How To Connect With Your Child Emotionally? In Conversation With Dr. Tina Payne Bryson!

Hi. It's so amazing to do this. This is my first live that is at 8am it's really early, so I get to see all the early rises today. And it's with a very, very special person, Dr. Tina Bryson. She's an NY time best selling author and she's also the executive director at the center of her connection, mother to three sons and she's authored several books and there are so many that I had to actually write it down. I usually remember the introduction, but she's authored the Bottom Line for Baby the Power of Showing up the Whole Brain Child. No drama, discipline and yes, brain. And all of these books are phenomenal. And I'm so grateful to have her here and I'm really excited to host her. So I'll just see if Tina is here and I'll send her a request. Oh yes.

Hello. Hi, Tina, nice to see you.

Yes, same. And I'm so grateful that you're here and I'm really, really excited to host you and it's just so amazing to have you. And I've been following your Instagram feed and your comments and the post that you put it up and it's just amazing how, you know, your messages can transform a person. It's just very, very powerful. Every single message that you post is really nice. And so thank you and grateful to have you here. And I've prepared a few questions. So I've never hosted Instagram Live at this time, but because of the difference in time zone, we had to do it. And I'm really amazed to see that, you know, some people are still joining us at this hour, which is amazing. And I've prepared a few questions. So I'll be asking you those questions and then we'll also take a few questions from the audience.

Sounds great. Yeah.

Okay, so before we start, I always have this question for anybody that I host that what actually inspired you to select the niche that you're in and the work that you're doing? What was your true inspiration to start and do all of this?

Well, I had babies and I was working on a PhD program at the time studying child rearing theory and studying child development. And I heard Dan Siegel, my co author, speak at a conference and when he started to talk about all of this cutting edge science, I knew that it would transform my path. So I started following him. I went up to him. I'm not like this usually, but I waited till afterwards and I went up and talked to him and I was working on my PhD at the time and he had mentioned that he was teaching a course at UCLA and I was at usc, which is a rival. But I went and took a class with him. And then after that I overheard him telling someone he was starting a study group to go deep into the science of interpersonal neurobiology. So I was just really lit up by wanting to learn about the brain and the science. I was just interested and curious. But as I began to learn, I started learning all of these things that helped me understand my children's behavior and how to respond to it in a more effective way. And a lot of what I was learning from Dan was about how do we help people repair and heal when their brains are not integrated because they haven't had healthy experiences growing up. So I began to think, what can I do from the very beginning for my children to help integrate and build their brains in the most optimal way? As I started learning this, I started teaching some of it to my children, like the flipping your lid model I taught to my 4 year old. And as I started sharing it with other parents, like saying, well, you understand what's happening when your kid has a tantrum, like we can understand what's happening in their brain. And other people were so interested. And so I really felt like my path then. I was planning on being a professor and a researcher, but my at a university. But my plan shifted because I felt that taking the science and getting it delivered to parents and educators and other caregivers to make it accessible to them, you know, parents don't read the journals. And you know, journals are really hard to understand even if you have a PhD. So I really wanted to get to as many parents feeling that if we could help parents be more intentional and understand their children's behavior and respond to it in more effective ways, we could change generations. So that that's what inspired this path. And I kept having babies, so I kept being able to try new things.

Right. This is beautiful. Actually, you know, I'm so glad that you changed what you were doing because now you're helping so many children. And like you mentioned, you know, like through children you can actually build a nation. Like, you know, you can just change the entire nation. It's phenomenal what you're doing. So there's this question that keeps coming up. Actually, a lot of parents, you know, they are struggling and they try to do their best for their kids. And we always want to be sure whatever we are doing as parents is the best for our children. And sometimes, obviously, you know, because we are still human, we fail to deliver or meet our expectations. And then we go through this whole guilt strip of I'm not a great parent, I'm not a perfect parent. And also because of there's so much happening on the social media space. You see other parents doing it, and obviously what is on social media is not the real story all the time. You just feel very bad that, you know, that I'm not a great parent. So how do we actually think about this so that we feel better, we feel more positive about our parenting and we don't like, you know, aim for being perfect parents.

Yeah. Oh, gosh, there's so much to say about this and I'm so. It's such an important question because obviously none of us are perfect and we hold ourselves to these standards that are impossible. So we set ourselves up for failure. So I want to just give some messages of hope and then some really practical strategies too. The first thing is, you know, Dan and I wrote a book that came out last year called the Power of Showing up. And all of our books are translated in many, many, many languages. The whole brainchild and no drama discipline are both in over 60 languages. The newer books, they take some time to get into all kinds of languages, but wherever you are in the world watching, there's likely to be a book and a translation that you can read. But the Power of Showing up was really Talking about over 50 years of cross cultural research that says that the best predictor for how well our kids turn out is that they have one person, at least one person who shows up for them when they have needs. And this is what we call secure attachment. It's really about as mammals, when we are in distress or we have a need, we need someone to see it and respond to it and help us feel connected and protected. And so what the research says in all of that, when we look at this, over 50 years of research, the research is so hopeful because it tells us you don't have to be perfect. In fact, the research says, says you can mess up all the time and your kids can still thrive as long as you make a repair with them. So what that means is, you know, anytime we get mad as parents and we are not in control of ourselves, for some parents that might be being very sarcastic or it might be kind of being immature or blaming your children when really you're responsible for your own behavior or, or it might escalate to yelling or screaming or even yanking your kid's arm too hard or something, or far worse. Right. So it can take lots of different forms, but Regardless of what form it takes for any of you, when we're reactive as parents, we become unpredictable for our children in those moments, and especially the younger children are, when they're caregivers that are supposed to help them stay alive, become unpredictable, it can be very frightening and very dysregulating for them. But when you begin, after you make a mistake as a parent to make a repair and apologize to your kid, and I can be more specific about what that can look like, then when we do that, our child actually becomes more resilient. Because one, when we apologize, we are modeling how to do that that's good for our kids. Number two, they go, okay, that didn't go so well. My mom just yelled at me and she had a really angry voice and that scared me. I didn't feel good, but I know she's gonna come make things right with me in a few minutes. So even if our behavior becomes unpredictable, when we do remake those repairs consistently and predictably, our child can tolerate that knowing that something predictable is going to happen. And when we do that, one other really important thing happens, and that is that we actually help our children build resilience. Where. So Dan has this great phrase called our window of tolerance. So it's like what we can tolerate without losing control, right? So some of us are really resilient. We have a big window of tolerance. It takes a lot to make us fall apart. And some people have really narrow windows of tolerance and kids have narrow ones that expand over time as development unfolds. Right. Your three year old might have a tantrum because you cut their apple in a way they didn't like. Right. But typically 8 year olds aren't going to have tantrums about that. So it just, their window gets wider over time. So what's great about this is that if you were perfect and lovely and wonderful every second, first of all, the world would be a really scary place because no one else is like that in the world. And second of all, then if you're perfect, then they think they have to be perfect. That's a lot of pressure for them to live up to. But the most important part is that you allow them to have this experience of like, that didn't feel good. Relationships are messy, you know, this, this isn't good. But then things get made right again. And so they learn over time to tolerate the messiness of relationships, the messiness of other people, you know, falling apart at times. And so then they become resilient that their relationships aren't over if they have A conflict with somebody. Right. So it's actually what I'm saying in a nutshell is that when we mess up as parents, we actually, it can actually be really good for our kids and good for their development and good for resilience building as long as we make that repair with them.

Right, right. Actually, this is a very beautiful thing that you've mentioned. You know, it's like you're giving your child life skills by not being perfect all the time, because when they actually step out, not everybody is going to be their way or do things like they want. So this is a very new angle, which, you know, nobody has ever mentioned in the past. And it's beautiful, actually. Yeah. And I have this other question that there are so many parents around us, some of us are living in joint family, and different people have different opinions about the way we raise our child. And sometimes it can get very difficult, especially for new mothers. You know, when you give birth, you don't have any idea about how to feed your baby, how to hold your baby, how to actually do things right. And then there are, you know, 50 different people telling you 50 different things. So when you feel very frustrated, irritated, and also start to feel that you are not doing things right. So what should parents do then?

That's such a good question. Because we want so much to. To do it right and to do it well. And so we. It matters so much to us. So when people criticize us or tell us we should be doing it another way, we often, it really undermines our confidence sometimes. And we really feel, then we start really having a lot of doubts about ourselves. So first of all, I don't think it's out in India yet, but I wrote a book that came out in September called the Bottom Line for Baby. And this book is supposed to help with that exact thing. In fact, I wrote a note in the beginning of the book that says, look, when your parent or your sister or your friend tells you you shouldn't do it that way, you can pull this book out because it's alphabetical. And it basically is all the topics, 65 topics, where we get the most competing information, where so many different opinions come at us and you can actually just turn to it. So, for instance, somebody asked me on Instagram the other day about if it was okay for her baby to be a thumb sucker. And I'm like, well, if you have the book, you can turn to T and look up thumb sucking.

Oh, wow.

Every entry in this book is laid out by. Here are the competing opinions. Here's what the science says. And here's the bottom line. Now, sometimes the bottom line is there's not good science on this, or sometimes the bottom line is really clear and says, this is really important. You need to watch for this. But my main message in the book is the message I want to talk about now. And that is that we really can trust ourselves more than we trust ourselves to listen to our instincts. And we can trust our babies and our children, and we can follow their lead. And as I did the research, I dug deep into the science on these 65 topics, and there's some big ones in there, like sleep training, like co sleeping, like extended breastfeeding, like formula use, like daycare, all of these big things that are huge decisions for us as parents that a lot of people have opinions on. And the bottom line of the whole bottom line is, yes, those decisions matter. But overall, any decision you make about any of those does not make you a good parent or a bad parent. There are many, many, many ways to be a good parent. And I would call a good parent a parent that listens to and tunes into their child and repairs when they make mistakes. And so I really wanted parents to come away like, yes, inform yourself. The decisions matter, but what's most important is your relationship with your child. What your child needs most from you is you. And so we can really trust ourselves. And when people criticize us, especially our parents, because here's what can happen is that when we do it differently from our parents, they feel they can feel criticized. Even though you're not being critical, they're saying, well, that's not how we used to do it. And they want to defend their own view of themselves as a good parent. And so it can be really helpful to just have some ways to deal with that criticism, whether it's your parent or someone else. And they say you have to do it this way or you should never do this. But you have to do what works for your child and for you and for your family. Every child, parent and family is different. And so here's a good way to respond to say thank you for loving our child so much and that you want to give input. And I've thought a lot about this and we're doing it this way. But thank you for loving our child. And you just changed the conversation. So that's like a nice comeback. But I really want all of you to hear that, you know, you can do things differently than other people because you're doing what's working for your family. And your child needs you to do what works for your family because you're going to be happier then. And so with your own. And if it's your parent, you can even say, you know, a lot of information has changed. And even out of, in a place of curiosity, to move your parent from a reactive defensive position is to say, what did you do differently as a parent than your own parents? Like, did you and your mom have any battles about that? You know, and just say, yeah, I'm sure that's a thing for every generation because we keep learning more. And you can have some humility, be like, I don't know, it's an experiment, we'll hope it turns out well. But you will be criticized. But the biggest critic is always yourself, right? So really trusting yourself is so important and also continuing to learn. You know, if you're listening right now, you're learning. And I want to say one other thing about that, and that is that, you know, as we learn things as parents, we can look back on things we did. Or even just in a moment of like, you're in a good space and you think about what you did yesterday and you think, oh my gosh, how could I have done that? I feel so terrible. And we sit in that place of guilt or even shame. And shame is even more severe than guilt. When we get stuck in shame, it actually gets in the way of us being more regulated and being able to be present to our child. So I want to give you all permission is to. When you look back on things you've done as a parent and you think, golly, how could I have done that? Is to mean that things are getting better. So let me give an example. If I have a diary from when I was 13 and I read that diary and I think, wow, I was really insightful and what a brilliant mind. What would that say about how much I've grown and changed and evolved over time, right? I read that 13 year old's diary and I think that is so embarrassing, but that means I've grown and developed. So when we look back on parenting moments, we either go, you know what, I just lost it there and I didn't handle that well. And I know I don't want to be that kind of parent, but I'm going to be at times, or you look back on stuff and you think, oh, I wish I had known that. Just know it means you're growing, evolving, changing. We should have regrets about our parenting because it means we're, we're wanting to do more, we're aiming to do More and we're growing and learning and that's such an important mind shift.

Right, that's beautifully answered. And one question that you mentioned, that it's very important that at least one person is emotionally available for the child. But sometimes, you know, parents are working and it's very difficult. You know, they have so many professional commitments and they struggle to find and be there for their child all the time. So, and this is a question that I get asked a lot of times, and even now, you know, people are working from home and still they are struggling to find enough time for their children. So what, what can they do to feel better? How can they actually manage this or work, work around this?

Basically, yeah. You know, what's happening right now, and you're right, it's much harder right now because our I'm in, I'm in Los Angeles and all of our activities are shut down. Kids are working from home, you know, doing school from home. All parents or most parents are working from home. And so it's extra hard right now, but so I'm going to talk about that. And that is that, you know, when the demands of our lives and our capacity to manage our lives are a fairly even match, we do pretty well, right? We might have moments where our kid is screaming and three other of our kids need something and we're exhausted and there's a big gap between the demands and our capacity. Then we don't handle ourselves so well. And right now, what is being asked of us as parents, especially parents who are employed outside the home, but working from home and children are home without daycare, schooling, activities, we cannot. What's being asked of us is impossible. We cannot be good, full time, engaged employees and good full time engaged parents who are also functioning as teachers, right? So first of all, just know what's being asked of us at this time in history is impossible. So we cannot be excellent at everything. So typically what I think about when a kid has really bad acting out behaviors, I always ask that question, well, what are the demands of the situation and where is the kid's capacity? And usually the intervention I talk about first with kids is one we can apply to ourselves and that is, are there ways we can reduce our demands? So that might mean cooking less and eating sandwiches more or ordering food or letting your house be messy or asking for help or whatever it is. So how can we reduce demands? And then how can we also build our capacity? Making sure we're getting sleep, you know, those kinds of things. So making sure that that balance is there as Best we can. And then know that you don't have to be doing creative crafts and engaging your child in all the wonderful ways all day long. In fact, I would say that's even intrusive. I think kids. Kids need a lot of time to play. And playing on their own or playing with siblings is wonderful as long as you have at least a small chunk. And the younger kids are, the more they need from you, obviously. But as long as you have at least a couple of moments a couple of times a day where you have what I would call, like a shared moment of joy with your child, that's enough. You know, it might be, you know, rolling a ball back and forth on the. On the floor and your child is laughing and you're joining with them. It might be, you know, dancing in your kitchen. It might be having. My kids are older, having a. We were just having. Right before this, we were just having a really lovely dinner conversation, and I saw them at breakfast this morning, and I haven't seen them since. And so I was sitting down with them at dinner and, you know, we. We talked about the joy of almond milk this morning. My kids have discovered they loved almond. Almond milk in their cereal. So just shared moments of joy. And it's really important that we don't stress ourselves out so much because we are the mirrors for our children. And if we're really stressed out and we're really anxious and we're really angry and resentful, our kids pick up on that. So much better to say, like, if you're forcing yourself to play with your kid because you feel like you should, but you're really stressed and you really need to work on something for 45 minutes so you can get it done and be more relaxed. So much better to have 15 minutes with your kid that's engaged and joyful and relaxed than an hour of resentful, angry time with your child. So take the. Take the gas pedal off and trying to be everything to everyone. You just can't do it. And we're all just doing our best right now, so just try to have some laughter and some fun and some joining times and let go of the rest.

Right again, like, really nicely answered. And the next question. I have a lot of questions, and yeah, so the next question that I have is, like, a lot of us think that it's very important to have a routine and to follow that routine. And sometimes, you know, we really over schedule and make it, like, very difficult. So do you think it's very, very important to have a routine for the children or it is okay if you are feeling more comfortable without one.

You know, again, that's a, that's a it depends kind of answer. Because every kid is so different. Some kids really thrive on routine. Other kids, not so much. If can feel more rigid to them. One thing I have been talking about quite a bit right now is that the world is really unpredictable right now. And things keep changing so fast in terms of kids can go back to school. Wait, no, no, no, no, they can't. They have to stay home. And you know, the vaccine's great news. Well, maybe it's not as great as we thought. No, actually it is great. You know, like, so there's just all this changing information and the routines of our lives are so unpredictable right now. And the brain hates unpredictability. Unpredictability can really set the brain off to say there may be danger lurking, I don't know, so I better be hyper vigilant and watch for danger. And it really can increase our sense of anxiety and worry in the world. So one of the things I've been recommending to parents is to create predictability. And one of the ways we can do that is through routines. But it doesn't have to be just scheduled. Routines can be things like, you know, on Friday nights we watch a movie and we always have pizza, or, you know, we have tacos on Tuesday nights or whatever it is, we play games on Sunday nights. It can be scheduled, but it can also be having your child, if they're old enough, making a playlist of their favorite songs for school days. So you're playing that playlist in the morning as they're getting ready for schools, but you don't play it on the weekends. You have a weekend playlist, right? So that when they're hearing that it's. It's not like a scheduled thing. Like, I'm going to over schedule my child. I actually hate what I saw. When the pandemic first started where parents wrote on whiteboards like every 10 minutes what their child was doing. I was like, that is too much. A colleague of mine who's a therapist did that for her kids. And by day three, she literally like kicked a hole in the whiteboard. She was like, this is a terrible idea. So there's such a thing as over scheduled, over rigid, but there's such a thing as having some rhythm to our lives so that we feel safe and we feel like things are more predictable. You know, I love to do that when it comes to the seasons. Like, you know, to say oh, well, the world is confusing right now. But, you know, the camellia trees are blooming like they always do in January. Right. And the roses are cut back just like they always are in January. So I think having these rhythms, even watching nature and watching the rhythms of nature and pointing that at convention, be really restoring and give us a sense of, okay, not everything is so unpredictable in the world.

Right. Right.

And kids definitely need time to play. So when we're over scheduling them, you know, that can really. I feel like it's so much more important for kids to get sleep and play than it is for them to get academics or rigid schedules.

Right, right. I completely agree with that. And also, one thing, you know, like a lot of parents, like, especially parents with older kids now, because, you know, the social media has. Is just a new thing. Right. And it wasn't there when they were actually raising kids, and now they're suddenly getting all this information on social media and they feel that, you know, what they have done, and they just wish that they had seen this while they were raising their kids and they can go back in time and fix it. And they just feel very uncomfortable or guilty about what they've done in the past. So is there a way that you can actually repair the damages that you've done in the past? Like, current. I agree that, you know, you can instantly go and apologize, but if you have to work on the things that you've done wrong in the past, how can you actually fix those things?

Yeah. I have great hopeful news for you on that question, and that is that the brain is. The human brain is so amazing because it is set up particularly, particularly in childhood and adolescence, up until about 25, to be so adaptive, or we call it hyperplastic. It's plastic, it's changeable, it's moldable, and it's super adaptive to any kind of experience. So what this means for us as parents is, you know, and especially when I talk about attachment and then the power of showing up, if we say, you know, one of the most important things is for your child to have secure attachment with you, Dan. And I say, well, the way you do that is by providing the four S's, helping them feel safe and seen so that they feel felt and understood, soothed, we help them and nurture them. At their worst, that's when they need us the most. Even though sometimes it looks like bad behavior. And that when we're not perfect, but we predictably, repeatedly help them feel safe, seen and soothed, they develop the 4ths of security, where Their brain has wired to know based on those repeated experiences that if they have a need, someone's going to show up for them. And then their brain's wired to do it for themselves so they can keep themselves safe and see and understand themselves, soothe themselves and then go out and build relationships where they show up for other people. Right? And eventually as parents. And so what's so great about all of this is even if you've been parenting in a way that you feel terrible about and you want to make a shift, you want to be less about punishment and more about thinking about helping your child build skills, you want to think about discipline as teaching instead of punishment. Or you think, gosh, I need to be more responsive emotionally and be more present and less distracted with my kids or whatever it is you're feeling like you want to change. As soon as you start making that change, your child's brain starts adapting to that experience. So this is really great news that when we start providing repeated, not perfect, but okay. So let's think about it this way. When I lift a weight and I do repetitions, my muscle gets stronger. And that's how the brain works too. So if historically, when your child comes to you with their emotions and you're very dismissing and you say, why are you being so upset about that? That's nothing to get upset about. You're being overreactive. I don't want to hear it. Which is not great. I mean, your kid then internalizes, she doesn't want to hear it. I guess I can't go to her when I do have feelings. She can't tolerate it. She's really only interested in engaging with me when I've got it all together and I'm alone with these big feelings. That's what happens when we dismiss our kids emotions. So let's say you go, okay, I've been doing that now I want to show up in the moment and say, you know, tell me more, I will listen. Or you say, oh, you seem really, really angry. Do you need help? How can I help? Right? And you really start showing up emotionally. In those moments, your child's brain will start to say, okay, new experience, this is interesting. And then as you do it, their brain adapts to start expecting that and changing really the way they're even attached to you so it's never too late is great news. Your child's brain adapts to new experiences. And then on top of that, I would say that if there was a moment in time, I remember one time I was teaching a parenting Group and I had a mom. We were talking about repair, saying something like, you know, I'm so sorry I handled it that way. I really wish I had done that differently. I got so angry, and I sounded angry and I looked angry, and that was frightening to you. I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me? And I was talking about that, and I had a mom in my group, and she said, you know, something happened, like, three years ago, and I still feel so much guilt about it. Her daughter was 13, and her daughter had said something to her like, I hate you. And her mom said, I hate you, too. And the mom just felt so terrible about that. She said, is it. Do you think I should go, you know, and apologize? Maybe she's forgotten about it. And I said, well, you know, I don't think it would hurt. Do you? What do you think? And she said, yeah, I think she probably still remembers, and I think I would feel better. So she went to her daughter and said, hey, do you remember that time? And her daughter was like, yeah, I remember. I'm so sorry, and I still feel so guilty. And the daughter said to her mom, I know that's not true. I knew you were just mad in the moment. It's so not a big deal. I love you. And she hugged her mom, and then that was the end of that. So sometimes making the repair about a specific incident in the past, our kids might not even need it, but sometimes it can help us release it. So, yeah, just we can start changing the environment, we can start changing our parenting, and it can benefit our kids right away for sure.

Also, there's this. In your book, the yes Brain, you've spoken about how kids, you know, sometimes they completely shut down and they don't want to respond to you when, let's say, if you're taking the screen away or you want to feed them and they don't want to be fed, and they stop responding to you, and they pretend that they're actually not listening. And then you've actually spoken about this concept called the yes brain.

Yeah, Are you there? Okay. Yeah.

Did you get the whole question, or.

Should I repeat the last part? I missed the last yes.

Just asking to talk a little about this concept of yes brain and what it actually means.

Yeah. So we can really think about the brain as either in a reactive state or a receptive state. So a reactive state would be what we would call in that book the no brain. And the no brain is reactive, stubborn, defensive, anxious, angry, unwilling to try anything new, just really not receptive at all. And just in this reactive state. A yes brain is a receptive brain that is open and curious. And even if something difficult is happening, you're resilient in the moment, so you have emotional regulation. Really. We talk about the four pillars of the yes brain being balance. So that's like being emotionally regulated, resilient, being able to tolerate difficult things, insight. So being able to see yourself, and then empathy. And those are really four features of a yes brain. But what we see is kids with a yes brain. It's a neurological state where you're like, okay, I'm ready to learn. I'm ready to explore. I can handle hard things. So it is a neurological state, but it's also an approach to life where we say, yeah, I'll try something I'm not going to be good at, or I'm going to try something that's uncomfortable. I know I can get through it. So it really is a receptive, resilient state that as kids practice, it can really transform into who they are. But, you know, specifically, it's an integrated brain that's really well connected, where our emotions aren't running the show, but we're not cut off from our emotions. Our reptilian brain isn't taking over so that we're not, you know, we're not able to make decisions or pause before action. So it really, truly is an. A yes brain is an integrated, receptive, open, ready to learn brain.

Wow. And the next thing that I want to ask this is the last question, and then we take a few from the audience, and then I'll get back to my questions. So one is about, like, competition. There's so much competition. And as parents, you know, we set these milestones. I don't know from where we actually get these milestones. You know, like, why after one, your child has to start speaking a few words. They should be. They should be walking. When the other kids their age are walking, they should be writing or reciting poems. And when they don't do that, like the other kids around them are doing, you start to worry as a parent, and you also start to question yourself whether you're doing everything right or you're missing out on something and why your child is not doing it.

Yeah, well, first of all, I would say, you know, we know that there are developmental windows in which things happen. So. So one child might start walking at 11 months and another child might not start walking till 17 months. And that's all within the typical range. Right. So kids do things at their own time. The second thing to say about that is that we, I think we give ourselves in some ways. And okay, first of all, you know me, you know my writing. I'm all about the experiences matter and what we do matters. But I also want to say I think we give ourselves too much credit as parents. And what I mean by that is we think that we are the ones that construct everything that happens. But really only about 50% of who we turn out to be is based on our experiences. And if you think about all the experiences we have, our parenting experiences are just a part of that 50%. And the other 50% has to do with our genetics and development just unfolding, having nothing to do with the kind of parent we are. We have, you know, so I think, you know, whether your baby walks at 11 months or 17 months probably has nothing to do with you as a parent and what you're doing or not doing. You know, we know that what babies. I had an email a couple weeks ago from a mom who asked which robot toy she should buy for her infant to help him develop language. And I was like, your child doesn't need any toys to develop language. Certainly not a robot. Your child needs you to talk to them. That's all. That's all your child needs to develop language is to be around people who are talking for you to talk to your baby. So, you know, when our children reach these developmental milestones has a lot to do with their development unfolding. That has nothing to do with how often we're reading to them, how often we're, you know, helping them do gymnastics or tumbling or, you know, any of those things. So a lot of the enrichment activities and classes and all those things that we sign up for, they're fun. If they're not stressful for you or your child, go for it. But they're not going to have a whole lot to do with how your child's development unfolds. Yes, they can build skills, but a lot of who our children turn out to be is really not related to whether or not we bought them some fancy game or signed them up for some fancy class. It's really. And I think you know Dr. Michael Thompson, who's written a lot of parenting books, one of the messages that I found so helpful in his books for my own parenting is this idea, and that is to trust development. We can trust development to unfold. So if you have a three or four year old that tantrums a lot, you might be thinking, oh, it's because I'm not a good parent or my child is spoiled. Well, three and four year olds have tantrums because they have undeveloped brains. And no matter what you do as a parent, your child will probably outgrow them fairly soon. You know, within a few years, your child will have less and less tantrums. Now, adults have tantrums. We never fully outgrow them. But I think we can really take some of the pressure off of ourselves because it's not just on us. So in that way, competition is kind of silly because we're sort of giving. Like if our child starts talking sooner than the other kids, we're like, oh, you know, we feel so proud. But it probably doesn't have anything to do with you. You're taking credit where you probably shouldn't, and the reverse is true. Now, all that being said, if you feel like your child is not meeting developmental milestones or you do have instincts and curiosities about that, first pause and ask yourself, am I being overanxious here or do I really have an instinct that maybe something is not right? If you are concerned that if something is not right, please talk to your doctor, because your doctor will either say you have nothing to worry about and then you can cross that worry off your list, or the doctor can say, you know what, there is something here we should give attention to. And the earlier we start intervention for kids who do need extra support, the better. So I always tell parents, trust your instincts. If you think something's wrong, check it out, have it checked out so you can cross it off your list or you can get the support your child needs. I think one other thing I'll just say is that we have, and this is a big topic we cover in the yes brain is that so much of how we define success in many cultures around the world has to do with achievement. And achievement is not the. You know, there are a lot of people who achieve wonderful things and achievements are great. However, achievement doesn't make you happy necessarily. You can have gone to all the best schools and won all the awards and made all the money, but you might be completely lost and not have an inner compass and not have joy and not have meaning. So I think we need to expand our definition of what success is. And I think if we do that, it will help us also see that the things that we often feel competitive about don't really matter as much as many other things.

Right. Beautifully answered. And now I'm going to take a few questions from the audience. Okay, so I see this really interesting question from Siddhi. She's asking how to stop Myself from over expecting from my, from our kids. You know, like when we really expect a lot from our children. How can we stop that as a parent?

Yeah, I mean that's really hard to do. But I think it's really important that we work really hard on some personal insight and some awareness and to really ask ourselves what is that about for me, why does, you know, having my child achieve matter so much to me? What is it? And I think just pausing and asking this question, what is it I really want for my child? Do I want them to have meaning in their life? Do I want them to be self disciplined? Do I want them to be kind? Really make separate lists, like here are the accomplishments I wish for my child and here are the character characteristics and parts of life I want for my child. And know that the characteristics and the desires for your child's, you know, humanness are just as, if not important as the accomplishments list. So I think just thinking in your mind and questioning that, I think in my experience, because where I live, there's a lot of really highly driven parents who put a lot of pressure on their kids. And a couple of things that, that I like to think about. One is when we pressure our children to become something that they may or may not want to be, or you know, we put all this pressure on them to achieve and be perfect, we actually can increase their risk of anxiety and depression. And so, you know, it's really important that we are thinking about our child's mental health and having balance in their life and to think about what kinds of values we communicate without even realizing it. Right. So what a lot of kids will say when we interview them is my parent cares much more about my homework and my grades than they care about me. So we really want to teach our kids that they matter and that we love them for who they are, not who we want them to be. And it's really important that they feel that. So I think just having some awareness, asking yourself some questions. And one of the things I also see is that lot of that drivenness in parents to put pressure on their kids is really about the parents fear. If they get really clear, it's about a parental fear that's like, I don't want them to not live up to their potential and I don't want to feel like I wasn't a good parent. So then we act out of this fear based parenting which really gets in the way of being present to our children. Again, what your child needs most from you is you. And that's really just about you showing up and being present to them and having a relationship with them. And when we focus on pressure and achievement and competition, it actually can really deteriorate your relationship with your child.

That is so true. And we have this. And also I would just like to mention, I was reading, I'm reading this book called Love Love, Economics and Parenting. And it talks about how different.

People.

Make different choices based on the society that they're living in and based on how they are influenced by the society. So I think a lot of it has to do with that as well. You know, like the choices that we make because there's so much pressure from everywhere to deliver. And there's this question from Farah and she's asking that emotional approach, does emotional approach always help because they have to go out and face the real world in the future. Will they be able to. I think what she means is will they be able to adjust and adapt to the real world?

I get that question all the time. So let me say a couple things. One is being emotionally responsive to your child does not mean you're being permissive. So we should have boundaries and rules and expectations and hold children to them. That actually helps them feel safe when they know what to expect. So we can have really good boundaries but also be very emotionally responsive. And I'll just tell a quick example of that. So when my 4 or 5 year old refused to get out of the bathtub and he's yelling, I'm not getting out. And I say, it's time to get out. He says, I'm not getting out. And I say, you can either get out by yourself or I'm going to help you out. He won't get, he doesn't get out. So then I hold him and as I pull him out of the tub, so I'm holding my boundary, right? I'm not saying, okay, fine, you can stay in the bathtub. And that's where we get into trouble. That's where children don't do well, is when parents don't have good boundaries. So there's actually these two different dimensions. One is we can think about it as structure, boundaries, expectations. And you can be high on those or low on those. And when we're low on those, when we don't have a lot of boundaries, expectations, rules, that's when kids turn out to be what we would call spoiled or have difficulty adjusting to the world. There's a separate dimension. And this is what happens as I'm lifting him out. And as I'm lifting him out, I say to him. And this is the other dimension called emotional responsiveness or nurture. And this is where I say, you're so mad you have to get out of the bathtub. You really wanted to stay in, didn't you? I know, I know. It's so disappointing. So you see, I'm holding my boundary, but I'm being emotionally responsive. So I'm saying no to his behavior, but I'm saying yes to his feelings and his experiences. And when I do that, I commute. So we might. So then I wrap the towel around him and I say, I know if you need to cry for a little while, I'm right here with you while you cry. Now what I want to do is say, if you don't stop crying, I'm not going to read you stories at bedtime. Right? But that doesn't teach any skills. It just makes both of us more mad. It's not helpful at all. So here's what happens when we're emotionally responsive to our child and they're falling apart, they're having a tantrum, they're, you know, having bad behavior. And I show up in that moment with emotional nurturing and empathy and connection. What happens is not making my child more indulged or more spoiled. And I'm not spoiling them for the rest of the world, where the world's not going to treat them like that. Why would I do that? Right? I get that question all the time. But here's what happens when your child is acting like that. Their brain is actually disintegrated. Their brain is not working in a coordinated whole. And it happens all the time when they're young because their brain is not done developing right. So they're dysregulated. But when I show up and I do what we call co regulate, so I help my child with support, with connection, with nurturing, move from dysregulation back into regulation where they're in control of themselves. It actually is like lifting a weight. Their brain got practice, their brain got a repetition of out of control, back into controlling myself so that their brain learns how to do it for themselves. So actually when we do that, when we're nurturing and warm and connect with them, when they're having a hard time, it actually teaches their brain how to control themselves and how to regulate themselves. So they were doing skill building and not just with like a behavior, but actually in terms of how their brains get wired. So they're the ones that are more resilient out in the world when the world doesn't treat them that way. So it's a much better approach, just even in terms of how the brain develops.

Right, right. This is very beautiful. I'm learning so much. Tina, amazing how beautifully you're answering. So we have this question. It's a nice question. I love your work. Okay. She's appreciating you. She's saying, tina, I love your work. Both my kids were extremely colicky as babies. No matter what I did, I couldn't meet their needs. I worry about the rough start and their trust in me. Any advice?

So. So there's a huge difference between a baby that is. And fill in the word baby with any other age, including your significant other. There's a huge difference between crying and being upset and in pain and uncomfortable and in distress and someone being available to you and showing up in that moment, trying and feeling all of those things, being upset and distressed and all of that, and being completely left alone or ignored. So the amount of your child's crying doesn't really have to do with their attachment pattern to you or with whether or not you're a good parent or whether or not, you know, you helped them. You know, that that was, you know, you said it was a rough start. It was probably a rough start for you and a rough start for them. But what's most important is that you were trying. You were making yourself available, that you showed up in those moments, you know, you were trying to help. And I'm sure at times you were really stressed out, and you had to kind of leave your baby for a period of time to calm yourself down and take care of your own needs. And we have to remember that it's, you know how doctors tell us, don't think about what your child eats at a meal or even in a day. You think about the meals they eat over a week. We can kind of think about our parenting like that, too, over months and years that, you know, it's really about. So, you know, just like when your child might get a shot, they're in terrible pain, and you're holding them or you're right there and they're in terrible pain, and they don't understand what happened. That's a terrible, stressful experience. You do it for their health. Right. You know, it's important. But then you pick them up and you comfort them, and then they move on. We can think about colic like that or other difficult periods in our child's development that just think about their experiences with you overall. And that's what's most important. Just trying and in fact, you know, parents who don't want to do cry it out sleep methods or like when I. When I stopped breastfeeding in the middle of the night. My kid was over a year, and I was like, I can't. I think he was even 18 months. And I was still waking up multiple times a night to nurse. And it just. It wasn't working for me or our family. I was too tired and. Which meant I was really grumpy and impatient. And I was like, our whole family is going to be better if I don't get up and nurse him in the middle of the night. So I told him he was 18 months. He didn't get most of it, but I just said, mommy, and mommy's milk is going to be sleeping at night, and if you wake up, daddy will come and hold you. And my husband would go in there and he would scream his bloody head off. He was so mad that it was my husband and not me. He didn't have the goods, you know, and he was so angry. But my husband was like, I know you really want mom, it's okay. I'm right here with you. And it's okay that he cried. It's not bad for our children to cry. It's. Somebody showed up for him and someone was there for him. And so as long as we try to be there for our kids, that's what matters, right?

Right. It's so nice. And now we have this another question from Farah, my daughter. If my daughter. No, sorry. Yeah. If children don't ask us questions or if they're not curious, is it something that we should worry about? How can I encourage my child to be more inquisitive and ask me more things?

Well, it depends on the age of your child. Typically, what we see developmentally is that Sometime around age 3, children start asking the question why. And the reason that they do that, the why behind the why, is that there's a huge, huge left brain growth spurt that happens between 18 months and 3 years of age for a neurotypical kid. And the left hemisphere loves to answer and ask the question why. It wants to know how the world works. So as they have that brain development, typically by three, three and a half kids start four, they start asking a lot of why questions. So if it's before that age period, just know your child's brain hasn't developed in that way. The other thing is, some children are less verbal. Some kids just talk and talk and talk, and they ask a lot of questions. My guess is your Child is probably really curious, but maybe less externalizing of asking the questions. So watch for more subtle cues. And the best way to do that is by watching what your child's attention goes to. Keep in mind that shared attention is actually emotional intimacy. So. So if your kid finds a cool pen that they think is so neat, or a stick, they find a stick and they think it's the coolest stick. And you orient and your child's looking at the stick and touching the stick, and you orient your attention to the stick also. And you're like, wow, that's a really neat stick. Why do you like it? Do you think this is your favorite stick that you ever found? Or look how bumpy it is. Even though a stick might be really boring to you, when you bring your attention, when you have shared attention with someone else, that's where emotional intimacy is from. And we can do that even non verbally. So notice what your child is looking at. So if your child looks at something, you're like, oh, they're interested. So you know, you can just notice what she's looking at and you can say, hmm, that's so interesting. I wonder who thought of that idea. Or I wonder if there are other ones in other colors. And you can ask lots of I wonders so you can actually model being curious yourself. So a lot of times we have a lot of curious questions in our own minds, but we don't say them out loud. So you can externalize those. Just like I externalize gratitude a lot, I think a million times a day about things I'm grateful for. And whenever my boys are around, I say it out loud. I say, wow, look at the way the light's coming through that window on those oranges. That looks so cool. Or oh, I'm so grateful for these fuzzy slippers. They are like my favorite thing right now. Whatever, whatever it is, but I'm externalizing it. So when you're curious, just externalize it and then just model lots of I wonders. And then you can even ask your child, what do you wonder about? One other quick idea is to play I Spy. Like I spy something that is blue and rolls and have your child look, because your child will be like, you know, what is she talking about? Right? So you can play I Spy games. Really, truly, any kind of play sparks creativity. I mean, sparks curiosity. So you really can be really just following your child's lead in play and let her play, really express her curiosity and then follow up on that, right? That's amazing.

And we have this another question which is Actually an interesting question. How do we know if a certain behavior is actually a development issue or is this. It's a sim. It's an atypical symptom, you know, like whether they are behaving a certain way because of a development issue or it's a genuine bad behavior. And what should we do as parents there?

So in my book that I wrote with Dan, I love this book so much. It's still just. I feel so passionate about the ideas in this book is the book no drama discipline. And one of the phrases we use in the book is to chase the why. So this is really about being curious ourselves and to really be curious about your child's behavior and to really, you know, think like I really believe that children and most adults do, but let's just talk about kids. Children do well when they can most of the time. And that a lot of the behavior that they do that might be problematic is actually the child's best adaptation to where they are developmentally, where their brain is in terms of development. So I think, you know, be curious about your child's behavior and don't make so many assumptions. A lot of times we make assumptions like, oh, he's just lazy or you know, she's just strong willed. But it might be that actually if you become curious, you're gonna say, gosh, my kid gets really easily embarrassed and that's why she acts out with like I had a mom a couple weeks ago, ask me, her son is 6 and anytime she, she, he's just started going back to school so it's a big transition right now. And anytime she tries to ask him about his day, she's like, you know, what did you eat for lunch today? Or who did you sit with at lunch? And he just kept, he keeps using language that she doesn't really like. He keeps saying, I ate nothing, stinker. And he just keeps saying stinker, stinker, stinker, stinker. So at first she was like, oh, this is so annoying, you know, is this a behavior problem? And I was like, well, first of all, six year old boys like to, and girls, whatever, six year olds like to experiment with reactive, you know, body part, body function, language and to try and see how people react. And it does sound silly and he's trying to be funny. But when I asked her to really be curious, what do you think's happening with your kid? She said, I think he actually feels anxious. So then she could say okay. Instead of what am I going to do to my child to punish him for that behavior. She can then ask, what can I do for my child to help him feel more stable and secure and less anxious? So then we could do some problem solving around that. Sometimes when behaviors are really big, it can be really short term because kids are going through, you know, a developmental milestone where they're. They're making a developmental shift. So for instance, sometimes kids three to five weeks will be more sensitive, more reactive, and then all of a sudden their pants are too short and they've gone through a physical growth spurt or they've gone through a brain growth spurt. And so you might see more reactive. We also are seeing more reactive behaviors from our kids because we're in a pandemic and life is really stressful and hard, and they're not getting to see their friends, and it's just hard. But I would say that if something is ongoing, if a particular behavior is ongoing and it's really causing a lot of problems in your family, if you're feeling like, I really can't stand my kid, and I've been feeling that for weeks and weeks, not just days. We all feel like that on days and moments. But. Or it's really getting in the way of your child having opportunities, or it's really kind of interrupting what's happening in the family, seek out some help. It can be really helpful to talk like to a child psychologist or someone. And just, you know, lots of times we hire people to do. Do our taxes for us, or we hire someone to help us, you know, decorate a room or something like that. You know, it's a great way to invest money is to talk to a child development specialist or a child psychologist and just say, you know, I've done that for years. I'm currently now just doing parenting groups. So if you want to find out about those, My website is tinabryson.com and I record them for people all over the world at different times where they submit their questions and I answer just like this. And that's all on my website. But back when I used to do individual clinical work and I have a whole team of people that called the center for Connection that I've trained and that do that. People would say, okay, I've got six questions for you. I'm worried about this, this, this, and this. And I don't know what to do about this. And we would, I would just walk them through and almost always I would say, your child is developmentally right where they're supposed to be. Here's how to navigate that situation. Situation where it's not so hard on you or here's some ways you can build that skill in your kid. And every once in a while I would say what you're telling me makes me think something is going on. And then we would get curious together. Does your child have a sensory processing challenge? Do they need to see an occupational therapist? Does your child have a possible learning challenge that hasn't been discovered yet? Maybe there's dyslexia or ADHD or other kinds of things. So I might recommend that they see a neuropsychologist just to do an evaluation or if there's been trauma to, you know, work through those kinds of things. So I always kind of have a list in my mind or what are the. If I see a kid that's in a really reactive state and it's ongoing, I want to chase the why and I want to figure that out because I believe kids do well when they can. And when we see a lot of acting out behaviors, we really should get curious and ask questions about that and try and figure it out. And sometimes if you ask kids, you're going to get the answer. It's not so complicated. I had a mom who came to me because her child, she told me her child was having terrible separation anxiety when it drop off at school. He was 4 or 5. And I said, she said, you know, he's just, he's really having a hard time separating. And I said, well, have you ever asked him what is so hard about the goodbye? Tell me about why the goodbye is hard for you. She said, well, no, I never thought to ask him. So she went and asked him and she called me and she said he wasn't having separation anxiety at all. He said the teacher hugged him too hard. Hard. And he didn't like how hard the teacher. So it was a really simple solution. He then started doing a fist bump with his teacher and that was the end of the battles at drop off. So sometimes we can even get our kids sometimes can help us understand too. But it's really important that we swim through the behavior and look beyond the behaviors to what our child is feeling and what they might be experiencing. Right, Right.

Okay, so I'm going to take one last question to because it's almost one hour and this question is there are so many people, Tina, who are mentioning that they love your work, they love your books and they're still getting to learn so much even though they've read all your books and they're still learning. And there's this question which by Dream Pool Essays. When my kid gets angry, I literally get hurt. We are trying to get her to calm before she can get upset. But can you help me get a motto or a mindset that can be helpful in those moments?

Again, it depends on how old the child is and what else is going on. You know, sometimes when kids get really angry, they become physically or verbally aggressive. Adults do that too, but far less, and we have more developed brains to keep that from happening. So one of the things that happens when kids get really angry or really anxious or whatever the big feeling is, and it overtakes them. Like, I assume your child doesn't typically hurt you. And my guess is that your child probably feels really badly afterwards that they hurt you. That tells us that it's not a choice. It's actually a stress response. So when. Okay, she's five. Okay, thank you. Especially at five, her brain is still so underdeveloped, yet not because there's something wrong, but because she's five and the brain is still developing. So typically after that happens, our kids feel badly. And under normal circumstances, when she's not angry, she's not aggressive, but in that moment, she really flips her lid and she loses the ability to pause and make choices. So it's not a choice. Which is why punishments can be so problematic, because then you're punishing a child for something she can't help. So punishments actually typically make things worse. So, you know, when they feel bad afterwards, then you can talk about it. And then what you really want to do is think about it like this, like I started earlier. So handling big anger feelings is the, you know, what the situation or the demanded situation is. But your child's capacity to handle it well is not there yet. So that's why you're seeing the verbal aggression. I mean, the physical aggression. So a couple things. One is really start building skills. So when she's violent like that, it's really important that you protect yourself, because if she hurts you, she's going to feel even worse afterwards. Right. And so. And it's really important that you also model that it's not okay to have boundaries around yourself. Right. You want her to grow up knowing it's not okay for people to hurt her either. So you can say to her, you know, I will keep my body safe. You cannot hurt me like that. Okay? So you. You hold a boundary like that, and you try to address the emotion. So you're addressing the behavior. You cannot hurt my body. I don't let anyone hurt my body. Right. So you're. You're Showing those good boundaries. Number two, you're addressing the emotions. You're so angry right now. And you try to be present. If you are present and close to her and she is hurting, you put some pillows between you, have a couch between you. You might even need to stand on the other side of the door. But I would say stay present if you can physically present. One thing that has worked really well for a lot of families I've worked with, this is in no drama. Discipline is as you see her start to escalate. You take a long, deep breath or two or three times. Where your exhale is longer than your inhale, where you're like. Almost like a sigh when you do that. It helps your own nervous system not go into the fight flight freeze reaction. Because when someone's violent towards us, it activates our fight flight freeze system, right? And then we move into reactivity. It's really contagious. And that doesn't help anybody. So take that long, deep breath. And then in the moment, if you can, and it's safe for you. Yes, astronaut breath. Get below her eye level in a really relaxed posture. So sit. Crisscross applesauce, you know, lean. But if you're below eye level, what it does is it tells her brain no threat. Like there's not more threat coming at me. Someone's here to help me, is what it communicates to her brain really quickly. And then don't talk too much, because when kids are in that state, they actually. The human ear, actually the inner ear changes, and they can't even hear the human voice unless it's a threatening voice. They can't. So their social engagement circuitry starts to go off. So she can't learn in that moment. So you get below eye level and just say two things. One, one, something empathetic. Oh, you're having such a hard time, or you're so angry, or this is so hard for you. Something like that. And the second thing you say is, I'm right here with you. Now, like I said, you might need to be on the other side of the door. You might need to have a piece of furniture between you. But you just say, I'm right here with you. This is so hard. But you can get through this. I'm right here. And then don't say a lot. Just keeps. You know, you can keep nodding your head or saying, I know, honey, I'm here. You can also ask, can I help? Is there something you need? She'll probably say, no, don't talk to me. You know, she'll probably keep reacting, but you really are just making yourself available and present. Then afterwards, you can you name it to tame it, you tell the story of what happened, this happened, and you got so mad. And how did you feel that in your body? How did you know you were mad? Yeah, your muscles got really tight and your body, you got really hot. And you start helping her identify the feeling of anger with the body cues. So she can start paying attention to that and pausing it before it gets there over time. And then you can say, you know, I know you got so angry. And it's not okay to hurt me. It's not okay to hit your brother, whatever else. So what can we do differently next time? And that's the other piece of this is around waiting for development to unfold, keeping yourself calm, safe, Trying to turn her volume down so you can almost think about her having a volume dial and it's turned all the way up. She's in like max volume. And your job with the way you hold your body, the way you breathe, your tone of voice, the pace of your talking, all of that is like, my job is to turn her volume dial down. That's my job. And if you do that and you can hold in your mind, like, my child needs my help right now because she actually has stress hormones running through her body. And the part of her brain that's lighting up is also the part of her brain that lights up when she's in physical pain. Physical pain and emotional pain are registered in the same place in the brain. So if she were physically hurt, it would be really easy for you to access the nurturing. Like, I'm right here. I've got you. I know it hurts, but you're going to be okay. We need to do the same in those emotional moments. And then we really want to be working with her over time and creating in the power of showing up. We talk about creating a calming cave or a calming toolbox. And we can work with kids. What are some things that help you when you're really angry? What helps you calm down? And at 5, we can ask that question. Moving their body, taking a deep breath, snow globe or glitter ball that they can shake and watch the glitter settle. So really having some tools she can use. Doing different yoga poses. If before she gets angry, you see her start to escalate, if you can direct it into play and getting her to move her body, laughter and movement, release those stress hormones. Just like screaming, yelling, hitting, do crying, all of those things. So you can say to your kid, okay, you be an animal. We're going to play animal charades. You be an animal, and I have to get with. Guess what animal it is. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get it. You're going to be too good at this. And then they, you know, then she'll start moving her body, and you'll be able to shift that energy into play to let her release that through laughter and movement instead of through violence. If it continues to happen, if it happens multiple. Multiple times a day, like five, six times a day, and it lasts for 45 minutes to an hour, then I would definitely recommend connecting with a professional and saying, we're seeing a lot of this, and it seems really intense. Can we look at what might be going on? Because I would be curious about sensory. Sensory processing and those kinds of things. Some kids experience the world in terms of their sensory processing as, like, constant threat. And so that is what causes them often to have a lot of reactivity outside of what you would typically see. And my favorite website to look up what I mean when I'm saying sensory processing is SPD. It stands for sensory processing disorder, but SPD star.orgspdstar.org and they have great checklists and different things on there that you can look at and say, hmm, does that resonate? Does that seem like maybe something that is difficult for my child?

Right, right. So we have a few more questions. Tina, I think. Should we take it or should I just end it? Because it's almost one or ten minutes I don't want to take.

Why don't we do one more?

One more?

Yeah. Okay. Because my family will be like, where is she?

Okay, this one will be the last.

So.

Okay, so then I'll just do the question that I actually do for my life. That is one final message for all the parents watching this. Like a message that you think that they should remember and that can really help them in this parenting journey that they are on.

I've got a strong feeling for what I ought to say, and that is something I said earlier, and then I'll add to it. We want so much to do the right thing and all of that. But remember, what your child needs most from you is you. Flawed you, Imperfect you. Sometimes falling apart you. But you. You are a better parent than you know you are. You are your child's superhero even when you mess up. And really, you are the most important thing. And you don't even have to be perfect. It's so important that really, at our child's worst, that we show up in that moment and try and keep ourselves calm when you don't make the repair. And then the last thing is. Parenting is really, really hard. It's the hardest job ever in the world. If you were treated at a paid job the way your children treat you, you would sue for abuse. I mean, it's a really, really hard job. And so what that means. And I know you know this, but you're bad at it. All of you are bad at it. We have to take care of ourselves. We have to have someone who shows up for us. We need to feel safe, seen, soothed, and secure. We need times of, like, moments of joy. We need breaks. We need sleep. We need to move our bodies and have enough water to drink. Like, just some of the basics. I mean, I know when my boys were little, I felt like I didn't get to go to the bathroom by myself for three years. You know, like, just having a moment of privacy, you know, so it's really important. It's not indulgent. It's actually unselfish for us to care for ourselves and take care of ourselves, because that's what our children need. Our parents who, you know, really show up. And we can do that better if we, you know, have whole brains and take care of ourselves. And if you're not following me on Instagram, I hope you will. I post lots of good ideas and lots of videos about questions, just like we've talked about tonight. And as I mentioned, I have my office hour groups for people who can ask questions. And we can. We can do more, right?

I feel everybody must follow. Tina, I've been following you, and I have definitely learned a lot reading every that you pose. And it's written so simply. It's so easy to understand. And there was this one message which has really stayed with me, which you. Where you had mentioned that, you know, whenever a child is physically hurt, we run to them, we try to fix it, but when they are emotionally hurt, we start to question, why is my child behaving like this? Or, why is my child throwing a tantrum? And we give them different labels, but actually, you know, it's just like a physical injury. It's just an emotional injury. And you have to be there for your child when they are behaving like that. And I think that is such a beautiful and a powerful message, because when we can see things, we can actually we want to fix it. But sometimes when we can't see those things, we just give them different names and we try to fix it. Whereas all you need to do is actually be there for them, and it's going to, like, become okay. So it was beautiful. And thank you so much for your time. I know you're extremely busy, and this means a lot, lot to me, and I'm super grateful, and I definitely learned a lot. I'm going to save this video. I'm also going to put your website and your Instagram handle in the caption. And I think because everybody has learned so much, the least you can do is actually go follow her. And you'll be doing a favor to yourself because you're going to learn a lot more when you follow her. Thank you so much, Tina. It was a pleasure, pleasure hosting you.

Thank you. It was a pleasure to join with you all.

Yes. Thank you so much, Tina.

Bye. Bye.

Bye.