Parenting in a Pandemic: Conscious Parenting with Dr. Shefali Tsabary

Foreign. Okay. I am so, so glad to be here with Dr. Shefali. Dr. Shefali. I have been, we've been at a number of events together. I've had the privilege of seeing you on stage, sharing the stage with you, and I've always, always enjoyed it a great deal. I am really conscious right now that parenting is an incredibly hot topic. I mean, it always is, but there's a right now about it. And I was really impressed to find, like, I've been thinking a lot about things that are getting disrupted by what's going on right now. Like, for example, I don't know if you know Mark Hyman, but he's got his book Food Fix out there in the middle of launch, and then this happens. Not so good for a book launch. And I know you're in pre launch with a book right now, ironically, about how to help kids dealing with anxiety. And of course, the launch is probably getting delayed and messed up, but you're giving away a lot of the information directly through one of your Facebook pages. Tell us about that.

Yeah, so it's so, you know, life works out in the most unpredictable ways. And I think this current pandemic is showing us that really clearly in an exaggerated way. So, yeah. My book is called Superpower how to Help youp Kids Transform Anxiety into Courage, Confidence and Resilience. And I was going to make this grand announcement and we had this big marketing plan. So you can pre order it. I hope your people will go pre order it. And we had this big plan. Right. But like all good things in life, they're always up for change. And we realized we needed to adapt. And what's in this book is exactly what parents need to help their kids right now. So we couldn't really wait for them to buy the book. We realized we should give away the teachings of this book right now. So I created a Facebook page. You're going to post it for your people. And it's a free Facebook page. I just began it yesterday. We're already over 5,000 people where parents are joining together to get the real time tools to help their kids manage this pandemic in the best way possible. So this is what we're doing. So if people want to come join this Facebook group for free, and you're going to have me there every single day. And my fabulous co author, who specializes in how to help kids with anxiety, and we're going to give all these teachings for free.

I am so excited you're doing that. I think you and I have been called In a similar way, I'm sitting here really, really aware of the personal stories that I'm hearing from people whose incomes are being disrupted, who are now stuck in their houses with their kids and having to deal with their education and their businesses and all this. It's a tough time and they're. And so I'm glad that you're sharing all that stuff. Let's get down to. I've seen some interesting posts online. I saw one the other day that said it was somebody quite prominent. I wish I could remember who it was right now, but they said, I'm now on three days of homeschooling my children. And I believe that every teacher should be paid a billion dollars a year.

It was Shonda Rhimes, I think.

Shonda, that's exactly right. Well done. And I saw that and I really, you know, I really realized, like, we're. This whole thing is affecting us on so many levels. But this kids thing is a big deal. One of the things I'm really aware of is that children that grew up during the Great Depression, when they lived the rest of their lives, they lived their lives through the filter of their experience of the Great Depression. So many of them died. Multi millionaires that had never seen the world or driven a nice car live in a nice house because they had all this messed up stuff about what happened during that time. And so I think we have to be really conscious of how we. Of how our children. The meanings that our children make about this stuff.

Exactly. So it's happening right now. And how we process this with our children will contextually fundamentally shift their perception of their life from now onward. Like any moment in life, right? A marriage, a divorce, a sibling's arrival, financial upheavals and downturns, it's always going to affect our children. So I always say we provide that template to give to our children who they love, how they love, how they process their emotions, how they feel about themselves looking in the mirror, and now how they contextualize the stressors of life, this crisis. So I tell parents, it's not so much what you say or your clever strategy or your sentences, even though that matters. What really matters is how your consciousness truly is in this moment, how you truly are feeling about it. So you can say it, but if you're panicking from inside and going to buy all the toilet paper in the world, your kids are going to absorb that panic. So I am calling all parents to the challenge of understanding how they process this anxiety, is how their children will process their anxiety. Now, do we take precautions? For sure? It's not about taking precautions. We take precautions when we drive on the right side of the road, when we drive according to the rules, when.

We wear a seatbelt, when we wear a seatbelt.

Precautions are part of life. This is not about not taking precautions. It's about how we enter the car and the energy with which we live our lives. And this is a call to that consciousness. And there is a way to do this in a more abundant way or a more fear based way. And we get to choose as parents, and how we respond will dictate how our kids contextualize this for the rest of their lives.

Yeah, there's absolutely no question about it. I'm aware that, you know, if we use a silly little example, if your child slips in the bath and goes under the water and you freak out about that, then that child may end up afraid of going underwater. And of course that's a silly example, but it's a true example. And now we're, we're in a very different place where there's something that is touching everybody's lives. And now there are practical realities of people being trapped in their homes with their kids. A matter of fact, I was talking to a very good friend of mine about this whole situation and she says, my daughter Amelia wants to know, what am I supposed to do when I want to choke my younger sister? So people are down to the practical realities of what's going on. Tell me. You know, as parents, we're digesting the news that's coming in and we're dealing with every extreme from hysteria to denial, and we're trying to find our place in the middle. What do you suggest? Like, when our kids ask us, like, what's really going on here? I mean, what's the answer that you would offer, that you would suggest people offer?

Well, I would say that we don't know what the deal is right now. And there's this infection and. But I'm sure that it will run its course or we will find a cure. But right now what matters is that we stay safe and we stay excited about life Right now we're healthy and bring it back into the now. Kids don't really want to know the future because they don't live in the future themselves. Kids want to see how you're handling the unknown of the future, but the future is always unknown. Pre virus, post virus, in the virus, the future is always unknown. So there's nothing really new happening here except that there is something new out there that now we're putting all our focus on and we're calling it the enemy, but really it's just another face of life itself. Our jobs were always at risk, that we could always die in a traffic accident, we could always get cancer, we could still get divorced. Nothing is really changing, except there seems to be a new enemy in town. And that is what is causing us all this panic now, of course, is it unfortunate? Is it inconvenient? Yes. But on the other hand, there's no traffic on the streets. The earth is breathing. There's no smog and confusion and chaos and traffic jams. For the first time in our lives, we've been put into a forced detox, a forced decluttering, a forced, you know, don't consume, sit still, be in your homes, connect. It's like almost in, in some ways the perfect remedy for the malaise of the heart. This is what we've been wanting. Everyone has said they've not had time. Everyone says that we don't get enough space and energy to do the things we love. Okay, now you got it. How are we going to use this time? Right? But instead our minds are always on what things should have been and an attachment to the past, how things were. And that's where we mess up. It's time to adapt. It's not how it was. We still don't know the future and we have to enter the present moment.

I'm with you, but that's a big mouthful. Like I'm saying, bear in mind there, my little girl is three and a half years old. We don't have to explain it to her, it's just an adventure, there's no point, she's on her way, you know, she's safe, everything's good, they've got food. But then at 12 and 13 and 14 years old, everything you've just said is, I think, really good. You know, general information for all of us to know. But I'm sitting here with a 13 year old kid going, mom, I'm freaked out.

Yeah, and we say that, yeah, I understand. You're freaked out because you're looking at too much social media and every moment you're being bombarded with another case, another case, another case. You need to stop because it's like you need to hear every moment when there's a traffic accident in India, another traffic accident in Malawi, another one in Trinidad and Tobago. No, it's like that. So I understand you're freaked out, but you need to learn how to cope. And part of coping is stop being Fear mongered by social media. We can watch the news once a day, but that's it. Are you healthy right now? Are things okay in your life right now and bring it back to the present moment? You know, there's no other remedy. There's not some sophisticated song and dance you have to do. You have, you have to redirect your children and course correct them and show them we're here now. We're going to be safe, we're going to be fine, as much as we can control. And we don't know what the future is. But guess what, kid? I never knew what the future was. Even yesterday, I just faked it. So now enjoy your life, you're healthy, let's relax, watch some movies and bring them back to the present moment and allow them to celebrate the now. And children are good at that. You know, if we give them the container and give them the context, they can redirect themselves. Children are inherently ready to be joyful.

I think so. And I think I've seen a lot of evidence of that, hearing from my friends and, you know, painting and doing fun things in the house. And the kids are actually quite enjoying it. And I do feel that assurance. Like, you know, there's so much unknown news out there and you know, like, funny you mentioned about traffic. Like, I, this is probably not a very popular idea, but I'll bet you so far, net for net coronavirus has saved more lives than it's taken because the traffic accidents alone.

That's what I'm saying. I'm saying the same thing. I'm like, how many traffic accidents? How much money we have saved? I can tell you today, I've saved at least a hundred dollars. I would have eaten out. I would have gotten a latte. I would have binged on something on the Internet and bought something. I've not done any of it. It's in a way a great reorganization of the human spirit and mind. And it's a decluttering, a detoxing, a pausing, you know, and we have to look at, we have to look at things in perspective. If we only focus on the negative, we're forgetting all the beautiful things that are happening as well. And life is lived in perspective. We have to have the good and the bad. Yes, some things are terrible, but there's a lot of good that can unfold out of this. You can finally write that book. You can finally lose that weight. You can finally meditate. Let's also hold both sides. If you want to focus on the fear, also focus on the antidote of fear, which is gratitude.

Right. So I think one of the things that I think is really important for kids to understand now is that they're not actually under any physical risk. You know, from a virus perspective, we already know that kids are barely touched by this. And I think it's important for them to know that because I have heard from some people, their kids are like, becoming terribly afraid to breathe. You know, it's like, oh, my God, I don't want to get sick. Well, you know what? All the news that we were getting from people of, it's no worse than the flu. Well, to some degree, if you're young, that's kind of true. And I think it's probably good for kids to know that they're not becoming germaphobes and reaction.

And again, kids will learn from the adults. Number one, if the kid is anxious to a high degree, they were always anxious. This just unlocks that anxiety. No kid suddenly turns on an anxiety here. And number two, they're looking at you for comfort. If they see you obsessively cleaning and afraid to breathe, then they're going to pick up your paranoia. It's one thing to be careful, and it's another thing to be paranoid. And parents have to look at themselves in the mirror and ask themselves, what energy am I exhibiting right now? Because the kids are absorbing it. Kids are looking at us all the time to calibrate their anxieties.

Yeah, I agree. How about. Here's another one, speaking of the Great Depression, people are now in a situation where, you know, look, you and I are probably quite fortunate in many respects financially. But there are other people out there that are, you know, their jobs have stopped and their income flow has stopped, and they're worried about mortgage payments and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, I know we'll come out of all of that and we'll bounce back. But in the meantime, parents need to communicate with their kids about their spending patterns. Like, you know, kids suddenly are like, oh, we can't have that. Can we buy that? Can we get all those foods at the grocery store and stuff? And I think it's important that we think about how to communicate. I'd love to know what your thought is. How do you communicate to kids that we're going to be restricting spending right now, but not making them fearful about money and not trying to. Not teaching them scarcity, for example. My one level one on this is we don't say we can't buy that. We say we're choosing not to. I'm curious how you feel about that.

Yeah, well, again, we put it in context that for this time period, we're going to hunker down. Mom is not buying stuff, Dad's not buying stuff, and we're not buying stuff for this time period. And we keep it contextualized, we keep it relative, and we say. And then once this lifts, yeah, we can go back to how life used to be for this moment. We're going to all cut back and buy less, consume less, and actually help more and give more to people who need. Mom and dad are going to save their money to give people who need help. So right now, all of us are going to stop buying, and the whole world is doing that. So we're all going to join in together. What a wonderful message of converting a selfish narcissism and consumerism to altruism, right?

Yeah, absolutely. I suppose another big part of parenting is relationships for those people that are married and they're now in the house. And I think that's creating another. Another level of stress. I mean, I was reading the other day that divorce rates have completely spiked in China because husbands and wives have been forced to actually be together. And I think it's kind of interesting. But I also feel like when there's enough tension and difficulty out there, I think the last thing kids really need to see is a bunch of arguing and fighting. But here they are, all trapped in a house. The old days, it was like, we can wait till the kids leave, and now we can have this conversation. Do you have any thoughts on how couples can navigate their own tension in a way that doesn't spill over their kids, considering they might be in confined quarters?

Yeah, I just counseled somebody yesterday, and I warned her. I said, don't take out your anxieties on your relationship right now, albeit if the relationship stinks. This is not the time to air out the dirt. So right now we don't need to add more stress in our lives. We don't need to suddenly find our partner more annoying than yesterday. Today is the time to not focus on the fact that he left his socks or that she always burns the toast. Today we let things go. So we give a wider rope to everyone. Everyone is kind of adjusting and adapting, so we tolerate more. We just give wider rope to more people, I guess, and stop making a big deal out of every little thing right now, because we're not getting a divorce right now. This is not the time to get a divorce. And if you do, it's going to cost you 10 times more. So just tolerate and prioritize and hunker down and just live in a simple way and just focus on being grateful for having your health right now.

Do you know, I want to add a little bit to that because I have just a little bit of a perspective at the moment that my wife and my baby and we have a friend that like a kind of nanny that lives with us, a good friend of ours. And they were on a boat cruise, I know, ideal, right? And they've cruised, docked in Miami and luckily they got into the us this is just two days ago, but now the question is, do they fly down to where I am? And suddenly I did all this complicated math and I realized that if they fly down here and then we end up having to be emergency evacuated out of here. The Canadians are going to let Canadians in. That's me and my daughter, but not my wife. The British are going to let British people, and that's my wife and not me and my daughter. The Americans are gonna let Americans in, but not Candy. And we would all four end up in different places. And so suddenly I just made the decision they should stay in the US And I sent them to a friend of mine who has a big 400 acre ranch with months of food. He's a survivalist and very wealthy, successful and smart guy. And so that's where they're going. But in the meantime, I'm alone. And I can tell you something, that the things that might irritate you are things to be grateful for because they're happening. Because when you're in the house alone and they're not happening, you kind of wish they were. So for all the wives out there that are annoyed about the socks on the floor, I want you to imagine what life would be like if the socks weren't on the floor. For all the husbands that are annoyed, as you said about the toast being burnt, imagine what the house would be like if you didn't smell that every now and again. Because I've been alone now for three, four, five days and it's going to be weeks. So it's not just tolerating those things. I think you should get grateful about them.

I know, exactly. And just realize that everyone's in this together, everyone is suffering in some way. Everyone has to adapt. And we have to at this point, enter a beautiful place in our heart as much as we can and remove stressors, remove tensions, remove things to be upset about, rather than the opposite.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk a little bit, you know, One of the principles that I share so strongly with you in the realm of parenting, and I certainly don't hold myself out as any kind of parenting expert, I. My children could absolutely. I think you say something similar. My children would absolutely demonstrate that that's not true. But I have my kids spread by quite a lot of years. My son is 22 and my daughter's three. And so that does give me some different perspectives sometimes. And I've also spent a lot of time with the Hadza bushmen in East Africa. And there's something that you say a lot that I've witnessed there, and that is that we don't own our children. And I really like that idea. In fact, the Hadza people, they sort of believe that children are just smaller adults, so they will help them relative to size and strength, but they don't try to tell them how to live. So it's awful. But if the kids walking toward the fire, they'll let the kid walk toward the fire. And, you know, I think that while I'm not quite willing to go that far, I really do attempt to. I really do attempt to let my kids live their own life now, though, they're going to be together all the time. And so there's school and stuff to be addressed, like homeschooling and that kind of stuff. Do you have any thoughts about, like, homeschooling, scheduling? What kind of should we be? Should we be making our kids maintain some sort of routine? Do we let this turn into some kind of summertime, you know, summer camp? Or do we try to maintain a level of normalcy and routine? What do you think?

I think we try as best as we can, but we don't make it stressful for us, you know, and this is a wonderful opportunity to slow down, to laugh, to connect, to be lazy. I mean, it's wonderful things that we don't typically allow ourselves to do. On the other hand, it's also wonderful opportunity to upregulate. So, you know, like I said, for parents especially, to exercise more, to eat more healthy, to, you know, meditate more, to take a course that they couldn't take. So I would focus less on the kids, but focus on upregulating ourselves as human beings. But in terms of the kids, yes, younger they are, the more the routine, the better. But don't stress yourself out too much either. Like, oh, now it's 12 o' clock and we have to all go to bed and we have to now have a nap, you know, don't be ridiculous. You're Not a school, so relax. But I think with teenagers, you know, back off a little bit more and allow them to find their own way, but also keeping the big perspective of that this is going to be okay. This is a moment in time. It is going to change because everything changes. And let's just stay calm and grounded and not stressed out. That is the key, that we're going to ride this wave together. It's a wave, and it will be a new wave later, but it won't be this wave. So let's ride this wave knowing this wave is going to change.

Yeah, I think that, you know, the idea that your children are going to pick up your vibration very, very strongly. Whatever, whatever pervasive, like you said, this is the perfect example of it's not about what I say, it's about what I do. And so the way we live is going to govern a lot about the way they choose to live. And I think that's a really, really valuable lesson. I find myself, like, I've got my son who's quite far away from me also, but he's, you know, he's grown up and he's living in his house. And I found it quite interesting to talk to him because, of course, at 22, he's making a lot of his own decisions, that sort of stuff. But I can also tell that he's looking to me for guidance about that. And so my tone, my energy, that's really a big deal. So I think that's a really valuable message.

Yeah, it's the key. And also understanding that our children can be anxious. Now, what if you're completely in a cool vibration, but your kid is so sensitive and she or he heard from another kid, you have to wash your hands 15 times an hour. What are you going to do now? And your kid is going insane. I've had a lot of parents come to me and go, what do I do? My kid is washing their hands constantly. So I told the parent, like, it's okay. That's your kid's way of getting control. And we can't stop them, but we can show them a different way if they're open to it. And then you could always turn the water off for an hour and show the kid that he didn't die and, you know, engage them so they forget. But I think if we panic at our kids panic, then we're going to make it worse. We can't stop our kids from panicking at the end of the day, when we're relaxed about panic in general. So if your Kid panics or doesn't panic, you're relaxed. You understand? If your kid is getting nervous, don't change it, don't fix it. Allow them to have their moment. Understand that in a way, anxiety is a way of controlling anxiety. You know, we have anxiety to control. Control anxiety. It's a self perpetuating cycle and it will pass. It's okay. You're going to see spikes in perhaps aggression from your kids acting out. You know, maybe more laziness. Don't react to it, trying to fix it. Understand, it could be a manifestation of anxiety. And the best way to deal with anxiety is to not say that it should go away. You know, people always tell kids, oh, stop being anxious or you're so stupid or don't be silly, that's not the way to go. Yeah. The way to do it is. I get it, I understand. If it makes you feel in control to wash your hands, let's do it. But then on the side, you can turn off the water, you can engage them in other ways, they can forget. You know, we can help our kids in many ways, but we don't undermine them either.

You know, it's funny, I think that more now than in normal, I think this is true in normal life, but more now is that if you make it a big deal, it'll be a big deal. So if your kids are overly washing their hands because they keep seeing all these things and you make a big deal of it, then you're going to end up with a big deal. You're going to end up with some kind of OCD type reaction or what have you. Whereas if you just let it play out and let it be, I think that makes really, really good sense.

Yeah. Don't resist what's happening. Understand it.

Sure. How about this? What about conflict resolution? Like suddenly you got two, three, four kids. You know, siblings love each other, but they hate each other. And all of a sudden it's, you know, maybe there's limited resources. There's only the one TV or the, only the one Xbox or, you know, whatever the case might be, there is going to be conflict among kids at the moment. How do you. What's your recommendation on trying to diffuse that conflict?

Yeah, listen, bottom line is that it must be hell for some parents cooped up in an apartment with two or three crazy kids. Oh my goodness, can you imagine? And that's when you thank the teachers, when you realize, oh my goodness, I need to buy them gifts right now. But the bottom line is parents must be stressed. They must be Stressed for cash, their routine is upset, and they have these annoying, pesky, crying, tantruming, fighting children at home. So I'm not making this all a hunky dory reality. It must be hell. So first, understand that as a parent, you're coping with a lot and to have compassion for yourself. And then secondly, yeah, these kids are going to be driving you crazy. So the more you can, you know, give them time together, but time apart, you know, divide and conquer. Have your partner take a few, you take a few. But bottom line, just know you're in for a ride. You know, like this is going just. You have to learn to not get seduced by every yell, every scream, every anger, you know, till they're bleeding and really gouging each other's eyes out. Like, you have to kind of let it go for this moment. Because if you try to make the perfect family and the perfect box and the perfect dinner, and it's going to drive you crazy. So expect hell, expect chaos and learn to ride this wave. I mean, my daughter's 17. I can't be more grateful if I was at home when she was 7 and, you know, having to deal with her 24, 7, that's a lot for parents of young kids. So I really feel. Feel for them. But there's lots of creative stuff online. People are posting stuff for free, lots of activities for free. So use the Internet now. This is the time to use it wisely.

Yeah, yeah. And there are incredible home activities like home crafts and great things. And the other thing is kind of back to what I said earlier about even spouses. Frankly, the conversation I think I'd be inclined to have with any siblings is, you know what, we're in tight quarters right now, but I want you to imagine what it would be like to be here alone because there are kids out there that are only children that are now quarantined and locked up alone. And that might sound nice right now because you want that on the tv, but do you really think that that would be nice for the next week or two or three or whatever this is going to take? And I think that perspective may be a little helpful. And I want to offer a conspiracy theory that you've just inspired. There's all these conspiracy theories about this whole virus thing, but I have a new one. This whole thing was created by the teachers union. They did this. They created this whole scam. They got us all panicked and locked up so that when it's all over, we will finally pay teachers what they're worth.

Finally I know, totally. Wouldn't that be amazing? Good for them, how smart they are.

Well, listen, I am so grateful that the world has people like you that are out here sharing this information. I. I'm really appreciative of you taking all the valuable content out of your book and giving it away for free at the moment. And I know that you know what, in the end that will pay dividends for you. I'm certain. I believe that that will spread the book even further than it would have gone in the normal world. So I think that that's going to be really helpful.

Yep. This is the book. You can pre order it. It's called Superpower Transforming Anxiety into Courage, Confidence and Resilience. But join the Facebook page. Eric will post the link where we're giving away the teachings for free. We're going to support you with your kids. We're going to inspire you. We're going to motivate you. We're going to help you transcend this moment in time to become an even better human and parent.

Absolutely. And you know, we collected yesterday when I posted, I posted this thing on social that said take care of your kids minds. And I just kind of wrote about that and then I just asked, what ideas do people have? And we collected tons of them. So I'm going to have somebody from my team take all those links and ideas and what have you and then they'll come post it in your Facebook group for you.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone. Bye.