don't
want to do that. It's like what can we do to just inject some playfulness, some
spontaneity, some joy into an everyday activity.
I will put a plug in for front seat car dancing. That's even more fun because it
totally embarrasses your kids while everybody's laughing. That's amazing. Yes. I
created an intersection dancing in your front see. I love it.
Let's talk a little bit about the cultivation practices that you recommend for kind
of scaffolding our kids for this ability to face the terrifying world. Yeah,
this section was like, I wanted a section that dealt with kind of like life skills,
skills that kids need to be able to engage with the tools of the world, and also
maybe maybe skills that will help them improve the world. I mean,
all of these things like connection, building connections is also really important for
all sorts of things in the world and bridging divides. So again, there's a lot of
crossover in these sections, but I really wanted a section of the book that talked
about life skills. And so that's media literacy, like how do we teach our kids
media literacy and what about financial literacy, what can we do to help kids
understand money and finances and, you know, develop the skills they need to be able
to manage that in the future. And then I really just, I knew I needed to spend a
lot of time talking about technology and what the research says there and what we
can do to help kids develop a healthy relationship with technology. So those are
like the three big areas in that section of the book. And we have a lot of
resources at creating a family for families that are struggling with or trying to
wrap their minds around how to handle the technology thing. You can go to any of
the search bar on our site anywhere and just type screens or managing technology and
you'll get a wide variety of resources to help you kind of tackle that.
It's a big one, it's a huge one. And every, I feel like every milestone our kids
reach as far as age and development and understanding of the world, a new level of
technology is kind of invading that space. And if we don't capture it and kind of
take hold of it first, and set the course for how we want them to handle it,
they're going to do it based on what everyone around them is doing, which may not
align with your family values, but also might put them at great risk. And that's
actually something I wanted to talk about within the cultivation practices. You talked
a little bit about encouraging healthy risk taking and autonomy and like risk
assessment and stuff. Can you give us some maybe some examples of what that looks
like for a family raising kids that have experienced trauma? Yes, absolutely. So,
you know, I think one thing that's important to keep in mind is that in our
culture right now, there are a lot of fear -based messages about that tell us that
we should be protecting our kids against everything, you know, whether it's negative
feelings or failure, bad grades, you know, stranger, danger,
like there's just so many ways in which we're told that we should be making sure
our kids are comfortable, safe, happy all the time in every context. And of course,
I mean, we want to be keeping our kids safe from like true threats and these are
important things, but our culture and these sort of intensive parenting norms that
have become really standard are telling parents, I think to protect beyond what is
helpful. And then we're in a situation where kids are really not having a lot of
experience with healthy challenges with, you know, failing.
And when kids aren't given these opportunities to experience these feelings, they
don't develop the coping skills that they need through the experience of these
feelings. And, you know, they, they start to then avoid. I mean, if you have not
really ever had a chance to fail, then failure just seems like this terrible,
terrible thing that you should never experience and then you might start as a child
like making choices to make sure that you never ever get into a situation where you
mess up or you fail or you make a mistake. So it just leads to more anxiety among
kids, more fear and just less resilience. Sorry, I went on a little tangent there,
but I do think there are little ways in which we can give our kids the opportunity
to do things for themselves in ways where they might make mistakes that are not
disastrous, but in which they can learn from. So I'll give an example from my very
recent past, which is I was, I'm in a choir and I had a choir rehearsal one
evening. And this was the night before my 14 year old was going to go on a two
night field trip up in the Catskills. I'm in New York. And I realized I couldn't
help him pack. And I said, here's the packing list. You're going to have to pack
everything yourself. And if you forget something, then you're going to forget
something. And I knew that the camp where he was going, like, they weren't going to
let him freeze to death. They weren't going to let him, you know, dive thirst. But
at the same time, he might be uncomfortable if he forgot his raincoat, because it
was supposed to rain, or if he forgot, you know, the extra pair of shoes. So I
gave him that. And I knew that this was a, this was something where I could give
him ownership over it, which might build confidence. And he thinks, you know, that I
think he can handle it and that that's a really nice thing for kids to feel that
their parents think they they can handle something. But it also gives him the
opportunity to mess up and then have to sort of live with it and realize, oh,
okay, you know, I did forget my raincoat, but I made it through even though I got
a little soaked. So it's like looking for opportunities in which we can step back
and let our kids do things for themselves in ways where they might mess up a
little, but it won't be a true disaster. It'll just be a little uncomfortable.
thinking, "Oh, we're going to be judged," or that our anxiety is such that we are
uncomfortable having our children out of our sight, you know, sending your kid to
another aisle in the grocery store. "Oh, I forgot the peanut butter. Can you go
back and you know what our peanut butter looks like? Can you go get it?" I think
that sends a lot of parents into such anxiety, and that goes back to what we were
talking about earlier, is recognizing how much of our own anxiety, fear of this
terrifying world is interfering with raising capable kids. And ultimately we want our
kids to be empowered to think, I am fine to walk around an aisle that my mom's
not on and I can find our peanut butter. You know, it may be a small thing, but
it's still it's something. - Right, yeah, it is hard. And because I think you do
worry about being judged, and you do worry about a worst case scenario. But then I
always think about, well, there's the cost of not letting your kids do these things
ever. There's a cost there. There's a risk there, and we have to weigh the risk of
letting them do the thing that makes us nervous against the risk of never letting
them do that thing, and then suddenly they're out in the world and they've never
figured out how to find in a grocery store, like do we really want, you know,
these are things we want our kids to be able to do and we want them to feel a
little discomfort as they, you know, step away from their parents to go get it. And
yeah, so I try to think about like the big picture, like what skills do we want
our kids to have down the line, not just right now, but like, let's think about
the big picture here, the future. And what are the costs of not letting them do
this thing? Such a great There's a risk both ways. - And being honest with your
kids about the fact that you are assessing the risk. I think models for them, some
great skills. We had an example in our own home. One of my children had some
pretty serious anxiety about being left in a store. And I didn't find out about
that anxiety until they were well grown. And so I used that information then to
start equipping my other children who were younger and started giving them small
tasks for like the finding the peanut butter and another aisle. So that's one of
the benefits of a big family is you've got like lots of learning on the span of
kids. But you know, talking with my children, number one, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware
that you were anxious about that. How can I help you the next time we encounter
this situation? But then sharing that information among the rest of the family
members, like, okay, so how can we equip the younger children so that when they do
encounter something like this, they've got some skills and they have lived experience
of somebody that they love and respect that overcame it. Yeah, that's really
powerful. I love that. And I just love in general the idea of like having these
conversations with your kids about whatever, you know, whatever it is. I mean, I
think that's one of the big messages of my book is both like listening to your
kids and really listening to them and then just talking, talking about stuff, like
little mundane things, but things that, I mean, the conversations we have with our
kids about everyday things, communicate our values, communicate so much. And I think
the more we talk and the more we listen, the better.
Absolutely.
Sorry to interrupt this awesome conversation, but I just wanted to put a little plug
in that if you are enjoying what you're hearing, as much as I'm enjoying what I'm
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great kind of content into the hands or the ears of other families who need to be
strengthened with this kind of information. Let's go back to the interview now. We've
talked some about how we could adapt what you're saying to children who have come
to us at an older age or have come to us, even if at a younger age, having
experienced a chaotic home life or trauma or whatever.
Are there any additional considerations that you would have for parents who are
raising kids who've experienced trauma? And one of the things is anxiety. Some
anxiety can be a higher issue or some other internalized behaviors, a depression as
well could be a higher with our kids. - Yeah, I think, you know, we've already
talked about the importance of establishing a sense of safety with kids. And I think
that's really important for kids who may have experienced trauma. Also, I'm a big
proponent of telling kids of our unconditional love for them. And I think this is
really powerful and something that I think sometimes we don't realize that kids
interpret sometimes our behaviors as like a form of conditional love. Like if they,
you know, if we're emphasizing how important it is for them to achieve something,
for instance. Kids will sometimes then interpret that as, well, my parents' love for
me is conditional upon whether I achieve things and stuff. So I think I'm just a
big proponent of telling your kids every night before they go to bed. I love you
so much. I will always love you no matter what. And I think that that can help
establish this sense of safety and relatedness that can be really powerful. I think
also just Always thinking of behaviors as maybe a reflection of a skill that hasn't
fully developed or an unmet need can be really helpful. So I'm a big proponent of
being really curious about the why behind any kind of behavior that you might see
that might not make sense to you and not interpreting it as, oh, my kid's just
trying to be a jerk or trying to break the rules or not listening on purpose.
I think there's a lot of times we want to sort of attribute intention to kids'
behaviors that isn't really there. And so I'm always a big proponent of like, what
could be causing this, being curious? And maybe then even, especially with kids, like
school -aged kids and older, having a conversation with your kids at a neutral time
about like, hey, I've noticed when you come home from school that things are really
tough and that we get into a lot of fights. And I'm wondering like, you
experiencing when you come in from school, you know, how are you feeling? How can I
support you? Like having this sort of two -way conversation at a neutral time about
whatever you're seeing can be super helpful. That's collaborative problem solving is
what I've seen that described as. And just like connecting before correcting, I guess
is another way of sort of going about this, like really trying to understand and
connect before you try to correct their behavior. -Wise words. -Yes,
very wise. Can you share some examples of how a parent's approach should evolve over
the child's development, not just by age, but by, like, those skills that we're
trying to teach them and how we should be responsive to that? Yeah, absolutely. So,
you know, I think with little kids, infants, toddlers, et cetera, being responsive,
being accepting of your kids' feelings to the degree that you can. That's when kids
have the biggest feelings and all the meltdowns. So it can be really hard when your
kids having a meltdown in the middle of the grocery store. But just letting it
happen, knowing that this is what kids do and validating their feelings, saying,
I can see you're having a really hard time or you're frustrated. You're angry. Just
really labeling their feelings and showing them like you see them.
into more granularity in building the emotional literacy skills,
which is really like getting more granular with how you label feelings and talk
about feelings with your kids. This is also an age when they'll start to use an
understanding of emotions to understand other people's emotions, which is really
important for the development of compassionate and generous behavior. So you want kids
to be able to recognize a feeling in someone else and say, "Oh, that person's
feeling sad. What do I like when I'm sad? Oh, I like to be soothed. I'm gonna
soothe my friend." So it's like that emotional literacy and that emotional labeling
really helps kids develop their own empathy and compassion skills, helping this age
to push kids a little bit outside their comfort zone, explore the world,
but always be there as the secure base that's really important as well. Routines
again important. I'm just going to say that every time you're preaching to the choir
on this one. Yeah, right. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Routines. And elementary age.
So I have a daughter in elementary school. It's a lot more like social problem
solving that I do now where my daughter will, you know, come to me with something
that's going on with her friends. And I try my best to really listen and understand
what's going on and be curious. And then if she wants my input, which she doesn't
always to give her, you know, some suggestions or what, you know, and also to
really empower her, say, what do you think you should do? Or what do you think you
could do to make this better and helping her really understand the coping skills
that are working for her. Like we, we talk about having stuff to squeeze and
bringing, you know, when we go on trips, like make sure you have something with you
that you can squeeze if something goes, you know, if you need it. So we do a lot
of like that kind of, you know, conversations about what makes her feel better and
what gives her a sense of calm, being curious, asking kids questions,
encouraging them to ask kids questions. This is a great time to really foster
curiosity and kids through encouraging them to ask all sorts of questions about what
they're seeing. I would add in this section here that at this age this is a great
time to start laying the groundwork for helping them advocate for themselves even to
adults or authority figures, especially if you have a child who's kind of prone to
anxiety or prone to difficulty in social situations that may feel terrifying to them.
Simple things like, you know, your teacher was probably having a really, really rough
day when she said that. Or I wonder what might have been going on when your
friend's mom yelled that out the window at all the kids playing in the backyard.
What else was going on for her? I feel like that kind of adds a layer of
protection for our kids when they learn that it's okay to say, hey, that adult
didn't do it perfectly or that adult didn't do it well. It's another layer of
protection because then they've learned that their voice does matter and that that's
an important agency thing But it's also an important protection thing Yeah,
and it builds a theory of mind Which is like the ability to understand that people
have different feelings motives thoughts than you do Which is really helpful for even
grown -ups Yep. Yeah, there's a number of grown -ups. I think you could learn that
lesson as well. Yes, yes. Group ups have big feelings too. We sure do.
Yes, yes. Yeah. And I mean, and I think also like as a parent when you,
I mean, I lose my temper with my kids, like it happens, right? And just like
taking ownership of that in front of, in front of my kids and explaining, you know,
saying, I'm really sorry I yelled at you. I shouldn't have done that. Sometimes I
even say like, what could I have done to make self, like to calm myself down. So
I didn't yell at you. And then she's giving me these like emotional regulation
suggestions, which is really sweet. I love that. You know, and also just helping
that helps our kids understand that everybody makes mistakes, and everybody has a bad
day. And so there's just like so many lessons in there that kids will learn through
understanding that like, yeah, not everybody has a good day. And that's, and that's
that's the way life is. Yeah. And then just that last category of tweens and teens,
which is kind of a continuation of what we were already talking about. - Yeah, I
think, you know, it's a lot of the same things we've been talking about, but I do
think with tweens and teens, they really thrive more with a sense of agency and
more independence. And so, you know, one of the things that I talk about, for
instance, in my chapter on managing technology is that the research really suggest
there's this sort of shift with kids over the age of eight, where it's great to
still set rules and have boundaries, but you want to be talking with your tweens
and teens about it, and also giving them a little bit of leeway, listen to what
they have to say about it. And if they have a really good point about something,
like, well, if I don't use this at all, this particular app, then I can't make
plans with my friends, actually listening and maybe making adjustments based on what
they're saying. So you want them to feel like they are being heard, they are being
respected, their needs are being met, that you're not just barking orders at them
all the time. So yeah, that's the biggest shift there is like maintaining a sense
of autonomy for your tweens and teens is really, really important and thinking of
ways in which you can do that to give them choices in certain areas so that they
feel they have some independence, some control. - I would assume at that age,
especially as we're moving into the latter teens, having discussions, they're following
the news, they're going to hear, there is nothing that they're not going to know
about. And having really honest discussions with them about some of these things that
are frightening to you. - Yes, yes, This is definitely an age where you want to
lean into talking about what's going on in the world, talking about the things that
they might have heard, whether it's on their iPads or phones, or whether it's at
school from their peers, because they are hearing things, they are seeing things, and
so this is the time to be having not just like one conversation about something,
but like regular conversations about issues that are important, like really trying to
just keep those conversations open. And I think one important thing that I learned
from the psychologist Lisa DeMore, or one tip I guess I should say, is that
sometimes kids are gonna want to connect with us, especially in the teen years, on
their own terms, like when they want to do it. Often we think, okay, we're gonna
sit down at the dinner table and we're gonna have the conversation of the day about
whatever it is. And at that point, they do not wanna talk, like they're just
they're just like shut down. But then at 9pm, when you're ready to go to bed, they
come into your room and they're like, "So, this thing happened at school today." And
that's the time when you don't want to talk because you're tired and you want them
to go to bed, but that's the time they want to talk. And she says, "Look, let
your teens and tweens have some of that control. Like, let them set the terms of
when and where they're going to talk about things and be open to that, even if
it's a little bit frustrating and you wish it wasn't happening in that particular
place in time. This also feels like a time that we, we, in age in particular, that
we can model optimism. And I think that's so important, moral reasoning as well,
but, but optimism, because when we're talking about a terrifying time, the terrifying
times we are living in, I think we want our children to have a sense of optimism.
And It's not all doom and gloom, you know? - Absolutely, that's so important and
it's such a good point. I think anytime we're talking about something that's scary
or seems sad or hopeless that if we can think of a way to talk about, okay, well,
what can we do about this or how, you know, what's something hopeful that we can
bring into this conversation and also like maybe give them a sense of agency of,
okay, let's do some stuff to maybe push against this. Let's make some yard signs or
whatever it is to make kids feel like, okay, we actually, we do have agency and we
do have, we can collectively change the world, you know? - Yeah, we hear a lot of
parents talk about, you know, I want to raise a world changer, but it's on us to
equip them to learn how to do that. And I love the, you know, just saying,
This is a hopeful situation as much as it's painful or scary or terrifying more
than scary. What can we do about it? And can we go down and meet with the local
legislators in person? I'm happy to set up an appointment if that's what you want
to do. And letting them find a cause that's near and dear to their heart. You
mentioned at the beginning that a lot of young people are really worried about
climate change. Well, you know, you may not be worried about climate change. But if
your kid is, jump on board with them and say, okay, so what can we do here at
home? And then what can I help you do outside of our home that will make you feel
confident that you get to have a hand in the world that you're going to inherit?
Yeah, absolutely. And in the process, they might learn about, you know, how local
governments work and how, you know, how change happens because they will be a part
of it. And that's really, really powerful. You know, something that I found myself
saying, particularly with one of my kids who tended to spin and see the worst, I
would say, "You know, in my experience, the worst often doesn't happen. It can,"
because that's what the response would be, "No, it can, you're right, but in my
experience, most often the very worst thing we're thinking doesn't happen." And I
felt like that was a powerful thing that I wanted all of my kids to know and a
way of instilling some optimism. - Yeah, I really like that that approach because
it's both you are instilling with them, but you're also really, that was a very
respectful way of, you know, you weren't saying, oh, you're wrong, you don't need to
worry about this. You're saying, yes, you know, you're right, this could happen. In
my experience, it doesn't, it doesn't usually happen. - Yeah. - Yeah, I really
I want to take a moment and say thank you so much to Jockey Being Family for
sponsoring the library of 15 free courses on the Creating a Family website.
If you go to bit .ly /JBFsupport, you can find all 15 of the courses.
You can take one, you can take two, you can take all 15 of them if you want. And
each one of them is geared to specifically strengthen the family that you are
raising. Go to bit .ly /jbfsupport. That's B -I -T dot L -Y slash J -B -F support.
Thanks so much, and we hope you enjoy the rest of the show.
- All right, well, I think I'll close this out then. The book is called "Hello,
Cruel World," Science -Based Strategies for raising terrific kids in terrifying times.
It is a great book. We want everybody to read the entire, go out and buy it and
read the entire book. However, what is it that you would, if you could say one
thing that you want parents to take or one chapter that you think is the most
impactful for parents or one message to take away? What would it be? I would say
to think about preparing your kids rather than protecting them, which is one of the
key messages of the book. And I think something that all parents today really need
to hear. And it's really that zooming out, like it's not just thinking about my kid
in this moment and what might be hard for them. It's like, what decision can I
make in this situation that's going to equip them and going to give them the
experience that maybe will help build skills and help them develop the experiences
and the skills they need to be able to handle things in the future. So it's like
less present, more future focused. And so it's really preparing rather than
protecting.
Well, thank you so much. This was an enjoyable book. Again, Hello, Cool World,
Science -Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times. Thank you so
I'm Melinda Moirier for being with us today to talk about this. We appreciate it
truly. Thank you so much, John and Tracy. This was wonderful.