Speaker 1Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up 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 $0 depending on their plan. There are 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 $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com slash ACAST. That's growtherapy.com slash ACAST. growtherapy.com slash ACAST. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan.
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Speaker 4Hello and welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. Before I start this week's podcast episode, I want to tell you about a series of online talks I will be giving to help you navigate this ever-tricky challenge of parenting. The first talk is on the 21st of September at 8pm UK British Standard Time. And I will be talking all about how to raise confident, resilient children. Tickets are just £8 UK pounds and include the talk and also a downloadable workbook to help you after the talk to implement the strategies that I'll be discussing with you. You can buy your tickets direct from the homepage of my website, drmerryhan.com, or get the link in today's show notes. This will be the first of a series of talks covering topics I know you want to know more about, which need a little bit of time. A little more time to discuss, and more importantly, the opportunity for you to ask me questions directly. I cannot wait to get a chance to answer all your questions. Back to this week's podcast episode. This is episode 56, and today's episode touches on the slightly uncertain ground many parents face as to whether they should or shouldn't be worried about their children's mental health. Let me put this into some context. Your child may be. Lacks a little confidence. Maybe they struggle to manage their emotions sometimes, or maybe often. Maybe they even say they don't like themselves, or they wish they weren't around anymore. Is this something which all children go through, or should you be worried? Or do you have a child who's just acting up, looking for attention, just being a child? I know that there are a lot of people who feel we are all, as parents and educators and mental health services, we're all just being a little. a little too soft with children. That the increase in mental health issues is simply us pandering to children's egocentric ways, and we should just toughen them up. Tell them to get on with it, and then we wouldn't have all these issues. Now, I get why some people will say this. I do, and yet. Now, I will be completely honest. My view is that prevention is always better and easier to put in place than cure. So I'm always going to say, I'm going to err on the side of caution. So let me explain my rationale. I would much rather act in advance of an issue than wait to see one blow up in front of my very eyes. Now, I know that this won't be possible for everyone, and some of you listening to this episode will already have a child or teen that's in a really difficult situation, that they've got some real struggles with their mental health, and you're looking for some tips and advice. But for those of you who are not sure, maybe for those of you where those sort of comments that I've made resonate, maybe you do have a child who struggles a little bit with their confidence. Maybe they do manage their emotions, find it quite difficult to manage their emotions. Maybe they do sometimes say things that they don't like about themselves or that they wish they weren't around or they hate themselves. It is that, what do we need to do? And I see this around me each and every day, which is why my view has and will always be that prevention is better than cure. And let me put this, this will be my response, to those that think that ultimately we're just pandering to children and that there really isn't a problem whatsoever and we just need to let children toughen up. So I'm going to put it to those of you who say this, that this is just a phase and that teens are going through when children are going through and that they're looking for attention or maybe that they're just lazy. Our children's behaviour tells us something. It gives us a glimpse into their inner world, how they are viewing life for them right now and how they're going to live it. How they are coping or not coping with it. And if your child, and I mean if your child is attention seeking and actually not having a mental health issue, then to me, that is telling you something. They are expressing a need and we cannot and should not ignore it. My personal view, and I'm happy to have a discussion with anyone who differs, but my personal view is that children aren't born to be difficult. They are born to be difficult. They are born to seek love, attention and have a natural curiosity. When they perceive these needs are met, they thrive. When they perceive these needs aren't met, they show us in their behaviour. Please note my word, perceive, because it is absolutely critical that we take that into account. We cannot as adults objectively look at a situation that our child is finding overwhelming and challenging without our child's understanding of it. Our logical adult brain that comes with a whole heap of years and hours worth of experience and say, I don't understand why my child is being so difficult. I've just simply told them they need to do their homework or they need to go to bed or they need to come off their device. Why do they think it's such an issue? They've been on it for so. The notion here is we can't use logic. We can't use rational thinking when a child is experiencing a big emotion. We have to place ourselves in the position of our children and how they perceive, how they view that situation through their lens in exactly the same way as we would expect a friend, a colleague, an employer, a line manager to be able to perceive our challenge, our overwhelm in a situation that we're experiencing. We have to take that step back. And I know that this is really, really tough. But this is why for me, we have to act proactively when it comes to children struggling to, to manage their emotions. Whether that then ends up transpiring to become a longer term mental health issue, to me, all rests with how we can respond to it in those moments. Now, my caveat here is that if you are a parent that has read every book, is implementing every single strategy, is listening, acknowledging and responding to your child's every needs as I would ask you to do that, and your child then experiences a mental health issue, is that your problem? Is that your fault? Is that something that you have failed in as a parent? Absolutely not. What I would say is because you have done all of the right things, what you have probably done is either delayed it or you have managed to minimise the way in which it would manifest itself. So this is not, this episode isn't about beating parents up. It's not about finger pointing. It's not about any of that. It's simply saying that we have to take these things seriously because our children are growing up in an environment that is completely, completely alien to the environment in which we grew up. Now I'm 53. So obviously I've got to go a lot further back than a lot of you who might be listening to this. You've got children, you're in your 20s, you're in your 30s, you're in your 40s. But the landscape that our children are growing up in has changed so profoundly, so dramatically that we have no concept. I genuinely believe that we have no concept of the challenges that they are going through. So we have to respond from that notion of perception. How does my child view this situation? in this moment where do they feel the overwhelm how might I help them so what I would say to you is in simple response to the should I be worried about my child's mental health I think we should all be worried about our children's mental health not because we're racing around like headless chickens panicking and worrying that our children are going to become one of the ever increasing statistics but in the same ways we want to worry about our children's physical well-being are they getting enough exercise are they eating right are they learning mental health is just yet another of those things that are part of the whole package that helps us raise happy children that become happy adults so I think we that's my kind of response but what I also want to do is I want to give you sort of five things that I think hopefully will help you in those moments those moments of high emotions maybe those moments of extreme worry but those moments when our children are behaving in a particular way this is helping to reset us reground us help us understand how best to approach it in that moment so that when we're doing that we're equipping our children because in the same ways we're equipping our children when we read to them when we help them write things down emotional literacy is a huge aspect of their development of their learning we need to treat it with the same level of gravitas and sort of attention that we might do in so many of the other areas and I personally and by all means feel free to write in and we can have a discussion about this is that I don't think we pay enough attention to this in terms of the way that we teach our children their skills their tools their strategies yes of course we're incredibly empathetic as parents we scoop our children up when they're upset and when they're sad and we respond and we wipe those tears and we give them those cuddles but how much do we then help them beyond that and actually begin to equip them and begin to help them with that so here are my five tips for this week so the first one is we really must look beyond the behavior and really really try to respond to the emotion behind the behavior and I know that that can be really tricky I've I've you know I'll be honest with you I've had a lot of times where I've experienced it when when I'm getting back chat from a teen or a bit of you know being difficult not tidying up bedrooms and all of those things and being challenged of course it's really difficult to think of the emotion behind that I'm not saying that we're going to get it right 100% of the time but if we can respond to the emotion behind the behavior maybe 20% of the time 30% of the time 40% let's start with whatever it is being consciously and actively aware of it and then what will then happen is that we will increase the emotion behind it and we're going to be able to that because your child's behavior is saying something to you if you can remind yourself of that if you've got a child that's answering back that's saying something to you that's saying that they have a need for a certain element of independence they want to feel empowered about making choices now that doesn't mean that we should turn around if our children are giving us back chat because of the time on their devices that we should suddenly think well I shall empower my child to make a decision about when they want to come off but that's telling you something about how they're going to be able to make a decision about when they want to come off and that's they feel and so when we respond to that that then might lead us down an avenue to have a discussion about how can I empower you to manage devices better and therefore I'm not nagging you to come off and we're not having these confrontational discussions but I'm really asking you to look beyond that what is that response telling you about your child now sometimes in those heats of those moments it can be really difficult to respond to those emotions but what we can do is acknowledge our emotions and we can respond to those emotions and we can respond to how your child is feeling and we'll talk about that later and give yourself some space you don't have to have all of the answers you don't have to respond at every single instance you don't have to go into a great big sort of super parent teaching moment it may be that you just respond in that moment to minimize an explosion and outrage a flare-up between you and your child and then come back to it later but it is just being really super consciously aware that we really need to respond to the emotion behind the behavior in that instance why is my child doing this why is my child having a tantrum why is my child refusing to do their homework why is my child refusing to go up to bed what is behind this why is my child saying that they don't like themselves if it is attention seeking if we go back to some of the the naysayers and the critics that are just saying we've just got a child who's just a little bit pampered and you've spoiled to them and they're just looking for attention well children will act like they're actively seek attention whether it's good or bad in any way that they choose but that underlies a need and so we have to respond to that and give ourselves some time and space so the first thing is we need to look beyond the behavior and really try to respond to the emotion behind it the second is this notion about accepting that this is your child's reality right now so maybe your child has had a complete and utter hooli over the food that you've presented them for dinner or going up to bed or coming off electronic devices or doing their homework or you've told them that they've got to come in at 10 o'clock from a party and all of their friends are staying until midnight or you're they're not allowed to drink but all of their other friends are taking alcohol whatever it is you have to accept that this is your child's reality right now maybe your child's reality in their mind is that every single person in their classroom everybody in their school everyone that are there in their year group is playing on a particular level and they're not allowed to drink or have a particular computer game or has a certain social media platform and they are the only ones that are not allowed that now the reality is we know that that isn't going to be true that's the whole perception but in that moment we have to accept and acknowledge that that's how it feels for your child right now and accept that and acknowledge that so that your child feels validated and heard then we can have discussions when the heat of the moment is no longer there but to your child that's how it feels and i mean i don't know about you but i can very i have a very strong recollection of wanting a particular type of plimsoll trainer they wouldn't have been plimsolls they were white i think they were green stripe i can't remember what they were called but they were white and they had a green bit on them and i wanted them because every other child had one i was convinced that every child had them and i was the only one who didn't and that i was completely and utterly ostracized and i would never have any friends and no one would ever talk to me and i'd be pointed and laughed at you that was my reality that's how it felt to me at that time it was the most monumentally important thing to me at that time therapy's
Speaker 1biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up 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 we're talking about and that's what we're talking about and that's what we're talking about 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 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.com slash a cast that's grow therapy.com slash a cast grow therapy.com slash a cast availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan
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Speaker 4coverage and of course my mother gave me the usual talk that so many of you have probably had with your parents too which was if your friends jumped off a cliff would you do the same and my response was yes mommy because i want to fit in but the reality is you know and i've just said it there so unconsciously but the reality was it wasn't about the trainers the emotion behind the behavior was i wanted to be fit in i wanted to be accepted i was a child who had frizzy curly hair who felt slightly awkward and different and for me the whole motive behind this urge to get these trainers was that i just wanted to be like everybody else i didn't want to be different and that was the conversation that needed to be had really more than the trainers so i'm just trying to get you in my most dramatic of ways of course but i'm trying to get you to see that when we accept that this is our child's reality and we accept that with the number one of looking beyond the behavior what's the emotion behind the behavior what's driving the behavior what's driving the this then we can respond to it in the way that actually meets our child's needs they're not attention seeking they're not being spoiled to children that want yet more things there's a reason behind that and it is could be around acceptance it's about fitting in being like others not standing out being part of the crowd being who whatever it might be but we need to look beyond that with our first one look beyond the behavior and accept that this is your child's reality right now their reality might be completely different tomorrow they might have moved on from it the phase of whatever it is that they're asking for whatever it is that they want may well have moved and let's face it so often certainly with younger children the pace of change is so so fast that they may have moved on but it's just being aware of that so the first one is look beyond that and accept that this is your child's reality right now their reality might be beyond the behavior and really try to respond to the emotion number two is accept that this is your child's reality right now number three is always always acknowledge how your child feels even if you think they are being overly dramatic it's so important that we acknowledge where our children are at in that moment and i can tell you now so often when i'm working with families and i've be a huge decrease in the severity of their mental health issue simply by starting to engage with somebody who's working with them whether they're working with a therapist whether and i'm not suggesting that this is what you all need to do absolutely it's not the right course of action for everybody at all but by simply having their feelings acknowledged by someone simply saying i understand that this is difficult for you i understand that you don't like yourself right now i understand that you don't think that you're as good as anyone else i get why you might feel that you don't want to be around anymore really truly acknowledging that so that our children can feel validated has the most profound effect on them if you do nothing else out of my five strategies today but simply make a habit of always acknowledging how your child feels and not feeling that you then need to know the answers of what to do next but just simply acknowledging that you're as good as anyone else i understand that you don't think that you're as that this is really tricky i get it this feels overwhelming being accepted by your friends being part of a popular group being part of that in crowd or feeling that you belong in some ways is monumentally important for you and right now you don't feel you have that or feeling that you're not heard at home or feeling that you're not independent or that you're being treated like a child or that whatever it is that right now this is how you feel and i get it i don't necessarily have all the answers i don't know necessarily what to do next but i'm here with you i'm on the floor with you and i get it that is so so important and and quite often our children will trigger things in us they will there'll be a niggle maybe we we think that our child gets too much attention maybe we think our child is always overly dramatic why can't they just explain something in a calm and rational way wait why do they have to throw this complete meltdown why do they have to burst into tears why do they always have to go to the school office to say that they're having a problem why do they always you know involve teachers whatever it might be that you're thinking that your child is being overly dramatic with your child is doing that for a reason so it's really being able to take that step back so we have to acknowledge their emotions and acknowledge how it feels and not feel that we have to then provide them with the answers we don't they just simply need to know that we get it because that's the first step so the three so far are look beyond the behavior and really really try to respond to the emotion behind it and if you become more consciously aware each time you'll just get better and better at doing that the second is accept that this is your child's reality right now it might not be how you see it it might not be how you perceive things in your logical rational adult mind but to your child and in their reality it might not be how you see it it might not be how you perceive things in your world this is their reality right now this is how they're experiencing life so really accept it from that perspective always acknowledge how your child feels meet them where they're at even if you feel they're being overly dramatic just simply acknowledging and being there with them has a huge impact for them and really helps them feel validated and really importantly makes them feel that they are not alone so often when children experience a big emotion and i see this every time i go into schools and i run workshops with you know classes or year groups is simply seeing and hearing that other people in their class experience the same lack of confidence the same worries maybe they don't worry about the same things but they still worry but all of these things suddenly your child doesn't feel isolated they don't feel alone they don't feel like this odd ball that is having all of these challenges and everyone else is cruising and sailing through life and finding nothing difficult so by being able to acknowledge that and impart and share some of your own experiences and how difficult you found things in the past without lecturing but simply validating where they're at not with solutions but simply telling them how you've experienced some of these this overwhelm in your past and or even most recently you may have experienced it that day by doing that you're not creating a problem you're humanizing yourself you're humanizing your child's experience and you're helping them realize that they're not alone the fourth thing and this is really important is to label your child's emotions so try and help them label it and encourage them to learn to do the same because in lots of ways when our child is able to label their emotion in that big emotion when they're experiencing these big emotions it helps them begin to communicate what their needs might be because it has to start by being able to label how they're feeling at that time so go beyond now obviously depending on how old your child is when they're much much younger you might use a very limited set of emotions you might talk about feeling sad or upset or cross or angry but you might then obviously as they get older you want to expand that so you might be feeling a little bit anxious you might be feeling a bit nervous not quite sure uncertain maybe you're feeling frustrated irritated annoyed let down jealous we can expand these emotions so that our child is able to kind of work out those subtle nuances because by labeling the emotion that's the first starting point for them to be able to communicate to others that this is how i'm feeling right now but it's also being able to label that emotion and then be able to work out what they might need when i feel x this is what i might need to do for myself so it's really important that the children have that vocabulary because then that helps them feel much more empowered as to what they're feeling and what they're feeling when they're feeling what they can then do with that once they've got that so it's really important to help them label those emotions and encourage them to learn to do the same so that they can then communicate with you and they can communicate with others and they can then help themselves so the four that we've done are look beyond the behavior and really try to respond to the emotion behind it accept that this is your child's reality right now might not be yours but it's theirs always acknowledge how your child feels even if you think they're being overly dramatic label their emotions and encourage them to learn to do the same and the fifth one and for those you've been listening to my podcast often enough will know that there's always going to be something in the strategies about us and the fifth one is be prepared to take a cold hard look at what's going on at home and school so this is a really reflective piece so are you getting this overwhelm is your child saying things that may maybe looks like they're being attention seeking or maybe is causing you concern in terms of their mental health take a cold hard look and the reason why i'm saying cold hard look is not a finger pointing but actually take an objective look at what's going on at your child's school is your child overwhelmed are they doing too many activities are they taking on other children's worries are they propping up other friends are there friendship issues going on are they in the right academic set there's a whole host of things that could be impacting that but also take a cold hard look at what's going on at home and i say this with love i really do say this with love but our children so often take on board what's going on at home are you stressed is there tension are you juggling too much are you racing around with multiple children multiple activities multiple places does your child get enough downtime are they getting enough sleep are they having an opportunity to decompress these are the things that we really need to be looking at because it is so critical for our children to get down time to get an opportunity to just be that isn't on a device or on or necessarily watching something like like television they need to have an opportunity to just be to get bored to use their imagination to read to draw to do puzzles all of these things are so important whatever age our children even older children they have to have times where they can just simply decompress that they're not being distracted by something that leads them away from being aware of their own internal chatter and their own voice so we have to be prepared if our child is saying things that are causing us concern or they're really struggling to manage those emotions and we're not sure or they're acting in a way that seems attention-seeking let's do a bit of an audit let's do a family audit what does it look like at home how does their week look like how busy are their weekends are you socializing are you often doing things do they have time to have this down time how busy is their week because these things will all contribute and it's not about your child is struggling with their mental health because they're doing too much at school or you're doing too much with your work that isn't it but they're all contributory factors that might be creating an environment where you're not doing too much with your work and you're not doing too much with your child is just feeling slightly overwhelmed and quite often these are very small tweaks they may be pauses in activities that might be happening it might be re-looking at okay i've got a child who loves doing an activity after school every single day but actually is that too much now do we need to whittle that down to maybe only three or two are the weekends becoming too busy so actually do we need to have dedicated one day or one afternoon nothing happens we're just at home don't it will be different for different people and in different families but you need to be prepared to take a cold hard look at what's happening either at home and also at school for your child because all of these things will impact it so let me just recap these so the first one is we need to look beyond the behavior and really try to respond to the emotion behind it instead accept that this is your child's reality right now it might not be yours you might not be able to understand why but this is how your child is perceiving their world in that moment always acknowledge how your child feels even if you think they're being overly dramatic label their emotions and encourage them to learn to do the same and fifth and finally be prepared to take a cold hard look at what's going on at home and also at school so my give this week is going to be these top five strategies in a checklist with the space to reflect underneath we've been getting lots of really useful way of you having that feeling armed and actually being able to use it as a reflective so you're using as a reminder but you're also using it practically so as usual head over to my free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download this 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 the other free resources across all my other podcast as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i would love it and be so so grateful if you could review and follow this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time finding ways to be financially savvy is a smart move and
Speaker 3knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want like that dream home or new ride is a great feeling that's why the state farm personal price plan can help you save when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling just another way to save with the personal price plan prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by
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