Speaker 1At Harmony Bank, we believe that better happens together. We're a locally owned bank built on relationships and personally committed to your success. Our community bankers are ready to make quick decisions. No big bank bureaucracy, just a custom approach to help you thrive. From business loans to mortgages and everyday banking needs, Harmony Bank provides a secure, modern experience with a touch of Texas hospitality. We're Harmony Bank, where better happens together. Hello and welcome to the How Not To Screw Up
Speaker 2Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 149. And today's episode is going to be about how to screw up your kids. Today's episode for your children, I'm trying something completely different. Many of you tell me you listen to the podcast in the car and your children end up listening by accident. Also, when I run the 60 Minutes with Dr. Mary hand talks each month, I'm often asked to consider running a session for your children. So, I have decided to dedicate this episode to your children and teens. So, whether they are 7 or 17, 5 or 15, this one is for them, primarily. Now, of course, you can pick up some tips here as their parent. And I really hope it creates something that you can connect and talk through. Although, please don't harass your child if they are reluctant to listen or they listen and they don't want to get into one of those long parent chats, which is really just another word for lecture. Sorry, that's one of the common things that children and teens tell me, which is why they. often roll their eyes and refuse to engage in constructive conversations when you're doing all of the talking and very little listening. So, here goes. Hello, my name is Mary Han. I'm a mother to two grown-up children and your parents, now that might be your mum, dad, mum's dad, grandparents, nanny, guardians, aunts, uncles, they listen to this podcast for tips on. how to be the best version that they can be. You see, being mum or dad is not as easy as it might seem. So, okay, they're adults and they get to choose what they want to do and when, which is totally the opposite for you, being told what to do, when and what you are not allowed to do. But when it comes to being a parent, it's actually a lot harder than you might think. You see, parents worry about their children. They worry whether you're unhappy. They worry about whether you're making friends, whether you're learning, whether you're sleeping, whether you're eating well. They worry that they're not giving you everything you need and they worry that they might be giving you too much. And one of the biggest things that they worry about, which you haven't probably even thought about, is that they worry how other people might be judging them and thinking that they may not be doing a good job as your parent. Crazy to think, because we usually think adults are confident, but in the same way as you sometimes, or maybe all the time, think other people are judging you, parents and adults worry just as much as you do. In the same way as you think everyone else is better than you, they think every other parent is better than them. So, what are the other things you might not know? So, I want to share with you what I call five truths. These are five things which you may or may not, not know are true. So, here goes. The first one is, and I think this is a pretty powerful one, is that your brain does not know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. So, for those of you who like watching maybe some scary films, or maybe you don't like watching scary films, but there have been some scary bits to films that you've watched and you've noticed how your body just doesn't like that. Maybe your heart beats faster. Maybe you get a horrible swirling in your stomach. Maybe you hide behind the pillow. Usually what I do. Or maybe you leave the room. And what's happening there is that your brain does not know that what it's watching, or if you're someone who loves reading, that what you're reading, or maybe even when you're on that scary ride at a fairground or on a roller coaster, your brain does not know that what it's experiencing in that moment, what it's reading, what it's seeing, what it's doing, isn't something that is dangerous. Dangerous. As in, like, super dangerous. And so what happens is, because our brain doesn't know that what you're watching on the television or in the film or in the cinema or what you're reading in that book isn't actually happening to you, but it's creating this movie in your mind. It's creating these feelings. So, of course, your body reacts as if it was actually happening to you. And that's what's so incredible about our brain is that we can use it in so many incredible ways. We can use it in our descriptive words that we write. We can use it in the stories that we tell people, which is incredible. But that can also have a bit of a downside because we can imagine all sorts of things happening and create all sorts of stories and movies in our mind about things that are just simply not true. So we can choose to use that power that our brain has in one of two ways. We can either use it to imagine and create all sorts of scary things that make us feel so scared that we don't want to do something because we've imagined it to be the most scary thing. I do that with heights. I imagine that all sorts of horrible things are going to happen when I walk over that really high bridge and I'm looking over the edges and I'm thinking something is terrible going to happen. But, of course, nothing terrible is going to happen. It's just simply my mind and my thinking creating all sorts of stories and all sorts of things. And all sorts of movies in my head that are just simply not true. So that's one way we can use it in a way that maybe stops us from trying things because we're super scared. Or we can use it to try and imagine some of the things that might happen that might not be quite so bad. Now, it doesn't mean that we have to imagine it always going right, but it's about not always imagining it going wrong. And there's a very, very famous quote I want to share with you because I think this is, shows the power of this supercharged brain that we have, this incredible thing. And it's whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. Because your brain will do what it thinks is true. So if you think that things are going to be really awful, that's probably what's going to happen. You're probably going to be right. If you think that things are not going to be that bad, that it's worth a bit of a go, and actually, if it all goes horribly wrong, does it really matter? Then your brain will then be more likely to try and to do something. So the fact that your brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined can be used in a helpful way, or we can use it in a way that gets in the way. So it's about helping us trying to reimagine and recreate the stories that we make, the movies that we make, the movies that we play in our mind. And I'd imagine some of you who've got super, super busy brains, who've got super imaginative brains, may well be creating all sorts of horrible, worst scenario, not so good things coming out, scary things, probably before you go to sleep. So one of the things that we can do is to recognize that our brain does not know that what you're imagining in your head, that the scary things that might possibly happen is actually just something that you're telling it. And if we change what we're telling our brain, if we change what we think, we can change how that feels in our body. And that's just amazing, which means that we can really, and I know your parents say this a lot, and maybe you find it really annoying, but it's true. We can be anything that we want to be as long as we think we can. So that's truth number one, is that your brain can be anything that you want to be. That your brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. Number two, sleep is so important. Do you want to know why? Well, your sleep is basically when your brain files away all of the things that you've learned during the day. Now, this is not true, but this is how I imagine it in my mind. I imagine in your brain that there's almost like a librarian pushing a trolley with lots of books in that trolley, that then have to be put back in the right place on the right shelves in the library. And that is pretty much what your brain is doing. One of the things that your brain is doing, your brain is doing all sorts of things. But one of the things your brain is doing is taking all of the things that you've learned during the day, whether that's, I don't know, you've been practicing on the trampoline, doing the somersault, maybe you've been practicing your vocabulary for French, maybe you've been doing some spellings or sometimes tables, or you've been building something in Lego, whatever that might be. What your brain is doing is that, it is filing away all that it has. has learnt into the right place in your brain, ready to store it so that next time you need it, it can then get it really quickly. So that's one of the reasons why sleep is really important. So if we don't sleep as much as we should, then our brain finds it more difficult and it runs out of time and it can't put all of those books away on the shelf. So that's one of the important reasons why, that's one of the reasons why sleep is really good. The other reason why sleep is really good is that when we sleep, our body and brain repair themselves. So all of the muscles that we use in our body and our brain is just another muscle. All of those muscles, they get tired, they get worn out and they need that time sleeping to kind of repair and fix themselves. So it's almost like there's like a cleaner going around and just making sure that everything's okay. So that's another really important reason why sleep is really good. And one of the other things that happens when we're sleeping is that all of the hormones, these are almost like little messages that go around our body that help send the messages to grow, to get stronger, to get bigger. All of those are also happening in our sleep. And so these are why sleep is such an important thing to do. And one other thing that you may or may not know about sleep is that when we sleep at night time, we sleep in what we call, sleep cycles of 90 minutes. So we sleep, we go through these different stages in our sleep where the different things are happening in 90 minutes. So if you work out how long you sleep, you'll be able to work out how many of those 90 minute cycles you go through in the evening. So you go through those and in those 90 minutes, you do different, your body and your brain are doing different things in during that time in your sleep. So you will be dreaming lots of time, in your sleep. So you'll have maybe five or six of these 90 minutes, depending on how much sleep that you have at night, which means you're having five or six different dreams, but we don't always remember all of our dreams. We usually remember the last one that we had, but it depends when we wake up in that 90 minute cycle. So that's why sleep is super, super important. So the first truth was that the brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined. The second truth is that sleep is really, really important. The third truth is that friendships aren't easy. Yeah. So you may be listening to this and actually having no problems at all. Maybe you've always found friendships easy, but I'm telling you that they won't always be easy. And you also might be listening to this and you might be finding it difficult with friendships at the moment. And I want you to also know that they aren't easy because they constantly change. If you think about, depending on how old you are when you're listening to this, but you playing, the things that you like doing, maybe when you were quite little, maybe four, five, six, you'll remember those. Because we don't usually remember things before we're three. But usually if we've remembered something before three, it's because our parents have probably told us or our grandparents or our teachers have told us about a particular story. But if you think about some of the things that you used to like playing with when you were younger.
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Speaker 2And you think some of the things that you're doing are going to be okay. Things that you play and you enjoy doing now, they'll be different because each of us change as we get older. Yeah, we might not think that we've changed that much, but the things that we like to do, the things that we like to talk about, the things that we love, the things that we don't love will change. And because they change and because we change as we get older, what that means is the people that we want to spend time with are likely to change too, because they may not necessarily want to do the things that we want to do as we get older. And so our friendships are going to change. Some of us might be very, very lucky and keep some friends all the way through in terms until we become adults and we may have those friendships all the way through. I have got six really, really good friends that I met in year seven and I've known them for a really, really long time. So 44 years I've known these friends. So you may well have friends like that, but even my really good friends that I've known for 44 years, our friendship has changed. There were times when we were really close, times when we were not so close, sometimes when we saw each other a lot, sometimes when we didn't, times when we enjoyed doing things together, times when we were really doing completely different things. So friendships are never going to be easy and we're not always going to have the same friends. So there'll be friends, I call it sort of friends for different reasons and friends for different seasons. So you may have seasons in the same ways we have spring, summer, autumn, and winter. We can sometimes have friendships that are seasonal. So they are friendships that we have for very particular times in our life. It may well be that they'll be the friends that we'll have because we do an art class. They may be friends that we have because we do football or netball. Those are seasons. And we don't tend to see them as much, but we can also have different friends for different seasons because there might be different times in our school life. Maybe we have particular friends that we hung out with and we spent lots of time when we were in year three and year four, but maybe as we've moved into year seven and year eight, they're not the friends that we have. And maybe they're not the friends we have because we've just gone to different schools and we don't spend so much time with them. So it's really, it's understanding and not worrying that you're not going to make those friends because friendships are always going to change. New people are going to come into our school. New people are going to come into our friendship group. And sometimes that means that our friendships will, our big gang may no longer be a big gang or that one best friend that we had may well find another best friend that is more like them as they have changed. And so will you. So I want you to know, that you are not alone, that friendships aren't easy, that they can be difficult, but what we want to focus on, what we really want to think about are finding the friendships, the green friendships, I call them. So those are the friendships that when you've spent time with them, they're like your naggy parents that keep going on about the seven or eight or five fruits and vegetables you should have each day. A green friend is a friend that once you've spent time with them, you feel amazing afterwards. You don't change who you are when you're around them. You can just be completely relaxed and confident. You can be yourself. They get your quirkiness, they get your jokes, they get what you love. You don't have to be exactly the same, but you've got that kind of friendship that makes it feel great. And those are the people that we want to find. And sometimes we find those green friendships really early on, sometimes we have to kind of wait that little while and maybe spend time with our, with amber friends, with yellow friends, and maybe red friends that don't make us feel great afterwards, but we can spend some time with those friendships whilst we're waiting and we're finding our true green friendship. So the third truth is that friendships aren't always easy. The fourth truth is that everyone worries about being green. And I'll tell you why I absolutely know this truth. And I'm saying that it's even your parents too. So I am very lucky. I get to go to lots of schools and I talk to lots of children and I also talk to lots of parents. So let me talk about what I do when I talk to children. So I talk to children who might be in reception. So they're four and five all the way up to children who might be in year 12 and 13. So they're 17 and 18. And I can tell you, because I do this special thing that I ask them to do, which involves them standing up. I won't bore you with all of the details, but this is something that I do. And I can tell you now that over half, so I'm talking about 70%. So if there were 10 children in a class, seven would stand up. And the question is, how many of you worry about what other people might be thinking about you? And how you worry that other people might be judging you? And when I ask that question in a room where if there were 10 people, seven would stand up. Now, you might be listening to me saying this and you might be thinking, oh, that's absolutely rubbish, Mary-Anne, because in my school, in my class, in my year, everybody is confident. Nobody worries about the way that other people think about them except me. Now, I'm here to tell you that this is a great truth, is that people are really good at faking confidence, at looking like they're confident. And they're usually the people that you think are the most confident that are not always. Now, I'm not saying that because that makes them bad people. It's just simply, remember, this is a truth. It's simply a truth. If you're worried about what other people think of you, you're probably going to try and pretend that you're not. And I can tell you, as a person, that I'm not going to pretend that I'm not. I'm not going to pretend that I'm not. It's an absolute truth because the work that I do, besides doing a podcast, is that I work with children and teens and young adults. So that means adults in their 20s who are not confident at all, who struggle, who worry what other people think of them and think that they're not good enough and that they're being judged and they're not clever enough. They're not popular enough. They're not funny enough. They're not accepted enough. Whatever it might be, they're not good enough. So I know that so much of what I see, people sort of looking like they're confident and children and teens thinking that everyone else is better than them and everyone else is so much more confident than them, just isn't true. And it doesn't change when you become an adult, when you become a grown-up, unless you do the work and you really work. And I'm going, that's my fifth truth in a minute. Actually, if I was in a room of grown-ups, if I was in a room of parents and I asked the parents who hear worries about what other people think about their parenting or worries that they might not be good enough at their job and what they do, seven parents out of 10 would say that they are. So I want you, I'm not saying that to kind of make you feel awful. I'm saying it because I want you to know that when you look around the playground, when you look around in your classroom, when you are thinking that you are the only one who is worrying about being judged, who is worried about what other people think of you, I can tell you that most of the people in your class, most of the people in that room, most of the people in whatever it is that you're doing will be thinking exactly the same as you. They're just hiding it. And hopefully that will help you feel that little bit better. So that's the fifth and final truth, which is confidence comes from doing scary things and not waiting to feel more confident. Yeah. So we quite often feel like I'll do that when I feel a bit more confident. I'll maybe audition for that, or I'll maybe try this, or I'll maybe go and meet new people, or I maybe might stay away from home, or I might go up to somebody and ask them to help me. And that's not going to help me. We think that confidence comes to us. It's not. Actually, confidence comes when we do the scary thing that we're really nervous and worried about, and we think we're going to make a complete and utter mess, and that people are going to laugh at us and think that we're ridiculous, or they're going to point at us, or they're going to say things about us. Confidence comes when we do that anyway, and we don't worry about what might happen, because usually the worst thing does not happen, even if we think it is. It goes back to that first one about, oh, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. Our brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined, because we imagine all sorts of awful things happening. If we try, we then don't try, because our brain is trying to protect us. Our brain is trying to keep us safe. So our brain says, don't do that, because all of these awful things might happen, and very rarely do awful things happen. And so confidence really comes from doing scary things. Now, I'm not going to say to you that maybe you should go out and do the scariest thing that you imagine, but I am saying to you that maybe there is something that isn't super, super scary, but is a little bit closer to the scary thing that you would really love to be able to do, but you feel too scared to try. So it's about trying to do very little things, small things, take small steps. Maybe if you want to make friends with someone you're not friends with at the moment, that probably feels super, super scary. So maybe rather than trying to go up to them and making friends, you might smile at them and say, oh, I'm not going to do that. Maybe do that for a little while, maybe do that for a week or two weeks or three weeks even. And as you feel a little bit more confident and you've smiled and you've said hello, you might then ask a question or start a conversation. So it's about taking small steps, doing little things, because then what then happens is our brain learns that that scary thing actually wasn't as scary as we thought. Now, it doesn't mean that when we try scary things that they're always going to go right. They aren't. Things do go wrong. We do make mistakes. Things happen not to plan. But it's really important that when we learn to try and that it isn't a total disaster every time, because it might be a disaster sometimes and that's okay. But when we learn from that, our brain then becomes that little bit braver. It then doesn't start imagining all sorts of awful things happening. And it realizes that actually, you know what? It's not quite so scary. It's not. It's not quite so bad. I can do this. So those are my five truths. They are that your brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and what's imagined, that sleep is super important, that friendships aren't easy, that everyone worries about being liked, even your parents, and that confidence comes from doing scary things. Now, if you have enjoyed this episode or at least thought it wasn't quite as awful as you thought it was going to be, can I ask you one favor, please? Can you tell your parents and tell them if you'd like me to record some more like this on things which actually, which really matter to you, things you might be finding tricky right now, things that you don't always feel your parents get, things you think you could use a little extra help with as maybe you, you know, it might be around friendships, schoolwork, technology, confidence, sleep, worrying about constantly being judged or a busy brain that won't stop thinking or chatting or imagining and scaring you. Whatever that might be, tell them, let them know. And if you've really enjoyed it, then maybe ask your parents to rate, review and follow this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time. Thank you so
Speaker 1much for joining us. We'll see you next time. modern experience with a touch of Texas hospitality. We're Harmony Bank, where better happens together.
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