Episode 294: Discussing War and Other Challenging Topics with Your Kids

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Greene for the Wylie Blues Up podcast, and I am super excited today because I have the fabulous Dr. Cheryl Ziegler with me today. Dr. Cheryl, thank you so much for doing this with me.

Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this.

I was asking her and talking to her way too much before I hit record, so I just need to hit record and jump in because I have so much to talk to her about, and I want to tell you a a little bit about this fantastic lady. She is the bestselling author of Mommy Burnout. She's working on her second book that we're going to discuss. She has the, she has the podcast and is the host of Dr. Cheryl's Pod Couch, a regular national and local news contributor, and runs a private group practice in Denver, Colorado. She is also a national and international presenter on topics related to stress, parenting, mental health, and burnout, as well as a TEDx speaker. And I was looking her up again. I've had her on before. I had the pleasure of having her on before, so go look it up. But, um, when I was looking you up before I met with you, you came up on so many podcasts, including the Holderness Family. And I was like, oh my God, she met the Holderness Family.

I know, it's really a highlight of my career, of all the things. Isn't it so funny?

Like, we're talking about national news, local news, and I go to the Holderness family.

It was kind of epic. And I— it really is a highlight. They're just— they're the best. They're the best. And so I got to talk about sort of marital stuff with them, and we talked about mommy burnout. So it was— it was great. It was super fun.

Well, I'm excited. I'm going to go listen to it after this, after I get to talk to you. And, you know, We talked about how there's a lot of things that are hard for us to talk about. There's so many things that we can discuss. The most recent thing is the war in Israel. I'm all tongue-tied today, but maybe I'm tongue-tied because of the topic, but I'm going to push myself to talk about this. This is a hard topic and we need people like you to help us. And I've had so many parents bring this up to me. I've had so many parents reach out to me. So I think this is going to be a super helpful podcast today. So let's start with why do, do you think in particular that we should be talking about the war in Israel with our kids?

So, you know, it— this is a major event going on right now, and with the age of social media and digital access everywhere, if you're not talking to your kids about it, they are seeing images, they are seeing headlines, they are hearing things, they're watching memes, they're they're inundated with information that they're either going to process or they're going to take in what they are hearing and then make assumptions. And so, yes, is it uncomfortable? Yes. Is it scary? Do we want to protect our kids? Do we want to say, oh my gosh, that's so far, far away, right? You can, you can do that for the first day or two. Oh, this is so far, far away. But here's the reality. We are having protests on college campuses. We are having protests in our cities. We are seeing signs that say Free Palestine. So again, we're living the history. Either you tell your kid the narrative or someone else will.

Such a good point, and we all need to hear that. And I know that it's hard to know where to begin. Can you kind of help us with like, where do we even begin with our children?

Yes, I will tell you right where to begin. The first thing you want to say is, hey, what do you know about this? Right? Nonjudgmental, relaxed. You heard my tone of voice. What do you know about this? What have you heard about it? Where have you heard those things? Are you hearing that online? Are you hearing that on the playground? Did your teacher say anything like this? Where basically are you getting your sources of information? So number one, just What do you know about it? A parent's best friend with parenting is learning how to use open-ended questions. Simply put, open-ended. So I could say, you know, I could— a closed-ended question would be, what do you— well, I'm so hard at closed-ended questions that I hardly ever do it. You ask me a closed-ended question, you know?

Okay, let me think. Do you like the new book that you're writing?

Perfect. Closed-ended, right? Do you like the book that you're writing? Because what you're doing is you're forcing me to say yes or no. I mean, can I skirt around it and say, well, kind of, sort of, right? So, yes. But the reality is a closed-ended question is, do you like that? Yes or no? So when you say to— when you say to a kid, you force a question like that. Did you hear about the war in Gaza? Right? Yes or no? That— it leads us to a dead end. Like, now you can make it go farther, but it's harder. But if you said to me, use the same question for your sample, um, how's it going? How's the process of writing the new book? Now I get to say absolutely anything I want. You have no— I don't even know what I'm going to say. You don't know what I'm going to say because you've asked it so openly. So just to say like, hey, what have you heard? It just allows me to feel not on the defense. Because one of the things about human behavior is when we are asked closed-ended questions, we actually automatically get on the defense. And this is— and I mean, even how do you like— do you like your haircut? Right. Actually, instantly our body has a stress response, even as benign of a question as how do you like your haircut? How do you— I'm still making it open-ended, you see. But do you like your haircut? Do you like my haircut? I'm instantly like, oh gosh, what should I say? She's asking me. But if you say, how do you like it? Or what do you think about it? I can say, well, I really like the color. It's a little bit shorter than I thought, right? And I can— now I can be nuanced. So just know that any time— this could be with your parenting, this could be in a business dealing, this could be a Thanksgiving dinner table— any time you want a conversation to flow, you don't want people to be defensive. You really want to hear and understand someone. Just ask them open-ended questions. So it's the same thing. This is a hard topic. Start off with, okay, so that's the first question, right? What have you heard about it? And then they'll give you who knows what kind of answer. It depends on the age of your kid, right? If they're younger, they might say, I don't, you know, I don't know, or I don't know. Sometimes why are people waving flags or I I don't know, I see people, or are there bad guys and are there good guys? Like, you know, they just sort of young. And when I say younger, I generally am meaning under 10. So anywhere from about 5 to 10, kinder to 5th grade, kinder to 4th grade, they might really not know that much. But it depends. Some kids are on YouTube a lot. So maybe you're thinking, oh, well, we don't have social media. Well, if you don't have social media, your kid probably still is on YouTube though. Right? They're watching their favorite YouTube stunts and influencers and hauls and beauty hacks and all these things that 3rd and 4th graders are doing. And so there could be easily something that gets through on a feed in which they might not know a ton about, but they saw the images, right? So you've gotta treat that a little bit differently. And those kids are, are younger. They really might not know a lot, but they probably have seen images. And then I would give them probably, oh, well, I don't know. I saw, I saw some flag or I saw somebody. I saw this video. I didn't understand what was happening. They were, they were burning this blue and white flag. Why? Why was that happening? Something like that. Right. So they might just be very basic elementary. They might transcribe to you images that they saw more so than the news they read or the TikTok they listened to. And so, and remember, especially with TikTok, if they heard one TikTok, they've probably heard 15 TikToks.

Exactly right.

It's not one. It's not the way that works. No, it's one after the other after the other. Right. And then the algorithm will quickly change. So now let's say you've got your kid who's a little older, so they're, they're 10. I'm gonna do 3 age ranges, like 10 to 14, 10 to 15, right? The tweens, they are not yet quite sophisticated. They might not be having debates in their classes about this. Teachers might not be super overtly, but they're going to know more and they're going to, you know, they're going to be hearing random and sporadic things. And probably they actually are going to hear what their friends' families think because, you know, for some families who are really active talking to their kids, that kid is actually more likely to go to school and say, well, my dad says, my mom says, Yes. My parents think. I recently had this with one of my son's friends who was 13, and I was like, wow, this kid is listening to his parents and he is regurgitating the information that he is hearing and he feels very passionate and adamant about it. Again, my kid didn't know that it was about book bans and my kid didn't know that much about it. So he was just sitting there kind of quiet. He's passively taking it in. He wasn't opinionated. But when the friend left, we talked about it, right? So I took the natural opportunity to go, hey, do you even know really what a book ban is? Well, yeah, like when they don't want you to read these certain books. Okay, but why do you think there would be a book ban? Well, because I don't know. I mean, it was really like he didn't know very much. And so then we got to really talk about it. And I know at least in that topic, I've inserted I didn't have a strong opinion about it, so I just try to insert the facts. Like, here's how people feel. People feel this way. People don't like these certain topics. People just want them out. Some people just want a special section. What do you think? He said, I don't know, it seems like maybe a special section or something for books, you know, and you have to get your parents' permission. So it like wasn't the deepest conversation, but it was a significant conversation, right? It's the same thing with the war. The war is another event. Now, to us, we know, we the adults know the atrocities. We understand the systemic racism. We understand all of the things, everything from Islamophobia to, you know, antisemitism. Like, we understand the deep nuance. And so as an adult and as a parent, you have to separate that. I think in order to approach these conversations, I think you have to separate that out and go, I have to remember they don't know all of those things. Yet. I want to meet them where they're at. So now let's go up to— you've got 15, 16, 17. Now this is probably— you're a sophomore, junior, senior in high school. You probably are getting into it. And there's probably actually conflict in your school. There could be like a pro-Palestinian group and then there's a, you know, a Jewish Alliance group. Like, now it's much more in your face. It is, you know, maybe teens feeling like they sort of do have to take a side. And they don't know where they stand. I'm going to tell you right now, so that group of the 10 to 14-year-olds, their parents are still the most influential people in their lives. But once you get to 15, 16, 17, you are not necessarily the most influential person. So I hope that if you're listening and you've got younger kids, you keep that in your mind. It's my guiding light. Oh, I'm still the most influential, right? Because right now I have a 16-year-old a 13-year-old and a 10-year-old. 16, I'm battling social media, friends, her own thoughts, right? By now she's definitely got her own wealth, well-formed thoughts. It's like sometimes I'm battling that. Like, I, I don't have the influence and power I did just 3 years ago. So with those older kids, I think here's the thing. Don't try to go out of your lane. The reality is that unless you're a scholar, unless you're really opening— you, you don't— you meaning me and you, we don't know the thousands of year history. We don't live there. We don't understand the nuance. But there are some basic things that we know. And I think that's so important. I say that to my kids. I say to them every day, I try to listen to a podcast or read a news article or watch diverse news sources so that I can try my best to get well-informed information. But I'm going to tell you right now, right, I am not claiming to be an expert. I don't live in either one of those countries. I just feel for both of those countries and for the whole region. So what am I doing? A, I'm showing humility. I don't know everything and I'm not going to pretend to know everything. Two, I feel for everybody involved. Now, do I feel for a terrorist organization? Hamas? No, I don't feel for them. But do I need to understand them? Absolutely.

Yeah.

Empathy is different. I have empathy for, for the whole region. However, I need to understand. I need to understand what, what did drive this attack? Why now? Why so barbaric? And so when my kids see me being curious, when my kids see me saying, I don't know all the answers, but I actually really care. I care to find out more. I want to learn more every day. It changes the tone. And that's, that's a value for me, though. So right now, if a parent's listening and maybe they don't feel the way I do, maybe they feel very, very strong. Maybe, maybe you are Jewish, maybe you are Israeli and you don't have that same level. I just want— I would say I want parents to think about how can you leave the door open for conversation with your kids. That's the point. Even if the conversation is, is, is all one way, that's fine. But what happens is sometimes when we come across as extreme or super angry about something, it shuts kids down. So you can be passionate, you can be convicted, you can be even certain about how you feel. And I'm not telling people to change their personality. I'm just telling you what works with kids. What works with kids is an open dialogue. You can be clearly opinionated, but what I tend to find is that in families, either people are so passionate and so heated that it like shuts everybody down, or they're completely avoiding it. We don't want to talk about that. That was a terrible atrocity, atrocity that happened, and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, because right now what I hear kids saying are Why are they bombing innocent people? That is the question of today, November 14th. Why are— because I think for the first couple of weeks we saw Israel as the innocent victims and now they look like the aggressors. Right. So just in a matter of a month, the narrative can start to switch and the tone of world politics is starting to switch. And again, I probably understand that on a deeper level than my kids, but they see the change of sentiment happening online. And you've got to ride that wave. These are not tough conversations in general— war, race, anything, anything that's tough is not a one and done. These are ongoing conversations. So I will stop here. But I really want— I really wanted to make the point that we do want to be talking about these things. They don't have to be fear-based. They don't have to be anger-based. but they do need to be open, critical thinking conversations. You know, what do you think about that? Gosh, I know this is a complicated thing and I'm doing my best to translate it to you. What are your thoughts? Those— that's, I think, the tone. If your objective is to keep hard conversations open with your kids, that's the tone that I would advise. Wow.

I mean, you said so many good things in all of that. First of all, I wanna emphasize that you said we don't need to know, and I think parents think they need to know, so thank you for saying that. And we talked about the different ages, and we both have 16-year-olds, and I will tell you that I am a very passionate, emotional person, and if I am, I'm going to echo what you said and say that if I am too passionate and emotional with my son who is 16, He walks away. So you are 100% correct. And I wanna go back to the younger kids and I want to ask you about oversharing because I think parents can get really nervous and overshare. So can we talk about that?

Yes. I, I love that you asked that because, you know, one of the things that is a weekly part of my job is I have 3 segments I do a week on the news. And basically, when it comes down to it, I always say what I do is I say how to have a conversation about fill in the blank. Like, that's what I feel like that I do often. And so what I have found is that when human beings are nervous or lying, right? And lying often happens because you don't really know what you're talking about fully. Nervous or lying or cheating or stealing. You overtalk, you talk faster, you're nervous, you're overtalk and overtalk, which can lead to oversharing, which can lead to saying things. God, why did I say that? I didn't even need to say that. Well, you said that because you were functioning under fight, flight, or freeze. And when you overtalk, you're fighting, right? When you undertalk, don't do anything, you're freezing. What's happening in the Middle East? And you're just sort of like, I didn't know what to to say, that's freeze, right? And flight goes, oh, so I'm making a meatloaf for dinner. No, no, I just asked you what's, what's happening. I heard this. I heard this thing today. Oh, well, yeah, I don't really know about that. So do you have any homework, right? Fight, flight, or freeze. So when we're fighting, we're going to overtalk and we're going to overshare. And so here's the thing. I think one of the beautiful things about parenting and, and just relationships in general is you get to have do-overs. If you can master this, you get to say, you know, I think I was wrong when I said this, or I think I wasn't fully informed, or you know what, I was kind of nervous talking to you about this, and I think I said some things that I regret. Let's like, let's revisit this. Let's go back to this. Let me— I've been thinking about it. Let me say this again. Let me tell you again how I feel about this or what I think about, you know, what happened yesterday. And so that's another thing. That's like part one is how do you not overtalk and overshare? Take some deep breaths. Admit that you don't know everything. Say to your kids so that you build trust and goodwill in the bank. Say to them, I am going to tell you what I know to be true, what I'm very comfortable telling you to be true. And I'm going to let you know that there are also many things I don't really fully know about. And here's, here's how I feel. And then I'm going to tell you just what my opinion is. This isn't based on fact. This is based on whatever it is— my experience being a Jewish American, my experience being Middle Eastern, my experience, whatever, my family's history. I'm going to tell you that. And so it might be biased, and I'm letting you know this is probably biased, but this is how I feel. And so I think we can— I think we don't need to censor our parenting. I think we need to be thoughtful, though. And if you're going to have a strong, strong opinion, just let your kid know where it comes from. Maybe you don't even know. Maybe it would be good for you to think about it. Gosh, I don't know. This is just the way we always felt in my family. All right, well, let me think about where this might come from. Right. So there's a thoughtfulness. And I think parenting can feel very pressured. All right. As soon as your kid hits school, as soon as they're in kindergarten, you don't even see them that much. They're right there at school all day. And then they might have activities and you might think, gosh, I mean, quality time-wise, I have like only in elementary school, I might have 2 hours of real quality time with my kid. That's it. And forget it. By the time they're a teenager, I think the average is like 13 minutes a day. I mean, we're at minutes, right? You're at minutes with quality time with a teenager. You're in the minutes. And so that time can feel really pressured. So taking deep breaths is really important. Being proactive. Maybe tonight you initiate as the parent the conversation so that you feel— you don't feel stressed like your kid out of nowhere is just like, hey, I saw this bombing and I saw these terrible things happening and I saw this clip. And you take the initiative, you know, and say, gosh, today I read this article, today I watched the news and this and this. And so I just remember that if you're even going into— that's why, like, I just even recently I was presenting with somebody and they presented before me, and this is like a world-renowned presenter. And when he was done, he said to me, I talked too fast, didn't I? And I said to him, you did talk very fast. You did. And he said, gosh, I was nervous. That's just what we do. We talk fast when we're nervous. Our brain isn't in full clarity. So we're like on overdrive when we're nervous. And talking to our kids about wars and atrocities and terrorism and death and children, innocent people dying is stressful. Just acknowledge it. It is stressful and slow it down and be curious and admit that you don't know everything and listen more than you talk. Like, that's a formula for really healthy, positive communication with your kids who will eventually become young adults. Who will eventually be adults that you want to have a great relationship with.

Absolutely. And I think that you and I really take hard topics head on with our kids, thankfully. And I think it takes a lot of practice. But I do think that there are parents listening who are more the avoidant style. And I'm not judging, I'm just trying to help. And avoidant or very uncomfortable with topics like the war, sex, drugs, and just can't cope with it themselves, so can't talk about it. So how can we help those parents?

Yes, absolutely. So if you, you know, first you have to have the awareness that you are one of those parents, right? So right now, you know, I think if you're listening, just, just take sort of an inventory of yourself. How do you do with hard conversations? And, you know, maybe there are some topics where you're like, you know what, I do really good with that drug talk. Because we have alcoholism in our family, or, you know, we have substance use in our family, and, and we're like really committed, right? If you know some families who have alcoholism in it, they are like as open as could be. Their kids are going to like Al-Anon with them, you know, like there's all these— like sometimes they are so forward, they're, they're committed. So for them it's like, what's so hard about talking about drugs and alcohol? But for another family, they might be like, we never talk about that. So just know that, like, if you're not great in one area, you might be good in another one that I'm not so good at, right? So it's just being honest with yourself. What am I comfortable with? I mean, like sex, that just could be for some people, like, I'm just not going there. I'm just highly uncomfortable. I'll talk about drugs, I'll talk about the war. I'm not talking about sex. Like, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. And again, when you go, yeah, I'm good at this, but not that, that means my fight, flight, or freeze, my stress response is kicked in. If I am avoiding something, it's just a stress response. So I would just say, you know, take inventory. First of all, what are you good at? What are you avoiding? What are you actively just trying to dismiss? You know, that, that's the first step. But I think the second one is to really, you know, if you've got a partner, if you've got a great neighbor, friend, if you've got who, you know, a family member and you go, you know, I think they're, I think they're actually good at this. Also know, like, we are in it hopefully with a small village around us, right? So, so maybe you take advantage of, oh, I'm gonna have, you know, my neighbor over because she seems to know a lot about this, and maybe I'll start this conversation with them and I'll kind of even let them kind of facilitate or lead this. Like, you're not gonna just put that person in a position, you're just gonna say, hey, you seem to know a lot about this, I'm having a hard time. So what I'm trying to say is, if we— if we're not good at something, that doesn't mean we need to avoid it. It means we need to figure out how to do it. That might be enlisting the help of your partner, your husband, your spouse, a friend, a family member. It could mean saying, hey, there was this great clip I saw on 60 Minutes or something. I really want to watch it with you. Let's watch this together and talk about it. It's using shows. It's using the media. If you're really, you know, wanting to see their world, it's actually sitting down next to them and go, so show me those TikTok videos. Show me the source of where you're getting your information. I wanna watch it with you. They'll think it's weird. You know, they'll be like, what, you wanna watch a TikTok video? Yeah, I know that you were talking about, you were hearing things about these college campuses and what's happening on them. Show me. Because guess what? They're following these other kids that are not necessarily celebrities or media, right? They're just somebody on a college campus. Their video went viral. Show me, show me what's going viral. Even just that question, open-ended again. Show me what's going viral these days. I have no idea what's going to come up. It could be the war. It could be a fashion trend. It could be, you know, somebody who died by suicide. You just don't know. Just show me what's viral and what's viral. It changes every couple of days. So it's like you could do that question every week and every week you're going to get something new. So it's just another way in. And I think that for parents who are maybe not as aware, maybe older, maybe like, you know, big span in age, maybe you've got like a 21-year-old and now you have a 10-year-old, those kind of things. Like you just feel like, oh my gosh, even just 10 years ago, parenting, it was really different just 10 years ago, never mind 40 years ago when some of us were being raised. And so it's just go with it. Ask them what's going viral, what, you know, who are you following lately, where are you getting your sources from, and use those as a platform or a springboard to go, you know, I, I kind of agree with them, or wow, that's what you're watching. Let me tell you why I'm super uncomfortable with that, right? And you notice the words I used. I'm going to tell you why. I'm super uncomfortable. Not, I'm gonna tell you why it's so stupid to listen to that person, right? Because you could get into fight, flight, or freeze, and now you're gonna fight it. Oh my God, my kid's watching this idiot, blah, blah, blah, spilling all these terrible, all this terrible information. You do that, it's just like you and I said, boom, shut down. Even if you are like, oh my God, I'm horrified. You can get the point across that you are horrified and don't like what they're watching, without having a humongous reactionary— you can have a strong, pointed, serious response. But if you go too off the rails, they're out and you seem disconnected and like you don't know what's going on and now you're out, right? So you want to go, wow, whoo, let's stop, let's stop. Let's really talk about that. Let me explain to you why I'm super uncomfortable with this and then go into it.

Well, and what's so funny in my house is that my kids will say to me, "What's your source, Mom? Where are you getting?" Yes, they do. They're challenging me. So when I'm giving my kids information, they want to know where I'm getting my information. So I do like that they're thinking about that.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's what we want. We want, of course, yes, sources, because now they do know their source. Even a textbook, they'll challenge. Well, who wrote this? And how old is this book, right? Like, and, and that's, you know, I think that is a challenge for parents. It's a challenge for me as well. It's a challenge when I'm like, oh wait, what? Okay, wait, we don't celebrate Columbus Day. And now this is this, right? There's some things I'm still catching up with in terms of here we are. Okay, here's what we know. Right. And so I just like the mantra with kids, with all kids I work with, which is like, when we know better, we do better. That's it. We knew this is what we knew then, or this is what we were celebrating then. We don't need to look down upon it. We just, we didn't know better. We meaning a collective society. Sure. Maybe 1 or 2% of people knew something that we didn't, but like, just, and that just shows, I think, giving grace. When we know better, we do better. Right? And so that's it. And when I talk about the war, sometimes I just say, hurt people hurt people. It's a simple— it's like a lesson, right? So you don't need to go into the history. Maybe I don't really know what's going on, but all I see is a whole bunch of people killing each other over the name of land, religion, beliefs, things that I am not embedded in. So then I can also keep it simple. I just can say, hurt people hurt people. And I bet people on both sides of this story feel very violated and very hurt, and they clearly feel justified. Isn't that sad that we don't know how to really do conflict resolution? Isn't it sad we can't come up with a solution? And then bring it to their world. Okay, we're talking about this huge war that's very consequential. It's far away, but really it's starting to impact us here in our own schools, in our own communities, on our campuses. So how do we make something really big and then go How to make it small, because how does it impact us? That's even a question to ask. How is this impacting you?

Well, and these children, some of them are just going on with life and getting information and they're okay. And some of these kids are really upset about it. So how can we help the child who is sensitive and upset and wanting to know more information or what to do?

Yeah. And I love that because it's true. We keep talking about kids in general. Well, that just stands for kids. I mean, underneath that umbrella is a personalization, lack of personalization, don't care, really care, losing sleep, not losing sleep. There's, you know, certainly we can't say all kids are feeling this way. They're not. What we are saying, though, is that probably a vast majority of kids probably, you know, are getting some sort of information. I think as a parent, it's our job to help them process that and then educate them around it as much as possible. But for kids who are sensitive, for the multitude of reasons why they might be particularly sensitive, is I think we need to empower them. There's nothing worse than— and that's why when there's a disaster, when there's a war, what do we do when we're not directly in it? We raise money, we collect blankets, we give to charities because we feel a need and a compulsion to do something. It's an empowerment, and kids can have that empowerment. It's down to— kids can write letters, right? You could have a 5 or 6-year-old that can just simply write a letter, and you'll find a place and you will mail it off, and you'll say, you know, I bet that picture you put in there will put a smile on some kid's face. That is empowerment all the way to— you have a 16-year-old that says, I want to do something. Okay, could you get a group of Israelis and Palestinians here? Could we facilitate a conversation? Think big. What could we do? Right? Like, so when you do that, you just start and they might go, well, I don't, I don't know how I would do that. Okay, well, let's just start big and let's just— what do you want to do with the angst that you feel, with the sadness, with this, with the fear that you have? Do something. Sitting around watching a bunch of social media in your room alone is going to give you anxiety, right? It's going to fuel anxiety. Maybe it's going to fuel anger, potentially cause, you know, some depression, but probably just mainly fuel anxiety. And for a very small percentage, could, could radicalize them. I mean, they could feel like they've got to take a side. And I think what's more productive in the world right now is for people to learn empathy. How can I understand the other side? How can I support the things that I believe in? And what can I do about terrible things that are happening in the world, in my community, in my school, right? This week is National Bullying Awareness Week. What can I do about bullying? What— how can I be more inclusive? So, and what I want to say is for parents listening and go, well, how does like trying to help a bullying program help a humongous crisis in the Middle East? Because we're putting compassion and love and empathy into the world. And that's a skill we need. We need to understand the other side. We don't always have to agree. I don't agree with it, but we need to understand it. Educate me, inform me. Okay, I respectfully disagree with that, but thank you for helping me understand your side. And that's what the world needs. So on a micro level, you can do that. You can empower kids, give them something to do with their fear and their angst so that, yeah, in a way, it is collectively putting that into the greater world.

Well, I mean, I think that you have said about 500 very helpful things today. I think that we really are going to help people with this conversation. I think we need to have these hard conversations. I think starting today and practicing is where, where to go, where to start. And I want you to take time to tell people about the awesome stuff that you have that they can go find— your book, your new book, your podcast. Tell them all the good things.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, A couple of years ago, I wrote a book called Mommy Burnout, and that was really looking at the chronic stress that women, particularly mothers, were experiencing. Since then, we now have a real term called parenting burnout, you know, that includes dads and all parents as well. So there's that. That's available everywhere. There's my pod, my podcast, as I like to call it. And really, I just mostly interview authors and just talk about mental health and parenting. I love having good, rich conversations. So it's the similar format to yours, a half hour of just talking about just insights from a book that I'm— that I really do feel like is worthwhile spreading. And I'm currently writing a book called Good and Ready: What Parents Urgently Need to Know About Earlier Puberty, Mental Health, and Middle Childhood. And so that book is really aimed at 6 to 12-year-olds, parents of parents and caregivers of 6 to 12-year-olds, um, because we have a youth mental health crisis and we are mostly focused on the teenagers. And I'm trying to put something out into the world that says, here's what we know will help prevent the teenagers from going there, right? So even though I work with teenagers too, I work with tweens and teens, and I love teenagers, we have books about teenagers, but so much of what needs to be done That foundation needed to be laid years before. And so I'm really trying to take the, the incredible time period, what we call middle childhood of 6 to 12, and spotlight here are the things we're doing to roadmap you to healthy adolescence, not get to being 15 and going, oh my gosh, my kid is having sex or doing drugs, they're failing out of school. Okay, now we're just being reactive. And I'm really trying to instill the idea we can be proactive, we can prevent much of this. We can give them skills, life skills, just life skills, um, you know, to really help us have a world in which we know how to communicate and listen and understand and deal with conflict and have hard conversations and fail and learn from those and move forward. Like all the things that our kids need. So thanks for letting me chat about it for a bit.

When can we get this book? Because I need this book.

I know it's a long time from now. It'll be like winter of 2024, '25.

Okay.

Okay.

So that's okay. My youngest will be 12, so I can still— Perfect.

Yes. Yes. And I think you can actually still apply a lot of it even into those, you know, 13 and 14 as well. It's just the spirit of it is, oh my gosh, this stage of development is really underappreciated. You know, most people haven't even heard that term. Like, we know early childhood, that gets lots of attention, and we know teenage years, that gets lots of attention. But in the middle, when everything is brewing and puberty is starting, and now it's starting earlier, that's the part where it's like, oh yeah, there's really not much out there. So I'm going to bring to light— it's going to take me this long to put it together in a way that I hope is accessible for any parent or caregiver, um, to really learn from.

So, well, it sounds wonderful, and I can't wait to read it. And tell everyone your website and where they can find you.

Yeah, they can find me at Dr. Cheryl Ziegler, Z-I-E-G-L-E-R, drcherylziegler.com. And, you know, we had, um, you know, about talking about, you know, this war with Israel and Hamas, right? Um, I do think it's important to directly address the war. I do think it's important that kids are taught, and maybe parents understand, that there is a difference between the Palestinians and Hamas. And it's not simple and it's not totally binary, but that, you know, if there's, if there's at least one thing that you want to educate yourself, because I'm thinking of kids, this is what they hear, it might be really talking about Hamas and a terrorist organization versus, you know, democratic countries and how that's run. Like, if there was one area that I think for kids could be helpful to understand, it would probably be And again, if you're not totally sure or comfortable, I have found there are websites, there are segments online, there's places to get that information. There's even curriculum that they've created for teachers that I have found that are online with a simple Google search. You can find good, as unbiased information as, as can exist to, to explain it, and you can print it out and say, hey, let's learn this together. So I just wanted to really emphasize that because we're talking about the war. I think that's an element that is blurry right now at the stage that we're at that I think is helpful for kids to understand.

Well, and when I was listening to you before we met, you were talking about not using generalities.

Yeah.

And I love that you're explaining that it's not Palestinians, it's not Israelis. It's, you know, we don't want to be general. We don't want to use generalities.

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that, you know, And that it covers lots of areas of life, but it covers things like race and fear-based, you know, phobias that we have against religions or ethnicities is we do a lot of generalizing. And it's interesting because the brain actually does it in a way. I mean, we think we're just socialized to do it and there is a socialization process, but there's also the brain has shortcuts. Right? And so there's like biases and heuristics. And so you can have these shortcuts and the brain sort of automatically goes, oh, all those people, they're bad. All those people, they're good.

And then that's good, right? And it just—

that's what the brain does though, to help us learn and sort and have shortcuts. And so it doesn't have to be that way, but you actually have to train your brain to think otherwise, or it defaults to that. If you want to put it simply, just think of it that way. Our brain defaults to creating clusters and groups. And if we want to get out of that, we are going to have to work hard at it. And so, you know, I think— and we can't tackle everything as parents all at once. But if right now, if there was something to tackle and learn and get more educated about, it probably would be that. I think that would be very helpful for a lot of kids and teens to understand a little bit better.

Well, I cannot thank you enough. For your time and your expertise. I just absolutely loved talking to you.

Thank you. Thank you for having me on, and thank you for, for having the courage to have what can be a hard or uncomfortable conversation. Yes.

Thank you so much. This is Rebecca Greene, and I wanna remind everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving. Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

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