Transcription
[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: 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.
[00:00:27] My name is Casey O'Roarty, I am your fearless host. I'm a positive discipline trainer, space holder coach and the adolescent lead at 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.
[00:00:47] 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.
[00:01:13] 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.
[00:01:25] Hi, listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. My guest today is Patrick Ney. Patrick is the father of two girls, an author and lead trainer at All About Parenting, a global parenting organization active in more than 30 countries around the world. He is an inspiring speaker who has been featured at TEDx. He's led hundreds of workshops, seminars, and meetings for more than hundreds of thousands of parents worldwide.
[00:01:51] His first book, When at the Zoo, Watch the Humans, was a number one Amazon bestseller, and he's just released his first book for children, What Do Humans Taste Like? A fun book designed to help kids develop theory of mind thinking. Hi, Patrick. I'm so excited to welcome you to the show.
[00:02:09] Patrick Ney: Hi, Casey. I'm kind of excited.
[00:02:10] I've been listening to some of your podcasts. You spoke to Dan Siegel. He's like my hero. So I am honored to be here.
[00:02:15] Casey O'Roarty: Yay. Well, I would just love to start. That was a very short bio. I want to know a little bit more about you, what you're up to, and how you got into the work of supporting parents.
[00:02:26] Patrick Ney: Uh, thank you.
[00:02:27] So, um, in addition to all the wonderful things you just said about me, I'll add some more of my own. I'm also a certified DIR full time practitioner, so I have some experience of working with neurodivergent kids, including kids that have been through profound trauma. Uh, through play therapy, play therapy based on developmental theory, which I just, I'm just so in love with developmental psychology.
[00:02:47] I think it's so helpful for us moms and dads and carers and guardians. Uh, in addition, I'm completing my masters of science in applied neuroscience, specializing in neuropsychology, and I'm getting. Quite deep into my thesis, which is on adolescent ADHD and sleep. So looking at the relationship between sleep and lack of sleep and adolescent ADHD.
[00:03:09] And I know you've done your master's as well, so you know what that process looks like. Uh, so I'm, I'm Being into that world, uh, at the moment, I spent all day basically looking at scientific studies. But as you said, I'm a dad. I've got two daughters, Mia and Zafir, and they're the love and lights of my life alongside my wife, Maya.
[00:03:25] My eldest, uh, Zafir, is nine. So coming into those pre tween years, and Mia's six. And for me, my journey into parenting did come from crisis, really. We had a really terrible week when Zafir was born. She wasn't breastfeeding properly, just like the whole latch thing didn't happen. And there I am as a complete amateur and a man as well.
[00:03:46] So kind of a very surplus to requirements in that particular regard trying to help. And, um, at one point in kind of like day two or three, the nurses were kind of telling us no disrespect to them. I know they're busy and tired, but they were kind of forcing us to force feed our three year old daughter with a bottle of expressed milk.
[00:04:04] And Zofia was vomiting the milk up and just, you know, it was all bad. It was terrible. She was losing weight. And we got through that week, uh, terrible as it was. But in the years as Sophia grew up into like a one and a two year old, I was really overwhelmed by the number of meltdowns she was having and how long they lasted and how frequent they were.
[00:04:24] And I'm a bit older and wiser now, I probably deal with it better than I did. But it was really scary and intimidating and it brought up a lot, brought up an awful lot from my own childhood, an awful lot from what I thought a parent should be. a whole bunch of societal norms about how children should react to parents, which I had no idea were in me.
[00:04:42] And I found myself getting really angry. And I was stressed and tired and bringing a lot of stuff from work. And, and bringing it on her, this little two year old child, you know, so, in a moment of crisis, one day, I ended up, because she'd been pouring water on the floor an awful lot, it's like a two year old thing, right, for parents of older kids, you're just like, haha, you wait until you see what comes around the corner, but at the time, it was big, you know, because I'm like, hey, stop doing that, stop doing that.
[00:05:07] And, and one day I came into my room and she was there with this bottle of water, which was empty and I saw this little grin on her face and she poured the whole bottle on my floor, you know, and I knew it was deliberate because I told her not to. I'd done the naughty corner thing because I watched Super Nanny in like 2012.
[00:05:22] So I thought that's what you do. Uh, doesn't work in my opinion, at least. And, um, I just lost it, honestly, Casey. I smacked the bottle out of her hands. I never hit her, never do that, but, um, Shaw wanted to scare her and I did, you know, her, her eyes just burst into tears. She looked so scared of me and a whole bunch more from my childhood, I guess, came up as well.
[00:05:44] And that was the day when I thought, I'm no longer going to say, this is your fault. I want to be in charge of what happens next. And I came across All About Parenting and I went through the methodology and since 2019 I've been so blessed to work with mums and dads around the world, learning the methodology, teaching it, learning as I teach, and slowly but surely starting to get a better understanding of what this crazy journey is.
[00:06:06] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, that is so relatable. I think it's so interesting too. This is just, we're going to go on a little side journey here. But I know when my kids were young and specifically my oldest at two and three, I remember a peak personal meltdown that really highlighted for me the power of the pull that must have existed for my own caregiver.
[00:06:34] around dysregulation and what to do with it. And on one hand, it gave me a lot of compassion for my caregiver. Like, wow, this is hard to resist. Because everything inside of me was shouting, just let this kid have it. They cannot get away with this. But then the other part of me was like, no, I am not going to blindly repeat.
[00:07:02] what was done to me and put my child in the position of feeling the way I felt as a child. And then there was all these complex emotions around, well, why didn't my caregiver think like that? Because I know this was learned for her. And so I'm really grateful to be, I, what I feel like we're in a part of a generation that is, like, that self awareness is just enough.
[00:07:27] for us to decide to learn and be and do something different with our kids. And I'm so grateful to be the ones that are breaking those cycles.
[00:07:38] Patrick Ney: Yeah, 100 percent because you're, you're actually thinking about your thinking, which is metacognition. I don't want to get too technical, but thinking about your thinking is such a wild thing because, you know, people just raised kids that they wouldn't have questioned it.
[00:07:50] That's the way you raise kids. And you know, most of the parents you work with, I'm sure it's also true for you as it is for me. Most of them were at least physically punished. And many things besides that, you know, uh, emotionally just as painful in many respects. Yeah.
[00:08:05] Casey O'Roarty: That's what, that's what I dealt with.
[00:08:07] Patrick Ney: It was just the way it was done. And now we're at the stage where we can ask ourselves questions around what kind of parents we want to be in the parent child dynamic. And I know it's fashionable since about 2000, 3000 BC to complain that this generation is the worst that's ever come. But I actually think like this generation of kids are going to be so much smarter than us.
[00:08:23] You know, just think about how our kids are going to raise their kids with a level of consciousness that. We're kind of brought it in, but what if they have it from the very early years that they can be the fullest version of themselves as they can. Now it can go too far
[00:08:36] Casey O'Roarty: when
[00:08:36] Patrick Ney: we're kind of like disowning parts of ourselves.
[00:08:38] Like I find that it's a tendency for us to disown our anger a little bit because we so don't want to be mom, dad, whoever. Uh, raised us caregiver that we feel like we have to shut down some elements of ourself as well. And that's, that's not healthy for us. And it's certainly not healthy for our kids to like adults having arguments in cars rather than at home.
[00:08:57] But I totally identify with that has definitely been my journey as well. And it's so often that the problem of a child is also the problem with the parent, but the problem it can also be the beginning of something so beautiful if you choose to see it that way.
[00:09:09] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, well, and it's so funny that complaining about up and coming generations as if we have nothing to do with it, it's like, okay, uh, you were their parents and, you know, and nature and nurture and there's society and culture and, you know, for us, I'm having ongoing conversations around the influence of technology and screens and, You know, there's definitely a lot in the soup.
[00:09:34] I love what you said about, you know, the leaning towards thinking about our thinking and that metacognition. What I notice is when I get in the habit, and as I got in the habit of thinking about my thinking or observing myself and growing kind of this outside observer, that's kind of the coachee language, right?
[00:09:51] Yeah. It creates a little bit of space. So, we can be more thoughtful in that response versus react moment. And so I, I really appreciate that and, and like I mentioned, so I'm going to get us back on my outline here. Yes. I
[00:10:10] Patrick Ney: want to go with that. That was too good. I know.
[00:10:13] Casey O'Roarty: It's so good. So I told you, you know, as you know, this show focuses really on the adolescent years and I am a positive discipline lead trainer and positive discipline really leads into the work of Alfred Adler.
[00:10:27] He was one of the first individual psychologists and I certify parent educators. I work with parents and really we lean into the idea that humans do their best when they feel encouraged. When they have a healthy sense of belonging, connection, and significance. What's the foundation or philosophy that you stand on?
[00:10:52] And I know you're learning neuroscience, which I think is so powerful and useful. And as we continue, that's been a fun thing, having shared positive discipline for almost 20 years. The more neuroscience that comes out, the more in alignment. What we've been talking about through positive discipline like yay, okay, great.
[00:11:12] We're also aligned with the neuroscience So what's the foundation of philosophy that you stand on when you're supporting parents specifically with teenagers? around their parenting.
[00:11:21] Patrick Ney: I definitely do like to take a neuroscience informed approach. On the other hand, the more I know about neuroscience, the more I realize the less I know or how little I know.
[00:11:30] It's like the circle of knowledge, right? The wider it gets, the bigger your lack of knowledge gets. But neuroscience definitely helps us because so much of what's happening in our kids and our adolescents brains explains so much for us. And the more you kind of understand. The easier it is for you to have more ability to respond rather than just react instinctively.
[00:11:49] The all about parenting methodology, which is what I teach moms and dads around the world in our seminars online and offline is based on a methodology which is super consistent with positive discipline. There's lots of messaging and elements in there as well, but it also has a really strong focus on a theory which outside of psychology isn't so well known, but I think it's super applicable.
[00:12:07] It's called self determination, a theory, and it's created by two American psychologists. Dr. Richard Ryan and Dr. Edward Deasey and Dr. Ryan's I think top five most cited living psychologists, which is just Off the hook, hard to do. I think he might even be top 3 or maybe top 2 or 1. I can't quite remember where he is.
[00:12:26] And Dr. Ran and Dr. DC, 40 years ago, building on the work of many others as well, came up with a theory which essentially says that every single one of us, neurotypical, neurodivergent, child, toddler, teenager, adult, grandparent, great grandparent, even, I worked with a great grandma the other day, so amazing.
[00:12:43] We all have these three psychological needs that drive us and they are the needs for relatedness, which is love, connection, intimacy, trust, warmth, security. So anyone who's a fan of attachment theory, their interpersonal neurobiology, they'll love that. Competence, which is the need for learning and growth, study skills.
[00:13:02] You shared a story about your daughter, which I think is amazing about her just growing into this new field and pushing herself forward. And crucially, probably number one suspect for all of that negative behavior we see in our children. The third need is the need for autonomy. And that's the need for control, control of your life, your body, your choices, your decisions.
[00:13:21] We get it in our two year olds and boy, oh boy, do we get it in 20 year olds as well. And we get it in our relationships with our partners, our ex partners and the other people we're raising our kids with. Cause when we feel out of control, Oh, it sucks so bad. And when we're in control, we feel great. And that's essentially the message that Ryan and DC in this.
[00:13:39] Over 100, 000 scientific studies on this subject have since demonstrated that when these three psychological needs are met, people feel better and they work better with others in their relationships they have in their family and beyond themselves as well. School, work, friendships, you know, relationships.
[00:13:56] When on the other hand, those needs are not met in the context of their relationships to other people, you start to see negative behavior emerge. So it's super simple framework. Anyone can get it. And what I find is that when I work with parents, most parents go, Oh my God, that one need is the one that I think I'm not satisfying in my daughter.
[00:14:14] Maybe let me tell you a quick story, which gets to the meat of the matter. During COVID, I was working with a mom who she actually joined our program, which is pretty wild because her company went bankrupt at the same time. Her husband was unfortunately committed to, for, for mental health reasons. to long term psychiatric care.
[00:14:31] She had an eight year old daughter and a one year old, essentially like not even one year old son. And, and this mom was just the power of a mom, you know, I mean, I'm like, I can barely make it through the day and I've got a strong ecosystem around me, you know, you're like trying to do this on your own.
[00:14:46] And she joined this program because she was so upset and frustrated at her eight year old daughter, whose behavior was. Just for her really, really stressful on top of everything else that was going on in her life. And when she learned about the need for relatedness, she said, this is my daughter. I can just feed it.
[00:15:00] I'm not sure why, but I just, I want to play her the video you guys have. We have a video on our app about the need for relatedness. So when they put the one year old to bed, she sits down with her daughter kind of nice, relaxed evening time. It's a good time sometimes to have those conversations. And she played the video about this need for relatedness where it explains what it is and how people need contact, touch, warmth, security, trust, intimacy at every stage of the life.
[00:15:24] And she said to her daughter, I feel like I'm satisfying this need because I'm doing everything for you, you know, and she said her daughter burst into tears, you know, just flat out sobbing and said, Mom, I feel like you pushed me to one side because you're always telling me, Hey, you're eight years old.
[00:15:38] You can do this. You can do that. Like, why am I having to do X or Y for you? You're always looking after Michael's a one year old brother. And I just want you to be with me. I'm getting goosebumps. Even as I tell you this, like it's, it made me cry at the time. It still does. And for this mom, it was such a powerful moment because the video and the conversation enabled her to see things from her daughter's perspective.
[00:15:59] I'm not asking you to wash me because I'm not capable of doing it. I'm asking you because it's that moment of intimacy and connection between us. I'm not asking you to pour the cornflakes into my bowl because I'm lazy. It's because it's that little moment of trust where I know I can count on you. And for this mom, it was a breakthrough moment because she started to see, Hey, this need is driving my daughter.
[00:16:19] And when I satisfy it, I see changes in their behavior. And that's exactly what happened. I mean, it sounds almost too good to be true. Hundreds, if not thousands of times, I have seen parents focus on one of these three needs. Make simple practical changes, which are like common sense essentially, once they understand the need and they've seen radical changes in their kids behavior in a very short space of time.
[00:16:40] So that's the framework we use on a day to day basis. We use other methodologies and approaches as well. But I know Casey from listening to your podcast that we are so on the same page. It's not true.
[00:16:50] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, totally.
[00:17:01] You know, and it's so interesting too, cause that story is about an eight year old and I'm getting calls. And working with parents who have 13 year olds, 15 year olds, 17 year olds, and these needs haven't been met for a long time. And there is a dismantling period and a trust building period that I think parents were a little impatient.
[00:17:22] It would be lovely if we could just shift how we're showing up and everything smooths out. But, you know, you have a 15 year old who's standing there like, Oh yeah, right. Yeah, we'll see. Oh, you're gonna do this differently? Show me, and show me over time, and show me when I'm at my worst. Right? Show me.
[00:17:40] Otherwise, it's all bullshit. Right? And so, it's so interesting that I love the personal growth that we're invited into through the parenting journey. I love the human growth that we get to step into throughout our lives. I mean, Mike, I'm in the first year of Empty Nest, although I like to call it the Freebird era.
[00:18:02] I love it. And, you know, we've got some illness that we're navigating with my husband. I've got aging parents. I mean, all of it is just the mixed bag of things. And what I choose to stand on is What is here for me? What is here for me to grow and develop and lean into and experience? And that feels so much better than, oh my gosh, everything's falling apart.
[00:18:26] And so bringing it back to these teen years, yeah, it's not, as you all know that are listening, it's not what we ever thought it was going to be. And even, even when we do programs like yours, programs like mine, you know, through the zero to 12. There's no getting around teen brain development, and it's a tricky season of parenting because oftentimes there is a lack of understanding around the neuroscience of the teen brain.
[00:19:00] And I find, but the more that we can understand the connection between our teenager's behavior. And those three needs that you mentioned as well as the wiring that's happening in the teen brain during this time of life, the easier it becomes to stay grounded, to stay helpful. You know, for example, like individuation is going to happen no matter what.
[00:19:26] For me, I lived in a pretty controlled. Yeah. Home environment as a teenager. And so individuation for me really happened when I left home and in college. I was pretty easygoing temperamentally. So it was like, okay, I mean, I got in trouble. I was, well, I would like to claim being the queen of sneaking out, but getting caught more often than not does not really.
[00:19:50] So I was grounded a lot, but it was pretty tame as far as being a teenager. It was never like, you know, screw you, you can't ground me. I was like, okay. But then when I got to college, that's really where I felt the freedom to explore who I am separate from my parents. And, You know, novelty seeking is a part of teen wiring, looking for the new, looking for the different, having really intense highs and lows.
[00:20:17] It's not a character flaw. It's part of teen development. What do you notice about the parents of teenagers that you serve and their understanding of brain science? And what do you find yourself sharing the most for those clients?
[00:20:30] Patrick Ney: The reason why I find neuroscience fascinating is that we just don't know very much about the brain,
[00:20:37] Casey O'Roarty: and
[00:20:37] Patrick Ney: we know even less about the mind.
[00:20:39] And our world and our experience of the world and our relationships in it is, is a process of the mind, which is more than the brain. So now I've done some pretty wild experiences in my time, therapeutically as well. And when my watch says I had, you know, like really high stress and a high pulse, it can tell me what's happening, but not why.
[00:20:56] So as good as neuroscience is, it's not actually the full picture of a child. And I always like to say to moms and dads and caregivers, you're actually the world's best expert in your child. You're going to spend far more time with them than any child psychologist or psychiatrist in the normal course of events.
[00:21:11] And I know it's hard to see the wood for the trees, because you're up against it every single day. But don't take away from your own ability to understand the story of what's happening in your life and your child's life as well. And I know the words are complicated, ODD, PDA, and they sound so official, but they're not, they're not places in the brain.
[00:21:27] Essentially, at their best, they're kind of labels which describe clusters of symptoms. Your child is a unique person. There will never be anyone like your child ever again, just like there was never ever going to be any other version of you. You're one in a million and so is your child. That knowledge that you have of your child and the story of your child goes well beyond any individual part of their brain.
[00:21:48] Nonetheless, There are some general trends around the neuroscience of development of teenage years, which are utterly fascinating and it really helps to understand them, you know, just coming, just thinking about small kids just for a second, you know, parents get really overwhelmed by meltdowns, but when you tell them that 90 percent of 1 to 3 year olds have a daily meltdown and it's nothing weird and totally common and it declines over time, they're like, Oh, cool.
[00:22:11] Oh, okay. So anyone who's got two kids, you're like, yeah, no biggie. You know, it's a meltdown. You got four kids just like, is there something going on right now? Cause I didn't even notice, you know, cause it's not that you're ignoring your child. You're just comfortable with this knowledge that this is a phase and it happens.
[00:22:25] And there's so many areas of a teenager's brain. where that's happening. I've got my brain with me just for those watching. It's a little colored brain for if you're listening, you're going to miss the experience. I remember reading a study, this one always stood out to me. There was a study where they took adults and teenagers through fMRI scans.
[00:22:41] So it's basically a study of the electrical connectivity in the brain. There's another area of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex, roughly around here. And among other things, because every part of the brain does many things at once, so don't fall for anyone who tells you this one, this part does only this and nothing else.
[00:22:55] It's way more complicated than that. This area of the brain, the NPFC, is responsible for your sense of yourself and your self image in relation to others. Now, when you're an adult, you've kind of been punched around by life a fair bit. You've gone through the hugs and the slugs of life. You're fairly comfortable with who you are in the vast majority of cases.
[00:23:14] If someone tells you you're an idiot, you can cross check that against the thousand people who told you that you're a well worthy being and the many examples you have of that. When you're a teenager, on the other hand, you have way less data points and your medial prefrontal cortex goes off the hook when people cast out a new comment on you.
[00:23:31] What they did was they put these people inside this fMRI scanner. Teenagers and adults, and they told them that someone your age is watching you, kind of a weird thing to be told when you're in the middle of a big plastic or metal tube and it's making noise. The adults were totally calm about it, but the medial prefrontal cortex in teenagers was going wild.
[00:23:50] Casey O'Roarty: They're
[00:23:50] Patrick Ney: very hypersensitive to the opinions of others. And you know, recently they've just released this, um, Netflix, Adolescence. I don't know if you've heard of it. Oh, it's, uh, Casey, it's one to watch for you for sure and for viewers as well. It's about a 13 year old boy in the UK, it's a fictional four part series, and this 13 year old boy has been accused of murder.
[00:24:11] It's extremely psychological and it's, and you never quite, I'm not going to ruin too much of it because you haven't watched it, but please let me know what you think afterwards. I mean, it left me in tears. It really did. It's got a perfect 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes as well, which is kind of near impossible to do.
[00:24:27] Um, part of this 13 year old story is that he was sociostracized at school for being ugly, even though he's gorgeous, handsome, you know, young man. And when you start to understand that this part of the brain is, and this part of the mind in our experience as a teenager is so, so sensitive. When your child says to your teenager says to you like, I need my phone because everyone else is on it and you go, that's just dumb, you know, I never had a phone.
[00:24:50] You don't need to be like that. You're fighting nature because for evolutionary reasons, we have created all in this teenage phase, we go through this experience. It doesn't make sense to you, mom or dad or caregiver, but at that time, it's more than logical to the teenager. It's the world. And we know this because this is quite literally science.
[00:25:08] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, that's so fascinating that you just shared that particular story. I did a workshop last night for supporting parents with their teens relationship with their screens. And one of the role plays, what came up was the mom was her 13 year old and I was, we were creating an agreement around a phone curfew.
[00:25:28] And when I suggested an eight o'clock phone curfew, The parent, as the teen, said, That is so embarrassing. There is no way I'm going to tell my friends. that I have to put my phone away at 8 p. m. You know, and then we had a conversation around, like, how can we hold that that's true and real and valid for our young people?
[00:25:47] And how can we support them in being with this tension of needing approval, of concern around what other people think, while also being flexible in our own boundaries, but also, like, the firmness of, and there, there is limits, and there are going to be boundaries. So I, I really appreciate that piece. I think that is so important because we're so quick to say things like, just walk away.
[00:26:13] Just say no. Like it's some not big deal. And it is a very big deal. My son and I used to talk about what's the back pocket response, like what's your back pocket response going to be? And back pocket responses would get you out of things while also saving face and not making you feel any less cool.
[00:26:31] Basically, right. And so they need that. And it's not a small thing. It's not a small thing. Yeah. That's a big piece. I also think a lot just about, and you've kind of alluded to this, but the language that we use in positive discipline is looking for the belief behind the behavior.
[00:26:49] Patrick Ney: Yeah.
[00:26:49] Casey O'Roarty: And You know, parents get scared, things come up during the teen years, we wish that they wouldn't, or we expect them later and they show up sooner, and this intense urgency to shut things down or to stop the problematic behavior.
[00:27:05] before it becomes worse, right? Without exploring like, wow, tell me about what led up to this. Tell me about what made this experience hard for you. Tell me about how it felt to be at that choice point. And sometimes I think they can think to themselves, yeah, it was happening for me. I think some of us. I mean, even some of us adults, we kind of black out in certain periods of time.
[00:27:30] And so it's like, I don't know what I was thinking, right? I mean, is it true that they honestly don't know what they were thinking? I mean, neuroscience ly, neuroscience ing ly, that's a word, right?
[00:27:44] Patrick Ney: In that brain way. This is one of the areas of neuroscience, which is, which is so interesting. So just to kind of highlight what you just said, I've been keeping diaries in these red books.
[00:27:53] I'm not going to open it because someone might zoom in on all my secret horrors, but there's, there's stuff in there, man, that will, will turn your hair white. As evidenced by the fact I'm going gray and you know, going back to my 25 year old self and looking at my life where I was recording what I drank, what I smoke, uh, what I ate, the things I'd said and did to people.
[00:28:12] I'm like, who is this guy?
[00:28:13] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:28:14] Patrick Ney: I do not know this person at all. I mean, I'm probably the same body, but this, this isn't me. And, you know, I know you had Dan Siegel on, he was probably someone who more than anyone else via attachment theory research, I think has taught the world that when you have a narrative understanding of who you are and where you've come from, it really helps you as a mom or a dad or a caregiver to understand where you're going and who the kind of parent you are you want to raise.
[00:28:39] So, top tip for moms and dads, you know, maybe write down on one page, who am I and where did I come from? And especially if you're raising a teenager, what crazy stuff did I do as a teenager? You know, Romans 2. 1, don't judge anyone else because you who judge others, you have done the same things. I mean.
[00:28:57] That's me in a nutshell. I remember my teenage years pretty well. There's probably a lot of stuff I forgot. Casey, you're pointing at yourself for the listeners right now. And typically those parents who are getting most outraged about their kid's behavior, if you sit down with them, you say, what were you like as a teenager?
[00:29:12] Then they'll tell you really interesting stories, you know? So that narrative understanding of where you come from is, is surprisingly accessible way to start to understand what. The idea of perception and belief really is one of the reasons why I love the metaphor or the process of activating event process by belief comes out with your kind of consequential reaction.
[00:29:34] You like a principle of. You mentioned positive discipline, but it's also cognitive behavioral therapy and many therapies besides modalities is also mirrored by the body. So the way we process information, and for me as a parent, I think this is so interesting, is you can't separate the body from the brain and the mind, it's all intertwined.
[00:29:52] And you know, certain psychological disciplines is really an emphasis on thinking, cognition. Beyond the body, um, in my handbook for British Child and Adolescent Clinical Psychology, which I have up there, uh, it's like 1, 300 pages. Every psychologist who becomes a psychologist in the UK uses it. There's barely a mention of the body in that.
[00:30:10] And I'm not saying that to criticize them, but just, just to show that this is relatively new stuff. The way we build our understanding of the world, time, relationships, is through the interaction of the outside world with our internal world. So, we have our senses, visual, auditory, olfactory, smelling, touch, taste, proprioception, vestibular, many of you who are into sensory will know what those things are.
[00:30:36] And we're constantly sending data through the whole of the body, dermatomes we have across our body, right through our central nervous system and peripheral nervous system into our brain. So we've got external data coming in. Then we have our brain and our mind, two separate related processes and flows, as Dan Segal was saying, interpersonal neurobiology.
[00:30:54] And we're ordering and understanding that information, and then we come out with an external reaction. And exactly as you've said before, Casey, things we can remember, but things we also can't remember, cultural norms, the cultural stuff we watch. All is an interplay of what comes out of our mouth in a given situation.
[00:31:13] I don't know why I do half the stuff I do.
[00:31:17] Casey O'Roarty: I
[00:31:17] Patrick Ney: can try and make sense of it the next day when I write it down. But now we're getting into that very, very messy metaphysical world of free will, right?
[00:31:24] Right.
[00:31:24] Patrick Ney: Because if we're not totally owning everything we do, what does that make us? Like automatons? Ants? You know, and I find it very, very interesting.
[00:31:32] So we, we are not prisoners. However, biology, uh, nature doesn't define us. We do have free will and choice and to every mom and dad listening right now, as bad as it's been, you can rewrite the future and you can do that by rewriting your story because as you do so you open up new, what's known as new neural pathways within the mind.
[00:31:51] So the mind is trying to be as efficient as possible and it has repetitive behaviors that it likes to do very often. And the first 18 years of your life, basically everything's kind of the same, right? If your parents beat you, they kind of beat you for quite a long time because that's what you did. Or they shouted and you know, um, guilt tripped you.
[00:32:07] That's,
[00:32:08] you had 18 years of university. For sure. That
[00:32:11] Patrick Ney: was like 18 years of, of brain mapping. So that became at least one of the models you had of how a parent should be. And then you become a mom and a dad in case we both said this right, which is then all of a sudden that stuff comes back up, but more stuff besides your intention and your goal to what your dream of this child and who you want them to be and who you want it to be as well.
[00:32:30] And. Often the two don't match and then you have that moment where you're slamming the bottle out of your daughter's hands, in my case, you know, um, confronting the darkness within you, the shadow within you, as Carl Jung would say. So this whole process, I think one of the best ways we can do this is to have this narrative understanding, the storytelling, like we're doing now, right?
[00:32:48] Who we are and where we came from, because that's actionable. And when you do that, Those kind of tram lines that your mind has been operating on for a long time, which is quite literally how it works, you know, synaptic connections between different parts of the brain that get strengthened habits, habitual thinking, habitual expectation, habitual reactions.
[00:33:06] can become completely broken down. And we're doing this in real time right now. So if you're listening to this and reflecting on what you're listening and then reflecting on your relationship to your family whilst, and I hope you are, you're already building new ways that you can react to the next time in that situation.
[00:33:20] Like before I walk in the door, I'm going to take a five second pause and go, my intention is to be, and then you walk through the door and you are. You know, so that becomes a reality for you just by thinking about your thinking.
[00:33:43] Casey O'Roarty: I love that. And I just want to spend a couple minutes on that rewriting of the narrative. So thinking about being in that household, that perhaps overly critical household where the meaning that perhaps a child makes over the course of 18 years is I'm not good enough. I'm unworthy. And then to be an adult and to recognize how that is getting in the way, perhaps, of what we're trying to create in our life.
[00:34:09] So a new narrative might be, my parents did the best they could, and I was doing the best that I could, and I am capable of creating the life that I want right now. And kind of, is, is that kind of what you're talking about in creating a new narrative? Like telling a different story.
[00:34:28] Patrick Ney: Absolutely, because here's the thing, uh, and this relates to this perception thing.
[00:34:33] Since your experience of the world is quite literally a construct of your mind, when you change your mind, you change your experience of the world. So you know, just take for example, time, I find this helpful to understand. Oh
[00:34:46] Casey O'Roarty: great. Time doesn't exist.
[00:34:47] Patrick Ney: It, it time is a construct
[00:34:49] of the mind. I need. I'm so excited you're going here 'cause I need this reframe.
[00:34:52] Yes. Time is a construct of the mind. Okay. And .
[00:34:57] Patrick Ney: So that's why when you have a, I remember with my daughter, I wrote about this in my book. She's like, uh, when's Saturday? And I think it was a Thursday. And I'm like, the day after tomorrow. And she goes, so tomorrow. And I'm like. No, the day after tomorrow, and she goes, but when I'm like, literally, okay, today's Thursday, then this Friday, and then there'd be Saturday.
[00:35:14] And she, I think she was like five at the time. Right. And I'm like, what's wrong with you child? Like I couldn't make it any simpler. And it's because a five year old doesn't have what's known as an internal clock mechanism,
[00:35:23] Casey O'Roarty: which is
[00:35:23] Patrick Ney: where time has a sense. So time doesn't exist unless it's a construct of the mind.
[00:35:28] There are light waves and frequencies, right? Which we don't perceive, which other animals can, you know, infrared, for example. Now we're clever so we can build technologies that see infrared. But it exists, we just don't see it. Why? Because we don't have the perceptive ability to do so. Now, uh, I don't want to get all kind of Deepak Chopra on you.
[00:35:47] The story you've been telling about who you are and where you came from is not the truth. If you perceive, for example, let's just run with this and let's see how far we can take it. If you perceive that, well, let's take perfectionism, for example. So let's say we're like a 35 year old mom or dad and we've realized that we're a perfectionist and it has this big, big downside to us and we're like, Oh, my mom and dad were too demanding.
[00:36:07] And they, you know, they, they put too much pressure on me to succeed. And I've been playing their game, but I'm not going to play them anymore because they harm me. You can build a list. You can even write down 15 examples. Of the way your mom and dad put too much pressure on you. 15 examples of positive things that came from that.
[00:36:24] And my experience of working with perfectionist parents, I'm not a perfectionist. I'm a good enough. I don't know how to put it. Like if it's good enough, it's good enough for me. You
[00:36:30] Casey O'Roarty: know,
[00:36:31] Patrick Ney: never let the great be the enemy of the goods, you know, which my teachers recognized at school for sure. Uh, the perfectionist parents have achieved amazing things.
[00:36:41] And when it comes to learning parenting, it's easy to give up because it's hard and it's kind of, you're tired at the end of a long day, you know how it is, right? And it's like, oh, I'd rather scroll social media than learn for 10 minutes. And I get that. Perfectionist parents actually do it. They read everything, they apply what they learn, and they have amazing ability to make it better or worse.
[00:37:00] When you go back and you say, hey, my parents gave me everything I needed and then some. And by listing the positives that came out of the negative situation, which I perceive to happen, perception is reality. Then all of a sudden. You don't have to forgive. It's not about forgiving. It's not even about accepting because there's also this piece, which is, hey, if you perceive your parents to have done X or Y, you're almost certainly doing it in that form or another with your child or teenager right now.
[00:37:22] Almost certainly. I mean, I see that often as well. I see it in my own parenting as well, for sure. If you can understand that that situation is neither negative or positive, it's both. And if you start to rebalance yourself by seeing the positives in any situation you perceive to have been negative. Some people are like, oh, that's too woo woo, it's just nonsense.
[00:37:39] But actually, it's just as real as the story you've been telling. Maybe I can give you an example from my own life just to kind of underscore that. I went around telling this story about how my older brother was this total a hole that never showed his love. You know, like super kind of cold type character and I kind of challenged myself one day and said, Hey, well, if you're talking to this idea about people, maybe you should try and practice on yourself, a hypocritical game, you know,
[00:38:04] Casey O'Roarty: and
[00:38:05] Patrick Ney: I'm like, but I'm nice and Patrick, I'm extrovert, you know, I cuddle, I love playing with children.
[00:38:09] I'm a play therapist, you know, and I decided I'm going to write down 15 examples where I behave like my brother who I've been judging this character in my life. And I went to bed and I'm like, nah, that's not me. And the next morning I woke up with my wife, normally I get up early, but this one random occasion we were together.
[00:38:25] She starts complaining about her back and her neck. And of course, as a good husband, I'm like, Oh, I'm very sorry. But in my mind, I was going, I don't care. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of hearing this. I don't like your weakness. It's pathetic. You know, like this wave of negative emotion came over me. And then I was literally sitting there going, Oh my God, that reminds me of only one person.
[00:38:45] This character I built in my mind. This reality, which I said was true, the coldness and the rejection and the dislikability, however you want to put it. That is so me. I am him and he is me. So, you know, Carl Jung talked about Unus Mundum, the one world. And he also said that in every single individual human life is the eternal life of the human species.
[00:39:06] The experience of being a teenager, we just talked about what it's like to be rejected and the pain of it. Man, we adults feel that all the time. I mean, you go into a new situation and people don't talk to you at a cocktail mixer or something like that. I don't know about you, but I could almost die. If you could kill me and take me away from that experience, it's so painful.
[00:39:23] And then I'm standing at the corner, like, desperately looking for someone to talk to, you know, and I'm an extrovert, so. Yeah, relatable. It's just tough for me. Yeah. That experience, exactly as you put it in the last question, and we were discussing it, the experience of being an awkward teenager, isolated, feeling lonely, feeling overwhelmed by emotions, is definitely the human experience, and we have it too.
[00:39:44] So maybe I'm segwaying into way too many points there, but I think all roads lead back to this narrative understanding of who I am or where I came from. And your version of reality doesn't have to be fixed to a single point.
[00:39:54] Casey O'Roarty: So bringing all of that, and that's so powerful. And I just, I feel like this is going to be one of those podcasts where people are going to have to listen to it a few times.
[00:40:02] And every time they listen to it, it'll be another layer. No, no, no. Hey, listen, there was another interview that I did that was the same way, which is your hero, Dan Siegel. So. There's just so much here. There's so much here and it's so powerful and it's so useful when we really listen in and take what we're hearing and do the work of like, how does this apply to me?
[00:40:24] What does this look like in my life? So I really appreciate it. And then in the practical sense, you know, we're living in these households with our teenagers and. You know, things like disagreements and discouragement and disappointment, like that's part of the train for both sides, right? And it is, like I mentioned, like it's, it's so easy in those moments, especially, I mean, for, again, for both sides, even as we've had experiences and we have things to draw from, and hopefully we are holding ourself to a higher standard around holding a space while another person.
[00:41:05] Melts down. We can easily become, you know, the word is triggered. I also will say flipped or spun out and what it can result in, you know, high conflict. So in those moments, right, we're not going to find our journal and rewrite our narrative to understand ourselves better. And like, that's important.
[00:41:27] Absolutely. And it's all of these things. And my listeners have heard me say it. It's not ever one thing. It's putting all of these things into our life. Our understanding of the brain, our understanding of ourselves, our rewriting of a story. But it's also in the moment, across from this teenager, who's super emotional and it's valid.
[00:41:47] And yet we have a very, you know, how to be with their lack of skills around self regulation in a way that keeps communication helpful and forwarding rather than hurtful and disconnecting. What are some tools that you share with parents for that?
[00:42:05] Patrick Ney: Um, before we get into that situation, number one, let's ask ourselves, what can we do to avoid being there?
[00:42:10] And in my good positive discipline mind hat on, it's like, Let's have rules and boundaries and as much understanding as we can about who does what in what situation. And I'm all about preventative work, so anything we can do to prevent that situation from happening is going to be good.
[00:42:25] Casey O'Roarty: Uh,
[00:42:25] Patrick Ney: visual rules, conversations obviously with your older kids.
[00:42:29] You had an argument last week. Let that be the basis of the conversation about what happens when you have the next one. Um, write it down, set it out. Who does what? You know, do you have a code word? For example, for I worked with a dad of three boys, one of whom was 15, the other was 12 and the other was seven.
[00:42:44] And they came up with a code word, Snickers, which is dad, take a chill pill. You need to leave the room. And, and that kind of, you know, agreement and contracting and alignment before we get into that situation, working preventatively is, it's gonna probably be the 80 20 rule where it gets rid of a lot of the difficulty.
[00:42:59] But okay, we had that bad argument, things were said that can't be unsaid, you know, insults were thrown back and forth, more slugs than hugs. And now we're out of that situation. One of the things can be number two probably is just to stop talking. We have an overwhelming instinct to flood our kids with logic.
[00:43:15] And the reason why maybe we can even inject some neuroscience there is we have far more active prefrontal cortexes and frontal lobes as the front part of the brain, which among other things. Disclaimer is responsible for planning, for logic, for thinking logically, for risk assessment, for understanding rules and for being able to crucially manage our emotions.
[00:43:35] Even then as adults, we have a hard time. Let's be honest. Most of us, me too, for sure. Whereas children and adolescents especially have much more active limbic systems in the amygdala, which is sort of series of different structures in the brain, which are responsible among other things for processing emotions.
[00:43:52] So you have this underactive prefrontal cortex in teenagers. Which is less integrated with the rest of the brain through synaptic connections because it happens last. I don't know why evolution decided to do this, but it's true. The brain kind of develops from the back to the front and it's kind of roughly speaking 80 percent done by the time you get to be a teenager and the 20 percent that's left is the bit that we would most want as parents.
[00:44:12] Yeah, they have a much more active emotional processing system, which is far more sensitive to among other things cortisol known as the stress hormone. Uh, so we're there trying to dump our logic on this kid who's within that flight and fright response system, which I know you know, the sympathetic nervous system is activated.
[00:44:30] I call it the red zone. And as anyone who's been upset will tell you, if someone comes up to you and is like, can I talk to you more with your partner? Maybe, you know, like, I want to dump some logic on you. You're going to explode. I can't even think about it. So step one, let's be preventative. Step two, let's shut the heck up, you know, zip it.
[00:44:47] And by the way, for all moms and dads, I recommend just setting a 10 minute timer and just not talking to your kid and see what happens. Wild things happen when you don't talk. It's a great play therapy technique as well. Step three, again, depending on the situation, because there'd be many things happening, but step three might be to step away and do that self care, put your own oxygen mask on thing that we all talk about, you know, which is easy to talk about and really hard to do when you yourself are in the red zone, but it is the difference.
[00:45:12] I worked with a dad recently who, who just forced himself and trained himself to step away before he carried on the conversation. And for so many of us, it's like, yeah, but we lose our authority and there's things that need to be said about It's so interesting
[00:45:23] Casey O'Roarty: how people argue that, like, well, I don't want to abandon them.
[00:45:26] And it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You get to say, I love you so much that I got to go take care of myself so that I don't spew all of this dysregulated bullshit all over you. Like I'm walking away. For them.
[00:45:42] Patrick Ney: Uh, and also it's showing them that, Hey, when you're angry, you can actually walk away. That's one of your techniques.
[00:45:47] We're like telling our kids this, Hey, when that kid says something too nasty at school, just walk away. And then we're not literally modeling it. And again, every mom and dad. If we're asking our kids to do something, especially about emotions that we can't do, just realize the irony, right? We have that integrated brain.
[00:46:01] They don't because that limbic system is super active. They're way more sensitive to emotions. So a teenage brain, I love this expression, it kind of like has higher highs and lower lows. So it has way more emotional register than we do, which is why our children react according to us, illogically, irrationally, kind of absurdly, and there's many different parts of the brain that correspond with that.
[00:46:22] So there's also like a neurosteroid called THP, tetrahydroprogesterone, which in children and adults kind of calms you down, but for some wild reason in evolution, in teenagers, it makes them go crazy anxious. And it kind of peaks 14 to 16.
[00:46:37] Casey O'Roarty: Well they had to get us out of the cave. That's the evolution was.
[00:46:40] We never would have left the cave if it wasn't for the teenagers. If you
[00:46:43] Patrick Ney: were happy with mom and dad, you'd never leave the cave for sure. And staying in the cave is not an option because the bird has to fly the nest or as Gabor Maté said, you know, independence is nature's agenda. It's like they are on that path outside of the nest, but it doesn't have to be empty.
[00:46:56] They will come back, you know, twice a year for cuddles and hugs. So yeah, we've got like a series of things here, you know, like step away if it's appropriate. Um, if your child's not harming themselves, for example, then it's entirely appropriate to step away. And then that crucial thing, which we all learned from Dan Siegel going back, you know, that rupture and repair.
[00:47:12] Maybe that's, I think that's step five, right? Which is what kind of conversation do we have about what's happened? And I love it as a dad when I can say to my daughter, I got really angry or I felt worthless or I was overwhelmed by this feeling and I didn't know how to control it. And again, you know, some parents ask me, can I talk about my emotions to my kids?
[00:47:30] Yes. Come on.
[00:47:32] Casey O'Roarty: Yes.
[00:47:32] Patrick Ney: Yeah. They're going to, they're going to go, Oh, it's not just me who feels like that. Cause you know, I don't know about you, but when I was at school, I honestly thought I was the only person in the world who felt so worthless, so stupid, so overwhelmed. I didn't know what the words were for the feelings I was feeling, but I remember thinking it's just me and it's not a course because it's the human condition.
[00:47:51] Yeah.
[00:47:51] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Patrick, I there, I mean, I've got like five more. areas that I want to take you in, and I'm looking at the time. So you have to promise me that you'll come back and we'll talk again, because this is so useful, and we definitely need a part two. I am so grateful to be connected to you. I'm so thankful for the work that you're doing for so many parents around the globe.
[00:48:15] You will be back on. I will drag you kicking and screaming if I have to back on the show. To close though, I always ask my listeners, and you've heard me ask this question to others. What does joyful courage mean to you today?
[00:48:29] Patrick Ney: It's the understanding that there is nothing missing in you, and you have everything you need, and there's nothing broken about you.
[00:48:37] You're not a weak person, you're strong. And every single time you turn a new leaf in the book that is your life, you'll discover something new about yourself. And every time you look back in those leaves, you'll discover something new about the old self who you thought you knew so well. There's so much power inside you and there's so much more for you to give the world.
[00:48:57] So just keep turning the pages and be joyfully courageous.
[00:49:01] Casey O'Roarty: Damn. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take just that little audio and I'm going to put it on my phone and that is going to be my daily pep talk. Thank you so much for that. I love that. Where can people find you and follow your work?
[00:49:13] Patrick Ney: Uh, so you can look for me on Amazon. It's Patrick Ney. Recommend my book, When at the Zoo, Watch the Humans. Lots of personal stories in there. And a bit of neuroscience. And you can find me at allaboutparenting. com where I run workshops and seminars for parents, which are free on different times and different subjects.
[00:49:28] And I've just launched on TikTok and YouTube. So if you look for Patrick Nay and love parenting, because I'm all about telling love stories, you'll find me there as well.
[00:49:36] Casey O'Roarty: Lovely. Okay. Listeners, you know, all those links will be in the show notes. Patrick, until next time, thank you so much for spending time with me today.
[00:49:44] This was awesome.
[00:49:51] Thank you so much for listening in today. Thank you. So much to my Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alana, as well as Danielle and Chris Mann and the team at Podshaper for all the support with getting this show out there and helping it to sound so good. Check out our offers for parents with kids of all ages and sign up for our newsletter to stay better connected at besproutable.
[00:50:16] com. Tune back in on Monday for a brand new interview, and I will be back solo with you next Thursday. Have a great day.
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