Karleen (00:00):

When I’m in mediation, ready to go, crisis call. The thing is, is that you have ultimate goals, right? You have ultimate outcomes that you would like to see happen. You do the same thing as a parent.

Dr. Sarah (00:16):

My guest this week, Karleen Savage, is a certified hostage and crisis negotiator and conflict resolution expert who has spent years diffusing tense situations and guiding people towards resolution. So what happens when these skills are applied to conflict with our kids? That’s just what Karleen tackled in her book, The Confident Teen Blueprint. Whether you’re dealing with everyday sibling squabbles or bigger conflicts, Karleen’s insights will give you practical tools to navigate these moments with compassion and clarity. We’ll explore the importance of self-awareness, the art of storytelling, and how to maintain an overarching goal in your parenting approach, even when emotions run high.

(00:56):

Hi, I’m Dr. Sarah Bren, a clinical psychologist and mom of two. In this podcast, I’ve taken all of my clinical experience, current research on brain science and child psychology, and the insights I’ve gained on my own parenting journey and distilled everything down into easy to understand and actionable parenting insights. So you can tune out the noise and tune into your own authentic parenting voice with confidence and calm. This is Securely Attached.

(01:30):

Hi. Welcome everyone. Today our guest is Karleen Savage. Thank you for being here. I’m really excited to discuss all the work that you do.

Karleen (01:44):

I’m so excited to be here. Thank you, Sarah.

Dr. Sarah (01:46):

Yeah, so your mom.

Karleen (01:50):

I’m a mom.

Dr. Sarah (01:51):

Yeah. And you have a very interesting professional background that you are translating into your work as a parent. Can you talk a little bit about your career life?

Karleen (02:06):

Sure. Just to give a background and context of how, and kind of see how this flows. I have a master’s in conflict resolution and negotiations. I have seven children, and just take a deep breath on that one. I thought I was only having one and there was just other plans. But yes, I have my master’s in conflict resolution and negotiations, and that came by way of just survival of fittest, to be honest. And then I left the work so much in mediation, I took it to the courtrooms and I was a mediator. And from there I went into hostage negotiations. And then I loved the work there that I went into crisis negotiations. And I mean, I’m a little bit of an anomaly that way because number one who does all three.

(03:15):

I mean, let’s just be honest, sometimes just to get a parenting course under your belt is solid. But to go into all of ’em, to be wholly transparent, it was survival of the fittest. I needed to figure out a way to remedy, resolve my situation, and that’s what led me into this work. And then what I realized is that this work has been wholly and soulfully in me forever, and I just didn’t realize it. How I would process things and how I would morph things and how I would come up with optional solutions, how I would propose things to my own parents or to my stepparents, and how that has all led me to this place. And it’s really beautiful. Even as parents, it’s really beautiful when you know that you’re called to do it. And we are called to do this work of parenting.

Dr. Sarah (04:18):

I agree. I definitely, even if sometimes it doesn’t feel like, it’s like, where did that go that day?

Karleen (04:26):

That day, yeah. You’re not feeling that whole calling thing. And I feel like being called away to go through something else besides this, but it is a holy and soulfully important calling.

Dr. Sarah (04:41):

Yeah, definitely. And I wonder too, coming back to this background, you have in negotiating conflicts, in getting two opposing points to come together.

Karleen (04:56):

No kidding.

Dr. Sarah (04:57):

How does that work? Inform your parenting? You wrote a book about teens.

Karleen (05:04):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (05:05):

So how does this work? You’ve done as a crisis negotiator lead to a book on raising teens? Because I could see how that would happen. I could see how there could be some useful strategies to pull in from your particular area of expertise.

Karleen (05:21):

Right. Okay. So I’m just going to give a down and dirty tip that I did when my kids, and they were probably, oh, I don’t know, 8, 9, 9, 10, right in there. And my two boys out of my seven, my two boys came and it was just like he did this. No, he did that. And if this is not familiar, this is the life of parenting. And then they restate and recall and tell you all the offenses and they’ve got their version. And I remember going, shoot, what am I going to do? I have no idea. And then I went take it to the judge. So I looked at ’em both and I said, okay, we’re going to do this differently. I said, we’re going to play a thing called take it to the judge. The judge is a person in a courtroom, and are you willing to, and the judge makes the decision when you’re in a courtroom, are you willing to let the judge make the decision and I’m going to be the judge.

(06:18):

Are you willing to do that? And they said, yeah, okay. Because that’s where they’re coming, right? They’re coming. You have to solve it. And so I said, okay, so here’s how it’s going to look. Each one of you is going to stay right here with me. We’re going to sit together. You’re both going to tell me your version of what happened, and amazing things happen when you do that. So you’re both going to tell me your version of what happened, and then I’m going to decide based upon what you share with me, who is going to be, where the consequences are going to lie, where the outcome’s going to lie, what that’s going to look like. And I remember they looked at me like, what? And I said, so you need to make sure you have your facts straight. How did it happen? Really? How did it happen?

(06:57):

What did you do? What did they do? What did you do after that? And we’re going to look at all the things and you need to share with me all that you can and all that you remember in order for me to understand your situation. And they both went. And so I gave them a minute, I’m going to give you a minute. I mean, so imagine these eight, nine, 10-year-old two boys, and they were spinning and then all of a sudden they began talking. And when they did, it’s like one person started and I said, you have the floor. And just like in a mediation, you need to be quiet and then think about what you need to say. So the one would start and they would begin their story. And it’s interesting what happens when the falsehoods start coming to the surface. The other one will correct it right away, and then the first person has to now decide, where am I going to go?

(07:52):

And it’s interesting what happens, and it happens in a mediation room too. When you bring those truths into the room and you go, okay, tell me the story, how fast they will correct each other. And then you as the mediator, as the negotiator, as the judge, you get to say, okay, is that exactly okay? So you’re saying it happened like this and you’re saying it happened like that. Who is telling the truth on this? So if that happened, if he threw the apple at you, for example, how did you know to go pick up apples if he was the first one to throw it? And then you wait, were they eating it? What were they planning to do with those apples? And you allow that truth to come out. So in negotiating and with your kids, that is one of the things I did to allow them to begin to speak truth, their own truth, their own version, and to allow to be accountable. Sometimes we try and prevent those moments of accountability, that one where it becomes crystal clear, oh shoot, I’m lying. Oh my gosh. And to get caught in that web. And when we’re doing that, if you can hold that room steady and allow that to happen. So that is one of the things I did to negotiate, teach negotiations, allow accountability, allow the storytelling, allow truth, allow the correction, all of those things. There’s so many things that fall in that melting pot of allowing them to learn the negotiation ability.

Dr. Sarah (09:33):

And I think my favorite thing about this actually is that you presented it as a game. There was a playfulness. It wasn’t like I’m going to, there’s a once removing of it, a space you’re creating, instead of being like, I’m the judge and I’m going to tell you who did what. It’s like we’re going to play a game and I’m going to be the judge in this game. It’s just taking it one step away from reality in a way that I wonder if that actually allows kids to be able to lean into this.

Karleen (10:06):

I also think, Sarah, there’s a bit of self-awareness that we need to have. I tend to be a pretty serious parent, and that’s only because of the life and experiences that we’ve been living. My husband has a brain injury. He experienced a brain injury three decades, almost three decades ago, and we were utterly upside down and didn’t know what to do, and we were struggling in our own relationship. And so I became very dialed in and very focused and very driven to protect my husband, to protect our family to, and the crazy thing, Sarah, okay, this won’t fit in your bandwidth of tool ideas to share, is we kept that secret from everyone for 16 years. So even our own children didn’t know. So in the meantime, and that’s the truth of it, if we’re parents, if you’re in a two-parent household, the thing is, is that you’re tripping over each other emotionally too.

(11:04):

There are things that you’re experiencing that your kids don’t know about and that you’re trying to recover from or trying to cover up or trying to not make them part of it. All of those things play into this. So yes, having a little bit of humor and levity can work and are really good, but it comes from me being very self-aware of who I was and how I was. I wasn’t the totally jump off the cliff and be totally crazy and clowny, those parents are amazing. But it wasn’t in my personality because I was so dialed into, okay, I’ve got to manage somebody with a brain injury and I’ve got to manage him the way he acts and the way he treats and our own relationship and how he manages and interacts with our kids, how they interact with him. I’ve got to manage all that in addition to making sure everybody’s getting their homework done and getting there time and doing all that stuff. So yes, levity is such a powerful tool when you’re in course correction, when you’re in discipline mode, when you’re in just taking an emotional time out kind of thing. So I totally agree.

Dr. Sarah (12:10):

Yeah, I do think when kids do stuff that creates conflict that they know somebody isn’t totally telling the truth or somebody is hurt or mad or afraid of getting in trouble. And probably with most kids, both of them have some ownership over that, right? And they’re both probably feeling a little worried, a little ashamed, a little afraid that they’re going to be seen in a bad light. Exactly. And deeply rooted. If you really want to go deep, it’s like shame and fear of abandonment get really kicked up in this situation. And when a parent comes into the middle of this hot mess and those fears get kicked up, one kids lie because we lie when we feel shame or when we feel fear of abandonment, I have to create a different story that does not make me feel those feelings or doesn’t risk those outcomes. And so it’s really vulnerable to be a kid and the parent comes into a conflict. And so when a parent can meet that vulnerable child or children with playfulness, it can really break that tension. It can really allow kids to lean in and get cooperative in this conflict resolution process. And I think that that is so powerful.

Karleen (13:39):

And understanding your goal at the end, what is the goal of that? My goal when they came to me was like, oh my, okay, the internal happening is, oh my gosh, I have no idea what to do. And then I got to collect it because my ultimate goal for them is to help them be good functioning whole people to do what they can and to go as far as they choose. And so that’s ultimately the goal. And that’s why in the book I just talk about overarching philosophies, just to have some simple overarching goals you’d like to see, so you don’t have to overburden your brain to go, oh my gosh, I’ve got to know the 10 things, the 10 ways that somebody said to manage this. No, I just knew the goal. The goal was to make them whole, to make them know that they’re loved, to make them totally confident in who they are and their ability.

(14:34):

So knowing that goal, allowing the take it to the judge and the kind of game moment allowed us all to kind of go what? At the end? At the end, when everything was done and the truth was revealed and the whole story came out, then it was like, oh, okay, well wait a minute. So you did plan to throw the apple, right? And yeah, I was because man, you’re a really good aim, so I could totally see that. And they’re sitting in the tree, so that makes sense to me. And then you were totally hurt that he threw the apple and he nailed you in the head. And man, I would totally feel that too. So that makes total sense too. So really because you ran after him, after he hit you in the head and you got him, you kind of got your justice.

(15:26):

But at the end of the day, it’s like there are points in this that we both could have done better, we all could have done better. So that way you can recover those hearts that you’re referring to in the breakdown. Because anytime we as adults are broken down in our relationships or at work or wherever it is, we need recovery. We want recovery. We go and get it usually by telling somebody how unjust the world is, and they don’t have that. We are that lift, we are that edification. So just wrap it around at the end.

Dr. Sarah (16:05):

Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. Another way to take the tension out of it is to be, yes, we start with playfulness, but also we start with empathy, compassion, and forgiveness, right? We’re like, listen, we’re not expecting perfection here, and I can see where you were coming from when you did this thing and I could see where you were coming from when you did this thing. So you’re helping model perspective taking and understanding another person’s motivation. And also another thing that I noticed is you’re not just looking at the crisis point. You’re looking at what happened before, like antecedent behavior, consequence, ABCs that I think is a really helpful thing. I think a lot of times we focus on the behavior and we’re not as interested in helping zoom out and rewind and say, well, something happened to make you do this thing because that’s really giving the benefit of that doubt of there’s a reason you did this thing. This thing might’ve been done. You threw the apple, you nailed your brother in the head with an apple, and then the other brother ran over and pummeled that brother. Those behaviors occurred objectively, and they happen for a reason, and we do things for a reason. And the reason is not that you are a jerk. The reason is you felt compelled to do that. For some reason something was not okay for you, and you were trying to problem solve that, and it wasn’t the most effective strategy. But I have compassion for the fact that you were driven by that. And I want to understand that it just helps. Again, all these things are different points of reducing the vulnerability, the intensity, the reactivity, the defensiveness, all of that’s so helpful. Then get to this repair.

Karleen (17:58):

And I will tell you, because my children are all grown, I have kids in their forties and down to 29, I will tell you that they have a sense of humor when it’s tough, when we are going head to head, you could easily see somebody going. So even just not long ago today we’re with our son and he’s 34, and my husband’s laying on the floor because we’re over here watching our grandkids. Dad walks in and his dad, my husband is laying on the floor and my son rounds the corner and he goes, oh, dad, are you on timeout? Did you get in trouble? So he’s taking that same thing that he learned when he was eight or nine, and he can still translate it. Now, we do the same thing when there’s tough discussions as adults with our adult kids, we will break in with a little bit of levity to go, well, yeah, I wouldn’t think of doing that, right? And we’ll be able to do that. So I want people to understand that I’ve gone through that whole journey, and so I really get the life cycle of what’s happening. So I completely agree with you, Sarah, just self-awareness of who you are. If you’re somebody like me who’s just overly focused and needs that levity, you allow that levity to come in a different way, and then you allow that levity to come into life as they grow up and they insert some of that.

Dr. Sarah (19:39):

I love that. So in this book that you wrote, The Confident Team Blueprint, you talk about three skills that help kids become really confident, and I’m wondering is what we’re talking about here, part of that, is there additional things that we help that come from your work as crisis management, conflict management, and then raising deans? What’s going to help our kids? How do you translate that into parenting?

Karleen (20:10):

Yeah. So when I am in mediation, when I do a crisis call, the thing is is that you have ultimate goals. You have ultimate outcomes that you would like to see happen in mediation. You don’t get to choose them in crisis. Well, in none of ’em. You don’t get to choose any of ’em, but you have these ideas that you’re trying to achieve. You do the same thing as a parent. And the thing is that these are the skills that work. So one of them is an overarching philosophy. Like I said before, you don’t have 10 steps you got to do in every argument or you do these 10 things every day. I couldn’t handle that. I had seven kids. There was usually somebody living with us that was in a broken situation, and I had a husband with a brain injury. I didn’t have the bandwidth for that.

(20:57):

So I narrowed things down very tightly, and it came to one overarching philosophies. It’s three to five things I want my kids to know when they leave my home, at the end of the day, what is the most important three to five things I want them to know, period. Is it that throwing apples is not okay? Is it that P and your brother is not okay? Or is it that no matter what you say to me, I will love you, period. And then you drive that home with the other two. And the other two is your mantras. It’s the things you say every day. It’s the things you show in your actions. It’s the comments you make at dinner, at the dinner table, and then your implementation plan. So those are the three things, how you implement that overarching philosophy in a conflict. Your implementation plan is, my goal is no matter you can tell me anything, you are going to be loved at the end of the day.

(21:59):

That is one thing you will absolutely know. So then it’s like in the mantras, Hey, love you. Oh my gosh, you did so great in that. That’s amazing. Do you know how epic you are? Do you know that you have the most amazing aim with that apple? You have the most amazing aim. You could really take that far if you not aim it at your brother and you maybe aim it at a bullseye or something else, but I could show you how to do that if you really want to foster that. Those are the ways that my mantras are showing up that they will know that they are loved no matter what they say to me, no matter what they do. And then my implementation plan is, okay, we hit a conflict. This is how it’s going to look. You know what? I’m not happy because now your brother, you did kind of give him a little nick in the head.

(22:47):

So now we’ve got to deal with that. So I need to know if I have to go to the doctors, are you going to help me pay for that? How’s that going to look? Do you need to work? Do you need to take responsibility? What’s that going to look like? I’m going to help you do that. And then it’s wrapping that back around. So one of the implementation plans I always had is no matter what was said, done anything, I would always revisit it and tell them how much I love them, period. I did not care what the situation was. That was always going to happen. So now let’s walk it forward a few decades, let’s walk it forward. And now my son is in his thirties and his girlfriend was teasing him about you and Oh, you think you’re so amazing? And they were just jawing each other and teasing each other.

(23:46):

And he calls me up and he goes, mom, you’re not going to believe this. Do you know what she said to me? She told me that I wasn’t as handsome as I thought. He said, how can that be? You’ve told me my whole life, I’m one of the most handsome people you’ve ever seen. This. Is this how it unfolds? Because I had this overarching philosophy, you can tell me, talk to me about anything. I lived my mantras. I enforced that with, oh my gosh, you are the most epic beautiful man. You are going to be some heart crusher as you get older and remember to honor those things because that is going to be really important. And then when it came to talking and telling them, then it was like, okay, so we had to deal with that heavy heart stuff and you had to do the work to get through it, but gosh, look at how amazing you are. Look at how you dug in and worked that. I’m so happy about how skilled you are in being able to do that and showing that those three phases in all forms, and it does require a bit of an open heart about what you want for them.

Dr. Sarah (24:49):

Yeah. So I’m hearing in this that you are going to have kind of like what you call this overarching philosophy, this overarching goal that you’re going to bring in the background to everything, even the messy stuff, even the stuff that boils your blood, even the stuff that makes you panic, even the stuff that’s leaving another sibling a little bit dented, we’ve all been there. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to address it or contain it or help them repair it, reestablish safety, all those things. But I like this idea in the back of my mind because in these hot moments, we can get really myopic. We can really get kind of stuck on what’s this urgent, immediate goal. And also often it’s my sort of medium fear-based goal. And then we forget this larger really overarching goal, which I think most parents are going to agree. It is, I want my kid to feel loved and I want my kid to trust that that love is unconditional.

Karleen (26:04):

Right? Right. Exactly. Yes.

Dr. Sarah (26:06):

And so that’s what I’m hearing is number one is really being able to remind yourself and anchor yourself and the ability to go back to and reconnect with even in these tight hot moments, there’s a bigger goal here.

Karleen (26:20):

And that bigger goal may drive you. Okay, so I’m going to think of the worst case scenario. They are coming screaming and you’ve got a migraine, okay, you only have three to five overarching goals. You don’t make it complicated. You only have three to five. Super simple. It would be for me to go, I cannot deal with this right now, just walk away from each other and then I’ll deal with both of you. Do you need to separate or directing them? Because that would be where I would go. Now, there’s a lot of different ways you can do it. Some people do it and take longer to get it done. For me, when I’m in that desperate situation, I will simply say, you go here, you go here. I will deal with you 30 minutes, give me a minute. And that’s how fast all ended. And they knew that kind of thing, but I didn’t ruin them. Do you know what I mean? It doesn’t ruin them. It gives us all just a minute and then I can lay there and go, oh my gosh, I got to deal with this. How am I going to deal with this? And then you give them a break from each other and a break from my reaction. So yes, overarching philosophies, there’s these just overarching big 50,000 foot view goal.

Dr. Sarah (27:35):

Yes. And then number two is these mantras, right? That’s the inner talk or the external talk to your kids. That might not be happening in the moment. It might be in the moment. Internally you might be like, remember the overarching goal? Stay connected to my goal. I got this. This is really, really awful right now, but I got this. But the external mantras might be in the outside moments with our kids really reinforcing that communication of unconditional love and value.

Karleen (28:06):

The words that you say, the words that you speak, and sometimes you’re thinking, dang, I just want to pop in one. I just want to smack him because he’s just making me crazy. And then you go, okay, but in the big scope, he’s actually a really amazing kid. Breathe. And that is that moment, that internal voice and then the external voice comes out, you know what? I know you need me right now, but just give me five. I’ll be right there.

Dr. Sarah (28:41):

So then the third thing is how are we going to implement? And that is where I think the strategy comes in and anchoring yourself to your overarching goal and having this internal dialogue. So you self-regulating is actually how you then access the thinking part of the brain, the prefrontal cortex where you’re problem solving implementation skills live. This is really where I think your conflict management and crisis negotiation, hostage, whatever strategies are going to come in. What are some of these skills that you pull from your professional experience resolving conflicts in these high stakes situations to parenting in these implementation moments?

Karleen (29:26):

So the overarching philosophy is, I need to use my best skills here so that these guys can have the best outcome in this moment. That’s the overarching philosophy. I want to give them my best in this moment and them to resolve. And so now we’re really not talking about an apple and who hit first. We’re talking about you were hurt physically, but you felt terrorized or you had an ill heart, you wanted to do something and how those are applied. That’s really what we’re talking about. And then you have that conversation because that’s a different conversation than he threw the apple and it hit me in the head and he came and pummeled me.

Dr. Sarah (30:11):

It goes back to that idea of we do things for a reason. How do we understand one another’s reasons?

Karleen (30:18):

And I need to know where they’re at in order to be able to help them. So then you dial into more questions and dial into more questions and dial into more questions. And as you do just in the implement in the mantra, then you say, and the thing is, is that you hold the belief for them because they’re not always capable of holding the belief for themself. So you hold the belief for them that you are capable of making this decision. I’m going to help you get to that place by asking you a series of questions. And there are different questions depending upon what it is. Do you have somebody you can talk to? What have you eaten today? What was your last activity where that happened? And then in that you’re going to find that mantra as they answer those questions, you’re going to go, oh my gosh.

(31:06):

So I dealt with a 14-year-old girl and it was listening to her story. And then I said, wow, you have the capability. You see kind of what’s happening. You have an ability to see a bigger picture, right? It’s like, yeah, I do. That’s a mantra. I found it, found the mantra through asking the questions, found that mantra. So then I said, well, in that, do you feel like your mom is doing this? Do you feel like your stepdad is doing that? And then she was able to reason and begin to kind of find that out. The implementation is mixed into that. I built a mantra listening to the story, and then I built the mantra and then it was, okay, so how can we find our way out of this? What does the situation need to look like? Do you feel like you need to go someplace else? Do you feel like you can go out and make a reasonable decision? Do you feel like? And bringing them into that implementation plan by building that mantra and then showing them how to exercise their strength, that is the outcome of that.

Dr. Sarah (32:25):

Yeah. Okay. So I’m following you. I’m hearing too, and you didn’t use this term, but I’m curious, the term active listening comes up to me a lot as you’re talking about this. Can you explain what active listening as a tool is? Because I feel like that’s something that parents could really take from this in terms of what’s a tangible skill I could take and put into my day-to-day interactions with my kids? I feel like this act of listening that you’re describing, it could be a very useful one.

Karleen (33:05):

I have the Savage Story of Resolution. It’s a five skill model to resolve any conflict. So this is a course that I teach in there. I call it master listening because it moves beyond active listening. And I’m going to show you how. And it’s a powerful tool that you can use when you’re with your kids that are really struggling or they’re arguing or there doesn’t seem to be any resolution, and there’re bantering back and forth. I’ve coined it as master listening. It’s called story mapping. So what you do, active listening is paraphrasing, active listening is listening, being able to paraphrase, checking and rechecking to see if you understand each other, leaning in body language, making certain statements, those kinds of things is the active listening mode, right? Well, in the fields of mediation, crisis and hostage, I have noticed that they use something beyond an active listener.

(34:01):

They use this thing called story, and I’ve coined it as story mapping, and I’ve named it as master listening. And what that does is he came and threw this at me, and no, he hit me. He came and he attacked me. And that becomes the chaos, right? But master listening, when people are angry and tense, they speak in bullet points. Is that understandable? They speak in bullet points. He did this, he did this. No, I didn’t do that. You did this. And they speak in bullet points to master listen is to story map. They speak in bullet points. And what you do is you ask questions between one bullet to the next bullet. So one talking point to the next talking point. So you got hit. Oh wow, you’ve got a scratch on your head. Oh my gosh, you’ve got a cut on your head.

(34:55):

So what happened for you to get that cut? It wasn’t, he threw the apple at me. That’s it. What happened? That got that cut on your head? And he says, well, he threw the apple. Okay, when did he throw the apple? Where were you when he threw the apple? Did you do something? Did something happen before he threw the apple? You’re going to story map that. It’s beyond the act of listening. When you’re in hostage, when you’re in crisis, when you’re in mediation, people talking bullet points. When you’re in a crisis call, people say, this is what happens, and I’m angry and this is what was said. And you’re going to story map between those two points, and that’s going to do several things. One is going to diffuse the situation. You’re going to take the error out of the tension by allowing them to tell you, it can be broken up, it can be all over the place, but that’s okay. You’re going to story map it. And so it brings down the tension, number one. And number two, it helps to put things in order for them to understand those sound bites that they’re talking about. So how did it happen? When did it happen? Did anything happen before that was something said that you didn’t remember? But you can say was something said, did somebody else come over that I’m not aware of? And you can just ask these questions to story map between he threw the apple, I got hurt, period.

Dr. Sarah (36:23):

So you’re bringing in context, nuance, a narrative. You’re helping them because this makes me think a lot of trauma therapy, when people have traumatic experiences, they often will talk about them in very fragmented ways. And one of the things that we’ll do in therapy is we’ll really work carefully and with a lot of support around building the story, telling the story with more detail, going over, being able to tell it again. Sometimes we’ll even write it because the coherence of the story becomes richer and more nuanced, and we’re able to actually integrate it better and it feels way more stabilizing. And so kind of sounds like that’s a big piece of what is the benefit of the story mapping as you’re referring to it. We’re taking this sort of staccato, fragmented, emotionally charged, charged breakdown of the recollection of what happened, and we’re creating a more coherent narrative that’s more digested, like we’re helping them metabolize it a little bit better.

Karleen (37:41):

Yeah, well said. And when you’re doing it with your young kids, imagine empowering them with that ability to be able to put things in context. Because as they become young adults or teenagers or adults, they’ll be able to do that and regulate that for themselves. Why? Because they go through it. Now, I’m going to walk you down the road a couple of decades, and I have a daughter that’s a mom, and she’s got a teenager, and she’s like, oh my gosh. And she went into a blended family. So she’s got teenagers that aren’t hers, that weren’t hers, and they’ve been learning these skills under a very dysfunctional situation. And so now she’s like, mom, I never saw it. We know how to do this stuff, but other people don’t. Now for them it’s normal. It’s not a big deal to go, well, what happened? Well, where were you?

(38:41):

How did that happen? Well, who said what and who said it first? And well, what did they do after that? After you said that? Is that something they actually said or is that something that you just thought they said? So what did they say that makes you actually believe that that was their view? And they know to do all this stuff, but they’ve been taught so for the benefit of your listeners, the thing is, if you do that now, they will be strong, resilient, confident to be able to problem solve some of that stuff on their own. So when the big stuff happens, they have some of these tools that are already ingrained in them. So, very well said.

Dr. Sarah (39:26):

I love that. I love all of this. Thank you so much. And if people want to learn more about your book, if they want to learn more about your work or connect with you, where should we send them?

Karleen (39:38):

Send them to karleensavage.com/parents with an S, and they can get the digital download of my book.

Dr. Sarah (39:47):

Amazing. Yeah.

Karleen (39:48):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (39:49):

This was so interesting.

Karleen (39:50):

Just trying to get it out, just wanting people to be able to have it.

Dr. Sarah (39:53):

That’s amazing. I don’t have teens yet, but I’m always trying to parent with an ear towards or an eye towards building skills now that they’ll be able to use so that they aren’t as difficult as teenagers as I fear they might be because I know they can be. But I feel like, joking aside, you made a very good point. When we build these skills early, they have a lot more time to sort of lean in and practice them when they’re older. And I also think that these are skills that if we didn’t, you’re just hearing this now for the very first time and you have teens, these are definitely skills that you can implement immediately with teens.

Karleen (40:33):

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Without a doubt. I totally support you, Sarah.

Dr. Sarah (40:39):

Well, thank you so much, Karleen. It was so nice talking with you.

Karleen (40:42):

Thank you. So good to be here. Thank you.

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