Breaking the Cycle of Anxiety, PTSD or BPD | Parenting Skills

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this video on Breaking the Cycle, Parenting with anxiety or PTSD. I'm your host, Dr. Donnellice Snipes. I very often get this question and it comes in a variety of different forms, but basically caregivers who are very concerned that they were under stress or traumatized during their pregnancy or when their kids were infants. And this comes from parents of both genders, caregivers of both genders, and it may not even be biological caregivers, but caregivers recognize that when kids were young they were under chronic stress or traumatized or not there like they should have been. And we're going to talk about the should in a few minutes. I've already noticed that my children are dysregulating. When they get upset, they act out, they get very angry, they throw things, they become very depressed and sullen. Okay, well it's good to notice that. Let's figure out what to do. And I'm in therapy now for xyz, anxiety, trauma, ptsd, cptsd, bpd, whatever the diagnosis is. Well, that's wonderful because therapy is going to help you develop the tools that you need to teach your kid if you didn't already have them. So that's awesome. Being in therapy though is exhausting. And we're going to talk about how important it is when you're having a bad day, when you become aware of the fact that you're having a bad day or, or you're exhausted after therapy to take ownership for that. Especially if your children are very young so they're not wondering what did I do? Your children may need remediation in emotional intelligence, attachment behaviors and self esteem. We're going to talk about each one of those. Young children often find the concept of forgiveness a bit easier. A five year old is often more ready to forgive than a 15 year old or a 25 year old. It's important to respect their boundaries, whatever their age is, and not try to force or cajole or demand forgiveness. You may start doing the right thing. Well, the proof is in your behavior. Even if you do 180 degree turn on your behavior and all of a sudden you are, you know, the parent of all parents, your child may have some traumatic memories and anger that they need to process, but they can't do that until they feel safe. So there's a lot of stuff that may have to happen. And growing up in a household with a caregiver that has a mental illness, whether it's ptsd, cptsd, bpd, anxiety, whatever that is technically considered an adverse childhood experience. Why? Well, because the caregiver who is the child's main source of survival may be unstable, unpredictable, or emotionally unavailable to the child. So there's a lot of stuff that happens, and I'm not blaming the parent. I'm just saying this is the environment that it is, and it is what it is. It doesn't mean it can't be improved. But that is the reason that children who grow up in a household where one or more caregivers has a mental illness or addiction do tend to have worse outcomes. It doesn't always happen. I mean, caregivers, you know, you may have PTSD or anxiety, whatever your diagnosis is. You may have a diagnosis and it is in remission, or you have it pretty well under control, or the other caregiver is able to step in when you're having a bad day. All. All of those things are helpful at buffering the child and remediating any damage. But if the damage has started to occur. All right, what do we do about it? Start out by taking an inventory. What are your symptoms? Depending on your diagnosis, you're gonna have different symptoms. Depending on you two, people with PTSD may have very different presentations, and that's okay. But you need to know what your symptoms are, and then I want you to think about the ways that they've impacted your relationship with yourself. I know that's a weird one. And prevented you from being consistent with yourself, mindful of what you need, responsive to your needs, attentive to yourself, giving yourself props, doing things that are kind for yourself, validating of your feelings and your thoughts, encouraging and supportive. You know, this craves mnemonic. We use a lot in my presentations when we talk about developing secure attachment. In my opinion, before you can develop secure attachment with others, you need to at least start developing secure attachment with yourself. You need to start being aware, consistently, mindful of how do I feel? What are my needs, and then responding to yourself in a caring and compassionate way. That is part of the healing process. Modeling these behaviors for your children is fabulous. It teaches them, hey, this is how I should treat myself. This is what I need to do in order to help regulate my emotions. Now, young children are not necessarily going to pick up on a lot of that. However, these behaviors, being consistent, responsive, attentive, validating, encouraging, and supportive, will help you feel safer, help you feel more empowered, help you feel more grounded, which will reduce the overall stress in the household, reduce your vulnerability to dysregulation, and improve your ability to be able to be emotionally and physically available for that child. So how awesome is that? More inventories. What is your emotional intelligence level? How effective are you at identifying your own feelings? Hmm. Are you able to say, I am curious, I am angry, I am sad, I am happy. Do you even notice? And that goes back to that consistency. Are you consistently mindful of how you feel, or do you wait until you get to the point you just ignore the happy stuff? And the only time you pay attention to your emotions is when you are bubbling over with depression or anxiety or anger. It's important to become more aware of identifying your feelings when they start. The good ones, too. Start taking notice of the good ones. And when you're having a good day, identify your triggers and your vulnerabilities for your feelings. And with my clients, I encourage them to just get out a sheet of paper and list on each sheet of paper, identify a different emotion. And you can start out with the big five. You know, happy, angry, sad, scared, curious, whatever you want the fifth one to be. Okay. Start out with the general ones. What triggers those in you? What vulnerabilities? What things make you more likely to react with that emotion? So if I'm overtired or. Or I'm in pain or I'm sick, I am a lot more likely to respond with irritability than I am with patience or contentment. Recognizing not only what triggers your anger, but what makes you more vulnerable to having a stronger reaction is really important. That way, if you wake up in the morning and, you know, you wake up and you've already got a headache or you don't feel well and you're dragging yourself out and you're trying to make breakfast or whatever you're doing, you recognize that you're already vulnerable to being irritable. So you can acknowledge that. You can say, you know what? Mommy really doesn't feel well today, or dad, or whatever your title is, and, you know, I really want to be here for you. It's nothing that you did. I just. I don't feel well. Kids understand that you don't have to get into great detail about what's going on. You can also, if you recognize that you're vulnerable, that may be one of the times that you say, you know what? I really don't feel well right now. So instead of me making this big meal, let's go out to eat. Let's pick up something to eat on the way to school. Yes, that's not the ideal situation, but every once in a while, you got to weigh your options. Is it better to stick it out and try to make breakfast and get all the dirty dishes and try to fight with Junior about whether they're going to finish their breakfast, or is it better just to pick something up on the way and make everybody happy? Not something to do all the time, but it's one of those ways to mitigate the vulnerability. When you recognize you're vulnerable, how can you buffer and prevent that from becoming worse? How effective are you at regulating your feelings? Let me go back to identifying triggers and vulnerabilities. So you have those different sheets for each emotion. You're going to identify your triggers. You're going to identify the things that make you more vulnerable to having that feeling, that emotion, extremely. And then go back and identify ways to prevent or mitigate those things. You can't always prevent pain. So when you're in pain, what can you do to make the best of it, to mitigate the impact, minimize the impact that that has on how you react to your children? So those lists can be very helpful because it encourages you to think ahead of time before you're in the moment, before you're already feeling distressed, you've already thought about, what are some practical things I can do in order to improve the next moment? Once you've identified your feelings and you know your triggers and what's going on, how effective are you at regulating your feelings, tolerating distress, getting into your wise mind, and then choosing a response option, choosing how to improve the next moment, choosing the best way to respond that is productive and leads you toward a rich and meaningful life, which in this particular scenario is that of being a good parent and having a child that feels safe and secure. How effective are you at identifying feelings in others? And this again goes back to consistency. You need to be. Not only do you need to be able to identify what does happy look like, what does angry look like, but you need to be able to be consistently mindful, noticing how people feel in the moment, not just waiting until they bubble over before you say, oh, something going on, huh? It's important, especially with your. With younger kids, to be mindful of these things because they probably don't have the vocabulary to express themselves. And waiting until they're acting out before you acknowledge it has let it get too far. So backing up and becoming more aware of their feelings and, and children will express. Everybody often has different ways of expressing their feelings. When one person gets mad, they may display it in one way. When another person gets mad, they may display it in a completely different way. It's important to know how your child displays those feelings and are you able to respond appropriately to other people's feelings? What does that mean? If you've been in traumatic situations or if you have a lot of anxiety when people express distrustful feelings? Anger, anxiety, depression, resentment, anything that might make you feel uncomfortable. Are you able to respond appropriately and not get angry in response, not get feel threatened and suppress that other person's emotions or invalidate their feelings? Are you able to handle hear other people's emotions? And that goes back to boundaries. Are you able to respond appropriately when they're happy? Instead of being angry that they're happy and you're having a bad day, are you able to respond appropriately? So all that's important and most of us, this is something we work on on a daily basis. It's something that we constantly hone, we constantly get better at, but it is something that's important. How can you improve your inner and outer environment so you feel safer and more empowered? Inner environment is inside your head, your self talk, your inner critic, whatever you want to call that voice. How can you improve that environment so you feel safer, so you don't, so your self esteem is higher, so you feel more empowered, so you think, all right, I can do this instead of I have no business doing this. You know, you want to switch to say, okay, I may not have all the answers, but I know where I can find them. I know who I can consult. I've got support. So that's the inner and the outer environment. How can you create this environment that is nurturing and where you feel safe and empowered and you can help your children feel safe and empowered. In what ways have your symptoms impacted your relationship with your child and prevented you from being consistent? Well, let's go through each one of these independently. Consistent. If you're anxious, you may be so worried about whatever it is you're anxious about that you just can't even focus on Junior. If you've got trauma, you may be hypervigilant and again, worried, anxious and not feeling safe. You're not getting good rest, you're not able to focus, so you have difficulty being consistently mindful of what Junior needs. How have your symptoms kept you from being appropriately responsive? Helping them identify their feelings, de escalate, identify triggers, identify coping responses, and take the next step. How have your symptoms prevented you from being attentive? And this means attentive even when your kids are not in crisis. That means giving them positive attention, giving them positive feedback, letting them know that they're loved for who they are. Yeah, they're going to make mistakes. There's no may about it. They're going to make mistakes. But that's okay, you love them anyway. Validating what seems like a crisis to a 10 year old probably doesn't seem like anything to a 30 year old. However, that's because a 30 year old has had 20 more years of experiences to measure it up against. That's because a 30 year old theoretically has more coping skills and more resources to use to deal with it, whereas a 10 year old only has a limited number of experiences. So it can feel extremely overwhelming. It can feel like the end of the world. And validating how that child feels at that moment means recognizing and acknowledging, hey, I see, this is how you're feeling. It doesn't mean you agree. It means I am acknowledging. I'm recognizing how you feel right now. Then moving on to being encouraging. All right, what can we do about it? And supportive. As they take the steps to learn how to identify their emotions and deal with them, how can you improve your attachment security with your child? How can you improve these? How can you be more consistent? And that may mean actually setting push notifications on your mobile device to check in with your kid periodically. Occasionally. We all get to a place where we've got 17 different things pulling on us and we need to be reminded to check in on things that are not making waves because we're paying so much attention to all the waves. All right, that's fine. Consistent. Some families will have mealtime where they sit and the whole family gets together without mobile devices at mealtime and they actually communicate. They check in with one another at least once a day, one of the meals, if not twice a day, this can be a good time to be consistent and mindful of what's going on. Another little hint for consistency. If you're hanging out with your kids and you've got get this funny feeling, it's like something's wrong, probably is. That's that mindfulness. You pay attention to that thing in the pit of your stomach, your spidey sense, whatever you want to call it. And that's a good time to say, hey, you doing okay? And the child may say, yeah, I'm just tired. Or they may have something that they're upset about and they want to talk. So being consistently aware not only of what's going on with your kids, but also pay attention to your caregiver senses or your spidey senses and inquire about what's going on, that means a lot to children, even if something's not going on, if you care enough to actually ask, hey, anything you need to talk about, I get the sense that something's wrong. My daughter came home from a doctor's appointment yesterday and you know, it was a really long doctor's appointment and she was very, very flat. And I couldn't tell if she was depressed or if she was just exhausted. So I asked and you know, we talked about it and then I felt better because I was like, okay, I know what's going on. And hopefully she knew that, you know, I cared enough to ask. Responsive. It's really important to be responsive to your kids. And you can't be responsive if you're dysregulating, which is why it's so important to get a handle on these things for yourself first. Where you can recognize, you can identify feelings. You can even do those same feeling sheets with your kids. And if they're younger, you may need to use pictures or emojis or something, but you can do pictures with your kids. Little kids may talk about feelings in terms of animals or colors or something else, and that's okay. However, they are able to articulate communicate what they're feeling. Thinking about how your symptoms have kept you from being able to be attentive. So what can you do? Again, this may come down to scheduling in and putting push notifications in your mobile device to remind you, hey, I, I want to spend time with my child on Saturday. You know, I want to make sure I don't plan anything for Saturday or each evening. You know, hopefully you wouldn't have to have a reminder that I want to spend, you know, my child goes to bed at 7:30 and I want to read them a story at 7. Having a routine like that can be really meaningful to children because it's predictable. Children like predictability not, you know, constant, but they do like predictability and it means a lot to them when they can count on you to help them with this wind down ritual. Validating can be very hard because a lot of people who've experienced anxiety and trauma as adults may have not grown up in validating environments. And it is important to remember how that felt and also to be able to develop the ability. It's hard, don't get me wrong, it's hard to validate your child's feelings, even if they make you uncomfortable, if they're angry at you. Validating, I see that you're really angry at me, not feeling overwhelmed or threatened by that, but also, as I said, validating the intensity of their feelings about other things. Even if you don't agree, remembering it from their perspective. The best analogy that I can make, that we can do, you know, right now as adults, get down on your hands and knees and envision the world from being down there, from being little. How much bigger and more overwhelming does everything seem? That's kind of what we're talking about cognitively too. How can you be more encouraging and supportive of your children? And there's a boundary there. There's hovering, there's encouraging. And it's important to recognize where that boundary is for your child. Some children prefer more interaction, some children prefer less. And it's important to also let them know, hey, if I'm being too smothering, if you need a little space, it's okay to tell me. I need a little space. That also helps them feel empowered to set and maintain their boundaries. In what ways have your symptoms and your less than ideal relationship so less than ideal attachment relationship impacted your child? Has it caused your child to be angrier than you would like? Okay, remember, anger is a response to throat. So we want to dig down in there and say, in what ways is anger protecting my child? What are they afraid of? Why don't they feel safe? Why don't they feel empowered? And what can I do to change that? What's done is done, but it doesn't have to keep negatively impacting the child. Some children will develop anxiety or distrust. And we talk about anxiety a lot in terms of abandonment anxiety and attachment anxiety. But anger and anxiety both kind of come out in attachment styles. The anxious attachment. This is the child that is very, very fearful of you leaving and very, very fearful of disapproval. And they melt down when they fear. When they're in the. There's the possibility of abandonment or rejection or criticism, and they, they may react with a variety of stress responses. They may get angry, they and fight. They may flee, they may retreat from the whole situation. They may fawn. They may try cajoling you to do whatever they can to make you still love them because they're so afraid that you're going to reject them. They may freeze. They may just not know what to do. And they're just like. And sometimes they just say, screw it, forget about it. So that's the fifth f. When they fear abandonment or rejection, they may just withdraw into this deep depression. Avoidant attachment is characterized more by the withdrawal. They feel that anxiety coming on, and instead of fighting or fawning, they either flee or withdraw because they just, they're out of energy. It's not worth it. They don't see the point. They've been let down so many times, they just avoid the possibility of getting hurt because they expect it. The anxious attachment. This is the person who knows it could be painful. A lot of times they blame themselves for any rejection or abandonment issues, but they desperately want to be with that other person. The avoidant attachment has just put up a wall and said, you know what? I'm out. Disorganized attachment may present. It's a combination of anxious and avoidant, where the person may initially be anxious, but if they don't get their needs met, then they withdraw into the avoidant and they wall people off. Regardless of how it presents, it is a symptom of fear, is a symptom of abandonment anxiety, and a symptom of lack of secure attachment that needs to be addressed. What needs to happen so the child can feel safe from rejection, can feel loved. You know, even if I make a mistake, I'm not going to be rejected by. I'm not going to be abandoned. So they can feel safe and empowered to become their own person. You know, it's one thing to feel safe. I'm safe if I do everything that my caregivers want me to do exactly how they want me to do it. It's another thing to feel safe and empowered, to become your own person where, hey, I feel safe, I know I'm loved. Even if they don't agree with everything I do, if and even if I do something a little different than they wanted me to, and that is really important. As the child grows and moves into later stages of psychosocial development, some children who've been exposed to a parent with anxiety or anger or PTSD or BPD may also just evidence depression, a sense of helplessness and hopelessness. They don't know how to stay safe. They don't know how to get the love that they need from their caregiver. So they've just given up. And some may express their emotions through acting out. Now, I could have put this with anger, but children, when they're anxious, when they're angry, even when they're depressed, they may act out in a variety of different ways. And it's important to remember that behavior is communication. Behavior often is the child's way of communicating something they don't have words for. Look at the behavior, what triggers it, what is the result of it, or what are they hoping the result will be? And that gives you an idea. If they start acting angry and pushing you away, then it may mean that they fear you feel like a threat to them in some way. It's important to remember that children learn through scaffolding and responsiveness. Now we've already talked about that some, but one of the mnemonics that I've come up with, because I know a lot of you like mnemonics, it helps you remember all the steps is edit. We want to help people edit their emotional responses. So E stands for emotion. Help the child label the feeling. What are you feeling right now? And remember I said with children, sometimes you need to use emojis, pictures, colors. D stands for de escalate. When they are dysregulated, they are not able to really process much. When you're dysregulated, you're not able to process much. You're in fight or flee mode. It's important to help them get into the wise mind. For children, this can be encouraging them to breathe. Now not all kids like to do that. Let them chew gum and blow a bubble or give them bubble stuff so they can just blow bubbles. That slows their breathing and can trigger their vagus nerve and trigger the relaxation response. Some children do best or respond well to a hug when they are feeling unsafe. When they are feeling like they're getting ready to dysregulate, a hug helps them feel secure. It's kind of like swaddling. And it can trigger the release of oxytocin, which can also help them calm down now. And swaddling is the same way for much, much younger children, as well as weighted vests. This is not appropriate for, for all children. Some children, the last thing in the world they want is to be restrained. So it's important to know and read your child. On the opposite end of the spectrum, some children, when they start getting upset, maybe they got into a fight with somebody at the playground or something, they need to move. So let's go on a walk for a minute and then we can talk about what's going on. And I put yell with a question mark because with young children a lot of times they have a hard time differentiating when it's appropriate to yell and when it's not appropriate to yell. Sometimes yelling can be very cathartic. Just putting your face into a pillow and ah, screaming or maybe not even putting your face into a pillow. But there are times and places where that's appropriate and times where it's not. Not so you need to know yourself and know your children to figure out whether that's an appropriate de escalation tool. Once they're in their wise mind, help them identify their triggers. So E is emotion identification labeling. D is de escalating. I is identifying triggers and coping strategies. You know, what triggered it, what could you do to respond? What triggered it, what could you do to respond? And then t is testing those coping or resolution strategies. All right, so you got into a fight with Jamie over something in the sandbox. What do you think the best thing to do would be? All right, if whatever the child chooses out of the identify coping responses, support them in trying that out. If it works well, great, you can process that. If it doesn't work well, okay, so let's process why that didn't go so well. It could be the delivery or it could be that the other child was just not receptive and that's on that child. Secure attachments, consistent, responsive, attentive, validating, encouraging and supportive. Help children develop emotional intelligence, their ability to identify their emotions, the triggers and vulnerabilities for their emotions, to modulate or manage their emotions, to identify emotions in others and to respond appropriately to others emotions. It helps them develop confidence because when they can do that, it improves their social skills, it improves their sense of safety, it improves their sense of safety within their own head and confidence in their ability to manage their own emotions. It's like, hey, I can feel angry and it doesn't consume me. It improves their self esteem. It can improve their boundary awareness as you talk with them. Especially in that validating part about how I see that you're very angry right now. Well, they see that you're not angry and they recognize, hey, it's okay to feel this feeling even if everybody around me doesn't feel it. And communication skills, because through this process, the edit process, you're helping them develop emotional vocabulary, label their feeling, talk it out, identify triggers and communicate what their needs, wants and desires are. Children can't effectively learn when they're fearful or dysregulated. So think what helps your child feel safe, what triggers your child and how can you mitigate that? My daughter, when she was younger, she's older now, so she self regulates quite well. But when she was younger I knew that large crowds were overwhelming for her. So taking her to the mall on a Saturday afternoon was kind of a no go. And it's important to know ahead of time what might trigger your child. So you can help them become more aware of what triggers their anxiety. What are your child's vulnerabilities and how can you respond? Again noting, you know, when Johnny is feeling x tired, in pain, sick, then he tends to have more difficulty coping with distress. Okay, so how can you respond? You notice that Johnny woke up and he's not feeling well, or Johnny woke up and he's feeling kind of achy, then you can help him identify that as a vulnerability and figure out how to best plan his day from there on out. Children learn through observation. When the caregiver has stress, the child has stress. I learned when I was in my first internship that just by observing and obviously talking to supervisors. But a lot of times children act out when they perceive stress from their caregivers, when they're kind of like sponges and they absorb that stress and they don't know what to do with it. So they may start acting out because they don't know how to cope with that stress. They may also start acting out because caregiver is their survival line, their lifeline, and they don't want caregiver to be distressed. When caregiver is distressed and it's scary because they're afraid caregiver will go away or abandon them or whatever. So they may act to try to distract caregiver and make caregiver happy. Sometimes children will start acting fawning and trying to soothe the caregiver for the same reasons. They may blame themselves. They may not know why caregiver is upset because. But they may take it on themselves and think, I must have done something. So then they try to fix it. And it's important for us to recognize this. It doesn't mean that we are going to never be distressed. That's not realistic. But when you are distressed, it's important to communicate that and say, you know what? And I know I said this earlier, but I'm saying it again because it's that important. We need to let our children know, even when they're toddlers, or maybe especially when they're toddlers, hey, Mommy's really tired, or I'm not feeling well, or I've had a bad day and it's got nothing to do with you, I really, I love you, or I want to spend time with you. Or how about if we watch a movie instead of going to the park if you've got a migraine or something, I don't know. But it's important to help the child understand through words and actions that your mood is not about them. It's not rejecting of them. You're not angry with them, you're not going to lash out at them, or, you know, you're not a threat to them in any way. It's never too late for you to start your recovery. Your children may need some time to trust. Just because you start going to therapy, or even you've been in therapy for six months, it doesn't mean that everything is completely hunky dory. Maintaining and respecting boundaries and owning your feelings is especially important with younger children. The skills you're learning to cope in therapy are likely skills they need as well. They too have suffered stress and trauma, albeit hopefully indirectly and not directly. They have experienced because of your stress. They've kind of absorbed some of that and it's been overwhelming to them. And they also need those skills that we talked about and other skills that you might be learning in treatment.