LIVE : Developing Emotional Intelligence in Children : IDEA

Foreign hey there everybody and welcome to today's live webinar. I am excited to see everybody and looking forward to talking about developing emotional intelligence in children. I want to thank Melissa Farmer for her support of our presentation today. All of your support always helps. I am always grateful for everybody who is here. Hello Nancy. Hello Janine. Hello Lisa. I know I said hi to you in text, but hello verbally. Hello Abdullah. Hello Derek. Good to see you. And it is 11 o' clock. I logged in a little bit late today, so let's go ahead and get started because we actually do have a fair amount to cover. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on developing emotional intelligence in children. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In today's presentation, we'll explore the impact of distress on mental and physical health in children. We'll discuss what emotional intelligence is and why it's important. And we'll identify tools and strategies to help children develop emotional intelligence, including identifying the feeling mindfully, downregulating, examining the triggers and optional responses, and acting purposefully. So let's start at the beginning with stress, dysregulation, inflammation and disease. We've been talking about that a lot lately and it is even more true for children because children's brains are not finished forming yet, which means they're more malleable. And I usually use the metaphor of a clay pot. And children's brains are like a clay pot before it goes into the kiln. It is really easy to damage the clay pot if it hasn't been hardened off yet. Once we get to be adults 24ish, then it is a lot harder to damage the brain. That being said, we do know that chronic stress increases the excitatory neurochemicals and inflammatory markers in the brain and leads to what we call excitotoxicity and or neurotoxicity with children since their brains are more malleable and they're not as hardened off and protected yet the effect of those excitatory neurochemicals and that inflammation is intensified. Those things are more able to cause brain shrinkage and changes in brain structure. Babies and toddlers do not understand emotions or coping skills. When we are born, we don't know what sadness is, happiness is. We know if we hurt, we know if we're cold, we know on some level if we're afraid. But we can't put words to that. It's just those are very basic sensory actions and sensory reactions that we have. Babies and toddlers learn from caregivers what is safe and that they are safe. When children experience overwhelming emotions, it can be terrifying and cause them to feel unsafe and out of control in their own bodies. And I dare say the same thing is true for adults. When we are just swept by a wave of emotions, especially these really intense distressful emotions, it can be really scary. It can feel like you're, you're drowning, if you will. And for kids, I mean, they don't know what's going on. They don't even really understand what emotions are. It's just like, ah, I feel out of control. Imagine what it's like to feel unsafe in your own body, to feel, feel like you don't have control of how you act. Sometimes when in a state of distress, children notice stressor like all of us and cannot effectively learn. When we are in fight orf flight, we are basically disengaging the prefrontal cortex, which is where all of our learning and organizing and executive functioning goes on because all of our energy is dedicated to fighting or fleeing. So when children feel unsafe in the environment or in their own bodies, they are not going to learn as effectively. Chronic stress whether again, whether it's they just they feel unsafe or their emotions are overwhelming and they don't know how to manage them, whatever that is. That chronic stress leads to inflammation in the entire body, including the brain, which also leads to dysregulation of a variety of hormonal and neurotransmitter symptoms, systems and disease. Chronic stress causes imbalances in the nervous system. When people are chronically stressed, it's like working a muscle. The muscle that you're working gets really strong, but the muscle that you're not working gets even weaker. And when my bicep is super, super strong, if my tricep is super super weak, my tricep can't oppose my tricep can't undo what my bicep is doing. Same thing is true with our nervous system. When our sympathetic nerv our stress response becomes too strong, then it's really hard for our relaxation response to counteract it. It doesn't have the strength or the power to counteract it a lot of times. So this chronic stress, chronically working that sympathetic nervous system and ignoring or not working that parasympathetic or relaxation part of our nervous system leads to imbalances in our neurotransmitters. The stress neurotransmitters are, you know, wide open. The relaxation neurotransmitters, not so much. Our hormones, including our thyroid and Our con gonadal hormones, our gut microbiome that breaks down food to help us make the hormones and neurotransmitters that are needed to survive. At that point in time, the environment in the gut also becomes inhospitable to the gut. Good gut bacteria and our circadian rhythms get out of whack. When we're stressed, we don't sleep well. When we don't sleep well, that's one of many things that contributes to throwing our circadian rhythms out of balance. All of this leads to problems with children's health and mental health. Physically. We start seeing sleep disorders in children. They may have insomnia, they may not want to go to bed, they may have night terrors, a lot of those things. Now all children go through periods where they don't sleep quite so well or they have nightmares or something. But we do need to recognize is this just a little phase they saw a scary movie or is this a developmental issue or a stress related issue? As we develop uncontrolled or constant inflammation in our body, we start to see the development of autoimmune disorders and insulin resistance, diabetes. Now they have shown that type 1 diabetes does have a lot of autoimmune components to it, but they've also shown that type 2 diabetes recently as a few years ago, they started showing that type 2 diabetes also has autoimmune components associated with it. So insulin resistance and diabetes are potentially associated with chronic inflammation. When we are stressed, what's the one of the first things our body does, it dumps blood sugar so we can fight or flee. If we are constantly dumping blood sugar, then our insulin receptors are going to start becoming resistant. Think of it like, you know, periodically, every 10, 15, 30 minutes, eating a whole bag of M&M's. I mean, that'd make just about anybody sick. But it's sort of that same thing where we're getting those regular spikes in blood sugar obesity. People who are chronically stressed often gravitate toward high fat, high sugar foods because that can promote the release of serotonin and dopamine. So they're kind of self medicating. People who are chronically stressed may not have a lot of energy because they're so stressed out all the time. So they're not doing a lot of moving anyway. When we have excess adipose tissue, excess fat tissue, we have much higher levels of estrogen in our body. Regardless of your, your sex, you have more excess levels of estrogen. When estrogen levels are too high for our body, it contributes to anxiety Stress and can worsen inflammation. Now at the right levels, estrogen is actually neuroprotective. But when it's too high, it helps throw the system out of whack. We also see addictions and addictive behaviors in people who are chronically stressed. They want to escape. They feel the need to distract themselves so they can just get a second's peace, a second of feeling like they can control something. So we're seeing addictions, porn addiction, gaming addiction, shopping addiction, Internet, as well as drugs and alcohol start at such an early age. Now I was working with a young man who started watching porn when he was 8. So there's a lot out there that kids can get into and engage in escape type behaviors. And then that further disrupts the balance of their neurotransmitters and their neural circuitry. Interpersonally, when people are constantly stressed, when they feel unsafe, when they don't feel like they've got control of their emotions and they don't know how they feel, they're just eh, I feel ick. Well, ick is hard to fix. We, we need to be a little clearer. But when people don't feel well, when they feel stressed, when they're exhausted, when they're in pain, they tend to not want to interact with others. So they develop more loneliness. They may develop more social anxiety because they're more attuned, more hypervigilant to things that other people do that they perceive as rejecting. They may have lower self esteem and lower self efficacy. They don't believe they can do it. They don't believe they can control or affect anything in their life. Imagine being a young child and feeling this way, feeling this powerless, feeling this out of control and unsafe emotionally. We see anxiety, anger, irritability, all of those are fight or flight kind of emotions. We see depression. Sometimes it is depression from feeling hopeless and helpless, and sometimes it's depression from feeling exhausted. I'm stressed and angry so much of the time. I just don't have a lick of energy left to get excited about anything. I just, I just don't care. And we see dysregulation. We've talked about this in other videos. When people are chronically stressed, the receptors for our neurotransmitters can become overstimulated and they stop being receptive. So when somebody has had chronic stress for a long time, eventually the brain says, you know what, I just, I can't fight this fight anymore. I don't have any more energy. I'm done. So the person starts feeling depressed or Flat or apathetic, whatever words you want to use, but they're just not much is getting them going. If you watch Winnie the Pooh when you were little, think of like Eeyore. Just nothing kind of does much, you know, nothing gets him too upset, nothing gets him too happy. He just, he's there. But when something does finally trigger the person, they go all out. They go from 0 to 250 like that. And for children, again, this happens a lot easier than for adults. We all know children, even those that have some good emotional awareness when they're toddlers, when they're too tired, when they are experiencing vulnerabilities, they're in pain, they're sick, they're tired, they tend to disregulate a lot easier. They don't have the impulse control that we do as adults, but we start to see that dysregulation. And when children dysregulate, what happens? They typically get in trouble. They typically get shamed for being difficult, for throwing a tantrum, for acting inappropriately, which makes them feel even less in control cognitively. If they're not getting good sleep, if they're stressed all the time, they're going to have brain fog. They're going to have deficits in all of those executive functioning things like problem solving, attention, learning and memory. So what do we do? We help them develop emotional intelligence. And I don't like the word intelligence, but it's what they've used for the past, you know, decade. Sometimes they say emotional quotient, but a lot of people don't know what that means either. Basically what we're doing is we're becoming aware of intelligent about our emotions. We're starting to realize what they are. So I stands for identify the emotion. What am I feeling right now? Anger, guilt, fear, worry, jealousy, stress, grief, depression, happiness, you know, what is it and what's its purpose? If I'm feeling angry right now, okay, that's my body telling me I need to fight. All right, why is my body saying I need to fight? What is the purpose of that right now? Tells me that something's indicating that there's a threat to me. So I want to fight to protect myself. Okay, well then we can work backwards and figure out what's going on downregulate to permit wise mind reasoning. As I mentioned earlier, when we're in fight orf flight, we're not engaging that prefrontal cortex. We're acting on emotion based reasoning, which is not going to allow us to effectively assess the situation and problem solve we need to teach down regulation skills. And I'm going to go into more detail on each of these as we go through today's presentation. E stands for explore the triggers. Once I've down regulated, I'm like, okay, I'm looking around. I realize in this moment I am objectively safe. I may not like how I feel, I may not like what's going on, but nothing is going to cause me intense harm at this very moment. All right, so I'm down regulated and I can kind of step back and look at the situation to say what caused me to start feeling angry, what triggered my anger in this situation? And based on my favorite fit cat, based on the facts in this context at this time, what's going on and what is the best way to use my energy to respond. Now that a lot of stuff for young children. So obviously we're not going to put this on a 3 year old and expect them to be able to process it. But this is what we gradually help them learn. A technique that we use in behavior modification is called scaffolding. And we let them do as much of a task as they can on their own. Then when they get to a sticking point, we coach them through the rest. And that's what. What we're doing with helping them develop emotional intelligence when they're really young. We just help them learn what emotions are and identify them and not be afraid of them. And once they get to the point where they can identify those emotions, then we start teaching them, you know, how to downregulate. And hopefully they start picking up those skills. And finally, E is act with per. I'm sorry, A is act with purpose. So once they have explored the triggers, identified the facts in this context at this time, and determined a course of action, a solution, then they start acting with purpose. They start trying to solve the situation that could be addressing, could be just letting it go. There are a lot of different ways they could approach it. As I mentioned earlier, children's brains are much more vulnerable to excitotoxicity. Their experiential vault. That's my term. I don't. That's what I'm using. You're not going to find it in the literature, but their experiential vault is much smaller than adults. So what seems minor to an adult may be a big deal to a kid. If they pass gas in class. Oh, my gosh, that's embarrassing. All right. Those of us who are in our 50s and beyond, oh, we've probably done that a dozen times, even though we didn't mean to. Yes, it's embarrassing, but it's not the end of the world. Our world does not crumble. For somebody in fourth grade, that's going to feel like the biggest thing ever and they feel like nobody's ever going to let them live it down. So it's a perspective thing. It's important that we validate their feelings. That yes, I realize this feels like it is a huge, big deal to you, so let's figure out how to deal with it instead of saying I, I, I see this is a huge, big deal to you, but really it's not that big of a deal. Just let it go and it's not going to be a big deal. That invalidates their feelings. So we need to validate them, but we also need to provide perspective. Let me tell you about when I was and then tell them a story about when you did something similar. It's not invalidating but it's showing. Hey, I've been through something similar and I survived. I did. It sucked, but I survived. As caregivers, we need to help children feel safe and learn idea by ensuring they feel securely attached. Children when they are very young, they're not going to come to you and say, I feel upset, help me identify my emotions. It's just not going to happen. It just, they don't even know to say that. So we need, as caregivers, we need to make sure that they are have the stuff needed to be securely attached. We need to be consistent in our awareness and our responses to them. We need to not be, you know, attentive to them on Monday and then by Thursday we're so worn out from work and everything else, we're just spending all of our time playing games on our mobile device or something. So Thursday through Sunday they're like, are you even paying attention to me? We need to be consistent in our awareness of them. Doesn't mean we need to helicopter parent, but we need to have a presence that they can say, I know that caregiver is there and we need to be consistent in our responses. If something is not okay on Tuesday, it's not okay on Saturday. If something is okay on Tuesday or not a big deal on Tuesday, we don't want to freak out about it on Saturday. So being consistent helps the child feel calm, helps the child learn what to anticipate and every time they have an experience it goes into their experiential vault. So when something comes up similar the next time they anticipate your reactions. For example, Tommy comes home on Tuesday and he got a D minus on his spelling test. And caregiver says, you know what, that was a hard spelling test and I love you and, and spelling is important, but it doesn't mean you're not a good person. So let's work together and figure out why you got a D minus on that spelling test. And then the next week he comes back and he got a D minus on his science test and you just freak out on him. How can you be failing your classes? How are, how is it that you are so stupid that you're getting a D minus now? This kid's like, well, one day it was okay and they were supportive and helpful and the next day they lost their ever loving minds. Caregivers not safe. I'm not safe. I don't know where to turn for help. So we need to be consistent in our responses. We need to provide proactive attention. Not just waiting for that shoe to drop, but when they come in asking them, how was your day? Tell me the best thing that happened today. And you know, maybe tell me the worst thing that happened today. But that way we're getting them to talk to us, we're getting them used to talking to us and we're helping them recognize that we care and we're going to be supportive of them. R stands for responsiveness to distress and eustress. And eustress is fancy word for good stress. If they're, if they have a great day, if they got an A plus on their test, we want to be responsive to that. We don't want to say, well I expected that, okay, fine, you know, do whatever and then get upset when they bring home a bad grade. We want to celebrate with them when they have something good happen and we want to support them when they have something bad happen. When we're responsive to their distress, we help them with idea. With young children. When my son was little, we used to do this game and I would say, tell me what angry looks like. And he would say er. And I would say, tell me what scared looks like. And he'd say and, and we would go through the different emotions and I'm not going to make all the different faces. But he started learning what they looked like and what you felt like. When you're angry, you want to clench your fists and grind your teeth. When you're scared, you feel shaky. And he was able to model those things. And by the time he was three years old, he was pretty well versed in being able to identify what he was feeling, maybe not why he was feeling it. But what he was feeling, he would say, mommy, I sort of angry. Okay, well, let's talk about that. And we would stop what we were doing and figure out what was going on with him. But we need to help them with scaffolding. Start where they are. Identify their emotions, identify the purpose of the emotion. You're angry. That means you feel afraid or you feel there, you're threatened about something, or you're not getting your way, which means you feel like you're not in control, what's going on? And, you know, I would ask him a couple different questions to figure out where that anger is coming from. When did you start feeling angry so we could figure out what was going on? I would provide encouragement. You know, you can get through this. I know going to the doctor is never pleasant and it's scary and we'll do this together, but I have faith that you can do it. And then providing safety and unconditional positive regard, which means, I love you for you. Even if you melt down, even if you have a bad day, do something, make a bad choice, it doesn't mean you are bad. It doesn't mean I don't love you. I may not like your behavior, but I will always love you and you can always come home. This experiential vault that I was talking about is filled with memories based on experiences. These memories are regularly consulted to help the child anticipate or understand situations. So they'll consult that experiential vault and they'll say, okay, last time I was in a situation like this, it was great. Or, yeah, it got scary really quickly. And then that will help them anticipate what's coming up. If the experiential vault is filled with memories of unsafeness and powerlessness, the child will continue to expect the world to be unsafe. And they will perceive things as excessively threatening, and they will perceive themselves as powerless. As adults, as caregivers, we can help them develop a sense of confidence over their feelings and gain an alternate perspective on situations. When my son was little, he was a micro preemie, so he has some neuro atypicality, and he would get overwhelmed or overstimulated very easily. And. And I remember distinctly when he was about 20 months old, I was working at my desk at the house. And he always. He was a pacifier fiend. He would have one in each hand and one attached to his. Attached to his shirt. But I remember distinctly one day I was working and he had been playing and not sure exactly what happened. Never did Figure that out. But he came up to me and he said, mommy, I overstimulated, which translates to over stimulated. And I said, okay. And he said, I'm gonna go in my room. Okay. So he went and he sat in his room. We had one wall in his room that had nothing on it. It was just pure white. And when he would get over stimulated, he would sit in his bed, suck on his binky, and stare at that white wall for a few minutes until he felt like he was grounded again. And then he'd come out, you know, he's like, okay, I'm fine now. Which, you know, in retrospect, he was so smart. He is so smart, but he was always very in tune to himself. But we can help them develop that sense of confidence. When he was very young and he would start to get overstimulated, we would put him in his room and we would say, why don't you sit here for a minute and literally one minute and just take a few breaths and. And look at the wall and let me know, you know, when you start feeling a little bit better. When we first started doing it, I would sit with them. We wouldn't talk. We wouldn't read books or anything. We would just sit there and stare at the wall together. And then as he got older, I would tell him to go sit down, and then I would be available to him when he was ready to come out. But children can learn. They can start to learn to become mindful of their internal sensations. I'm feeling overwhelmed. As an adult, when I get really anxious, my chest gets tight, and I have named it Lenny because it feels like an elephant is sitting on my chest. So I've named that elephant Lenny. And I know, you know, when I start getting stressed and I feel Lenny there that I need to go take a chill pill for a few minutes. It's important that we own our feelings as adults, too, because children are very sensitive, hypersensitive to how we feel, because we are there to keep them safe. And if we don't feel safe, then, whoa, you know, heck, they ne know they can't keep themselves safe. So if I'm in a bad mood, if I'm feeling anxious, I need to make sure that I communicate to the child or the children, you know, mommy had a really bad day today, and I love you guys, and I want to spend time with you, but I need 20 minutes to go be quiet or sit in time out or whatever phrase you use. And kids will understand that, but they don't have wonderful boundaries. When they're young. So it again, it's important for them to hear it from you. Otherwise they're going to personalize it. They're going to think I made mommy mad or caregiver doesn't want to spend time with me because they hate me. No, not necessarily. Could be they just had a bad day. But a child can't think in hypotheses cognitively, literally. They cannot think in hypotheses about what other things could be causing mommy to be in a bad mood until they get much older. Early childhood experiences teach children whether they're safe and can trust their caregivers. If they are regularly feeling unsafe, they're cold, they're startled, they're hungry, and caregiver is not appropriately meeting their needs, then they feel unsafe and powerless. Erickson's psychosocial stages of development the first stage is trust versus mistrust. They learn to trust that others will help them. They learn to trust themselves, their feelings in infancy to establish secure attachment. Obviously you're not going to reason with a three month old, but we need to be consistent in our responding. And that doesn't mean every time they cry, pop a bottle in its mouth. That means every time they cry, listen to try to figure out what they need because it's not always a bottle. Provide attention and interaction with the child. If the child knows that you're there, remember at this age they don't have object permanence. If the child knows that that you're there, that's a good thing. If the child associates your presence with fun or with things that make them happy, even though they don't know what that word is yet, then they will look forward to your presence. And we want to respond and recognize the impact of the environment on the child and help them feel safe. Which is kind of what I was talking about with number one, owning our own feelings. And it's wonderful. It's a great modeling tool for, for a caregiver to say, you know what? I'm feeling really overwhelmed, I need to go sit quietly for a few minutes. Oh wow, you know, so the child learned something that they can model that's healthy. We also want to recognize the impact of the environment. Whether it's too hot or too loud or too smelly or too something else. If it is over stimulating the child's senses, they can't effectively communicate that. So we need to figure out what's going on so they are not feeling overwhelmed and overburdened in their environment. In infancy we need to pay attention to Parental stress, loud noises, physical discomfort, lack of object permanence. Remember, for young children, you go out of the room, they think you've disappeared. They don't recognize that you're on the other side of the wall or the other side of the couch, which is why peekaboo is so incredibly up until, you know, the toddlerhood and separation anxiety. This is when we get a little bit older. But when children start to get anxious when their caregiver goes away, part of them is going, I don't know if caregiver is going to come back. After several experiences that they can add to their experiential vault of caregiver going away and then caregiver coming back. And they start learning, hey, they're going to come back. This isn't so bad. When I started my son in preschool, he was 24 months, 2 years old, and I had always had him at home. Since he was a micro prey, we had had him at home. And I remember the first day I dropped him off at preschool, which we had vetted. It was a great school, great teacher. He cried and, you know, I tried to be strong and I went around. After he went down to his classroom, I went around the wall and I cried. The second day, not the second week, the second day I took him and his teacher met him at the door, he grabbed her hand, he said, hi, Ms. Jessica, bye, bye, Mommy, and turned around and walked away. I went around the wall and I cried again. But he knew that I was going to come back. He knew I was going to come back. And that's what we need to make sure. Recognizing that behavior is communication. If children become inconsolable when we leave them, they're saying, I'm afraid for some reason. And we need to figure out why they're afraid. But we also need to use those words. I know it's going to maybe scary that I'm leaving, but I promise I'll be back. Strategies Swaddling at any age can be helpful, but definitely for infants and toddlers, swaddling where they're feeling the compression of the blanket can be very soothing for a lot of them. Now, if they're neuro atypical, this is not necessarily true. So always judge it by the individual. We found that when we are hugged, when we are swaddled, and it actually increases the levels of oxytocin, our bonding hormone. And oxytocin has the ability to help regulate that stress response. Oh my gosh. So as we, if we feel safe and we start releasing oxytocin it's going to help down regulate that stress response, which helps the person feel calmer, faster and feel more empowered. Touch from a calm caregiver can also be extremely helpful. If caregivers are upset or stressed out and you've seen this in people in the grocery store or wherever or the, or the airplane and their baby starts crying and they're trying to calm the baby and you can see they're getting stressed and the more stressed they get, the louder the baby screams because the baby's picking up on that stress. So a stressed out caregiver trying to calm a baby, it ain't going to work most of the time. Yeah. I'm just telling you that having a calm caregiver, which means caregivers, we have to learn how to downregulate, we have to learn how to activate that vagus nerve, slow our breathing so we are not literally oozing stress, help the child feel safe when startled. We can't prevent them from being startled ever. It's gonna happen. So instead of creating this very sanitary, safe, quiet environment, noises happen, people drop things, dogs bark, child startles. Okay, that was really scary. And I understand that. Hug. Help the child down, regulate how whatever works for them and then talk about what happened. I know that was really scary. You were just starting to get to sleep and the doggy started barking. So you're using those feeling words, you're helping them identify. I felt afraid and caregiver responded and I am safe responding to their actual needs. You know, don't just give them a bottle. That's one of the mistakes I see in a lot of parents, especially ones that didn't have good parents themselves. They think the solution to everything is just give them a bottle. And sometimes that's it, but not always. And finally recognize behavior including cries and avoidance as communication. If the baby is crying or the person, child, toddler, elementary school kid is crying, they're upset. Now they could be angry crying, they could be scared crying, or they could be sad crying. There's a lot of different crying we can do. They can be ugly crying, but they're crying and that's communicating something to and we need to pay attention to what that means. What are they trying to tell us with their tears that they can't tell us with their words? When my daughter was little, oh my gosh, when she was even in kindergarten and elementary school, if my husband would look at her cross eyed, we'd have these big alligator tears coming down. And my husband is the calm one in the family. I'M the one that's a little bit high strung. But if he would look at her cross eyed, oh my gosh, all he would have to do is say I'm really disappointed in you. And she would just dissolve. It was heartbreaking. But it was interesting to see the difference in, in reactions but understanding that when she would start to cry, that indicated she felt guilty for what she did. And to a certain extent she was afraid she was going to be rejected. Until children have experiences where they get in trouble and they're loved anyway because we don't like the behavior, but we do love the child. Until they learn that through experience, there's going to be a certain part of them that's constantly afraid of rejection and abandonment. And I do want to mention avoidance, especially, I shouldn't say especially in infants. Avoidance at any age, if a child is not making eye contact with you, if a child doesn't want to play with you. But as an infant, if you come close to them and instead of looking at you, which they normally want to do, they avert their gaze that tells you that something about your presence is overwhelming to them. And, and so we need to recognize that and figure out what is it, what is, what's going on that is I'm overwhelming this child right now or this child is overwhelmed. And take steps to help them feel more comfortable. Especially as infants when they can't communicate, they don't have words. We need to pay close attention to their non verbals, still using our own words. Even though they can't talk, the more they hear words like afraid and sad and tired. I know that's not really an emotion, but it happens the more easily that will integrate into their vocabulary as they get older. In toddlerhood, children go through those developmental stages of I can do it, I can dress myself and I can potty by myself. Those are the two big things of that stage and initiative. I can start things on my own. I can ask you if you want to play a game. I can initiate something and people actually want to do it with me. I. I'm powerful. Imagine I can ask you to do something and you do it. Cool strategies during toddlerhood to help children feel safe and develop this emotional intelligence. Help them learn their emotions. There are really good books on Amazon that you can get about different emotions. So they can read stories about kids experiencing these emotions. And some of them have anthroporphized. I can never say that word, the emotions themselves. So you may have the anxiety impression. So anxiety itself is this little imp that runs around in this. In this story. But it helps children get to know these feelings, get to understand why they're there and not be afraid of them. It's like, okay, anxiety imp is here today, and I don't want him to. I don't want him to keep playing with me. So what do I need to do? You can act the emotions like I used to have. Sean, do you know, tell me what angry looks like. Tell me about one thing that makes you angry. And they tell you and they say, okay. You can say, okay, well, show me how you would feel if I did that. And they show you anger and then again, labeling. You can even do it when you're watching TV if you're watching. One of our favorites was Bear in the Big Blue House. But it looks like Bear is feeling very sad about something today. What do you. What's going on there so you can talk about what's going on in the show. It doesn't always have to be that child's feelings and talk about the purpose. If you're feeling sad, what does that mean? That means that you lost something that was important to you and sometimes it happens and we can't make it come back. And that can make us a little bit angry, too. But those feelings are there to help protect us, so they're not afraid of them. Regularly use feeling words. Get one of those little magnetic things you can put on the fridge that have the emoticons and you can even ask them, which one do you feel like. Teach best down regulation skills. You want to have the best skills ever breathing. Now, with kids, you can use what we call a dragon breather, and I should have brought one in here. You can make it with a toilet paper roll and tissue paper. You cut strips of tissue paper and glue them in one end of a toilet paper roll, and then the other end stays open. So when they breathe in and they blow through the tube, it looks like a dragon breathing fire. That's one way to get them to blow slowly. You can use bubble stuff. Go to Walmart or Target or one of those places and you can get the little tiny bottles of bubble stuff that they have at weddings and keep it in your backpack or your purse or wherever. So if the child needs to decompress for a second, they can blow bubbles. You can have them do square breathing if you want to. Where you breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. Most kids aren't going to be down with that. Younger children, if you're. Especially if you're holding them, you're giving them a hug, you can say, let's breathe together. And you can breathe in for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four. And they will mimic you. If you found you know when you have a child, if you're holding them or if you're holding a, or if you're sleeping with them, a lot of times you end up trying to sink your breath with them. Children will do the same with you. So if you slow your breathing, they're automatically going to slow their breathing. That's one of the benefits of kangaroo care for young children. So anyway, breathing down regulation essentially means taking down your breathing and your heart rate, which means you have to feel safe. So you can slow your breathing intentionally, which will automatically slow your heart rate. Embracing. You can either hug the child, you can have them put on a weighted vest that helps them feel grounded and safe, or you can have them and even as an adult, you can hug yourself, hold yourself on either side and just give yourself a big hug. And you can bilaterally stimulate your arms, which also helps increase oxytocin. Seeking safety is the next thing when a child is feeling unsafe. Excuse me, knock it off. Sorry. Bird on the window. When the child's feeling unsafe, you can encourage them to seek safety. If you're feeling angry, anxious, depressed, however you're feeling, come see me. I am more than happy to talk to you. Or if you're at school, go see your teacher. They will talk to you, they will help you. And then tolerating distress. Because sometimes distress, it just isn't going to go away. But if we get angry or upset over the distress, we're just going to turn up the volume on that. I use the metaphor of a bee. If you have a bee on your arm, the first reaction, you want it to go away, you want to swat at it. Unfortunately, that's probably the fastest way to get stung. So just like tolerating distress, our first urge, when we feel angry or anxious or afraid, we want to make it go away. But sometimes we can't do that. We can't swipe at that bee, we can't swipe at that feeling and make it go away. If we start swiping at it, we may actually make it worse. So we just need to tolerate it for a moment. It's not going to overwhelm us, it's not going to consume us. We may not like it, but eventually it will float away on its own. Role play with children, if they have difficulty managing their anger on the playground for Example, role play. Some of those scenarios where they typically get angry. And if they start to get angry in the role play, you can take a timeout and talk about what's making you feel angry right now. And a lot of times it has to do with loss of control. Examine the facts in this context at this time. To a toddler, a dog that is jumping around like a crazy being may feel very scary. It may feel very dangerous because they're like, oh my gosh, this dog's going to attack me. When in reality, it could be a dog that's just really excited to see you and has very poor manners, but the child doesn't know that. It doesn't have anything in its experiential vault to say, oh, yeah, that dog's just kind of nutty and is happy to see me. They're just seeing this very large thing bouncing around and coming towards them. So we need to stop and say, I know that seems really scary right now, and kneel down with them. However, Lily is very sweet. She's just excited to see you, and then support them through interacting with that particular animal. Starting a new class is scary? Well, yeah, it can be. So let's validate that. But let's also examine the facts in this context at this time. Let's look around. What, in this situation right now, what is scary? What, what is threatening to you? And let's talk about it. And what are your plans? You know, if you start feeling afraid, what can you do? What are you empowered to do? And when you've started new classes before, maybe they're going to elementary school from kindergarten. So when you started kindergarten, what happened in that? Was that scary? Did that actually turn out to be a threatening or harmful, hurtful thing? Or was it really okay? You were just anxious going into it so we can talk about those things. Even, you know, five and six year olds can grasp these concepts. And finally, you hate me. Well, let's examine the facts in this context at this time. Am I angry because of something you did? Yeah. Do I dislike the behavior that you did? Yeah. Do I hate you? No, not at all. I love you. And reiterating that, what is the evidence that you have that I hate you? And let's talk about whether that evidence is accurate or not. Am I angry? Yes. But it doesn't mean I hate you. So correcting those incorrect assumptions, we want to help children recognize their vulnerabilities and set them up for success. Sean, when we would come after school, he would have been holding it together so hard all Day long because he wanted to be, you know, good. He didn't want to get in trouble. And he didn't have his ADHD diagnosed at that point. So, you know, it. He really had to struggle to hold it together. So by the time school was over, he was ready to just let it all out. He was ready to let it all out. Taking him to the grocery store right after school was guaranteed to be a mistake. It was guaranteed because he needed 20 minutes to just let out some of that nervous energy. And so that's what we did. I didn't set him up for failure. I didn't take him to the grocery store anyway and say, hey, you just got to learn how to deal. I said, I recognize you are at your brink, so let's do this. If they're tired or if they're hungry, taking them on a long grocery trip or something, where. Where they need to act a certain way, that's setting them up for failure. Recognizing that set them up for success. So they're less likely to get unnecessarily angry or anxious. And teach mindfulness of vulnerabilities and feelings, helping them recognize you're. You didn't sleep very well last night. You seem kind of sleepy, and you seem to be having difficulty right now making good choices. Do you think it has to do with not getting good sleep last night? Most of the time, the answer is yes. So sleep sickness and hunger, those are the ones that. And pain, those are the ones we come back to most often. When my kids were little, they would become, as one of my friends used to say, disorganized. Before they would get sick, a day or two before they would actually start spiking a fever or something, they would start just becoming more disorganized in what they were doing. They'd start something, and they couldn't maintain attention. And I recognized that that meant they were getting ready to get sick. So that's when I would start asking, do you feel okay and what do you need to do? School age. Oh, gosh. And hormones are kicking in so much earlier now, unfortunately. But during this phase, children are trying to develop a sense of confidence that there's. There are things that I can do that I'm good at, and independence. This is what is important to me. Not necessarily to you, but to me, which means getting some separation between them and their caregivers, which can be really difficult sometimes. And towards the end of this school age period, hormones kick in. And hormones. Those hormone surges in pre adolescence and adolescence can make managing emotions feel so much more overwhelming. We go back to cares, consistently check in and express interest and awareness and how they're feeling actively. Ask them how things are going to pay attention, know their friends names, know the activities they're involved in at school, ask them how those things are going and again, ask them something that's a little more off the wall, like, you know, what was the best thing that happened today or what made you laugh at school today. Respond consistently and by walking them through. Idea now, school age as I'm using it here starts like first grade through through high school, but definitely first grade through middle school. So most of the time these children are not going to have really robust coping problem solving skills. They're still learning. So we need to help them identify how they're feeling, what caused them to feel that way, help them develop the skills to down regulate so they can better problem solve. Help them evaluate the situation, choose an action and solve the problem. Encourage them to try to understand and resolve the problem. We don't need to fix everything for them. We need to hear what's going on and say, all right, what do you think the best way to handle that is? And then be supportive of them trying to solve it. And finally, safety. Making sure that they know that you have their back and love them even if you don't like their behaviors. We all have unwanted behaviors sometimes. It doesn't mean we aren't lovable, it means our behavior was inappropriate and making sure that they always know the difference. Emotional intelligence helps people identify, understand and affect effectively respond to their emotions. It helps people gain a sense of control and empowerment over intense emotions and associated behaviors. If we can help people feel less stressed, and if we can help people balance their stress response and their relaxation response so they're not stressed all the time or most of the time, we are going to reduce a lot of that inflammation, a lot of that dysregulation. And that in and of itself is going to make a emotions easier to deal with. We want to help them differentiate feelings from facts and reduce that excess stress that contributes to inflammation, disease and disregulation. The ability to identify and regulate their emotions, to feel empowered, to take control, to feel empowered. When I feel anxious, it doesn't mean I have to stew in it and just sit there and feel terrified. It's my body saying, hey, there might be a problem and let's figure out what to do about it. Anxiety and anger are not meant to be nurtured. They're meant to motivate you to action. And when children Start to recognize that for success. Sean, when we would come after school, he would have been holding it together so hard all day long because he wanted to be, you know, good. He didn't want to get in trouble. And he didn't have his ADHD diagnosed at that point, so, you know, it. He really had to struggle to hold it together. So by the time school was over, he was ready to just let it all out. He was ready to let it all out. Taking him to the grocery store right after school was guaranteed to be a mistake. It was guaranteed because he needed 20 minutes to just let out some of that nervous energy. And so that's what we did. I didn't set him up for failure. I didn't take him to the grocery store anyway and say, hey, you just got to learn how to deal. I said, I recognize you are at your brink, so let's do this. If they're tired or if they're hungry, taking them on a long grocery trip or something, where. Where they need to act a certain way, that's setting them up for failure. Recognizing that set them up for success so they're less likely to get unnecessarily angry or anxious. And teach mindfulness of vulnerabilities and feelings, helping them recognize you're. You didn't sleep very well last night. You seem kind of sleepy, and you seem to be having difficulty right now making good choices. Do you think it has to do with not getting good sleep last night? Most of the time, the answer is yes. So sleep sickness and hunger, those are the ones that. And pain, those are the ones we come back to most often. When my kids were little, they would become, as one of my friends used to say, disorganized. Before they would get sick, a day or two before they would actually start spiking a fever or something, they would start just becoming more disorganized in what they were doing. They'd start something, and they couldn't maintain attention. And I recognized that that meant they were getting ready to get sick. So that's when I would start asking, do you feel okay and what do you need to do? School, age. Oh, gosh. And hormones are kicking in so much earlier now, unfortunately. But during this phase, children are trying to develop a sense of confidence that there's. There are things that I can do that I'm good at, and independence. This is what is important to me. Not necessarily to you, but to me, which means getting some separation between them and their caregivers, which can be really difficult sometimes. And towards the end of this school age period, hormones kick in and hormones, those hormone surges in pre adolescence and adolescence can make managing emotions feel so much more overwhelming. We go back to cares, consistently check in and express interest and awareness in how they're feeling. Actively ask them how things are going to pay attention, know their friends names, know the activities they're involved in at school, ask them how those things are going. And again, ask them something that's a little more off the wall, like, you know, what was the best thing that happened today or what made you laugh at school today. Respond consistently and by walking them through. Idea. Now, school age as I'm using it here starts like first grade through through high school, but definitely first grade through middle school. So most of the time these children are not going to have really robust coping problem solving skills. They're still learning. So we need to help them identify how they're feeling, what caused them to feel that way, help them develop the skills to down regulate so they can better problem solve. Help them evaluate the situation, choose an action and solve the problem. Encourage them to try to understand and resolve the problem. We don't need to fix everything for them. We need to hear what's going on and say, all right, what do you think the best way to handle that is? And then be supportive of them trying to solve it. And finally, safety. Making sure that they know that you have their back and love them even if you don't like their behaviors. We all have unwanted behaviors sometimes. It doesn't mean we aren't lovable, it means our behavior was inappropriate and making sure that they always know the difference. Emotional intelligence helps people identify, understand and affect effectively respond to their emotions. It helps people gain a sense of control and empowerment over intense emotions and associated behaviors. If we can help people feel less stressed and if we can help people balance their stress response and their relaxation response so they're not stressed all the time or most of the time, we are going to reduce a lot of that inflammation, a lot of that dysregulation. And that in and of itself is going to make emotions easier to deal with. We want to help them differentiate feelings from facts and reduce that excess stress that contributes to inflammation, disease and disregulation. The ability to identify and regulate their emotions, to feel empowered, to take control, to feel empowered. When I feel anxious, it doesn't mean I have to stew in it and just sit there and feel terrified. It's my body saying, hey, there might be a problem and let's figure out what to do about it. Anxiety and anger are not meant to be nurtured. They're meant to motivate you to action. And when children start to recognize that and recognize the healthy and appropriate ways to respond, then they start feeling more empowered and safer in their own skin. They start feeling like they are better able to protect themselves. This helps reduce symptoms in every piece of life. It helps reduce inflammation, it improves circadian rhythms, it improves sleep, it reduces pain, reduces the risk of autoimmune diseases. If they have an autoimmune disease, it reduces flares, it improves social interactions. If people are less stressed, they're better able to engage with others. If they feel empowered and capable, they have stronger self esteem. It helps them experience positive emotions. If they're not just constantly being flooded with anxiety and depression and anger, they actually have energy and room to identify and experience those other emotions cognitively. When those things are going better, the brain fog lifts, the prefrontal cortex starts engaging more. Problem solving improves learning, improves memory, improves. It's just wonderful. So there's a lot to be said for helping people regulate their stress and learn how to understand and manage their emotions. We're not trying to get rid of them, we're trying to manage them in a way that helps us survive and and use our energy to move toward our richest and most meaningful life. Are there any questions? I'm glad you enjoyed it, Jason. Fidget toys are wonderful, Lana. I have, I have my worry stone but that I use sometimes that can. That helps me a lot. But my daughter used to love fidget toys. Whenever I'm in a long meeting I need to have a worry stone or something to fidget with. So yes, it definitely does help release some energy, especially in people who are somewhat addicted. Jay I agree that it's a shame that so many kids struggle in school because they're afraid and they're stressed out all the time and their brain is not engaging the learning areas. It's engaging the fight orf flight areas. It's just trying to find a place where they can feel safe. Yes, it's devastating. That's awesome, Lana. I'm glad you got them for yourself too. Thank you, Jewel. I appreciate you being here. Hello Nia and Lindsay. I didn't see you come in. Good to see you. I think I saw Teresa earlier. Hi to you. Hi Claudia. And you're quite welcome. I don't usually do a lot on kids because that's not a population that I work with a lot anymore. But it is important because prevention, as they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If we can help kids learn how to manage their emotions, then they will be able to grow up to adults who are better able to manage their emotions, reduce systemic inflammation, disease and distress. All righty, everybody. Have an amazing rest of your day and I will see you next Wednesday.