Speaker 1Hello 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. This is episode 103 and today's episode, The Happiness Illusion, I'm talking about whether we're focusing on the wrong thing as parents when we say we are trying to raise happy children. Is the pursuit of happiness for our children an illusion? Are we actually doing them a disservice, making happiness our focus? Because maybe it's just not possible. So, we're setting them up to fail or we're failing to build resilience, communicating that they should be happy when we know realistically life isn't always happy. Maybe we should be focusing in on something else. And also, part of that kind of thinking is maybe that's the whole big issue with social media. It's peddling this concept of happiness for our children and for ourselves. But for our older children, they buy into this concept of happiness. And when they find their life isn't like that, then maybe that's where the mental health issues arise. I really have been thinking about this a lot and have come to the conclusion that happiness as a single point of focus for us as an illusion. When it comes to raising children, I believe, instead of focusing in on the pursuit of one single emotion, happiness, we should instead be focusing our time, our attention and our resources on helping our children to be fully equipped to work through every single one of their emotions. Now, the opening lines of M. Scott Peck's A Road Less Travelled, were mind-blowing to me when I read the book in my early 20s. Let me just read you those lines. Life is difficult. This is a great truth. One of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. I can't remember exactly when in my early 20s I read this, but I remember reading it and it genuinely profoundly changed my perspective on life. Up to that point, I truly believed life should be easier than it was for me. When I was overwhelmed with a difficult emotion, I got caught up in the unhelpful narrative of why me? Why is this happening to me? Why can't life be easy for me like it is for others? What have I done to deserve such hardship? When the reality is, everyone experiences difficulties. Those who appear, in my view, those who appear to be the ones who are the ones who are the ones who are the ones who appear to be happy most of the time, I genuinely believe are just better at navigating those difficult emotions and are not looking at battling against them. And that's why I think it's really important to be talking about this. You know, why am I talking about this? Because I really wonder whether this is one of the reasons why our children are not growing up as resilient as they could and should be. Because we have, as you know, I say this with love, but we have got so caught up in this notion of, you know, I'm not going to be happy. I'm not going to be happy. I'm not going to raise happy children. And I, more than ever, you know, I still remember the various different parents' evenings I used to go to when my children were younger. And the one thing I would ask every single time was, but is my child happy? You know, you can tell me about what they're doing academically, but I'm just more concerned about, are they happy? Are they kind? Are they playing with people? But it's that happiness, you know, that we become so obsessed with that I think maybe we should be rethinking that. And I genuinely believe that we should be using very different language and instead really thinking about helping and supporting our children so that they can emotionally regulate, that they can manage and work through and be accepting of every emotion because life is hard. And it's not about saying to our children or our teenagers, you know, grow up, life's hard. It's going to be difficult. Just, you know, you just have to deal with it. Things are not always easy. I don't mean it in that kind of way, but I think when we truly accept that life is not meant to be easy, anything that's worth having, anything that's worth achieving, there needs to be an element of work to that. And that's the enriching and the incredible part of life is that we do work through difficult things and then we come out the other end and it feels incredible. So I think if we can change some of the language that we use around our children, and I'm going to talk to you about five specific things that I believe that we can be doing to do that. Then I think what we then do is we do equip our children to be happier more of the time, but I think when we focus more broadly across all emotions, we equip them much better. So let me talk you through my five strategies. The first one is that we must not rush in to fix their intolerable emotions. Children need to learn to experience difficult emotions. Children need to learn to experience and to work through them. It is not our job to take those feelings away because this creates the issues rather than resolves them. We also need to please avoid this notion. I talked about this quite a few times, but I will keep saying it. Please can we avoid this notion of positive and negative emotions and instead talk, use language that feels comfortable for you. But I tend to use language around that some emotions feel less comfortable than others. We enjoy feeling some emotions less than others. I think when we remove this notion of positive and negative emotions, we just see them as emotions. Some we would rather not experience. Some make us feel truly uncomfortable and we find them more difficult to work through, but that doesn't make them a negative and a bad. So for example, let's think about stress. Stress would be deemed as a negative emotions and a bad emotion, but actually that can be a really positive emotion because that tells you that something is important. That's alerting you possibly to danger or preparing you for upping your game and your performance. Fear could be seen as another negative emotion, but that's a positive emotion because that's telling you that something's not quite right. It's alerting you to something that you might need to consider and look at and make sure that you're okay. So I think when we move away from this notion of positive and negative emotions and really start focusing in on emotions are emotions. They are feelings that have two components. They have a component that impacts our body and a component that is related to our mind and our thinking. And just being, being able to kind of have those conversations with our children and not rushing to fix them. Because when we rush in to fix them, we reinforce this notion that that is a bad feeling. That is an uncomfortable feeling. And as your parent, I want to remove that from you. And therefore I'm not actually helping you manage, regulate, build resilience, confidence, and all of those incredible building blocks that we need to raise these resilient, confident, capable adults. So I think that's a really crucial thing. And I know that that can be really difficult when we can see our children in pain, where we can see our teens suffering and finding things difficult. And it's not about then just leaving them to it, but it's about notions of being able to empathise. And what we can look at, we'll look at these in some of the other strategies later. But the first thing is that we have got to stop rushing in and trying to remove or fix them. And if you are listening to this, and this is something that you do regularly, I think you just need to do a bit of reflection. I'm a big believer in us as parents doing some form of reflective practice and almost doing a bit of an audit. It's just ask yourself some questions. Why do I do that? Why do I rush in and fix? Because one of the reasons why we may be rushing in and fixing is because we are parenting our own inner child. Maybe that's taking their feelings, their emotions, their difficulties in a particular situation takes us right back to a situation that we remember from our childhood, that we felt we weren't supported, and that we were left to manage those difficult emotions on our own. And we don't want that for our child. So we're triggered right back to that scenario, and we jump in and we try and help and support them. That could be one of the reasons. It might have nothing to do with our childhood. But actually, we feel uncomfortable. We feel an element of discomfort when we see our child in a situation of discomfort. So the fixing and the jumping in of the intolerable is that actually we're fixing because we don't want that. We don't find that uncomfortable. So we're really not fixing their emotions. We're just fixing our discomfort with their emotion. So it's really important that we don't do it, but that we also reflect back on if we are doing it, why are we doing it? Being really self-aware, because that's a huge part of then being able to do less of that, is we have to be self-aware. We have to understand why am I doing that? And then by understanding why we may be rushing in to fix, we can then put things in that help support us so that we are less likely to jump in and fix. is the first thing that we can do the second one is that we need to regulate our own emotions in that moment this is a really important thing because if you think about our children when they experience a big emotion and one of the real powerful ones that I've sort of seen as an analogy that quite often comes out is that you probably have done this you would have read this somewhere but when your children were little and maybe your children are still little as you're listening to this and they would sort of fall over and they would graze their leg or they would bump their head or whatever it is that they would do your children will look to you first before they start crying there's always that moment when they look to you and of course we know in those situations that the best thing to do to help them bounce back become more resilient and not feel overwhelmed by it is that we just smile at them and we say you're you're right so we do it in that really positive affirming everything's okay and because of that we've regulated our emotion inside we might be thinking oh my goodness me what have they done have they knocked out a tooth have they really hurt themselves they're bleeding but we regulate our emotion in that moment and our children look to us in that moment and as a result they are much less likely to then have a complete and utter meltdown and feel overwhelmed with it too so we have become really practiced at doing that and the same rule applies when our children experience a big emotion a big disappointment a bit bit of nervousness a frustration because someone's been unkind to them a stress and an overwhelm a sadness if we can regulate in the same way then it has the same impact because what will happen is your child your teen will be experiencing an emotion as a result of something that's happened to them and when they come to you with that emotion they're already dysregulated they're angry they're stressed they're nervous they're upset so they're coming to you with that emotion if you are then dysregulated when they come to you so rather than this notion of helping them as their parents by not fixing in not sort of you know rushing in to fix it our role is also then to help them contain that emotion and by contain that emotion i do not mean that we're containing it and saying to them that they shouldn't experience it but we're containing it within a vessel so that they can experience and work through it by not amplifying it when they come to us dysregulated and they're experiencing this big emotion and we meet it with a big emotion from us then what happens is what starts off as a i'm feeling overwhelmed because sophie didn't play with me today and i'm feeling excluded or robert um pushed me um and called me names what then happens is if they come to us with those emotions and then we then get angry how dare robert do that that's a really unkind thing i'm going straight into school this is not acceptable yeah so what has now happened is the child has come to us with this this is a problem i'm feeling this feeling relax and get
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Speaker 1thought this was a me problem now my parent our parents are also feeling this big emotion so clearly it's a much bigger issue than i thought it was and then you get this big spiral of this dysregulation because their emotions and their emotional dysregulation has been met by yours and that container of that vessel that help that we're there trying to contain it within and help them work through has now amplified has now got 10 times bigger and so our children will then find it much more difficult to be able to work through it so it's not about us not experiencing sadness and upset and frustration on our children's behalf but it's about us being able to temper that in that moment and understanding it's not about being cold-hearted or coming across in this really neutral way but it's simply your child is coming to you with a big emotion they need to know that you are there to listen and you are also there to help contain that and to help them then work and manage through that rather than their emotional dysregulation meeting with your emotional dysregulation and suddenly we've got this massive huge melting pot so it's really important that we regulate our own emotions in that moment even when we are feeling frustrated because maybe we've asked for the 50th time for them to do something they're frustrated because they've been asked to come off their devices we're frustrated because we're sick to death of having to talk to them again and again about coming off their devices and we've got this massive melting pot so the first thing is about not getting into fix the second one is about regulating our own emotions the third one as you would expect is going to be a very straightforward of us being that instructive model before we then seek to teach and inspire our children to do the same so it's this children are much more likely to do what they see than what we say so it's that asking ourselves how are we working through our range of emotions in front of our children behind our children's backs because we often think they don't pick up on that and they 100% do they're like little ninjas they can see they're we might be omnipresent omni hearing and can see everything but they do too they're aware of how we manage they can sense tension at home they can sense when there's upset so it's really remembering that we are that so how are we modeling our emotional regulation so the second point is about how we regulate our emotions in the moment when we're meeting our children's emotions in that moment the third one is about how are we managing and regulating our emotions on a day-to-day basis we cannot seek to coach to teach to inspire our children around emotional regulation and how best to do that if we are not modeling that we are working on ours too that does not mean that your emotional regulation needs to be perfect i actually don't think it's helpful for children when we are too emotionally regulated and we're super cool and super calm and never frazzled a because i just don't think it's human i just don't think we can be like that we might think we're presenting that to our children but they can pick up on it but i also think it's really important to model to our children what do we do how do we make good how do we pull ourselves back how do we take care of ourselves when we have become emotionally dysregulated when we have experienced overwhelm to then bring it back on board remember emotions are not the enemy in order for us to be happy and content and to grow we need to be able to experience all the full spectrum of emotions and be able to navigate and to work through them rather than to avoid them and so it's really important that we are constantly reflecting on how am i modeling this to my children so that when we're then trying to instruct and to educate and to support and to inspire it comes from a place that isn't jarring to our children it's congruent what we're saying to our children about how they can help you know how we can help them emotionally regulate how they can help them to be more they can help emotionally regulate themselves and which tools and strategies these are tools and strategies that they see us using day in day out they see it modeled because that's one of the things that really jars and i know this just from experience of the number of children and teens that i've spoken to when i've worked with families but also when i've worked with schools is so much comes back from these children and teens about what they see about how their parents manage their emotions and emotionally regulate so it's really important that we keep bringing that back to how am i emotionally regulating how am i modeling that to my children when i teach and instruct can i teach and instruct from a place that is congruent to the way that i am behaving and modeling that on a day-to-day basis and again it's not about being perfect we don't need to be doing this 100% right every single time but they need to see us making an effort trying and putting a lot of these mechanisms in place so the first three are we mustn't rush in to fix their emotions we must regulate our emotion in the moment and then we should be seeking to model that emotional regulation before we then start talking through strategies and teaching them ourselves that's number number four is about empathy we need to empathize with our children's feelings don't deny them don't say don't be unhappy don't be sad don't be frustrated don't rush to tell don't rush in to tell your children not to worry or that everything will be all right or they don't need to cry or that you're there to help fix the problem get super clear on labeling the emotion and to help them express their feeling and to empathize yeah we want to remember a very simple rule of like i can see you i acknowledge you i hear you i get what you're feeling i can see that you are upset i can see that you're frustrated i get i hear you i can i hear that you're really annoyed that i've asked you to come off your electronic devices whatever that is we need to empathize with their feelings because then they feel heard for a start the second aspect is we're building up on that on that sort of emotional vocabulary emotional literacy so we're giving them that language so that they can then better describe their emotions themselves and then we are then relaying how that feeling is okay it's all right to feel because remember that's what we're talking about we want to acknowledge and we want to say that it's absolutely not a problem that they're angry frustrated irritated annoyed jealous sad nervous stressed overwhelmed those feelings all the emotions are valid what we want to help our children is by not denying those emotions by acknowledging that they feel those emotions and then helping them choose how best to feel experience and navigate their way through because that's what builds the growth that's what builds the resilience and that's what fundamentally builds this happiness why are you always angry why are you always frustrated why are you nervous why instead we're simply accepting that that's a normal process for us and then being able to work through what do i need to do in that moment to help me be able to navigate and work through that and it has to start from that empathizing that we do because that empathizing also helps our children acknowledge that it's all right to feel that feeling i can't take that pain away for you it would be wrong for me to take away that pain for you but i can help you understand what it is how it might show up in your body and then let's talk through ways that can help you navigate that in future now of course when we're empathizing with a child who's in rage who's in anger that's not the time to be having conversations about how best might we tackle this rage and anger that you're feeling right now of course it isn't you'll probably get bopped on the nose that's absolutely not but by empathizing and meeting children and teens where they're at in those moments we can help diffuse that big emotion in that moment we can help create a sense of space for them to experience it and then we can regroup around what might you need now how might you better communicate with me next time that you're experiencing this this feeling how might you be able to work through that more next time because you've recognized that feeling that you're having so that we can empower them and help them in that understanding that these emotions all of our emotions are temporary we work through them they pass they come they go but by empathizing we help acknowledge them so we're not going to fix when we're going to regulate our own emotions in that moment we're going to model emotional regulation so that we can help teach it we're going to empathize and we're going to help empathize and then the fifth one is quite a crucial one is we don't want to create a habit and the habit is simply something that we do repeatedly so it becomes fast-tracked so it's something we end up doing default we do not want to create a habit of trading feelings whether we're trading feelings for food for presents for electronic devices for distraction reason why we don't want to create a habit of trading feelings is because we don't want to create a habit of we want our children we want ourselves to experience the emotion in its fullness and to be able to work through it otherwise what you do by trading your feelings is that you numb things you know when you do that it's all about helping our children turn inside when they experience an emotion rather than outside and then we're much less we're much less likely to create addictions or distraction techniques that numb and divert away from really experiencing these feelings this is so crucial this fifth one and we may well be doing this inadvertently without realizing it so our child feels sad we don't let them work through that sadness and instead we give them a treat or we buy them something to help make up for the fact that they've not been invited to a birthday party or we give them an electronic device to help them feel better now that's not to say that we might not want to give some of these things at some point you know there's sometimes perfect reasonable reasons to do that but not at the expense of not experiencing the emotion sorry lots of negatives there but in essence what we want to make sure we do they need to experience the emotion once they've worked through that emotion if we choose to do something food related present related electronic device related or or distraction related that's a different thing but we must not try and numb and try and numb the feeling by instead giving something that helps avoid that we you know it's really important that we don't facilitate this habit of trading feelings for something else and i would also say it's probably worth doing a bit of an audit to see whether you are doing that and when you think about the bucket analogy that i've talked quite often about you know things fill our bucket which are part of how we experience experience these big emotions and then we have things that we can use that empty our bucket how many of the things that we put to empty our bucket actually things that we trade for feelings that they're really not helping us work through our emotions they don't really help us experience them so we instead numb and we look outside rather than inside when we're trying to help our children work through emotions they have to do that by working through the inside and experiencing that big emotion rather than reflecting outside at ways and means that distract them from the real world and so i think it's really important that we do that so it's really crucial that we do that so let me just recap the five strategies we've looked at are don't rush to fix regulate your own emotion in the moment be the model be the lesson that you want your children to have before you then start teaching empathize and acknowledge your child's feelings in that moment and don't create a habit of trading feelings my give this week is going to be these top five strategies in the usual checklist with a spacer that you can use to reflect underneath it will help serve as a reminder and also a tool to be able to use practically because this is something we need to be doing daily and reflecting on and using daily so as usual 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 the other free resources across all of our resources and i'll see you in the next one bye bye my podcast episodes as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i would love it if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time you know a 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