Speaker 1Thumbtack presents Tile Trouble. Every single time I use my sink, I make eye contact with the uneven grout on my kitchen backsplash. The crooked corners eye me, and I'm haunted by more tiling questions than I thought possible. What kind of pro can fix a backsplash? Can I replace one cracked tile, or should I replace them all? What? What if I just use Thumbtack? I can hire top-rated pros, read reviews, and compare prices with a tap. All on the app. Thumbtack knows homes. Download the app today. Hello and welcome to the How
Speaker 2Not To Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. Today's episode is a little bit different because I am not doing the interviewing. Daniel Weisberg, founder of Cape, is going to be doing the questions instead. So, we're in discussion around all questions to do with, emotions, emotional regulation, what's the difference between a tantrum and a meltdown, what can we do as parents, how might we need to approach it differently when we're talking about children who might be neurodivergent rather than neurotypical. It's a cracking, great episode filled with super, super practical tips. And whilst I'm answering the questions, Daniel is also adding his thoughts, so you're getting a pretty comprehensive conversation. So, I hope you enjoy it, and as ever, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, and particularly this episode, because who isn't having struggles at some point with their children around emotional regulation and managing those big emotions, then maybe consider sharing it with a friend, a colleague, or anyone who you think might benefit from some of the top tips that we will be sharing. So, until next time, here are Daniel and I in conversation.
Speaker 3Thank you very much for joining us today, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Speaker 2so those are usually the sort of things i see transitions and when they perceive that they're unable to manage a particular situation i
Speaker 3love that seesaw analogy i've never heard that one before but i think that's really a really lovely visualization of of exactly what's going on here i really like that i i think you mentioned two of some of the most common things that we as psychologists really see transitions most definitely but you said the s word uh screens there's a lot to potentially unravel there i wonder if i could just mention one thing that a family recently said to me you know the phrase hangry um which is actually a new idea being children being hungry and angry that's we often see that as a common trigger but someone actually said they're starting to use halt now i'm like what on earth is halt um so it's hungry and angry but it's also lonely and tired that's the lnt and i've often thought that actually that's a really well we often see this so hungry and angry most definitely are triggers but lonely and tired are often things that that lead to behavioral change as well so anyway halt maybe
Speaker 2that's i love that i shall i shall remember that halt now but that is that's true isn't it because again it goes back to that bucket you've got the resources the bucket hasn't been emptied so there's
Speaker 3very little left i know completely agree if a child's going the triggers happened and a child's how can adults parents whoever it might be with that child at that time support a child during that that time and what what's good to do but also what's good to avoid
Speaker 2my view is that there are two bits there's what you do in the moment to help manage that situation and then there's what you can do afterwards so in the moment your child is dysregulated so you could be the most top of your field when it comes to you know being able to be great with children and help them with their emotions but in that moment they're not thinking with their logical brain they're not even accessing their logical brain so it's about creating a safe space we often talk about this idea about co-regulating don't we so children if a child is unregulated we don't want their unregulated self to meet our unregulated self so for us it's like holding that safe space so i say it's often just about just reassuring them it's okay i love you i'm here now obviously different children need different things some children will want to be held some children it's the worst thing you could possibly do to them so it's about just simply creating that space not having a conversation with them not not saying that's unacceptable it's simply it's okay this will pass i'm here when you're ready so it's just doing it's doing that um in terms of a don't it's like don't go into lecture mode there's the the sort of the reflective piece that i think is really important to do after your child has had overwhelmed so you can discuss how they were feeling how they responded what might they be able to do next time if your child in the reflective phase says next time please remind me to go to my room when you've talked about how you can help them in the future and they say actually i need my own space and they've given you permission to prompt them to go to their room because that's where they've got certain things that they will use that will help them then absolutely remind them to go to their rooms because that's where they've got certain things that they will use that will help them to us close to them even if they're screaming like get away from me it's about being close so that they know that they're not having to deal with these overwhelming sensations in their body and in them their brain on their own so i would say don't send them to their bedrooms keep a safe distance but be present and reassuring don't raise your voice if you can i know it's hard and we all do it and it doesn't mean we're going to mess up our children but if we can remain calm use few words and try and really see what's going on behind that big emotion rather than trying to fix or suggest anything
Speaker 3yeah i completely agree one of wonderful suggestions uh and actually rooted in the evidence of the best way to support children um i something you just said made me think of something that makes parents find it really difficult to do that in that moment because i you're absolutely right absolutely spot on but in that moment it is exceptionally difficult isn't it
Speaker 2yeah totally and particularly if we're feeling emotionally dysregulated or what can sometimes happen and i've certainly been hugely guilty of this when my children were younger is there's a bit of you that gets slightly triggered by how dare you do you not understand all of the sacrifices i make so you know there's some of that that's happening and sometimes it does come out you and i think it's absolutely fine you know if you are struggling with your child and your child feels emotionally dysregulated quite often we are not going to damage them by occasionally having these moments where we're then overwhelmed it's just if we are aware of this and try and do it one time more than we're doing at the moment then that's that's the important bit here it's not about
Speaker 3feeling guilty i completely agree there's there's quite a lot of psychological thought at the moment that actually when parents react they're not going to feel guilty they're not going to feel guilty in that way in that triggered or overwhelmed way it shows that we're human and and it also gives an opportunity for us to then repair it with children which is actually one of the most important parts we can help him develop reflect on it and say i'm sorry and this is what happens when my brain gets a bit too overloaded i completely agree so so actually what it sounds like is the meltdown or that that reaction that we're seeing is actually very normal for children certainly for parents but at what point should parents start to worry about behavior
Speaker 2yeah i mean i i think it's when we see it happening consistently around everyday tasks so where we're seeing a repeated pattern so every single morning before they go to school for example or every single evening before they're going to go to bed so it's the it's the every day rather than the more unusual things you know it's common for children to feel a little nervous and overwhelmed about going somewhere and trying something and they're like oh my god i'm going to go to school i'm going to go to school but things that they're more familiar with that is a regular part of their daily routine i think that's probably where we want to begin to have a conversation and i would say that coupled with noticing disruption in their sleep pattern so we're starting to see a child who's in and out of their bedroom multiple times they're too hot they're too cold they need a kiss they need a glass of water oh they forgot to tell you something that is you know they're finding it difficult or complaining that they're spending a long time awake in their bed and it might not be actually as long as they're saying but their perception is that they are struggling to fall asleep so i think for me that would be where it's worth beginning to have that conversation with somebody maybe school first initially if it's related to school and really just trying to see if we can tease out whether something has happened that might be very specific or it might be the beginning of something that needs more professional help
Speaker 3so you're you're looking for the frequency aren't you how often this is happening but also how much it's having an impact on real life sleep school friends i i completely agree i think that's they're useful signs for us to be aware of as parents so rather than then thinking about where to go can i come back to screens because the s word again because i think that is i think it would be really useful to pick up on this because i i absolutely agree that this is linked to behavior but let's let's start with screens in general why do you think screens are are a really big trigger for for arguments why are they a big trigger for these meltdowns what's what's going on
Speaker 2here part of it is how we manage it as parents i say this with love because our children can be quite they're incredibly immersive and absorbing aren't they you know we can be on our phone i don't i'm not on any social platforms but i peruse amazon regularly and i think i've been on there for five minutes and an hour's gone so they are immersive technologies they're technologies that are designed to lure us in and they are addictive by nature you know those who create these the softwares and the devices themselves it's well documented that their own children do not have access to these devices so they are created to be addictive so i think that's part of it and so because of that immersion our children then struggle to then transition off but i also think part of it is also that as parents we don't always and again i'm saying this with love rather than a criticism is that we don't manage our children's time on it from the perspective of setting clear boundaries about when they're on when they're off and then having certain processes in place so i'm a big you know i i don't necessarily advocate for a child should only be on a device for x amount of time i think we can you know my view is you know that um you get those videos that took that you've got pebbles and then big pebbles big boulders and then smaller ones then you've got sand my view is that devices time should be the sand so all of the big stuff goes in first yeah all of that sort of social interactions imagination creativity time all of those things go in first and then if you've got a school-aged child you've got homework and responsibilities in that in that regard and therefore screen time is the bit that fills that you you can then do that but what i do feel is really crucial is that what we want our children fundamentally to be able to do we're working with the end in mind is that we want our children to be able to self-regulate yeah we don't want our fundamentally it's a skill we want them to have into adult. adulthood. So we want to begin to be, as soon as we're handing over that device, to begin to be having conversations around how long do you plan to be on it? How are we going to measure that time and how are you going to be able to keep track of that time? Are we going to do an egg timer? Are we going to do a cooker timer or whatever that might be? And then it's the things that we often forget about. It's like having a conversation with our child beforehand. What are you going to do when you come off? Because we know that transitions create all sorts of challenges when they come off. Those are the things that create the overwhelm. So instead we can be having conversations around like teeing it up already so they know what they're going to do. And the other thing, going back to the comment that we made about hangry, is that children often it's exacerbated the transition off because they've become so absorbed and immersed that they then get quite hungry. So that can amplify the overwhelm when they then come off. So if we can put some of those things in place, will we still get overwhelmed? Overwhelm? Possibly. But we set it up much more for our child to begin to take ownership of I'm going on for an hour. I'm going to go and kick the football outside when I'm done. I've got a clock timer and I've got a countdown when it's five more minutes. And I've had a snack before I've started. So I think those things can also help.
Speaker 3You're managing it, aren't you? That seems to be the big message here. And I agree. I think you mentioned the two important factors again. It's the transitions and that change. Interestingly, I really don't think screens and transitioning off a screen is just like any other transition. I actually think a very significant difference between something on a screen, which is high energy, high engagement, instant reward, addictive, just like you've said, all the stuff that fills the brain with just stimulation into something that is the complete opposite, the low demand, low engagement, loads of effort required. So going from a screen to homework or a game onto bath time, these are massive, massive shifts. And that crash is absolutely going to be the outcome of it, isn't it? So all your suggestions here of manage that period of time, set up expectations, put children back in control, I think are brilliant ways to at least navigate that. And you're right, the transition is still going to happen. It's not going to be the world's easiest thing to happen at all. But you're taking control over it from a parenting point of view. I really like that. In terms of the content of games, you mentioned it's very much like an addiction.
Speaker 2And now we're going to take a quick pause for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 4The Mighty Dollar. Once upon a time, it had a whole menu named after it. Now, no more. But $1 a day lets you add $1 a day to your life. So if you're looking to get a new car, you can get a new car. Definitely something your younger self would roll their eyes at, but your current adulting self appreciates. Learn more at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers average premium costs based on Progressive home data from 2025. Product and prices may vary by state. I wonder if there's any
Speaker 3other thoughts that you might have around why it's so hard for children to switch off screens. I've often thought around regulation and screens being used for regulation, which is like the opposite to what we were just saying about this high intensity. But I wonder if you've got any thoughts on that side of things.
Speaker 2The thing is, our children's days are often super, super busy. They've got lots going on. And what can then happen is that they're not comfortable or they don't become comfortable with the discomfort what's going on in their heads. And so what can then happen, and this can be all ages, is what they then do is rather than have that period of just quiet, and it's not quiet as in they're sat there with their legs crossed meditating, but they're just simply being and allowing their thoughts to come and go. And so instead, what happens is our children feel that these thoughts are unpleasant. And rather than noticing that they will come and go because they sit for periods playing or reading or doing something else. Instead, they feel that they're not comfortable. They feel that they need to fill. And we often get this with children, even when it comes to going to sleep, needing to listen to a podcast or needing to listen to a sleep story. So instead, what they've done is they're not learning to regulate themselves. Instead, they're using whether it's the game, or whether it's the story itself as a way of regulating them rather than actually having the skills themselves. And of course, what that does is it almost it reinforces this hot, this sort of vicious cycle, and we get children who are already anxious becoming more anxious because they become reliant on these as a way of self regulating. So I do think that that is often then what's used. It's like this is my soothing mechanism, rather than I've got skills within inherently within me that allow me to self soothe, which then perpetuates the overwhelm when they then come off them, because they don't have any, they've got no tools, they've got no skills themselves to be able to manage it.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's a really interesting point. So we're not teaching to learn how to tolerate boredom or to manage frustration. We're just learning to use a device to get over it, or to not have to deal with it ourselves.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, we see it every day. As adults, if you're standing in a queue somewhere, as an adult, how many people do you look around at the queue who then quickly pulled out their phone, they don't need to necessarily it's just, this is a slightly uncomfortable situation, I might have to look at that person in the eye. And I might have to say hello, or so instead, we just remove ourselves from that situation. And that possible discomfort by then being on our phone. So it's I think it's an it's become so endemic in what we do, that we don't always notice it.
Speaker 3Yeah, I agree. I actually had a conversation with someone the other day in a shop completely out of the blue. I mean, a conversation who would have thought, but I agree with you. I think that is a really powerful and sad reflection, actually, of society. Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2we want to give our children that responsibility of it. And we want to help scaffold that. So I think having conversations about it regularly, monitoring it, monitoring our own use, and then agreeing and it's not you don't have to get to the letter, they've said that they're going to be on for an hour, and they're on for an hour and five minutes. But it's that it's those, it's having those conversations and building that skills and acknowledging that it feels tricky, you know, don't, you know, we want to acknowledge, yeah, okay, I know, it feels like, you know, it's not fair, you've got having such a great time on the game, and you're nearly finished. And we're so mean, because we're saying it's time to come off. And I get I get that. But it's really important that what we commit to, we follow through. So we're just, again, it's having those conversations, isn't it? And under, I think it's quite difficult to transition from highly exciting to highly boring. So let's create a bit of a layover, one, something that's a bit neutral, and then that they can transition, because actually, as every parent will know, trying to transition a child off screens straight into their homework, you know, you're, you're fighting a losing battle. So it's about having something in the middle, and that is a bit more neutral, and then they move on to something else.
Speaker 3Like, I don't know, playing Lego or something like that. Is that the sort of thing that you mean?
Speaker 2Play Lego, have a snack, you know, something that is something that is not, yeah, going from something that they highly enjoy. And it's different if you've got a child who absolutely, adores homework, then you are a very, very lucky parent, then of course, you can transition them across or piano practice. But for most, it's not an ideal. So it's having something that's a bit
Speaker 3more neutral. Yeah, I really like that. And I think there's, there's a lot to be said as well about clarity. You mentioned this before, it's what we're talking with, with children here who love to interpret what their parents say with a lot of flexibility, to put it differently. But it just means in these moments, what it sounds like you're saying is, is you need to be really clear. So vague rules, like you've been on it too long, or yes, I can't think off the top of my head now, something like that is not powerful enough to give that clear message, exactly what needs to happen next. It has to be along the lines of, you've got 10 minutes left, or you can watch one more video, or you know, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2I think that clarity, and the thing is, it's remarkable what children will do if that has been done. And I think that's, I think that's, I think that's, I think that's become the norm. So I was just going to share, there was one family that I worked with, but because this was their norm, they didn't see this, they saw this as absolutely the way that they did it. They had a book. And in their book, they wrote down the time. And they wrote down the duration that they were going to be on the device for. They wrote down what they were going to do. This was not instilled by me, this, the family had already done this before I'd even spoken to them. So they had all of this, and they would just go and do it every single time. And then they would log in afterwards, the time that they came off. That was the consistent message. When that device, when they were first given screens, it was that this was the privilege, this was the responsibility. And in the same ways, we want our children to brush their teeth, put their pajamas on, go to bed. That's how they thought it was, that was what everybody did. And so that's exactly what they did. Now, were there issues about transition? Sometimes there were, but because they knew this was how it worked, and they knew they were allotted a certain amount of time per week, they could then divide it. That's just, that was normal to them. So it can be done, but it's just about being consistent, being really clear, and then empowering our children to do it.
Speaker 3So actually, it can look like anything, can't it? It doesn't really matter what the message is, or how you manage it. It works for you as an individual family, as long as it's clear, it's consistent, the transitions are managed, it's all done. The sort of building blocks are there. The rest of it is up to you. It's up to you as a family. Yeah, totally. Gosh, I'm just sat there thinking, no way, what could work in our house? But I really, really liked the idea. And if we'd started it at some point. Yeah, which is what had happened. That's normal, isn't it? I really like. Okay. So, okay. Thank you so much about thinking about screens. I think that's, I think so many parents will relate to it because we know it affects every single family. So can we just think about the next steps here? If, if families are tried all these things, they've put things into place, but it's still not working. You know, what are the, what are the other signs that a child might need support? And what are the possible next steps families should be thinking about at this point?
Speaker 2Yeah. I mean, I think obviously we've talked about this idea about what we do in the moment and providing that space. But I think what, what I like to consider along with that is that we want to be able to help our children be able to communicate how they're feeling. So. Not in the moment. This is something that we just do in the same ways we spend and invest lots of time helping our children learn their letters and then blend the letters to make words and then to write. Emotional vocabulary, emotional literacy is something that just does, doesn't just happen. I mean, I think there's some suggestions that some people are inherently more emotionally intelligent than others, but it's a skill that can 100% be taught, which is very different to when we talk about intelligence. You know, which it seems to be much more of an innate thing. So the question then becomes that, well, how, how can we provide the scaffolding to help our children be able to communicate and understand their emotions? Now, part of that is a communication piece, but also I would say that helping our children be able to communicate how they feel in a nonverbal way as well, whether that's images, whether that's emojis, whether that's a thermometer, whether that's a color, it's up to, it's up to us. But. I think talking about emotions, I think is a really important thing for us to be doing. You know, let's label our emotions. Let's talk about the frustration that we're feeling when we're sat in the car and we're stuck in traffic and we're going to be late. It's really, it's having those sort of conversations and then attempting to help. It's not about trying to project our feelings onto our children, but questioning, I wonder if you might be feeling. So we're beginning to explore and helping them be able to do that. But it's the whole. The whole breadth of helping them be able to communicate some of the sort of the common things that we tend to think of in terms of toddler tantrums. For example, the research has shown that if young children in that period of time are given a means of being able to communicate to some basic sign language, we see a significant decrease in toddler tantrums because you just imagine, and this doesn't necessarily happen for, for toddlers. In essence, if you've got somebody, children don't develop in this clear linear form. So they develop across multiple areas of their competency. So you could have a 10 year old who emotionally in terms of their emotional literacy may well have the emotional literacy of a five-year-old, for example. And so we look at the outside of the 10 year old and we have an expectation that they should be, come on, Alice, you're old enough now. You shouldn't be doing that. Well, if Alice doesn't have the vocabulary, if she's not equipped to be able to communicate, she hasn't yet acquired those skills, then of course she's going to communicate in a different way, whatever's available to her. So it's about trying to really think about how am I scaffolding as a parent? How am I providing opportunities and ways for my child to be able to communicate to me how they are feeling, and then beginning to sort of add those labels and being really expansive with the language that we use. We tend to kind of stick to the, like happy, sad, angry, cross, scared, nervous, but often we experience, you know, a child could feel really embarrassed as well as nervous at the same time. So it's really kind of being a bit more playful with it, I think.
Speaker 3Wow. Okay. Emotional literacy is something that often comes up a lot. And I think the example that you gave the 10 year old with skills in one area yet have not yet developed skills in another area is such a powerful one because it's going to have a massive impact on their emotional literacy. And that impact is going to be shown through behavior, isn't it? We were talking recently about younger children and the terrible twos. And actually, I think that's a misnomer. It's not really a misnomer. It's exactly what's happening. But it's misunderstanding what's actually happening here. Because based on what you're saying, it sounds like at that period of time, especially when brain development goes at such different paces, a two year old will have the ability to do something wrong. And it's going to be a misnomer. Well, I don't know, let's say, chew their food, but have absolutely no skills in another important related area, like using cutlery, for example. So you end up with a frustration response of not being able to do it properly yet sort of having the skills. And we just sit there and go terrible twos. Awful. Yeah. Whereas actually, it's understand taking that step back and understanding the difference in brain development here, isn't it? I wonder if there's a point, though, where we might need to start thinking about taking a family to a GP, a paediatrician, maybe even CAMHS, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, at what point does behaviour cross a threshold into that level of intervention?
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it well, it goes back to this sort of when it's happening consistently, and it's having a significant impact on that child's ability to operate on an ordinary daily and we're getting this we're spotting signs in other areas as well in terms of it's impacting their sleep and it's impacting their wakefulness i think that those are the kind of the crucial bits it's looking at in terms of how they go about their day-to-day is it impacting that are we spending significant amounts of time trying to console or trying to manage a particular situation then i think what with those scenarios we want to be having conversations with professionals about it
Speaker 3i completely agree and there's nothing to be ashamed of is they're talking to talking to professionals um just for that little bit of advice and guidance and thinking from a non-emotionally involved perspective can be very powerful
Speaker 2can't it yeah we're so in it we just that it can be that real objective look and it may well be that they'll notice something that we've just completely
Speaker 3overlooked okay oh well i think this has been fascinating i think we could talk about all these different areas in a lot more detail uh for a lot longer and i just wonder if if there is a takeaway message we could give here if you know if there's one thing to take away for parents or for teachers um i wonder what you think that might be
Speaker 2i think for it for me it's about finding a way in those moments to look beyond the behavior that's being presented to you and just taking that moment to be able to respond and to question what might what the emotion might be behind it and in order to do that being able to recognize that we are most equipped to do that when we are also taking care of ourselves you know that sort of this notion of self-care emptying your bucket whatever it might be is that we are much more likely to be able to hold that space look beyond the behavior if we're not taking care of ourselves and if we're not taking care of ourselves we have also in sort of prioritized our self-care and our regulation as well
Speaker 3we've got to look after ourselves in all of this don't we yeah fabulous marianne thank you so much it's been really interesting um and i hope this has helped many parents think about uh what's going on in their own houses
Speaker 2brilliant thank you at harmony bank we believe that
Speaker 5better 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
PodcastTranscript AI