The Whinypaluza Podcast with Rebecca Greene Episode 028 Attachment Theory in Action.

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza! Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

This is Rebecca Green for the Whiny Palooza podcast. I am so excited today. I have Karen Doyle Buckwalter with me. Karen is an LCSW, is director of clinical practice at CHADDAC, a multi-service agency providing a range of residential, educational, and community-based services for youth birth age— birth through age 21 and their families. While at CHADDAC, she has been instrumental in the development of an innovative residential program for adolescents with attachment disorders and complex trauma, one of the only programs of its kind serving older adolescents Chadick's Developmental Trauma and Attachment Program has served youth from 33 different states in the US, originating from 18 different countries. Karen is a registered play therapy supervisor and a Theraplay trainer and supervisor. She has more than 30 years of experience working with children, adolescents, and families. She has co-authored peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, as well as articles which have appeared in Adoption Today and Fostering Families Today magazines. Her first, first book is Attachment Theory in Action, edited with Debbie Reed. She also hosts the Attachment Theory in Action podcast. Another book that she wrote, Raising the Challenging Child, co-authored with Debbie Reed and Wendy Lyon Sunshine. Karen is a wife, mother, and grandmother, and outside of work, you will find her hiking the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Carolinas. Welcome, Karen.

Thank you, Rebecca. That's a wonderful welcome, and I'm so excited to be here with you.

I'm so excited to have you, and I love all of the wonderful stuff that I got to learn about you while reading that. That is quite the resume, Karen.

Yeah, well, it's been a lot of years, you know, of this kind of work, and, you know, really my niche is attachment trauma, foster care, adoption. However, what we found was in a lot of the work in that area, things that we learned about interpersonal neurobiology and ways to manage challenging behaviors with kids, we started to realize, hey, wait a minute, this, this applies to all kids, you know.

And yes, yes.

That's why we wrote, you know, the latest book, Raising the Challenging Child, because we thought, you know, this isn't just for this specialized group of kids.

Absolutely. 100%. I want to start at the beginning because I have a question for you. I want to know what inspired you to get started with all the amazing work that you're doing with families. What inspired you originally?

So, you know, originally, um, Yeah, long time. Yeah, yeah. Um, I started out actually in pre-law, um, at Penn State, and then I eventually decided that, um, based on feedback from, um, actually someone I was dating at the time, he's like, you'll hate— you won't like that. Um, so I ended up, uh, and he was right for a variety of reasons, but I ended up then studying individual and family studies and then eventually going on to get my master's in in social work and then clinical social work. And I think what really was the first thing that made me want to do this was I loved hearing stories about families.

Yeah.

Like, I loved noticing how friends' families were the same or different than my family. I loved hearing people's own histories of their families and ancestors. I loved observing things at family reunions. I just had this real fascination with how our families work and the meaning of where we come from. And so I was just more going to, you know, be maybe a generalist kind of therapist. And then I ended up moving to the Midwest a year after I got my degree and getting a job in a foster care program. And that really changed everything.

I can imagine.

Yeah, because I just started learning so much about attachment disruptions and trauma and what happens to kids in foster care. And that then set the trajectory of my career.

Well, that's a fabulous story.

So I've been there for 26 years.

That's 26?

26 years later, I'm still there. That is a big story.

Very impressive.

I'm very impressed with you.

You know, I want to talk about your new book because I want to hear about it. Tell us about your new book and why you decided to write it.

Yeah, so, you know, as we were learning— so, so at CHADAC, we have like a residential treatment program where we, as you said in my bio, have had children from all over the country come to us with pretty serious behavioral issues, um, physical aggression, um, and verbal aggression and all kinds of things that are very hard to manage in a home. And so we started to learn a lot about— many of these kids came out of orphanage care, so we started to learn a lot about attachment issues and traumatic experiences early on and the fact that And those kind of issues, you know, have lasting impact. And but then we started to realize as we were looking at different ways of managing these children and helping them, we would have staff members say, hey, you know, that thing that we tried with, you know, little Johnny or whatever, I've tried that with one of my kids in nursery school, you know, just being curious about how they were feeling or something like that. Or some of the— lots of the different techniques that we talk about. Or, I tried that on the sports team and it was like really effective. Or, you know, I tried studying more. One of the things that we talk about a lot, and maybe we'll talk about today, is the balance between structure and nurture between parenting. And they would say, as I started to apply that to my own parenting, I feel like it really helped my kids. So it's really our staff members that were not, you know, parenting kids with that kind of history saying, whoa, wait a minute, this is working other places. So then we thought, well, we should write a general parenting book, you know, something for a larger audience rather than just people working with this specific population. And I'd say the second thing is there are some books out there that are written from a neuroscience perspective by parent— for parents, and I found them still too difficult for parents to get through. So I wanted some of these concepts even further simplified.

Makes total sense. And it looks like you, you sectioned it off into 3 different sections.

Yes.

Can you share with us the 3 different sections?

Yes. Yeah, so the 3 sections are Be a Leader, Dig Deeper, and Prepare for Success. And I could talk about each of those a little bit if you want me to.

Yes, tell us, tell us about each section.

Yeah, so Be a Leader. What I have found with a lot of the families that I work with is that they have been given so much information about empowering children and giving choices and, you know, working on self-esteem with your child that they almost have given up being in charge to some degree.

It's true. Yes.

And so, children, children really do need leadership and in order to feel safe. They need to realize there's somebody in charge that knows more, can handle more than I can, can help me when I'm feeling out of control, can help me when I'm overwhelmed, can make decisions. So there's— I, I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with giving choices and worrying about children's self-esteem and giving some autonomy to children. But what I found is many parents were going too far the other way.

Absolutely.

Just for example, they were doing something that I call, as far as I know, I made this up, but over-choice, over-choicing.

I love that concept.

Too many choices. Like, you know, even for 3 and 4 and 5-year-olds, like, do you want this? Do you want that? Do you want this too? I mean, um, much. Yeah, it's too much. And I think there's a real misunderstanding that being in charge and, and being a leader in your house is somehow a negative thing, where really that provides safety and security.

And I think that we forget that. I think that's easy for us to forget. We think we're being so nice by letting them pick. And I have to tell you, sometimes I'll say to my 14-year-old, what do you think?

And he'll be like, I don't know, Mom, you tell me.

So you're reminding me that's him wanting me to take charge.

Right, right, right. I mean, there, there is such a thing as decision fatigue, and we have so many things coming at us all the time. And it's like, yeah, well, I don't know, I can't even decide, you decide. So again, it's not that those things— like, I would never say don't ever give your children any choices. That's not what I'm saying. But it's like, there's— there needs to be a balance. And in general, parents that I work with have not been being enough in charge and need to be in charge in, in different ways that would be helpful for their kids.

Absolutely. 100%. Tell us about dig deeper and prepare for success, because those are the next two sections.

Yes. Yeah. So digging deeper is really a lot about this idea that you have to look what is underneath the behavior of a child. So it can often be easy with— well, not often, but sometimes we can stop a behavior by like taking away privileges or having some kind of other consequences. But it's really the big message that I want parents to understand is think of what is the need under the behavior. So that's why I say dig deeper. And I really firmly believe that all behavior has meaning. And a lot of times it on the surface appears random, or many parents will say, I don't know, this just like comes out of nowhere. They just like have a meltdown. And it does seem that way, but when I begin to work with the parent and look more closely about, you know, what is leading up to that and what is happening, we do find that there, there is an underlying feeling, whether it's fear, whether it's anxiety, whether it's anger. And what I tell parents is if you just stop behaviors, and you can do that. You can get compliance in lots of different ways, but that's sort of like cutting off the top of a dandelion in your yard. Like, the root is still there and it's going to spring up in a different way.

Yes, yes. And I think it was you who said in your book, um, play detective, pretend you're a detective. And I loved that concept because it kind of takes me out of my feelings of frustration and makes me kind of look for clues and what was happening before Lily's meltdown.

Yes, yes, yes, because really meltdowns don't come from nowhere.

They really don't.

I mean, even if we think of our own meltdowns, I mean, yes, yes, yes. And so I think the other, the other aspect of Dig Deeper is looking at your own history and how that affects you as a parent.

Yes.

Because we, we, we know from research that the number one predictor of how you will parent is how you were parented. And some of us may be thrilled with that, and some of us may be horrified by that, um, and say, you know, I don't want to do anything like my parents did. Um, but Regardless of whether you feel good about how your parents parented you or whether you don't, there's going to be a propensity to reenact that.

Absolutely. I'm really curious about this. You said that one of your, one of your ideas for the book came from the book series Eat This, Not That.

Yes.

That's awesome.

Can you tell us about that? Okay, so, all right, so if you've ever seen that book, you know, they have like these horrible foods, you know, that you shouldn't eat, and they say, "Eat This, Not That," and there's a lot of pictures in it, and it's very practical.

Yes.

So, you know, as we would work with parents, we would— and recognize behaviors in ourselves, like, I definitely want to be very clear we're all in this together. Like, I'm not saying I'm not susceptible to, to all the things I write about in this book. Um, so we, one day we were like, if they would just do this and not that, do this and not that, if they could try this instead of that. And so you will see, sort of like the Do This, Eat This, Not That. And you'll— so that is what led— in the book we have all these very practical little charts that say, maybe you have tried this, how about trying that, this, you know. And I think that really, really helps because one of the, one of the problems even in psychotherapy when you— or parenting classes or reading books is it's very hard to take, you know, what you're reading in the book and then apply it to your day-to-day life. Yes, you often think you are. But if there was an objective outsider watching, you're kind of not. And so we really felt like if we put this little chart where you can actually recognize, hey, that— hey, that's me, I do that. And here's a very specific thing. When I have a real strong urge to do that, I could try this instead. And we just kind of felt like that would really help people take it from the theoretical to the practical. Even beyond, you know, just case examples and things like that. So that's, that's how that came about.

That's really wonderful, and it's so concrete for us to see. Yes. What should we be saying? Okay, don't do this, but what should I do?

Right, right. Or how would I even say that? A lot of times, and I see this not just even with working with parents, but even supervising therapists, they're like, I just need some verbiage for that. Like, I don't know how to say that in a way that feels right or sincere. So I think, you know, language really matters and how we say things. And I think that comes to people more or less easily. And so we thought, you know, having actual specific examples— and I'll tell you, they were They were one of the most interesting parts of the book because, you know, I would come out with the chart and some of them I would fill in and some of them I would send out to different staff at CHADAC and say, what would you say? You know, kind of poll people.

Yes, yes. Well, and you know, parents need it and therapists need it and children need it. And you're making me think of the fact that sometimes I have conversations with my children and they'll say, well, I don't— I didn't know what to say to them. So we all need words sometimes.

We do. It's true. It's true.

So you have 10 lessons or ideas in each chapter. Can you tell us a couple of your favorite lessons in the book?

Yeah. Well, okay. So, you know, first of all, I'll quickly say that I, um, we wanted to write the 10 lessons in each chapter. So that you could— so the 30 lessons, so you could just pick this up and read one thing if you wanted to. We would love you to read it cover to cover, of course, but you know, another part of feedback that I get from parents is that it's hard to read whole books. In fact, if you look at research, most people don't read whole books.

Interesting.

Yes, so I thought, you know, we got to make it as though you could just pick it up and read it like a quick magazine article, you know, whatever that you're struggling with. But one of my favorite— a couple of my favorite ones, one is the Relationship Bank. And, you know, this is, you know, this has been written about in business literature somewhat, in some of Stephen Covey's things. It's a concept that is out there, but it's not written about so much in terms of how we parent. And you'll find that a lot of times we think that things that apply to grown-up relationships, they don't apply to kid relationships and they just need to do what we say.

Not true. Not true.

So anyway, the relationship bank is this idea that you want to make positive deposits into your relationship with your child so that when you have to make a withdrawal— and I'll explain that in a minute— that there is a balance. Same concept of if you put money in your bank account, that way when you have to pay a bill or go online and take money out of it for something, the money is there. So, you know, deposits are use of praise with your child. Deposits are saying yes to your child. Deposits are words of affirmation for your child. All of these things are deposits. And what I talk with parents about is you need a certain account balance so that when you have to make a withdrawal, which is saying no, or you need to do your chores now even though you want to play that video game, or we're at the grocery store and no, we're not going to get that thing that you want. I think people don't realize when you're a child how much your life is dictated to you and how hard that can be. And so this is suggesting that if you have more positive than negative, when you have to make those negative things, you will more— much more likely avoid a meltdown or tantrum or even just a child just being really frustrated with you or are angry with you, even if they don't show it behaviorally. Because you're, you're, you're, you're putting more positive deposits and less withdrawals, which are negative interactions. And this is all over like the literature for couples. Yeah.

I was just going to say that we talk about the relationship bank with marriage.

Yes.

We don't talk about that it applies to parenting too.

Yes, yes. And I'm saying I think it does.

I think you're 100% correct. And I think, and I think that we forget that. And, and as I think of my Mondays with my kids and picking them up from school and taking them to theater and telling them to do their homework, like, as I'm running through the routine, I have to remember this, that where is the praise? Where is the You know, I'm so proud of you. I mean, I have to— we all have to remember that in our busy days we have to throw that in.

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I even will have a parent— let's make a chart like throughout the day of, you know, okay, you guys get up at 7 and you go to bed at 9. Let's go through like just briefly, hour by hour, you know, when you're interacting with your kids and The first thing they might notice is I hardly interact with them. That could be one thing.

Yeah.

A second thing might be really my interactions with them are kind of barking out orders, you know. And so, you know, we talk about if you are struggling in your relationship with your child and you want to improve your relationship with your child, we need to look at this. Like, this is going to have to somehow change. In terms of the amount of time and the amount of positive interaction if this is going to change. So it can be shocking to really like, you know, look at it like a schedule, you know, each hour and think about, oh gosh, we have an hour a day maybe, you know, between not being—

It's sad, but we can fix it, right?

Right, right. Some of us just, you know, like you were saying, being more conscious of it.

Yes. Well, and my girls in particular will get so excited if we have any alone time going to do something, and I'm starting to notice how important it is to them. Yeah. So I was like, okay, I had no idea that Friday night date night with Ella was that important. I better keep that going.

Yes, yes, yes. So Another one of my favorite lessons is the structure and nurture balance.

Yes, let's talk about that.

So we're, you know, we're kind of alluding to that earlier, but this was one of the first chapters that we wrote for the book because it's just such an important concept. And, you know, one of the things that I tell parents is that we kind of come to the table a more structured person or a more nurturing person often. Um, so structure gone awry can be like you try to— like Captain von Trapp or something from The Sound of Music. I mean, you like try to really run your house like a drill sergeant and towards a lot of rigidity. Um, sometimes hyper-organized. So I mean There, certain amounts of that are good, but we have to like be careful that we don't move from organized to drill sergeant-y, where nurture is more laid back, the person that kind of, you know, maybe sets a limit but then concedes and gives in, you know, the kind of person that, you know, sends their kids to their room, which isn't necessarily a thing I endorse, but, but then bring some ice cream, you know, you know, it's like Ah, so anyway, so I ask parents to really look at, you know, if you, if you are more structured naturally, then maybe you need to think about, you know, where am I being more nurturing? Where am I being more encouraging? Where am I showing affection? Where am I, you know, giving the benefit of the doubt, um, versus more nurturing people Do I need to be a little more structured? Do I need some more limits and boundaries sometimes? So it's looking at sort of the shadow side of, you know, both of these things and recognizing children need both. Like, you can't just say as a parent, you know, I'm kind of not very structured. Well, I mean, okay, let's talk about even though that's a challenge for you, a few ways you could incorporate that. Or, you know, if you're parenting with someone else, you know, are there ways that we could help each other in this regard? Rather than, well, I'm just not that way. I think a lot of this is about sometimes we have to adapt instead of always expecting our children to adapt.

That's so good. I'm going to take that away from this today. That's really good advice. Really good. You talk about changing up your steps in the dance. We have dances that we do in our families. Can you talk about changing it up? Yes.

Yes. So the dance is a kind of circular interaction that you get in, in a relationship. You do this, I do this. You do this, I do this. You do this, I do this. And a lot of times, because it's so automatic, we don't realize that it's happening. So what I encourage people to do is like really slow down the interaction and really look at— I mean, what we call in the scientific literature precipitating factors, but what's really happening. So let me— I think if I could share an example, I use videotape. I videotape interactions with parents and children and then analyze them with the parent. I love it. This is a form of therapy called video intervention therapy. And so, you know, what I might see in a video like that— one example was, you know, a parent was playing a game with a child and they were playing a card game, and one of the, one of the things that the parent said, I can't play games with my kids because he always gets mad and quits. He just like throws up his hands and, and that becomes really sad because when you have a child that has a pattern like that, you just don't play games with them. Like, you just stop, you know. So as I'm watching the video, I'm seeing like every time this child gets a card that he doesn't like, he's like looking to the parent or looking to the other players, or if he does really well with laying a card down, he's looking to the parent and or he's saying, hey, could we slow down? He's doing all these little different things. He has these little subtle cues. Sometimes he's looking for someone to say, oh, you're kind of bummed that you got that card, and he'd be fine. Or he's looking for someone to say, oh wow, that you laid a good one there, and he'd be fine. Sometimes he's looking for someone to just make eye contact with him after his turn. So these are what I would call subtle bids for attention. And in the biz, easy to miss. Yes, but they accumulate. Yes, they accumulate. And he's feeling a little bad, badly, that he's behind in the game, and he's feeling a little badly that no one noticed his, you know, crazy 8 or whatever. And If there was just a second of affirmation or noticing a bid for attention, he wouldn't blow out playing the game. And so the average parent, they're not seeing this at all. You know, they're like, we tried to play a game, the whole thing blows up. All games are in the attic now. We're not trying anymore.

Oh gosh.

So again, it's not that parents have to be perfect. I'm not saying that, but there are a lot of little cues those that happen that in day-to-day life we miss. I mean, another concept about the dance is that there's a concept that is written about in Bowen Systems Theory called over-functioning and under-functioning. So, you know, maybe under stress, like I do everything for my child or my partner or my coworker, and that allows them to do their thing under stress. They do less and less under stress. They have a tendency to become more and more incompetent, and then whoever they're in a relationship becomes more and more competent while they become incompetent, right? Like, we know this pattern in different— and sometimes you are an overfunctioner in one relationship and an underfunctioner in another. So let, let's say you're doing that with your child. You, you're a helicopter, you overfunction, try to make everything go okay. That's going to allow your— the dance that that means then your child can do less and less and feel less and less responsibility while you feel more and more responsibility.

Such a good point.

And so if you stop— if so, if that's your dance and you stop doing some of that, the child then has to do something different too. So if you no longer rescue by calling the teacher and asking for an extension on something, just for an example. Um, now you change your move in the dance, so now the child's stuck with something different, like, do I get it in on time? Do I have to talk to the teacher myself? Do I just get a bad grade? Um, so it's sort of like you were doing a waltz and you switched to a tango, so the kid can't do— the kid can't keep doing the waltz now.

Yeah.

So this is where I talk to parents a lot about whose behavior can you change? Whose behavior are you 100% sure you can change? Which is yours. So change your behavior and others have to change.

It's so true. It's so true. And I also have realized these last few weeks, just analyzing my daughter, that I was looking less at her and I was changing it to looking at what I was doing to contribute to any of our issues. And then I felt so much more powerful and, and I felt like I wasn't powerless in the dance and I could change what I was doing to help calm her down. So it's so true. We have power over what we can do, right?

I mean, it's, it's a big paradigm shift though, especially again, going back to with children. I mean, sometimes we'll think about this more in romantic relationships. You know, like, but that with your child, really the same applies. And, you know, we— I'm not saying we don't have behavior standards, and I'm not saying we don't have boundaries and we don't have expectations, but when it gets right down to it, the only person's behavior you can be sure to change, and even that's hard at times, is your own.

So true. So, so true. I want to, I want to touch on an important question that we should not be asking our children.

Tell us why we shouldn't ask our children, "What's wrong?" Well, one reason is because many times they'll say, "I don't know." Have you ever had that happen?

Every time, almost every time they say they don't know what's wrong.

Yes. Yes. So, you know, whether or not it really doesn't matter if that's true or not true. I'm just going to assume it is true. I mean, let's face it, Rebecca, a lot of grownups can't identify what they're feeling and doing and why, you know. So I think it's better to just be curious or even name something. For example, you could say something like, wow, you're looking kind of sad. That is way more effective because first of all, you're naming an emotion first of all, and you're— which is good practice in general to bring into the room as something to think about. And when you say that, it allows your child to either like, "No, it's not that," which, okay, good. I mean, that's opening further discussion. Or what could often happen is, "Yeah, I guess I am." And so either way, it's better than, "I don't know," and then the conversation just stops. It's much better for you to get it wrong and offer something to work with. And a lot of times as a parent, you're going to be right.

Yeah.

And you're going to be able to kind of tell, you know, even if your kid says, no, it's not that, you're going to be able to tell, like, maybe it is, but they just don't want to talk about it right now. Or really, you are totally off and it's something completely different. I mean, So I think then if they say, yeah, I guess I am, you can say, you want to talk about it, or is there something I could do for you right now? You know, how about a, a whatever? You know, how about if we go for a short walk around the block? Um, this idea of what is wrong, you just like hit a wall. It's much better to float what might be wrong, and I think if you try it, you'll see it opens you or your listeners decide to try it, it really opens more doors for conversation.

I think that's really good advice, and I think that sometimes they really don't know what's wrong.

I think a lot of times they don't know what's wrong. I mean, another thing you could do is just sort of be like, you know, you don't seem yourself, and I'm thinking, wow, I know you had that big exam that you were worried about. I know you had that, you know, soccer game this week that you didn't feel great about, and I know you said your friend Andrea got mad at you. Wow, you have a lot going on. I mean, even something like that. Yeah, yeah, just acknowledging, no wonder you don't know. Who knows with all that? It could be anything, you know. So any of those approaches, you know, a narrative of some things that have been happening that you're aware of that are hard, offering up what they might be feeling, or, hey, if I had a week like yours, I think I'd be feeling kind of sad and exhausted.

Yes, yes.

So just, just bringing some other content into the conversation that brings emotion and a narrative of what's going on into the interaction rather than that what's wrong and I don't know thing.

Yeah, I totally missed it when my daughter got in the car and slammed the door and was being mean to me and I was like, whoa, this is not how you treat your mother. Like, I instantly went to what is she doing? I didn't even think she had something going on. I was so stuck on how she was acting and she's like, I'm sorry, someone was so mean to me today. And I was like, oh, yes.

So that's a, you know, another thing that we talk about a lot is not personalizing everything, you know. Yes, because it's easy to, so easy, you know, kids aren't the best for your self-esteem sometimes.

Oh, you know, I have zero expectation for that. I'm like, do not get your self-esteem from your children. You do not know how their day went.

Yeah, well, you know, and I think that, that, um, sometimes we don't realize that we have the expectation for that until it's not met.

Yeah, absolutely, 100%. You give so much good advice. Can you tell us what's the best advice you have ever gotten?

The best advice that I have ever gotten is to understand my own history and how I was parented and raised and how I bring that into my current relationships.

That is good advice. Really good advice.

Mm-hmm. Sometimes you think you're reacting to the child in front of you, but really you're reacting to something much, much earlier in your life than that, but it's coming out on the child in front of you.

So true.

I know.

And you know what, I find that I screw up every day, and I am trying to look at it as just opportunities for growth.

Absolutely. You know, and, and, you know, we, we talk about that in the book. Like, say you screwed up. Like, tell your child, I— like, that was like not okay how I responded to that. Um, I don't like that I did that. I'm sorry that I did that, and I'm gonna try to do that differently. What did you just model there? How to deal with conflict. In interpersonal relationships. You're modeling how you would like them to handle something, right?

Yes, yes, yes. And it's so interesting to me that people have so much trouble with the two words, "I'm sorry." So I figure if I can embed that in them, that I can say it, that I can teach them to say it.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So what else would you like to share that I haven't had a chance to ask you.

Oh goodness.

I know.

That, you know, I hope people might be interested in getting the book. It just released in paperback in January. It's available on Amazon and other places. I think that, you know, kind of what you asked with your last question, like, what is one of the most important things? And one of the most important things is understanding yourself and what you bring to the relationship and how that has an impact on your child's behavior. I just think that's a really, really critical message and something that we all need to sort through and be really brutally honest with ourselves about.

Yes, for sure. Can you tell us again the title of your book?

Yes, I can even show you.

Show us the book. Here it is.

It's Raising the Challenging Child, and it is co-authored with Debbie Reed and Wendy Lyon Sunshine. And we also The book itself is not faith-based. It's for any audience, but we do have a Christian-based study guide, a free PDF, if somebody wanted to use this in a Sunday school class or some kind of group from a faith-based biblical perspective. So, and yeah, that's, that's where, where you can find it.

So I'm currently reading your book.

Yes.

And it is fantastic. It is so full of so many lessons. I want to tell you that you had said pick it up and learn. You can just learn one lesson. I think that for me to digest it, I'm reading it, putting it down, taking it in, and then the next day picking it up. And I'm, and I'm not reading, you know, like 50 pages at once because I really want to absorb all of the lessons.

Great. Well, what has, what has stood out to you?

You know, I just, when you're saying, when you, we were talking earlier about patterns, you taught me, I had told you, you taught me the word detective. That was you in that book. And I realized that I was starting to fall into the trap of saying that her behaviors were coming out of nowhere. And I know as a social worker, that's not true. So So you really backed me up. You said, look 3 steps before the behavior.

Yes.

So you've really backed me up to even what did I do? You know, like I can be impatient, you know, am I tired? Am I hungry? Like there's reasons why I can be impatient. Yes. And I realized as I backed up and started playing detective that I was a huge part of the problem.

Yeah.

Just my being the detective of what is going on before the actual outburst, meltdown, whatever you want to call it. And a lot of the times it was me either not giving her the attention she was looking for or not being patient enough with her.

Yes. Yes. And you know, we who are in this field, we need reminders, we need support, we need help. To not veer off into our— where we just go naturally, which is not always where it's the most effective to go.

Well, and it's easier to tell someone to do something than it is to actually do it. So we, you know, we as social workers work on practicing what we preach.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

So tell everyone where they can find you.

Yeah, yeah. So, um, I work at Shattuck, and so when I do teaching and training and consulting, that's the Knowledge Center at Shattuck, which is www.shattuck.org, C-H-A-D-D-O-C-K. I can be reached by email, kbuckwalter@shattuck.org, if you wanted to reach out to me directly. You can also— people reach out to me a lot on my professional Facebook page. Kieran Doyle Buckwalter, LCSW, RPTS. So I'm out and about, and if the topic of attachment is intriguing to you, as you said earlier, I have a podcast called Attachment Theory in Action, which is all things related to attachment theory. So yeah, those are some of the places you'll find me.

Well, I want to thank you so much for spending time with me today.

Absolutely. It's been an honor to be here.

Such a pleasure to talk to you, and I appreciate your time and your expertise.

Thank you.

This is Rebecca Green for the Winey Palooza podcast, reminding you to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

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