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Speaker 4Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast, the bucket-emptying episodes. I'm your host, Dr. Mary Hanna, psychologist and parenting expert. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. Today's bucket-emptying episode, I have kept. I have kept back a little piece of the interview that I did with Professor Sam Wass, where we talked specifically about this area of his research that looks at co-regulation. So, looking specifically at the concept that we're all very familiar of, when our children are emotionally dysregulated, how do we respond in that moment, and what does co-regulation look like? And you're about to hear that part of the interview. And it absolutely. It absolutely blew my mind because it was completely, or what seemed to be completely counterintuitive, or actually the opposite of often the evidence that has been presented, and in lots of ways, the advice that I have offered you. So, I'm going to let you listen to Sam, and then I'm going to come in at the end with some thoughts about what we can do with what Sam has told us the research evidence shows. So, for now, I'll hand over. to Sam.
Speaker 5What our research kind of shows is. I don't know, it builds quite a lot on what we've just been talking about. So, again, naturally, as parents. And again, I present this a lot to early years practitioners because if a child in a nursery setting or a school setting starts to get dysregulated or overexcited, then naturally your first instinct is to keep yourself very, very calm. But we've done a lot of research, as I say, where we're measuring this kind of arousal, brainstem activity level in parents and children at the same time. And what we find is, in fact, to a degree, the opposite of that, which is, you know, if I'm looking after a baby and that baby has a peak in their arousal, what I do as a parent is I naturally have a peak in my arousal to match it, bringing about this transient period of synchrony. So, for a short period of time, I increase my arousal to match the arousal state of my child. And we've actually shown repeatedly, and other people have shown too, that the more I do that, so the more I match my state to the child to create this transient moment of synchrony, the faster my child calms down. So, we're measuring this in terms of physiology, yeah? So, you know, how fast your heart's beating, how we're aroused, your brainstem arousal, yeah? But other people have shown this in terms of, you know, over-behaviour as well. So, if I match my child's kind of emotional state, yeah? So, if I mimic their face back to them, or if I, you know, mimic, you know, so with the toddlers, you know, for example, it's quite, it's well evidenced now that pretty much every parent, when they've got a tantrum in toddler, I certainly did it, you know, just as a quick detail, there's a, the reason that tantrum in toddlers really freaks you out is that there's this great researcher in America that I've just been visiting, and she looks at a lot of these day-long audio recordings, and she says that if you look at a day-long audio recording with a baby, what happens is the baby cries, and then you go in, and you help them to calm down. Whereas, if you look at the moment where crying happens, the toddler, it almost all happens the other way around, yeah? Rather than the interaction starting with a cry, and then you coming in, you have a conversation, and then you say something to the toddler that the toddler doesn't like, and then the toddler starts to cry. So, the cry comes in the middle of the conversation, rather than at the beginning. And this, obviously, if you think about it, is quite obvious, yeah? But it's the reason why toddler tantrums freak parents out, because you go from being the solution to the problem, yeah? My baby's crying, it's okay, mommy and daddy are here, I'm going to help you calm down, to being the cause of the problem. I'm crying because of something that you said, which freaks everyone out, as a parent, I quite understand that, yeah? And I remember it freaking me out, you know, when my kids were that age, yeah? So, naturally, your reaction as a parent is to say, okay, I'm going to be very calm, I'm going to be very reasonable about this, yeah, we're going to use logic, yeah? And we're going to talk this out, yeah? Which, obviously, annoys the hell out of any toddler, because they don't do logic, they don't do language, yeah? That type of stuff. So, it's exactly what they can't do. So, there's really good evidence that lots of people have shown now that, in fact, this process. The process that I've been describing of matching your state to theirs is, you know, the best way to cope with toddler tensions, yeah? So, rather than using logic and staying very calm, you get a bit upset with them. You commentate on what they're saying, yeah? You really want to pour rum and juice on the cat, don't you, yeah? You know, you match your state, you match the words they're saying, you match the sentence structure, and something about that feeling of kind of matching helps them to feel understood, yeah? So, this is. It's basically this idea that something about, you know, matching. So, in some ways, it's this idea of, you know, name it to tame it, yeah? It's this idea that, you know, describing to a child how they're feeling helps them to calm down, you know, which, in turn, obviously links to the idea of mindfulness, yeah? There's some really nice kind of brain studies that, why does mindfulness, you know, work? It's this odd process of, you know, not trying to control the emotion, all you do is you try. You try to get a verbal label for it, you describe it, you analyse it a bit, and then you leave it, yeah? So, why on earth does that help us to control emotions? And there's these nice brain studies that show that the kind of emotions happen, you know, quite low down in the brain, you know, a bit just on top of the brainstem, kind of the limbic system. But this process of describing an emotion through mind, it physically spreads out the emotion in the brain. So, you know, when I think about that emotion, rather than just having, you know, a nodule of activation in the limbic system, I get activation. I get activation in the language and the analysis centres. And something about spreading the emotion out in the brain helps me to control it. It becomes kind of bigger in my brain, which somehow kind of helps me to get control, yeah? So, it's probably this idea, to a degree, with children, yeah? So, if I'm having my parent mirror my emotion back to me, yeah? Either by, you know, with a toddler tantruming, you know, repeating back to me what I'm saying, yeah? Matching their state to me. As a baby, yeah, I'm just seeing the same emotions that are on my face. In your face, yeah? And then even, you know, more counterintuitive in a way, my parent is matching their own physiological state, matching their stress state to mine. Something about that, you know, helps to, you know, make this feel bigger in my brain, which helps me to calm down. So, again, you know, this is an idea which, you know, is quite counterintuitive to parents. Because a lot of parents are very focused on this idea that, you know, I need to set a good example. And the way to set a good example is to keep myself calm all the time. But you can see how it ties into what we were talking about earlier, that idea of, you know, letting yourself go rather than just getting them to your state, letting yourself go to their state sometimes can help.
Speaker 4Yeah. And I don't know whether there's a conscious mechanism that happens there, but there must be a certain element of empathy.
Speaker 5Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's a way of showing that, yeah, my parent gets how I'm feeling. Yeah. Which is, I mean, actually maybe that's a separate idea to that idea of, you know, mindfulness and putting verbal labels and spreading it out on my mind. But yeah, it's definitely related, part of it, yeah. So, yeah. So yeah, but then obviously the, area where this is tricky is when we link this idea to what we were talking about earlier where we were talking about these externalizing chain reaction cascades yeah why i was describing you know we're stressed we're going on holiday i start um you know shouting at my kids in the back which makes them more stressed which makes them more oppositional yeah which basically gives us a chain reaction cascade yeah because this idea of sharing emotions and a family in a you know controlled way yeah i i controlledly match my emotion to yours yeah is is as i say quite well evidenced in lots of different ways is a good thing but you if it goes wrong then that can all be to what we call stress contagion yeah emotion spreading in a family in a bad way whether it's you know having a big row or you know we also do some research into anxiety contagion so you know you're helping your children to pay attention to threat which makes them more worried which makes them more likely to point out threats to you yeah and you get this kind of you know anxiety contagion spreading through families and i don't think there's a simple right or wrong here but there are two ideas that are you know one's good and one's definitely not good but they're very very closely related yeah i i was talking about this to a clinician friend and um she was saying that this is actually an idea that you think about in therapy as well so they talk about having one foot in the boat with a client yeah so you're empathizing with them but the other foot on the riverbank yeah so you're not empathizing with them too much yeah you're doing it in a controlled way there's this person um celia hayes who talks about kind of two different empathy brain systems yeah one empathy one which is controlled and deliberate yeah so i'm controllably going to imagine what this situation feels like from your point of view and describe back to you how you're feeling yeah and the other which is empathy two which is involuntary yeah which is i'm picking up on your emotions so i'm picking up on how you're feeling you know your tense and that's making me feel tense yeah which is you know obviously the stuff that leads to the bad uh stress contagion so i i don't think there's a real answer that goes beyond that yeah so you know sometimes this idea of matching your child's emotion your emotion to your child is a good thing when you do it deliberately and in a controlled way yeah but sometimes it's a bad thing when they're ratty which makes you ratty and you're not chatting to each
Speaker 4other yeah but i'm guessing if that comes from a place of you know we often talk about this co-regulation in terms of if we ensure as an adult that we are in as as good a state as we can possibly be so we've taken care of ourselves then in those moments when our children become dysregulated we can potentially tune into that and mirror that more in a more controlled way than actually do you know what i am absolutely on my last tether you have just snapped and now actually going to go into that negative cascade
Speaker 5yeah yeah this is something i think about a lot you know my family we all tend to be quite on the anxious end and you know i notice this a lot with anxiety which is you know when i'm feeling calm i'm able to say imagine what this feels like from your point of view yeah whereas when i'm not feeling calm i interpret everything from my point of view yeah so you're screaming in a shop this is bad from my point of view because i'm in a hurry yeah so it's exactly that difference yeah so so if my child picks up a toy and says i want this in a shop yeah if i'm calm i can say what does this situation feel like from my child's point of view yeah and i can respond matching you know describing back to them how they're feeling yeah if i'm not calm i interpret that from my point of view this is inconvenient to me i'm in a hurry whatever and then i react very differently and that's exactly the difference you put your finger on it right right there
Speaker 4so we've heard from sam he's given us this interesting and slightly what might feel slightly contradictory evidence from neuroscience that rather than us sort of meeting our child's dysregulated big emotions with us being calm and containing
Speaker 2ourselves we're more comfortable with our own emotions and we're more comfortable with our own emotions and we're more comfortable with our own emotions and we're more comfortable with our own emotions and we're more comfortable with our own emotions and we're more comfortable with our own emotions the red cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood there's a place for everyone in the mission of the red cross including you the red cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply join us and help save lives to learn more and make your appointment to donate blood visit red cross blood.org slash lgbtq that's red cross blood.org slash lgbtq therapy's
Speaker 1biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in some dramatic in the smallest moments you bite your tongue instead of escalating you put your phone down instead of firing off that text you say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most nobody applauds those moments but they quietly change your life that's what growing feels like and that's exactly what grow therapy is here for grow is therapy that works covered by insurance sessions average 21 with insurance and some pay as little as zero dollars depending on their plan there are no insurance plans for people who don't have insurance plans for people who no subscriptions no long-term commitments you just pay per session grow connects you with thousands of high quality licensed therapists across the u.s offering both virtual and in-person sessions nights and weekends you can search by what matters like insurance specialty identity or availability and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days not the national 48 day average see if you could pay as little as zero dollars for therapy in seconds at grow therapy dot com slash a cast that's grow therapy dot com slash a cast grow therapy dot com slash a cast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan
Speaker 4that actually the research evidence shows that when we're able to match our children's state for that transient moment that that can have a significant impact in terms of health and well-being and well-being of the brain we're able to manage and then be able to regulate their emotions and this notion of the activation of that emotion within the within the brain then spreading when we are able to match that in that state that they have so rather than it just being active in the brainstem what we're able to do when we match that state that our children are in in that transient moment what that does is it spreads beyond the brainstem and it spreads beyond the brainstem and begins to spread out and in the evidence then shows that that seems to help control the emotion so let me just talk a little bit around that because i wrote lots of notes at the time that he said that and we you'll hear from the episode we talked about this idea about empathy so i just want to position this this isn't actually counterintuitive this is not contradictory to what i have suggested and certainly what a lot of parenting experts have suggested but i think that there is merit in this and i think that there is merit in this and i think that there is merit in discussing the complexities of this so what what sam has identified is that if we attempt to mirror our children's emotional state in that moment and we hit the sweet spot then we get this activation spreading beyond just the brainstem to all over the brain and that whole spreading across the brain moving from the limbic system that sort of primitive system of fight or flight much more to these higher executive functioning that we tend to sort of associate with more intellectual thinking that that spread seems to in lots of ways then also diffuse the intensity of that emotion so hitting the sweet spot is great if we don't then we end up in this spiral that he talked about at the beginning of the of the longer episode that we we've done so what i would want to encourage you to do and in lots of ways we've talked about this idea about validating our children's emotions and we do that that you know that's part of the advice that i give about you know i can see that you're frustrated you wish that you'll be able to play on your ipad all of the time and aren't i mean and when you're older you're going to be able to and you're going to make sure that you can be on your ipad whenever you want to you won't have parents telling you what to do so in lots of ways when we empathize and we acknowledge how our children are feeling with the language that we use but also adding in some of that emotional intensity that they're going to be able to use and we can truly reflect back an empathy and an acknowledgement of what our child's perspective and the lens in that moment and that's what i would like to encourage you to try and i believe that that sits very much within the research that professor sam was was talking about and how that can help dissipate contrary to this notion of our child is massively emotionally dysregulated we've said that they've got to put their ipad down and we just say now darling you can't do that you can't do that you can't do that you can't do that you know that you're not allowed the ipad and you've you've reached the end of your time now there's no point getting frustrated um or i can tell that you're upset so when we sort of meet their dysregulation with too much of that what can almost feel i've slightly exaggerated a little bit there this sort of not necessarily monosyllabic but just a monotone without that real sense of our acknowledgement that we've met them where they're at and we we truly understand that the energy of that frustration that they feel that may well be for some of you that are listening that have been trying to use the acknowledging but have not found that it's been helpful is i wonder whether it's just the level of the intensity that we mirror back and what sam did allude to is that that intensity can either be in the intensity with which the energy that we give back and that we acknowledge with our children but it can also be in terms of the way that we mirror their facial expressions you know that anguish that frustration that irritation that rage that annoyance we can also mirror back that helps our children understand that you know helps our children see that we empathize and that we acknowledge so i really just that was i just wanted to add that to the end of the episode because i think that that's a really helpful way to take that information because you know the data within the neuroscience is really sound and robust in terms of you know it's a very tangible thing that we see so it's about how can we then equate that how can we translate that into the day-to-day realities that we face as parents and make it super super useful for our children and for our children and for our children and for our children and for our so i think that's where the acknowledgement and the validation comes in but just pairing it up that little bit to validate their emotional state through the our facial expressions through a little bit of that energy and mirroring a little bit of the energy that reflects the emotion that they're feeling without it tipping into that cascade so i hope that that was a helpful piece of clarity and a tangible action that you can take away from that segment of the conversation my interview with professor sam was just really mind-blowing super super helpful and he has promised to come back onto the podcast to have an episode on attention and concentration so i know that that will be a big one so i hope that you have found that helpful and that little bit of clarity at the end super helpful as always if you enjoy listening to this podcast and you have not yet taken a moment to rate and review the podcast then why not press pause now and do that because that helps others find us so that we can spread the love so until next time blood donation is now more inclusive more lgbtq plus
Speaker 2individuals are able to donate blood with the american red cross blood donation is now more inclusive more lgbtq plus individuals are able to donate blood with due to fda guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation the red cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood there's a place for everyone in the mission of the red cross including you the red cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply join us and help save lives to learn more and make your appointment to donate blood visit red cross blood.org slash lgbtq that's red cross blood.org slash lgbtq at humana our
Speaker 3medicare advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet like offering more benefits than you'd get from original medicare alone and including dental vision and hearing coverage in every plan and the best part is every plan has a zero dollar or low monthly plan premium which makes it easier to save too so this medicare planning season plan well with humana learn more at get humana.com humana is a medicare advantage hmo and ppo organization with a medicare contract enrollment any humana plan depends on contract renewal
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