Speaker 1At Humana, our Medicare 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 $0 or low monthly plan premium. Which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at GetHumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
Speaker 2At 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
Speaker 3Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 31, and today I'm talking about all things to do with uncertainty. Now, you might instinctively think we're going to talk about the global pandemic. And of course, we're not going to talk about the global pandemic. And of course, that's been one huge area of uncertainty. But actually, there are so many other types of uncertainty our children will need to navigate. It may be starting school or moving school. It might be the school holidays because there's no structure. It might be trips that they're taking either with school or with you when you're going on holiday. Maybe you're moving house. Maybe as parents, you're separating. Maybe as a parent, there's a job move. Maybe you're moving to a different country or a different. City or a different town. All of these scenarios create an element of uncertainty. Now, before we get started, I want to say a huge, huge thank you to each and every one of you who listens to this podcast. I am so grateful you take time each and every week to tune in, to listen, and then act on my advice. So many of you have written to me to tell me how much of a positive impact each episode has had on your family. And your reviews bring a huge smile to my face every time I read them. Keep tuning in. Keep reviewing. Keep sharing. And our ripple effect will bring calm and confidence to more and more parents globally. So thank you very much. Now, back to navigating uncertainty. Some children and adults appear to be more tolerant of uncertainty than others. They find it easy to adapt and are accepting of not. Always knowing how and in what way things might or will work out. Now, possibly you might describe these adults and children as easygoing and one who simply goes with the flow. Bliss doesn't sound like you or your child. Here are some of the typical characteristics I'm going to talk through so that you can sort of work out whether your child or even yourself, you are one of these people who has a low tolerance to uncertainty. And I'll be honest, I probably have a certain element of low tolerance to uncertainty in some areas of life, but then a really high tolerance of uncertainty in others. So these are some of the typical behaviours or characteristics that you might see in someone who has this low tolerance to uncertainty. So the first one that you might see, and this is probably one of the more obvious ones, is that they may need excessive reassurance. Now, what's really clear here is the word excessive. We all, in times of uncertainty, of course, we're all going to seek some form of reassurance. But when we've got someone who has a very low tolerance to uncertainty, the reassurance seeking is excessive. It goes above and beyond what is needed in terms of being able to reassure them. So they want reassurance about what's happening, what might happen, when will things be more certain if we don't know that certainty. They will check and they will recheck multiple times. So that's one way that we're going to be able to tell that we've got someone who has that. The second one is they tend to ask lots of questions. And those questions are often aimed at reassuring themselves. So what if this was going to happen and why might that happen? And if this. So they're asking lots and lots of questions and lots of clarification. A key one is avoidance. Now, whether that's avoiding the subject completely, maybe we've got a child who is going to be starting school and they avoid even asking questions. They're not even having any discussions about the idea about starting school. They won't talk about school uniform. They won't talk about their first day. So it can either be that they avoid the subject because talking about it often brings up worries or anxieties or discomfort, which they would rather not think about. Or they might avoid the situations themselves, which bring about the anxiety. So if you've got a child who finds uncertainties around maybe school trips, then they may avoid them altogether. So we can get. Avoidance is a classic symptom. And we often see that not only with children, but we do it as adults. We avoid those situations too. So we've got excessive reassurance, asking lots of questions, avoidance. The next one is control seeking. So whether this is wanting. This is generally around wanting things done in a particular way and a way in which they dictate. And quite often with these sort of controlling behaviours, that there'll be a refusal to have anyone. Anyone else even attempt to soothe or support them unless they do it in a way that is quite precise to what they need and what they want. So there's that control. And control really is when we're in a situation of uncertainty, we don't know what's happening. And as human beings, we crave certainty. We want to know what's going to happen. And so what then happens, the controlling behaviour comes about because it's a way of us creating an element of certainty through uncertainty. And we can talk about that when we look at the strategies, ways that we can do this in a healthier way rather than a way that has to have things played out the same way each and every time. Another typical characteristic or behaviour from somebody who has a low tolerance to uncertainty is that they tend to play out lots of what-if scenarios. So we've talked about this idea that they need excessive reassurance and typical reassurance isn't enough, that they ask lots of questions, they don't ask lots of questions, they don't ask lots of questions, playing out scenarios will be almost, I always sort of think quite often when you see children in this state, it's almost, you can almost see those cogs are physically whirring and clicking and clunking as they're trying to work through different scenarios. As you're answering some of those questions that they've got or you're giving them some form of reassurance, it's almost like they're then thinking out and it's like, well, what if this happens? Okay, but you've said that, but what if that happens? And then obviously from these players, playing out these various different scenarios, they will then seek, it takes them back to that loop of then seeking more reassurance from us. So we've got this excessive reassurance, asking lots of questions, avoidance, control seeking, playing out scenarios. And then the final one, there are others, but these are the main ones. The final ones that we typically tend to see is a distraction or busying themselves with other things so they can keep their mind away, from dealing with the uncertainty. And actually as adults, we are humongously guilty of this. And now what happens with our children is that they'll busy themselves with things that might be watching television. It might be on a device. It might be anything and everything to avoid them just being. Now, often this particular characteristic and behaviour is what backfires at night time when our children then go up to bed because they're then alone with their thoughts and they have to process them. So if they've been trying, they're trying to busy themselves or we as adults quite often do this in times of uncertainty is we try and fill our day and make ourselves super, super busy. And it's only again when we go to sleep that all of those uncertainties and those anxieties and those worries then massively pop up. And that's where we have the difficulties in terms of going to sleep because we then are alone with our thoughts in our beds, in our bedroom, and we have to process them because they will naturally pop up. And we're going to talk more about that in a particular one in the strategies. So if by highlighting some of these, you've kind of thought, hmm, that sounds like my child. So how can we help? Now, here are my top five tips. I'm going to talk you through them and how you can implement them. But I want you to remember that these strategies will need to be adapted and modified to suit the age and stage of your child, your teen, your young adult, or you may have already picked up that. This is something that you might need to work on. So if we've got an older, a young adult, maybe they're finishing their last year of university, as is my son, who there's a certain element of uncertainty in some ways when you're at university each year that you're at university gives you an element of predictability. I've done my first year at university. Great, I know I've got a second year coming up. Great, I've done my second year. I know I've got a third year. When you're in your third year of a three-year degree, you have a huge amount of uncertainty because the uncertainty is about I've got to get a job and it can be huge uncertainty. around what might I want to do or who may I apply to for jobs so bear in mind that these strategies are not just for our young children who might be dealing finding it difficult to deal with a certain element of uncertainty because of what's happening with the pandemic but it's any form of uncertainty for any age whether it's a young child an older child a teen a young adult or even for us so my first tip is be fully present now whether this is through mindfulness silence or simply being in a quiet non-distracted space intolerance of uncertainty as we've spoken about when we're looking at the characteristic often leads to us trying to us avoiding certain situations we don't want that what we need to recognize in this analogy I remember seeing it and it's just such a heavy weight on my shoulders I remember seeing it and I was like oh my god I'm so sorry I'm so helpful analogy so what we tend to do is when we've got uncertainty and that uncertainty creates a level of anxiety and worry within us because it's something we can't control it's something that's unpredictable and we we think through multiple various different scenarios and we'll talk about chatter in a little bit but what tends to happen is our mind races and we want to avoid that racing so we busy ourself now the analogy I want you to examine to sort of imagine is a road yeah the road that is closest to where you live you might live in the middle of the countryside so just visually walk yourself to the nearest road or you might be living near a road now if I asked you to stand by the side of that road all day I promise I'm not going to but if I asked you to stand by the side of that road all day you would notice and you would observe over the period of time during the day that there will be times where there is quite a bit of traffic there'll be times where there is no traffic control and there will be times where there is no traffic control and there'll be times where there's the odd trickling traffic and in lots of ways that's what goes on with our thoughts and in our head is that the cars represent thoughts and sometimes when we're in a period of uncertainty it's like busy busy zoom zoom car car constant chatter chatter chatter now the idea tends to be that rather than sit and be present in that discomfort knowing that it will we don't tend to do that do we we don't want that we want to avoid it it doesn't feel comfortable we would much rather just busy ourselves and pretend close our eyes put our blinkers on and just simply not observe so by being fully present what we do is we allow ourselves to sit with that discomfort and then notice that that discomfort comes and goes now obviously it's easier I suppose to process cognitively in our thinking heads as adults it's more difficult for children which is why as I said we don't tend to do that do we we don't want that we want to avoid it it doesn't feel like a simple practice of mindfulness or being present is really helpful because otherwise what happens is our children avoid all day by being busy and then we store up a whole host of problems for when they go to bed so if you've got a younger child what you might find is that encouraging them to practice mindfulness or using that terminology might be tricky for them to understand so it's about you being aware of when you look at what happens when your child comes back from the child is or when they come back from school or preschool is that you really make sure that you create some opportunities and some time and some space where your child is free to play creatively with their own mind so that they're not watching television they're not on electronic devices they're not being directed by anything other than their own thought processes because what that allows them to do is it allows them to see that those thought processes come and go so that doesn't mean that don't let them watch television or don't let them do other things but it's be really aware and conscious and actively try and find periods of time when they are home where they are not being distracted by a mechanism that basically sucks their thoughts away or blocks out those thoughts because they are completely distracted with older children you can create this this concept and process of mindfulness whether they sit and do an audio or a mindfulness practice it's up to you you can gauge that with your child but what we're trying to communicate to our children is that it's really important to have moments of time during the day where they can simply be so with older children this is where we need to create device free time so devices get handed in get placed get put somewhere so that they are able to be away from those distractions they're not doing homework they're not on their devices they're not watching but they're just simply being whether that's sitting and drinking a hot chocolate or just simply sitting and reading a book or just staring out of the window or just sort of being comfortable it's really important that we encourage our children our young teens and our adult young adults to be fully present because it's only when they're fully present do they notice that these thoughts come and go and that that discomfort goes so that's strategy number one is about encouraging them to be fully present the second one is about focusing on the things that you can control what are the things that are within your control and being present and active within those so yes we can concentrate on this notion maybe you've got a child who's waiting to find out about a school place and they're constantly seeking reassurance i am going to get into the school aunt or i am going to get into a school and what's going to happen next year and what if i don't get yep they're going to get into a school and i'm going to get into a school and i'm going to get caught up in all of these various bits and pieces so they're wrapped up in that uncertainty or maybe you've got a child who's wrapped up in the uncertainty of covid and what might happen and what whether they test positive or they don't test positive or what might happen to a party that they're going to as a result of it or something that's happening with a school trip what we want to do is acknowledge that that particular situation scenario is difficult and of course it would be always know the answers to that but instead what we can do is encourage them to focus in on the things that they can control so and by control i don't mean them then creating scenarios that they actively control things but by simply acknowledging the things that are within their realm of certainty what are the things that we do know well what we do know in the scenario that we spoke about about schools is that you will be going you will have a school place we just don't know which school it is yet we do know that right now we are really healthy and we haven't got covid right now we know that we're enjoying the home that we're currently living in thumbtack presents tile trouble
Speaker 4every single time i use my sink i make eye contact with the uneven ground 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-configuration is 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 for
Speaker 3example if you're then moving into another house or you're moving into another city what we do know is that we can make friends easily so it's really trying to get them to focus in on what they can control what is within their remit rather than really getting you know homed in on the uncertainty we must acknowledge how the uncertainty is making them feel and the anxiety that that creates and the lack of control that they feel it and it's not about trying to poo poo it minimize it or diminish it in any way we're simply acknowledging that yeah god it feels really tricky and it would be amazing if we could really know what was going on and unfortunately at the moment that's something that we just need to wait to see what the outcome is but what we can focus in on are the things that are within our realm of control so the two strategies so far is encouraging our children our teens and our young adults and even ourselves to be fully present and to experience the discomfort and to experience how the discomfort comes and goes the second is focusing on the things that we can control and acknowledging how the uncertainty makes us feel the third one is practice being a little bit contrary in other words do the absolute opposite and go against your natural desire to run away or avoid so this is quite you can have a bit of fun with this one certainly with young children and with our older children and our teens and young adults we can talk about this it's that notion that comes up maybe we've got a specific situation where we're we've got a huge amount of uncertainty maybe there's a school trip coming up and we're feeling really uncertain about that school trip we don't like being away from home anyway and it's not something we're particularly looking forward to and our maybe our natural tendency is to say actually do you know what i don't want to go on the school trip or maybe our natural tendency is that we want as a child it might be that we want our parents to go into school and speak to our teacher and make sure that we're in a dorm or we're in a room or we're in a tent with with particular friends so What we're trying to encourage our children is to, you know, we know our and well enough to know what will be their natural desire whether that's to avoid it whether it's to run away or whether it's to actively control in some ways and let's have just say well let's have a bit of fun if that's we know that that's what we would do naturally why don't we try doing the exact opposite why don't we try and rather than actively go in there and try and control the situation by saying no i'm not going to go on the school trip or please can we make sure that this person is there as well is instead say i'm going to do the opposite i'm going to say yes to the school trip and then begin to equip ourselves maybe we might say i'm going to manage the uncertainty of who i may or may not be sharing a tent a dorm a room with a bunk with and i'm just going to see what happens but the more we can practice now sometimes when we're talking about big situations of uncertainty and if you have got a child who is really anxious about school trips they don't like going away and often they will say no then this may not necessarily be the best time to practice being contrary for the first time but what you might be able to do is begin to introduce this concept of being contrary to things that will bring about a small amount of discomfort but not huge don't laugh at the example but maybe you have a child who eats their food in a particular way maybe they leave their vegetables to last because they don't particularly like their vegetables they can be contrary then maybe they eat the vegetables first so they do the opposite maybe it might be about certain routines and rituals they have about going on their way up to bed and just trying to shift things or do things slightly differently whether it's the where they sit in the car on the way to school shift things up a bit so it's just encouraging our children because the more we can encourage our children to be slightly contrary to go against the natural grain what happens is they create a small amount of stress a small amount of anxiety which they then are able to overcome so that's huge when we talk about children who who worry or are not feeling particularly confident what we typically do is we try and avoid the situation but if we can experience a mild dose of discomfort a mild level of anxiety and we can overcome it the power that that has in terms of our confidence levels is that we can overcome it and we can overcome it and we can overcome it and is huge and we don't need very many of these very small little steps of anxiety that we overcome to allow us to make some really big steps forward and make some huge progress so that third strategy about practice being contrary start with the smaller things start with going against the natural grain or natural desires for some of the smaller things that thought we just get in a bit of habit of doing maybe as an adult and i am super guilty of this maybe doing an opposite i have to drink a cup of tea first thing in the morning followed by a cup of coffee what might happen if i just created a bit of contrariness and a bit of uncertainty by losing one of the drinks or maybe even both which we tolerate when we go away because quite often that's the way that's the nature of it and i'm not trying to trivialize it by giving that particular example but the more we can tolerate uncertainty with small things the easier it larger things so quick recap the three strategies we've done so far are be fully present focus on the things you can control and practice being contrary the fourth one is about managing your internal chatter and we talk about this so many times but it is so key and to me if there is only one gift one thing that you could be working on one skill set that you can be working on as parents that will equip your children for the rest of their lives and because you know that this happens to you and affects you as an adult it would be about managing internal chatter so let me recap for those of you who've not heard me talk about this before repetition is the mother of all learning so if you've heard me say this before then you are just going to hear it again because it's going to help so the idea is we have an internal dialogue we have an internal chatter and that narrates our life and creates our reality on one side we have the internal chatter that is the voice of our inner critic our ogre the part that is super scared of everything that says oh my god this is so difficult this uncertainty is making me feel so stressed out why can't we know what's going on yeah i can't do this i'm not good enough at that i'm useless at this people are judging me people are looking at me i can't yeah i'm not good enough i'm not clever enough i'm not popular enough i'm not smart enough i'm not something enough so that's the critic side and on the other side we've got the voice of our the voice of our best friend the voice of our cheerleader the voice of our best self and that is not a sort of the cheerleady that says oh my gosh you're so amazing you've so got this you can do anything that isn't what the cheerleader is the cheerleader the best self the best best friend is much more an internal chatter that says i know this is hard but you've always feels difficult at first but each time we practice it gets easier i know it feels scary not knowing but we can focus on this which we do know whatever that might be that other chatter is it's being able to recognize that when we are in a period of uncertainty when we're in a period of overwhelm when we're in a period of lack of confidence or worry we tend to tune into the internal chatter that tends to be the inner critic and the ogre and what we know is that we're not we know from all of the neuroscience and all of that information that we have about the way that the brain works is that our brain simply cannot attend to everything that we are bombarded with in our environment we simply cannot process every single thing so we are selective with our attention we only focus on certain things when our anxiety levels are heightened when our confidence is lacking we go into hyper vigilance i often talk to children about this idea that they're like meerkats they're constantly hyper hyper vigilant constantly looking around their environment noticing and spotting everything that supports their view that they are in a difficult and tricky situation because their brain is tuned into that they're in that intolerant uncertain times of worry and so they actively scan their environment for information which supports that view now we don't get that when our children are in their happy space whether that's on the digital device whether they're gaming whether it's their sport whether they're kicking a football whether they're reading a book whether it's playing an instrument whatever it is for your child when they're in that happy place they simply don't get into that hyper vigilance and instead we see them glowing and smiling and laughing and in that happy space so it's really important that we talk to our children and help them understand this idea of this internal chatter that is constantly going on and that that internal chatter creates the reality that our children live in because that's what our brain actively scans the environment for more of so when we talk about this idea when i talk about this idea about managing the internal chatter and replacing the inner critic voice with some mantras and a mantra is simply a statement that their internal cheerleader the voice of their best friend might say in a situation and instead when they're in hyper vigilance they know that mantra so they can repeat it as a way of soothing and shifting their brain's focus away from the critic and the ogre and the scary like ah and instead focusing in much more on that i've i'm i'm calm i've got this i know it feels hard but i can do it i'm safe everyone's here to help me whatever it is that that might be that they do so it's really important that we have this conversation with our children and help them understand that we're not alone and that we're with our children about their internal chatter and we do it regularly and also that that's a really important conversation for our teens who may well be on digital devices scanning social media and constantly criticizing themselves and our young adults who might be transitioning to university or who may be leaving university or in transitions to try and find their first job their second job their first home their second home whatever that might be it's helping them also understand that because that's such a key skill so quick recap we've done four strategies so far the first is helping and encouraging our children our teens and our young adults and even ourselves to be fully present so whether that's through mindfulness or just periods of time where we are not distracting ourselves deliberately with digital devices television or anything else or to-do lists the second is focusing on the things that we can control whilst ignoring the uncertainty the third is practice being contrary start with small things build it up because the more we can do the opposite the more we can pull ourselves out of our typical avoidance and running away and controlling strategies and mechanisms for managing situations and more into sort of more adaptive more strategies which help us rather than hinder us the fourth one is about managing our internal chatter and it's such a key skill so we've done four strategies and we're a huge one, such a huge one. And then the fifth and final strategy is practicing gratitude now let me explain why this is so key to help navigate uncertainty our focus and our lens as we've said before about managing our internal chatter when we're in an uncertain time we'll actively go to the stress the anxiety and the uncertainty that we have got so at the end of the day we tend to focus on more of that what practicing gratitude does is it aims to shift our focus and shift our attention back to being fully present but also focusing in on the things that we the small things that make such a difference yes we might have this uncertainty yes we might not know as a young adult what the workplace is going to look like and jobs after university yes it we may be moving school or we might be waiting for a school place or we don't know about the certainty which is have uncertainty which is happening with coronavirus but what we can do is we can shift our focus and shift our attention back to being fully present and shift by practicing gratitude is focusing on these small things which fill our day with joy and smiles and laughter and happiness and the way i would encourage you to do this is the evidence is very very clear talking about gratitude is helpful but doesn't significantly shift the positive impact it has to be written the process of writing it down is what makes the children under the age of 11 i would really encourage you to use different language so ask them for three things that made them smile laugh or happy those are the things children under 11 generally find the the concept of gratitude more difficult when you're older than 11 then you can look at this idea of gratitude this idea you know these small things the sun being out your cup of coffee just tasting particularly delicious on that particular morning so it's those sorts of things the friend that asked them to play the invitation that they got to a birthday party those small things they should be small they're not the big things that we want to focus on it's the small things and i usually recommend that you do this practice at the end of the day because it helps refocus it helps sort of change that emphasis at the end of the day from all of the uncertainty and the worry that tends to come up at night time but instead actually shifts the focus to the certainty and the good things and whether you do this practice at the end of the day it helps sort of make sure that you do that in a notebook or whether you do that on little post-it notes that go in a jar of color you know with colored bits of paper whatever works for your child whatever works for your family now for those children who are too young to write we have not missed you out it's just important that they make some mark on the paper whether that's drawing or if it's if they're too young to draw with anything that's recognizable it's just anything we want them to be in that process of engaging the thinking brain with the active process of engaging the thinking brain with the active process of moving the pen or the pencil so young children can do this it is just simply a case of them telling you what made them laugh or what made them happy and it might have been chocolate for pudding those sorts of things but getting them to mark the paper in some way so my let's just do a very very quick recap of the five strategies so be fully present focus on the things you can control practice being contrary manage your internal chatter and practice gratitude my gift this week is a checklist of these five simple strategies to serve as a reminder and a prompt so head over to my free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download the resource all you need to do is pop in your email address and you'll get instant access not only to this week's resource but all of the other resources across all my podcast episodes as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i would love to hear from you in the comments below and i'll see you in the next episode love it and would be eternally grateful if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time at arizona state university we're bringing world-class
Speaker 5education from our globally acclaimed faculty to you earn your degree from the nation's most innovative university online that's a degree better learn more at asu online.asu.edu
PodcastTranscript AI