Eps 511: Avoiding fear-based parenting with Dr. Tina Bryson

What does joyful courage mean to you

Joyful courage – I love that phrase so much.  It’s such a great podcast name, too.  Courage is really stepping into anything that we feel any amount of discomfort about.  Joyfulness is bringing a playfulness, a levity, a play frame-of-mind into that space.  I think when we can be like, “Oh this is new.  I’ve never tried this before,” or “I’m super uncomfortable, and I’m just naming it, and I’m going to find some joy in what I discover as part of it.”  What I love about that framework – stepping into something uncomfortable and doing it with a playful, curious spirit is so powerful because threat and fear states in our nervous system are actually incompatible with joyful play states.  When we bring play, playfulness, and joy, we’re actually creating a protective barrier and buffer against fear and reactivity.  That’s one of my very favorite things – any moment that’s uncomfortable or hard – bring some playfulness and joy in.  It’s so good for our nervous systems. 

 

Resources

Joyful Courage Episode 100: Dr. Tina Bryson Supports Us With Brain Informed Parenting

Joyful Courage Episode 126: Tina Bryson is teaching us about nurturing a YES BRAIN

Joyful Courage Episode 215: The Power of Showing Up with Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tina Bryson 

Dr. Bryson’s Website

Dr. Bryson on Facebook

Dr. Bryson on Twitter 

Dr. Bryson on Instagram

Dr. Bryson on LinkedIn 

Pre-Order “The Way of Play” book 

“Wildhood” by Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers

“The Croods” Movie 

Sylvia Boorstein’s Website 

Dr. Chris Willard’s Website

Subscribe to the Podcast

Transcription

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
kids, parents, love, child, college, grief, happening, experience, feel, brain, tina, launching, work, age, mobilize, fear, otters, good, talk, adolescents
SPEAKERS
Casey O'Roarty, Dr. Tina Payne Bryson

Casey O'Roarty 00:02
Hey, welcome to the Joyful Courage Podcast, a place for inspiration and transformation as we try and keep it together while parenting our tweens and teens, this is real work, people, and when we can focus on our own growth and nurturing the connection with our kids, we can move through the turbulence in a way that allows for relationships to remain intact. My name is Casey orrdy. I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder coach and the adolescent needed sproutable. I am also the mama to a 20 year old daughter and 17 year old son walking right beside you on this path of raising our kids with positive discipline and conscious parenting. This show is meant to be a resource to you, and I work really hard to keep it real, transparent and authentic, so that you feel seen and supported. Today is an interview, and I have no doubt that what you hear will be useful to you. Please don't forget, sharing truly is caring. If you love today's show, please pass the link around, snap a screenshot, post it on your socials, or text it to your friends. Together, we can make an even bigger impact on families all around the globe. I'm so glad that you're here. Enjoy the show.

Casey O'Roarty 01:23
Alright, listeners, welcome back. I am so excited about my guest today. She is a returning interview person and somebody whose work I love. Interviewee is that a better word for it? Either way, whatever, I love her work, I'm so excited. I feel like we have kind of a parallel where we're at in raising our kids is really similar. My guest today is Dr Tina Payne Bryson, cheers, cheers. Tina is the author of the bottom line for baby and co author with Dan Siegel of two New York Time bestsellers, the whole brain child and no drama discipline, each of which has been translated into over 50 languages, as well as the yes brain and the power of showing up. She just completed the manuscript for the way of play by Random House. It'll come out in 2025 co authored with George Weizen Vincent and Tina. Is also the founder and executive director of the Center for connection, a multidisciplinary clinical practice in Southern California. She keynotes conferences and conducts workshops for parents, educators and clinicians all over the world, and she frequently consults with schools, businesses and other organizations as a licensed clinical social worker. Tina is a graduate of Baylor University with a PhD from USC, and the most important part of her bio, she says, is that she's a mom to her three boys. You can learn more about [email protected] you longtime listeners of the podcast. Remember Tina from episodes 101 26, and 215, 215, you came on with Dr Siegel to promote the power of showing up. I'm so excited to have you back this week. Thank you. And I'm sure everybody's like, uh, it sounds like she's a early years person, yes. And we're gonna talk about the experience of being parents who are launching our kiddos into what's next, because you have experience with that, and

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 03:18
I do. And what come my boys are 2421 and my baby turned 18 last weekend, and he is still a senior in high school. So this spring, I will be graduating a high schooler and a college kid. So yes, I've done the college transition twice, and I'm in the application phase of all of that for my third one.

Casey O'Roarty 03:39
Yes, yes. And I'm so excited to be dropping back in with you, because it has been, it has been a while the power of showing up came out in 2020 we were just talking about that before hitting record in January of 2020 like the before, time, right before,

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 03:57
time, right before, right and actually, I was the timing. You know, it's not great to launch a book in a pandemic, so, you know, that was tricky, but I will say the message in that book is still my North Star. I still teach it to every audience, at least, even if it's just three or four minutes, the main message, and it's a great one for us to think about as we're launching kits. So people go back and listen to those episodes. Yeah, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 04:20
yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And so in the last four years, four and a half years, so like you said, you've launched two kids into college, and you've got this rising senior. Well, I don't know that you spend all of your time in the early years. I'm just assuming, because of the books that you've put out. But in your clinical practice, are you seeing adolescents? Are you working with parents of adolescents, or is more of your focus in on like school age and younger?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 04:45
It really is across the whole development spectrum, and because so much of my work is coaching parents, so many of the messages and things we know about development and the brain and the power relationships really are applicable at every age. Clinically, I'm actually not seeing. Anyone clinically anymore. I've stepped away from clinical work because I am leading my team at the Center for connection. And we have locations in Pasadena Duarte, which is near Pasadena, and we just launched one in Santa Barbara. So I'm leading my team who are amazing clinicians across all of these things, and primarily my audiences are clinicians, educators. So again, from preschool all the way up through high school, and then parents of all ages. So, and I think, you know, because my kids are older, I have some perspective now that's super helpful. You know, when I wrote the whole brain child and no drama discipline with Dan, I was in the trenches of the early years. You know, my kids were having tantrums, and I'm like, what can the brain tell me about what's happening right now and all of those things. So, yeah, I think I'm still really working across all ages, and the power of showing up is a message that we need, actually, as adults, too. So it's all of the ages. I'll say too though, that I'm kind of on the tail end of the trench years of parents. Yeah, right. And our kids still need parents. I'll be 53 next month. I still need my mom, you know. And so, you know, parenting happens well into the 20s, for sure, more active parenting. Because, as you all know, the brain doesn't finish developing until mid to now, late 20s, they're saying and so they still need some scaffolding and some support and skill building. But at the other end of kind of this thing, I will say I'm more and more trust development, the things that we worry about so intensely at whatever phase and stage our kids are in, if you wait a little bit of time, usually things work out okay. And those skills that you worry, oh my gosh, they're never going to they do come online. And for me, the way I kind of temper Should I really be worrying about this or not, is to ask myself the six month question, which is, is my kid better at this than they were six months ago? And if the answer is yes, I literally tell myself, well, then back the heck off and just wait for it to continue to unfold. Yeah, and more and more, I just feel like the things we worry about so much as parents are often wasted energy of worrying Well, I

Casey O'Roarty 07:07
mean, and that's kind of how I've felt with Ian, you know, going to college and having conversations over the last three or four months and, you know, and this has been something that I've gotten to practice with. You know, my husband also was sick during covid, and there were all these opportunities for people to be like, Are you freaking out? And I said, you know, I'm either, like, a really great compartmentalizer, or I'm just unwilling to be in the emotions of an event that hasn't happened yet, right? And may not happen. Like, I don't want to be in worst outcome before any kind of worst outcome has shown up. And I don't want to worry about my kid before I have something to worry about. And I really appreciate what you said there too, because something that I will remind parents of, like regardless of what we do, maturity is happening no matter what like they are accruing experiences and making meaning. You know, we get to, like you said, create some scaffolding to support them in useful meaning making, I think although we don't get to control that unfortunately, yeah, not unfortunately. But regardless, I love that. I that's going to be really useful to listeners that six month check, right? Yeah.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 08:19
And I think you just said something really important there too Casey, and that is that, you know, I think so much of the time we feel like it's all on us and it's too much. We put way too much pressure on ourselves as parents. And if we really lean into the idea that development unfolds even without us doing anything, it takes some of the pressure off saying, like, look, even if I never teach my kid X, Y and Z, or even if I don't model that well, or even if I haven't had 16 reflective conversations about this idea, development unfolds, and they become more mature and more responsible and more empathetic and more all of those things happen without us having to do anything. And I think the other piece of that, that you were talking about about sort of borrowing, fear and borrowing, you know, thinking about things that haven't happened yet. The problem with fear based parenting, and for sure, we all feel fear a lot. That's kind of how our brains get wired. As soon as we have children, our brains actually wire to become more hyper vigilant, more fearful. It's evolutionary, right? It makes sense. But what happens when we sit in fear based parenting is that fear makes us myopic. It makes us hyper focused on the thing we're afraid of, and miss a ton of other context or other things we ought to be focusing on. Like a lot of parents are really freaked out about sending their kid to camp or a sleepover or something like that. And I'm like, that may be the right decision for your family, but if you're so fearful about what could happen to your child, so you're going to lock them down and not let them have any experiences that could be potentially dangerous. You're not thinking about the fear of your child missing out on opportunities to build resilience. So we just we get, like, really myopic, and we forget about other things that should be pulling our attention and that we should be putting in context. And I think, feel. Feelings of fear. Feelings are really important. We should absolutely listen to them. They are important information. They often tell us what is important or what's not working for us or what we need, but our feelings should never be the decision maker. You know, they're a piece of information, but if I responded with decision making to every fear I ever have, my children would be like locked up forever, and I would never let anything happen to anyone in our house ever, and that would be terrible for their development, and it would be terrible for me. So I think we just have to remember Fear is an important emotion. It's not the decision maker, and it often keeps us from looking at a bigger picture that's really important. Well, there's

Casey O'Roarty 10:39
so many directions I want to go in right now and like one piece that I think is important, that I've talked about with a couple of clients of mine recently whose kids are getting into some mischief, and how easy it is like to be so consumed in the worry about the mischief, like you said that all the other parts of who this kid is, yep, right. And it's funny, coming into this conversation, we're kind of using the experience of launching our kids out into the world. But really, those of you with younger teenagers and even middle schoolers, I'm hoping that you're listening with your ears tuned into what is here for you, because I think it's all here for you. Yeah, but really remembering that, you know, like the whole brain child, the wholeness of who our children are, whether they're 12 or 15 or 18 or 24 right? There's so much more to them. I ran into the sweet mom in the airport on my way home from Tucson, who recognized my voice from the podcast I've had like, three celebrity sightings, where I'm a celebrity in my life, and it's a very small niche, but oh my god, it's so exciting. And she was so sweet. And when I asked her, you know, how was your weekend, she said, not great, right? And her child had gotten into some mischief, and, you know, just coming into this period of time, and I ended up seeing her on my way back, like coming as we were boarding, and I stepped out of line, and I just hugged her, and I said, I want to acknowledge how hard it must be to walk away knowing that your daughter's, you know, in this precarious place. And I said, but she's gonna find her feet, and she's gonna find her people, and it might look like a shit show for a bit, and you get to take care of you and show up for her, and trust right, and trust that it's all a part of the development.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 12:30
You showed up for her in that moment. That's so beautiful. And I think you know, when our children get into mischief, that can be not too dangerous, or it can be really dangerous, and there's a lot of in between. But the thing is, is that we cannot control them, and particularly as they're transitioning to college, they are going to have to make some mistakes, and they may have to swing out a little bit too far before they reign themselves in. But what I will say is that the way our children build resilience is through adversity with the right amount of support from us. Now, I say the right amount of support because if we rush in and do a bunch of stuff to rescue them or freak them out or whatever it is, that's too much support, and it doesn't give them the opportunities to walk through and problem solve and face natural consequences, but they also, we also need to step in with the right amount of support in terms of saying, I'm here for you. That's so hard. So I think the stuff that scares us is actually the guts of building adversity and resilience. And if you think back to your own mischief, a lesson, yeah, and you learned a lot from that. In fact, you know, it makes me think about there's some there's this amazing book called wildhood, and it's a book about what animals do in their adolescent period and how it can tell us about our own human Alice. It's fabulous. It's one of my very favorite books on teenagers. But in the opening scene in the book, they talk about these otters off of the central coast of California that all know to not go into this one particular area, because there are tons of sharks there that eat otters. There's one exception to who goes into the waters, and those are teenage otters. And what they talk about is the otters that and of course, some of them do not make it, but the ones who do, the ones who go into the shark infested waters and make it out, are actually safer than the ones who never go in there, because now they're more predator wise, they're now more danger wise, and so they're actually safer the rest of their lives when it comes to sharks. So I think this is important for us to remember that when our children take risks, when they make mistakes, when they toy around with things that we would rather than not toy around with, part of that is in service of being safer and wiser and more responsible. So we just have to keep that in mind.

Casey O'Roarty 14:47
Keep our shit together as they're Yeah, and I think about that. I mean, my 21 year old is one of the most emotionally intelligent people that I know because of what. 1617, 1819, look like for her, and it is. It's so true. I think about myself at 21 or 25 or, I mean, just clueless, you know, really living on the surface where she's had to go really deep, yeah, and get to truly know who she is through her journey. And it's just that is wild about the otters. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I wrote down the name of that book. There's also the movie, is it the krugs about the cave family? Oh, right. I remember seeing that movie and being like, Oh my God, every parent of an adolescent needs to watch this, because it is so perfect, right? It's such the perfect storyline of just getting out of the cave. If it wasn't for adolescents, we'd all still be living in the cave.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 15:46
That's right. And you know, sometimes you know, what we know from the literature is the two ways that we learn best as humans, is one by doing it ourselves, and the other is by what's modeled for us, right? So sometimes our children cannot actually learn what their limit is around something until they experience the outer edge of that limit, right? We just hope they don't do serious, permanent damage in the process, and that's where we have to really trust who we've raised them to be. And you know, some of the most responsible kids I know are parents who had parents who didn't show up for them, who didn't teach them things, and they were just, I mean, I'm first born, I'm highly conscientious, extremely conscientious, and like my parents, really didn't have to set limits for me, because I set limits way earlier than they even would have set them probably, you know. And so we have to know our kids too, and know that we might make them too timid if we're giving too many warnings, if they're already really responsible, yeah?

Casey O'Roarty 16:42
So, yeah, I had posted something, a picture of Ian and I on a our movie date, like, a week before school started. And you were so sweet. You came in and commented that you were gonna, I was feeling with you. I felt so good about that. And then, you know, you posted a about, you know, it's a few years old, but when you launched, was that your oldest?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 17:00
My oldest, yeah, and my two launching experiences were totally different. Yeah. Will you

Casey O'Roarty 17:06
tell us a little bit about Yeah, that, especially emotionally, yeah. I was

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 17:10
thinking about this this morning as I was brushing my teeth and stuff about why was it so different? I was sort of reflecting on that in anticipation of our conversation. And I'll say my oldest, he is the kind of person where connection really happens when we're in the same room, or we're watching the Dodgers and we're having little side conversations, or little texts here or there. Like, and my second born is more like we would sit down for an hour and have a deep conversation, but that's not how my firstborn is at all. And so I think I had a lot of anxiety. First of all, it was my first time to do it, but I think I was like, if he's away from me, how are we going to be connected, right? And is he going to even want to be in touch? You know, I had some thoughts about that, but the night before he left, actually the days leading up to it, I had so much trouble sleeping, which is not like me, and I I just kept worrying about all the things I hadn't taught him. I was like, Oh my gosh, does he know not to leave a car running in a garage, I mean, and it was like catastrophic anxieties about things that were probably never gonna happen. But I think it was a realization of, like, this is really a letting go, and I do not have control with eyes on him anymore. And you know what? Actually, one of the things that made me feel better as I told my husband one day, I was like, I mean, does he even know how to tie a tie? Like, I was like, thinking about all the things he didn't know. And my husband was like, relax. There's YouTube. And honestly, I know that's a really silly thing to say, but it actually made me feel better. I'm like, that's true. And then Scott was like, my husband, did you know everything you know now when you were 17 and went off to college? And I was like, no, he's like, he will find ways to search those out, you know. So when we took him, he went to Baylor University, when we took him, where my husband and I both graduated, so we've got friends there, and there's a sentimental for us. That's where we met and married and all of those things. I mean, I'm not a super emotional person. I know that might surprise people, but I'm not really a crier. In fact, my husband and I was always the one that had to hold the video camera at graduation. Graduations because he would cry and shake the camera. And I was like, Give me the camera, like, whatever. But I was really emotional, and I was also really mindful that I didn't want him to hold the burden of me not being okay or falling apart. Yes, yes. And so I was really trying to hold it in and so and even as I'm talking about I'm really feeling what this was like. And you know what's so interesting, Casey, I was just so when I was there, I was just savoring it. I was just adoring him and loving the time with him. And as I hugged him goodbye, I got really emotional. And we got in the car to drive to DFW from Waco, which is about an hour and a half, and we're about 10 miles out of town, and my husband had totally held it together to this point. And we were finishing, we were working on the conclusion of the power of showing up. And we were talking about, what do we want to say in that book? And ultimately, Scott started talking, and he's like, what if we start with what's happening right now? Like, imagine the future, and you'll see this is in the power of showing up. Conclusion, imagine the future. When you're taking your child to college and you're dropping them up, and he just started bawling. He had to pull the car over, and then I was bawling, and it was just this really emotional thing. And then I will say, you know that experience of coming back home without him, like to go somewhere with your child and come back without them, feels totally wrong. It felt really unsettling to me, and I started recognizing what I was experiencing was grief. It was literally grief. And so when I would get four plates out for dinner instead of five plates out for dinner, it hit me like these waves of grief. And what happens with grief is our brain has to remap the reality without that person in it in the same way. And so it took some time with my second born. I was so excited for him, I didn't feel a lot of emotional. And by the way, Ben and I really stayed in touch via text and short little phone calls, whereas my son Luke, we would have, like, an hour long and he would tell me about everything that was happening. He just very different personalities. But when we took Luke, and Luke went to Grinnell, which is a small liberal arts college, and I in the middle of Iowa, and we live in Southern California, I didn't feel sad, really at all. It felt like a celebration, because and anything I ever share, by the way, ever about my kids, I have permission to share, so I'm not disclosing anything that they wouldn't know. Luke grew up with significant health problems. He had something called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, and he missed out on a million school experiences. He missed out on half of the school year, one time, one year, he missed out on so much, and our hope was always that he would be healthy enough to go to school, and the fact that he was healthy enough to go was such a celebration, and he had so much time at home, this autonomy was really something to celebrate. So I actually I missed him, but I didn't have the same grief or anxiety. He also happened to be because he had faced so much adversity. He happened to be so resilient in the face of the world anyway. So I could trust some of those pieces. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 21:58
well. And full disclosure to people that are listening, literally, 24 hours ago, I was in Tucson with Ian, getting those last few minutes in with him. So this is so fresh. And you know, through the weekend and moving him in, I felt pretty good. And you know, I didn't get too emotional saying goodbye, but there were some interesting moments that took my breath away. And one was standing on the street, and he was doing something, and I was waiting for him, and I listened to this group of girls next to me, and they were like, so we're just gonna go walk around. And then one of the girls said, Well, can I come with you? And just even that, like it's making me emotional right now, vulnerability of those initial days at school, and they all figured it out, and I was completely eavesdropping. And then they all dispersed. And when they dispersed, I noticed that one of the girls moms was sitting on a bench right there, and I looked at her, and I said, Oh my god, I just completely listened to all of them making those plans. And as I'm saying this to her, and I'm like, and it was so sweet. I'm like, welling up. And then I got it together, and we carried on with move in. And then I made a little Instagram post for Ian on my story, and I put that one Republic song, I think it's called, I lived. And it's, you know, with every broken bone, I swear, I lived. And we used to sing that song at the top of our lungs in the car, and I would cry then. And so I make this thing, and then I watch what I made, and I and then, yeah, fall apart, yeah. But then it wasn't, you know, I could shift out of it pretty easily. But I don't feel like grief is a territory that I've spent very much time in, and it's so interesting to think about this experience of, you know, for me, this is our youngest. So it is this big. It is the final, not the final, but not to be dramatic, but

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 23:49
they usually move home. They can't afford to live on their phones. My

Casey O'Roarty 23:53
husband's really hoping that, yeah, but it is this new territory of family and parenting and, you know? And one of the things you write about in your blog posts, just about your experience with sending off Ben and those middle of the night wake ups, is you say, you know, when I listen to myself, then you kind of can move on into, you know, what's useful or what's real. And so what I know? What do I know exactly? So can you talk a little bit about that? Because, I mean, I think that probably all of us have a range of ability to be with that, you know, fear or grief or anxiety, and then be able to create a little bit of space for us to be outside of it and recognize it as it's happening. Do you have any tools or tips for listeners just to help? Well, I mean, granted, it's not always a massive panic attack. I'm not talking about that, but even we're just really good at spinning around in Oh,

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 24:53
and I can make myself so busy, and I love organizing cabinets, and I can totally distract. To myself. You know, I had not had a lot of experience with grief until about six years ago. My dad passed away unexpectedly at age 64 it was my first foray into like excruciating grief. And one thing I learned from a friend of mine whose husband had passed away was from Sylvia Borstein, who basically tells you to put a hand on your chest and to talk to yourself and to say something like, sweetheart, you are in pain. First, let's take a breath, and then we'll decide what to do. And I feel the emotion as I'm saying that, because it got me through so many moments. It really did. And so, you know, grief is such an interesting thing, because you can be like joyful and distracted, or super happy or laughing, and then something will shift your attention, and it can shift your emotions rapidly, like I remember walking into our favorite breakfast burrito place we would pretty much go to every weekend, and instead of trying to find the booth for Five people, we could sit at a four top. And that hit me, you know, so grief comes in waves like that. And I think one of the important things to do is, yes, to do some self compassion, to talk to ourselves. The other thing is a great tool that I love, love, love from Susan Kaiser Greenland, who does it's like glitter ball, so you can use it like all of you go get a snow globe, or one of those balls that you shake up that has the glitter in it. And what Susan does is to say, like, when our emotions and thoughts are stirred up, it's hard to see clearly. You shake the snow globe or the ball, and you watch all of that. And then she says, but if you pause and wait, and you hold the ball or the globe still, and you breathe, and as the glitter settles, you can see through it clearly. And so when I notice, and I think Dan Siegel has such a great way he defines the word regulation, and that is to monitor and modify. And so if we can just notice and monitor what's happening in our internal world, and for me, it's often erasing thoughts before I recognize the feeling, I start really just getting, like, thinking of a million things and kind of going into hyperdrive, that's what I do. So when I notice that, I can pause and say, what's the feeling underneath that? And then I can be, take a breath and pause and feel it and notice it, and then make the shift for me. I usually I'm like, well, let's just shift things around, but creating that space. And I think allowing ourselves to feel multiple emotions at once. I think sometimes we don't realize that's true. Like I've really tried to teach my kids, you can feel grateful that I'm taking you to the movies and disappointed you're not going to get popcorn, and you can feel both of those things at the same time. And so to allow ourselves to be excited for our kids, maybe feel and then feel sad or excited for our kid, and feel a little lost or whatever. All of those things can come together. So I think just noticing, and then once we're clear, once we pause and let ourselves feel. And again, feelings are important, but they don't get to make the decisions we can then say, what is it I know to be true that will help me feel better about whatever I'm worried about? And then that might be if he doesn't know something he can ask, he can learn, right? If he has decisions to make where he could get himself in troubled or not, even if he makes the hard the decision that's not the one I would want for him, he'll probably still be okay and learn from that like I trust who he is. I trust what he knows. I trust what we've instilled. And so I think we often feel so out of control, and that, for me, leads to anxiety and spiraling around chaotic thinking. But if we go to what we do know that can feel really settling. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 28:45
you know, I think there's and I know, because I work with them, I'm sure you've had clients like this too. I feel really grateful that I do feel really solid around my kid who's so far away right now, although he did just text me and was like, went to my first class. Apparently I love that.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 29:05
I love that. And you know what? I will say this too. And there's a book coming out. I actually just read the manuscript over the weekend called Mental Health 101, and it's for kids who are going off to college. It won't be out for like, another six to nine months. I think Chris Willard is one of the three authors. I know it's an amazing book. I blurbed it because it's so good, but it's really a book about kids who are trying to navigate the college world when there are mental health challenges or other kinds of challenges. And I think sometimes you know, when you and I say, What do I know? What do I feel solid about? I'm also holding in my mind right now parents who don't feel solid about and their child is vulnerable right now. And so even in those cases, if you're worried that your child is vulnerable right now, still, you can go back to what is it I know, and how can I empower my child and myself to feel like the supports are in place? And how can we create some structure around some touch points for checking in that your child might need or that you. Might need and really get their team together so that you know that there's some support there. Their brains are still so plastic at this college age that any you know this is such an opportunity for them to get some supports that help their brains wire, to have some resilient tools for the future. But you know, I have some do's and don'ts that are kind of related to this topic, and that is whether your kid is fragile or not, maybe your kid calls you, and I'm going to give a personal example, your kid calls you and they're super stressed out, and they're like, I have a test later today, and I was up all night studying, and I'm so tired, and I have to get a good grade in this class, or I'm going to have to take it again, and they come at you with all this total chaos that is probably 100% their fault, right? Like, shouldn't have waited till the last minute to study. Shouldn't have your grade be so vulnerable that one test is going to determine whether or not you take it again. Like, so your kid calls you

Casey O'Roarty 30:56
and you want them to see that. Like, you really want them to see how they've created exactly. But

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 31:00
you know what? There's something called natural consequences, and that is the stress of this moment, and them saying it to you is already teaching them the lesson. But whatever it is when your child calls you upset about something, freaking out, and maybe it's not their fault, maybe they haven't met anyone yet and they're feeling really lonely, whatever it is they call you in distress. As parents, what we want to do is mobilize. We want to solve it. I'll email your teacher or go tell them you're sick. We've come up with a lie for them, or let me see if there's any clubs on campus that would be a good fit for you, whatever it is. So what we tend to do, automatically, out of our own pain that our child is suffering, is we might mobilize criticize. I can't believe you waited until the last minute. Or, you know what, if you're not going to put yourself out there, you know, there's nothing I can do to help you. Or we might minimize, you know what? It's not that big of a deal. Everybody feels stress. You really just need to move on. So what we tend to want to do to make ourselves feel better is to minimize, criticize and mobilize. We do not want to do those things. Remember, the brain is an association machine, so if we minimize or criticize, our child is going to be like, Hmm, when I shared things with them that I actually don't have to share with them, that didn't feel very good, I'm unlikely to share again the next time. Okay, so we don't want that. We want to make it so that their response and sharing with us feels good enough to them that they want to keep doing it. And when we mobilize, we actually are taking away an opportunity for them to build a bunch of skills. So what we do want to do is empathize and authorize. Okay, so don't minimize, criticize and mobilize, but do empathize and authorize empathy. So your kid says, I'm so stressed, this test is coming. Here's literally, you're like, oh, that sounds so stressful. You want to lecture. You want to lecture you're not going to, you're going to say, that sounds so stressful. Oh, and you're so tired. That's so much, isn't it? And then zip it. Yeah, zip it. And you might even say, what do you need? Or anything you can do that I can help, or I'll, you know, I'll deliver some soup tonight, you know, just to give you some comfort, you know, you can do little things like that, but I am not emailing the professor. I'm not coming up with a lie for him. I'm not saying, you know, I'm going to create a study sheet for you and text it to you. No, no, no, no. So we want to empathize, and then the next thing we want to do is authorize them to be their own problem solvers. And the best way to do that is to say, I know you're such a great problem solver. What's your plan? Or you say to your kid, why don't you get through the test? I'm so sorry. It's so stressful and you're so tired, take your test, take a nap, and then let's chat later. And then you say, Hey, you were so stressed earlier. What's your plan to avoid that happening the next time? And when you ask, What's your plan, or how are you going to solve this? You're implicitly saying this is your issue, and I trust that you can handle it instead of I'm gonna do it.

Casey O'Roarty 33:48
Yeah, well, and it's so fascinating, and I fall into it every once in a while too, where I can hear myself doing it, where we say we we're moving into the dorm, we're doing this. And I'm like, hold on. Case this is not yours. Like, quit it. This is so, so useful. And you and Dan are both so good with language. I love avoid.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 34:09
I'm an English major. I'm married to an English professor. I'm a writer.

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 34:13
I love, like, love Casey. Can

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 34:15
I say two other quick pieces please do before we wrap up 100% one of the best things we can do, starting now, whatever age your kids are, is to make sure your kids do not have to hold the weight of you being lost and sad and alone. It's okay that they see that you're sad. You love them, you're going to miss them. That's appropriate and loving to share that with them. But I also make sure that I say to my kids like I am so looking forward to in a couple weekends, we're going away for my birthday with our friends, or I have really, really strong girlfriends, like my friends are my everything, and my kids know, and their kids know too, like we've got each other so they're not responsible to take care of me, because I've got my people. So build friendships, build relationships. Talk to your kids about. About fun things that you're doing, things that you're looking forward to, so that they're not holding that burden. And then I think, you know, the last thing is, instead of lecturing and talking all the time about things that they should be doing, or whatever, be strategic about the text, you launch in and maybe come up with a plan, like my kind of plan, especially the first year, was, I need proof of life, like once a week.

Casey O'Roarty 35:22
Oh, my God, that would kill me. I hope I get more than Yeah, I was,

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 35:25
I really I expect them, when I text them to respond in a decent amount of time, you know, because I'm usually asking them a question about something I need to know, or whatever, but I need to have at least a little chat, or something like once a week on the weekends or something like that. So come up with a plan so that you're not pestering them to death, like, what works for you? Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 35:44
yeah. Well, I just want to drop in the reminder to everybody, like, our job is not to launch fully baked adults, right? We are launching baby adults, and we want them to be ready to go out and experience the world resourced enough to keep learning and to keep developing. I want everyone who's listening to remember like, I mean, when I think about my development and my learning in my 20s, like the entire decade, basically like and how we continue to learn and we continue to grow like our little guy, our not so little guy. I mean, my little guy is six, four. He's not little but, you know he I can trust that when he gets into a pickle, he's gonna reach out for help. Like that to me, gives me so much more, so much solace than trying to convince myself that, oh, he's just gonna do all the right things and won't need any help. Like I know he's gonna need help. And I know that he knows where to go and yeah, doesn't know where to go. Yeah, he's willing to say how to find out, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 36:44
loved that story you told too. You know, they are baked. And this is part of the experience of getting baked, right?

Casey O'Roarty 36:49
This is part of the different kind of baked than I was getting in college, by the way. Carrie, yeah, maybe

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 36:53
we shouldn't use that word getting developed optimally. How about that? But, you know, I love that story you kind of started with about the girl that was like, Can I join you? You know, join you? You know, one of the things that I think is so important to tell our kids as they're launching, particularly their first year, when they're going and they may not know anyone. I mean, when else in your life do you pick up everything you know a young age, drop somewhere else and you know nothing and no one, and you basically build a life like I would hate to do that right now, at 53 with tons of resources and wisdom and therapy under my belt, I think that would be really, really hard. And so one of the things I remember telling Ben is when you feel lonely, and I literally said not if, but when you feel homesick and lonely and like you're missing your friends and your family and your dog and our ice, you know, the little crunchy ice that you love from our ice machine and the things from home. Know that there are lots of people around you who are also feeling that, and that's a great time to just pop your head down the hall and say, Hey, I'm going to Chick fil A who wants to go, like, make a connection. Reach out when you're alone, put a hand out for somebody else, because likely someone else needs that too. Love

Casey O'Roarty 37:59
it. Love it. I'm so glad we were able to make this happen. Tina, thank you so much for all the work that you do and for spending time with me today. I would love to know as you've answered this question a few times now, but we're in a new context. So what does joyful courage mean to you?

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 38:17
Joyful courage? I love that phrase so much. It's such a great podcast. Name too. Courage is really stepping into anything that we feel any amount of discomfort about, right? And so joyfulness is bringing a playfulness, a levity, a play frame of mind, into that space. And I think when we can, we're like, Okay, this is new. I've never tried this before, or I'm super uncomfortable right now, and I'm just naming it, and I'm going to find some joy in what I discover as part of it, what I love about that framework, stepping into something uncomfortable and doing it with a playful spirit, a curious spirit, is so powerful because threat and fear states in our nervous system are actually incompatible with joyful play states. And so when we bring play and playfulness and joy, we're actually creating a protective barrier and a buffer against fear and reactivity. So that's one of my very favorite things. To any moment that is uncomfortable or hard, bring some playfulness and joy in. It's so good for our nervous

Casey O'Roarty 39:20
system. Love it. Love it. Where can people find you and follow your work? Yeah,

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 39:23
so my website is tinaryson.com and I'm all over social media, but my very favorite place to post is on Instagram, and my handle there is at Tina Payne Bryson, awesome, beautiful.

Casey O'Roarty 39:33
Thank you again. So much. I so appreciate you. Thank

Dr. Tina Payne Bryson 39:37
you, and I'm right with you. I'm showing up with you as we walk through these challenging moments that we've been aiming for. This is what we want, is to launch them. But it doesn't mean it's easy. So lots of hugs all of you out there who are walking through anything hard that you're facing or that your kids facing, and know we're all in it together. Love it.

Casey O'Roarty 40:00
I thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you to my sproutable partners, as well as Chris Mann and the team at pod shaper for all the support with getting this show out there and making it sound good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages, and sign up for our newsletter to stay [email protected] tune back in later this week for our Thursday show, and I'll be back with another interview next Monday. Peace, you.

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