Speaker 1Blood donation is now more inclusive. More LGBTQ plus individuals are able to donate blood with the American Red Cross due to FDA guidelines that eliminate eligibility questions based on sexual orientation. The Red Cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible to donate blood. There's a place for everyone in the mission of the Red Cross, including you. The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. Join us and help save lives. To learn more and make your appointment to donate blood, visit redcrossblood.org slash LGBTQ. That's redcrossblood.org slash LGBTQ.
Speaker 2Therapy'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 therapy. Grow is a great place to start your day.
Speaker 3this particular scenario. If it's through the roof, like literally the thermometer can't even measure this. It's unbelievable. Then we're short, we're succinct. We're just letting them know that we see and we hear where they're at. If it's less intense, still big, then we can have more of an elaborate conversation. But by simply validating their emotions, we are not suddenly pandering and being super permissive to our child. That's the first myth. It does not do that. The second is by validating our children's emotions, by giving that emotion a label, we are not putting ideas into their head. They will not become anxious because we've suggested that they may be worried or nervous about something. We need to obviously do an education piece, do an elaboration piece, go back and review. Of course we do. But in that moment, when we simply validate and label the emotion, let our child know that we see and we hear them. We're not pandering to them and we're not putting ideas into their head. So let's, don't we banish those? Let's move on. I'm going to share the five, I guess, five reasons why I believe if we can add this tool to our toolkit, to bring out when it is at the best opportunity, why it can be so incredibly powerful and helpful to our child when they're experiencing a big emotion. And the first one is that big emotions themselves have been shown to reduce in the level of their amplitude, how big they are. Earthquakes are measured on a Richter scale. Imagine there's something, I need to come up with an idea actually. Leave that one with me. I will come up with a scale for emotions. But in essence, the research has shown that how quickly a child is able to move from this emotional dysregulation, because they're experiencing this big emotion, down to more regulated, has been shown that they can do that much more quickly when their big emotion has been labeled, has been given a name. We've given them something tangible that they can then hang that kind of coat of that emotion onto. And that's because what happens by labeling it is very simplistically, the back of our, so if you imagine where your head is, the back of your head, where your brain is above your neck, that is where our primitive emotional brain is. The emotional center is the amygdala. You don't need to worry about that. But in essence, that's our emotional primitive brain. That's where our fight or flight, fight, flight, or freeze occurs. So that's instinctive, intuitive, automatic. It happens quickly. There's no thinking involved in that. It's simply there in order to protect us. When we label an emotion, when we give it a name, our brain needs to process that language, that word, and make sense of it. And that does not happen in the back, in the primitive brain, but happens in the back. And that's where our brain is. The front part, what we call the prefrontal cortex, that kind of higher order executive functioning part of the brain, basically where logic and reasoning occurs. And so Siegel's idea of this name it to tame it is when we label an emotion, we take the activity that the brain needs to do away from the preserve me, fight or flight activity at the back of the brain to a, I need to make sense of this word. This language, this concept, which then shifts the processing away from the back and towards the front. Now that doesn't mean that it will instantaneously reduce the big emotion, but it does have a significant impact. And so when we talk about validating emotions, we will label it. It's okay to feel, I can see that you're really angry, you're irritated, you're annoyed, you're jealous. We've given them a label for that as part of the process. And so when we label an emotion, we label it as part of the process. Of that acknowledgement. So that's one of the most powerful reasons why validating children's and teens emotions is such a crucial part. So that's number one.
Speaker 1The red cross celebrates this historic change and welcomes those who may be newly eligible. Join us and help save lives to learn more and make your appointment to donate blood. Visit red cross blood.org slash LGBTQ. That's red cross blood.org
Speaker 2slash LGBTQ. Grow is therapy that works covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. 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. That's growtherapy.com. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Number two
Speaker 3is that by validating their emotions, we let our children know that we've heard them, that we've seen them, and that we're trying to meet them where they're at. We're trying to view the world through their lens. And by doing so, the child feels less isolated in their experience. Remember this idea of your child is emotionally dysregulated. The best ways for you to be emotionally regulated, it's not always the way. There are often times where our children's dysregulation is met by our dysregulation because we're exhausted, we're juggling multiple things. And by doing so, multiple things, it's normal. So if we can validate as a tool in our toolkit a couple of times, two times out of 10, then this is what we're talking about. We're not talking about doing it 100%. If you can, fabulous. You've got major stickers. But most of us in reality as parents are fumbling through, juggling multiple conflicting priorities on our time in that moment. And we don't always show up as our best. But when we do, and we validate, then our child, we're letting them know that we've heard them and that we've seen them. So we get the naming to taming by reducing the amplitude in the first instance. We let our children know that we've seen and we've heard them. The third one is actually a really powerful longer term benefit. And it's that it builds our children's confidence in their ability to make a difference. those big emotions, because we allow them to feel a sense of agency. Knowing that they are both able and capable to problem solve what they might need to do next. With you, of course, you're there as a support, but by validating their emotions and helping them feel seen and sort of diminishing the amplitude of that, over time, we build their confidence that they are capable in managing that. This isn't just a matter of, oh, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. This isn't some odd disentangled piece of who they are that is taking over them. It's simply an emotion and as part of the human experience. And so we help build that particular confidence to work out with our help and support. We can help them problem solve the best way to work through their emotions. Not always in that moment, but in the reflective and contemplative piece that we do afterwards about how they might be able to make a difference. What might they need? How might they approach it next time? And by validating the emotion, we build that confidence. That's a really important piece of it. The fourth kind of reason why validating emotions can be particularly helpful for our children is that what we do is we build their emotional vocabulary and an in-world reality. reality, real situation, rather than this sort of abstract concept of reading through a book and talking about emotions or doing worksheets on emotions. They're great. Of course, we want to build our children's emotional vocabulary and their emotional literacy, but nothing beats that in that moment, raw feeling, and then being able to make that connection to that physical sensation at that time. And also the label, the vocabulary, the language that then underpins that. And we know that emotional literacy is a high predictor, very significant predictor of happiness, success, longevity, because it's so crucial as human beings, we're social animals. And so, I'll just say that. Our relationships with people are very much hinged on our ability and capability of understanding and regulating our own emotions, and also how we adapt, modify, and regulate our emotions in the company of others and how we then respond to other people's feelings. And so, by building their emotional vocabulary through in-the-moment validation, in-the-moment labeling of emotions, in-the-moment acknowledgement, we build that, we flex that emotional literacy muscle, which is going to be super crucial to their social and personal development, and also a whole array of other metrics. As our children get older, it's a really big piece. This idea of EQ, the emotional quotient, how emotionally intelligent, our child is, EQ has been shown to be more significant a predictor of later quality of life, success, happiness, friendships, even salary, than IQ, which is your intelligence quotient, which is raw intelligence. So, it's a worthwhile activity. It's a worthwhile way of us spending our time with our children, because it has such a massive impact on our children. It's a worthwhile way of us spending our time with our children, and it has such a massive positive benefit. And whatever profession that you might be working in or have previously worked in, we work with people. We're people, people, and understanding people, understanding ourselves and how we interact socially can only be a really positive step for our children long-term. So, it's about building their emotional vocabulary. And then the fifth one, I mean, there are so many other benefits, but the fifth that I wanted to talk about is that by validating and acknowledging emotions, it allows us to set boundaries for our children whilst they are dysregulated. Now, why does a, how even, does labeling an emotion set a boundary? Well, it sets boundaries on the perspective of the fact that we validate that it's okay to feel that way. It's normal. It's human. And yet, what we're trying to help guide them with, with the boundaries that we're setting in that moment is that their chosen response in that moment may not necessarily be the most appropriate. It may be the appropriate. You may genuinely want, you know, we, when we talk about validating and acknowledging a child or a teen's emotions, it doesn't, we don't just pull that out of our toolbox when our children are dysregulated and make poor choices. We equally want to acknowledge that it's okay to feel that way. And so, we're trying to help guide them with the their emotion and validate it when they've made a great choice, when they've used their voice to speak to a sibling and say, I don't like, you've made me really upset by doing that. I don't think it's okay. And, and, and they've, they've made a particular suggestion by just using their voice to say that that's unacceptable and they're no longer going to play that game or share a particular item that they have, that they were sharing with a sibling. So don't, don't view the validating and acknowledging emotions as the, as only a tool that you use when your child makes poor choices. We can use it equally when they're not dysregulated, but what we're doing, particularly when our child is dysregulated, when they're experiencing a big emotion and we validate, we acknowledge, we meet them where they're at, is that we help have that container for that dysregulation. Emotion. And that container is not about trying to shut the emotion down. It's just about providing the boundaries with which that emotion works its way through. And we can, and that's why it can be so incredibly powerful, particularly when we have children who are, who often find themselves emotionally dysregulated because our regulation, our containment by acknowledgement and by validating helps them work through that process in a more constructive way. So let's just recap these five as to why I believe it's really helpful for us to have this as a tool in our toolkit and to validate and acknowledge our children's emotions. And it's that big emotions have been shown to be less intense when we help our children by labeling it because we shift from primitive emotional brain to logical brain. And so our children then work through that much more quickly because we've named it to tame it. The second is that we allow our children to know that we've heard and that we've seen them. You're there. I understand. I'm trying to meet you where you're at. The third is that by doing that validation and that acknowledgement, we help build our children's confidence in their own abilities and capabilities to manage those big emotions in the future. The fourth is that we build up their emotional vocabulary. And the fifth is that we allow it. It allows us to set boundaries for our children whilst they're working through this dysregulated state. My give this week is going to be a recap of those five top tips, which you can grab your free copy in my free resource library. So you need to head over to 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 these five top tips, but all the other resources across all my other podcast episodes, which are sometimes top tips like this one. Others are practical implementable strategies like conversation starters, like the take 10, like the internal chatter, all sorts of really great free resources are available in there. So you just have to pop in your email address and then you'll get the instant access to all of the resources. As ever, if you have enjoyed this episode, I would be eternally grateful if you could rate, follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love. So until next time.
Speaker 1The Red Cross is committed to achieving a blood donation process, that treats all potential donors with equality and respect while maintaining the safety of the blood supply. That's redcrossblood.org slash LGBTQ.
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