Dr. Sarah (00:02):

Ever wonder what psychologists moms talk about when we get together, whether we’re consulting one another about a challenging case or one of our own kids, or just leaning on each other when parenting feels hard, because trust me, even when we do this for a living, it’s still hard. Joining me each week in these special Thursday shows are two of my closest friends, both moms, both psychologists, they’re the people I call when I need a sounding board. These are our unfiltered answers to your parenting questions. We’re letting you in on the conversations the three of us usually have behind closed doors. This is Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions.

(00:41):

Hello everyone. Welcome back. Hi, Rebecca. How are you?

Dr. Rebecca (00:46):

Hi, I am good. I’m eating goldfish that I have to finish chewing.

Dr. Sarah (00:50):

Oh my god, goldfish. How funny Is it like we are snacks are like the random half eaten bags of goldfish that you find in your purse instead.

Dr. Rebecca (01:00):

I’m obsessed with goldfish. I’m not ashamed to admit these are goldfish from the pantry that I purposefully poured into a bowl. There’s nothing left over about them. Although one of my favorite Instagram posts ever, which I posted when my kid was little that I just was like, I found a goldfish in my bra and was not ashamed to eat it.

Dr. Sarah (01:23):

Oh yes. Oh yes. The bra snacks. Right, exactly. I definitely know what you’re talking about and also eat them ’em

Dr. Rebecca (01:35):

Yummy.

Dr. Sarah (01:36):

Okay, well enjoy your Goldfish.

Dr. Rebecca (01:37):

I’m just finishing up bra snacks.

Dr. Sarah (01:39):

Yeah, bra snacks. Goldfish sounds good. So this email is not about that. This email is about, we’ll get more serious. So this email, I got this from a mom and I am really glad that this person wrote in because I actually think this isn’t talked about as much as we need to talk about it and it’s legit, I think a lot of parents are going to resonate with this potentially. So she wrote in, my daughter is struggling to learn to read and I can see her confidence dropping as the kids in her class are finding it easier to master than she has been able to. She’s getting frustrated and saying how dumb she is, which is just heartbreaking to hear beyond getting her a tutor so she can catch up. How can I boost her confidence and make sure this doesn’t affect how she views her intelligence? So where would you start in hearing this email, Rebecca?

Dr. Rebecca (02:37):

I want to give this mom a hug.

(02:40):

I mean, I think it’s such a universal experience of when are kids just not good at something that other kids are good at? It’s hard for them, it’s hard for us. That feeling of shame is there and it’s real. I was glad that this said, besides getting her a tutor, I go to a very concrete place of what’s going on with this kid and reading. We know, not that I’m going to be quoting literacy statistics, but the further behind you get the harder it is to catch up and of course you don’t want to make something out of nothing, but I would much rather a child who’s starting to struggle learning to read that we address that and we see if there’s something going on there. And so that’s certainly, I applaud this mom for kind of not waiting and seeing and for just, yes, we’re going to get some help. We’re going to figure out what’s going on. We’re going to address the reading piece.

(03:42):

I think what I would want to say as a parent to my child in that situation is not actually what I would recommend saying. What I would want to say to my kid is, oh sweetie, of course you’re not dumb. You’re so smart. Just because you can’t are having trouble reading doesn’t mean I would just want to talk them out of that feeling so quickly because that feeling is so lousy and hard to tolerate as a parent, and yet I think what I would recommend a client do or this listener do is to stay with it a little bit.

(04:20):

Oh sweetie, you feel dumb. I get that. I get how you would feel that way to and even say, what does it feel like or tell me more about it not being her therapist, but just sort of pausing to listen and learn about her experience. And then I might say, being smart and being dumb. These are words that we use all the time. What do they mean? What does it mean? What does it mean to be smart? What does a smart person do? And to just stay with how complicated these words are that we label so quickly.

(05:02):

And then ideally, and this is like a B, c afterschool dream special, not necessarily how real life goes, but ideally it’s sort of like we talk about things that make someone smart and not smart, and we put the puzzle together ourselves and we see that she is smart. So if you’re having trouble learning math, is that person dumb? You sort of just put together in a more Socratic way so that hopefully she comes to see herself that having trouble learning a new skill that you’ve never learned before has nothing to do with being smart or dumb and that it’s understandable that she would feel that way. Again. I think in real life I’d probably do the thing that I said I wouldn’t recommend.

(05:57):

I just think on this beyond the sessions, it’s important to name that Personally, I don’t think I could actually necessarily tolerate going slowly in that. There’s times I can, and I bet that would just be a really hard one for me. Haven’t been in that situation. I’ve been in situations where my kids have said, I’m really bad at this and then I can slow down, but something about I’m really dumb. I think for me, and I guess I’m just trying to be really honest and really transparent, that would be really triggering for me and I think it might be hard for me to do again what I would recommend, which is to slow down and join my kid in that.

Dr. Sarah (06:35):

Yeah. I also think it’s helpful too, to think, and again, it’s hard when you hear your kid say, I’m dumb, I’m an idiot. I’m stupid. I hate myself. Or any of these really, really just heartbreaking things to hear your child say. It’s hard to use any skills in that moment, but assuming you’ve got a couple skills you could maybe reach for. One thing that I think is helpful is to actually zoom out yourself and sort of say, is my child saying I’m dumb because they’re really frustrated and that statement is a lava statement. The words are not actually about the words, but just sort of expressing, emoting a level of frustration and that’s just the form it took. Or is this coming at a moment when your kid is actually very regulated and you’re having a conversation about this with them and they’re confiding in you that this is how they’re really feeling.

(07:51):

There’s a subtle difference to I’m dumb as a lava statement versus I’m dumb. This is just the way I see myself. And so kind of understanding if it is lava, if your kid’s just so frustrated and they’re like, ah, I can’t do this. Oh, I’m so dumb. That is qualitatively a different, I would approach helping my kid process that and troubleshoot that in a different way than I would if they’re feeling very sad and low and they’re communicating a different thing when they’re saying, this is my internalized narrative about myself. I really don’t think I am smart. I really do think that I am a dumb kid who will never be able to do this.

Dr. Rebecca (08:44):

Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, I know what you’re saying is more complicated than this, but it’s also, it’s not just about the word. It’s about understanding the context and the emotion, responding accordingly. I mean, I absolutely agree. Those are different things. Is it also provocative? Is it your child’s way of saying, which I’ve definitely seen, mommy, can you help me? Because if they’re just sitting there being like, I hate my homework, I hate my homework. You might sort of say, I know homework is hard, but you have to do it. And then they’re like, I’m dumb, and you actually put your phone down and you go sit next to them and you try to help them through it, and that’s okay again. But it’s just again, what is their internal narrative? What is lava and what is their bid for your help?

Dr. Sarah (09:32):

Yeah. Another thing to go back to what you were saying, you were sort of dismissing your really good suggestion of ways to talk about this with your kid is like, oh, this is a afterschool special. We’ll never ever get my kid. And you’re totally right. I was like, parents will be like, oh sure. My kid is never going to listen through that entire monologue about how to help them reframe it. And my counter to that is you can break that conversation up and sprinkle it in over many, many, many conversations and it can really have a lot of utility and value when you do it that way because a lot of kids can’t tolerate, especially if the conversation and the sort of teaching that you’re trying to do in that moment is touching, shining a light on a space that the child feels shame around.

(10:33):

I’m bad at reading and everyone else seems like they’re really good at it and I’m ashamed that I feel dumb and feel less capable than my peers, then it’s going to be a lot lower threshold for becoming overwhelmed by that. And the more we put attention on it and talk about it and shine a light on it, the more they’re going to feel the shame and want to shut it down. Just know that’s a normal response. When we’re trying to engage our child in a conversation about something that we’re not shaming them about, but that they feel some organic shame around. They might not tolerate a lot of talking with us about it, and that’s totally okay, but they might be able to tolerate a drop, a drop here, a drop there. And the more we can start to find different inroads into what we’re trying to help them build, which is to your point, what is smart and dumb mean?

(11:35):

That’s a concept. We could pull that one, we could isolate that one concept from that monologue or dialogue and put that into a different conversation at another time. So you are building that baseline of that language around that idea. And then at another time something might happen where they say, I’m feeling really dumb or frustrated. And you could say, oh, remember that time we were having that conversation about smart and dumb? Is this kind of like that? Could we think of this as a time where, and to go back to what you were sort of describing of if you plant seeds along the way outside of these painful moments, you can draw upon them a little more easily without it being like, now I have to introduce a concept to you and also teach you how to use a skill and help you challenge a thought about yourself all in the same conversation and have you stay with me while I do it while you’re feeling ashamed because we have to touch this sensitive spot to do that. It’s harder. So breaking it up into little bits and just kind of infusing life with some of these ideas can be helpful.

Dr. Rebecca (12:52):

And I think that’s one of the things that occurs to me as you’re talking is also how easy it is as a parent. If you hear your child say something like that, it’s almost like things go into slowmo and your ears start ringing and all of the baggage that you carry with, oh my gosh, my daughter’s now one of those kids whose self-image is suffering and what does that mean? And she’s going to be a girl who thinks less of herself. It’s like, we’ve read so much about this and it can take on these giant proportions. It’s also okay as this is why it occurred, to slow it down and just know this is one moment in time where they’re saying this, this is a lifelong conversation about self-image and how we think of ourselves and planting seeds or however we want to think about it is going to be more effective than like, oh gosh, I have to sit down and have the be all end all conversation that allows her to think of herself as an intelligent woman from today, forever. These things are dynamic and they shift and they change. And I think as a parent you could also say something like, I’m so glad you said that out loud where I could hear you. It’s really nice to know how you feel and just leave it at that it. There’s so many ways to go with it in terms of if you are able in that moment not to kind of panic and let that drive your interaction

Dr. Sarah (14:34):

And to trust, I can come back to this moment. I can come back to this moment many, many times. My mind is so visual. I’m like, this is a moment in time that you are dropping an anchor here for yourself and you want to be able to stay anchored to this moment in time. As the parent, I want to come back to this. I know I need to come back to this moment, but I don’t have to do it right this second right now. I just have to remember I’d had to drop an anchor here. And then that allows me to tie threads back to this and other moments in our life so that I can build this network of entry points for my kid so that we can come back to these ideas about what it means to be smart or stupid, what it means to be confident that we can do hard things, what it means to be good at some stuff and not good at other things.

(15:36):

What it means to maybe have a learning disability or have a brain that works in a different way one day. Because if down the road you get a diagnosis that your kid has dyslexia or something, you saw this and you did the early interventions and you found out what might be going on, then you have this anchor that you can trace back and be like, remember that time in first grade when learning? You said to me how you felt dumb because you didn’t know how to read this thing in school, and now we found out that your brain works in a different way and how much that might help you to give yourself a little bit of grace, that it was hard then and you’re not actually dumb, but you are very, very capable and your brain learns in a different way than maybe your teachers were working to teach you reading. And now we know this so we can work with your brain to learn reading. But it’s like you can come back to it. You can always come back to this. Our kids don’t forget these moments. And even if they don’t remember the exact thing they remember, a part of them remembers.

Dr. Rebecca (16:47):

And another thing I just want to say about this as we’ve kind of talked about how triggering this can be for parents is to be aware of how that can sometimes manifest as overtalking something. So we may hear our child say something like this and we go to a place of I need to explore it with them and I need to plant the seeds and I need to bring it up tomorrow and then maybe next week. And as you said, the metaphor about an anchor, it’s an anchor and I’m going to keep coming back to it. And actually that’s a sign of our own dysregulation around it. Our kid may be over it. They’ve started to learn to read. And so again, as always, not that we really need to say this on this podcast, but it’s being attuned to your kid. What is your stuff?

(17:32):

What is your kid’s stuff? And can you be in the present moment and see if this is still a resonant issue? I would argue that for, I think this person was a girl, for girls feeling self-confident academically and boys actually having just read, boy, mom, it is the idea of self-image and sense of self and confidence is always kind of worth bringing up when you can in some way. But the extent to which you want to tie it specifically to this comment or this incident may have more to do with the way it affected you than how much it affected your kid. And just to be aware of that.

Dr. Sarah (18:13):

Right. No, that is a very good point I think because it’s hard. It’s on the one hand, we are telling you talk about this a lot come in and out of these conversations versus trying to as an antidote to trying to have a really long conversation with a child who might be, get away from me on this. I don’t want to talk about it. But at the same time, if your child isn’t really struggling as much as you are struggling with this, then us constantly bringing it up can really shine a light on something that they might think, we think this is a really big problem, and that’s why we keep having to come back to it. So yes, I think we want to be mindful of not creating a narrative that this is a huge problem, which is why we keep coming back to it while also being willing to come back to it without it looking as though we’re trying to solve a problem. If the goal is for you to not feel dumb and to get out of this feeling, then me constantly bringing it up is not going to probably help with that very much. But if my goal is to normalize challenging emotions and saying, we can talk about it now, we might talk about it another time, and if my kid’s receptive to it, just giving them space to not have to have it all happen all at once, I think gets slightly different. Right.

Dr. Rebecca (19:48):

Yeah. No, I think that’s very well said.

Dr. Sarah (19:51):

And one other thing just to come full circle to factual question that she wrote in, how can I help boost her confidence and make sure this doesn’t affect how she views her intelligence? One to what we were just saying, you can do this over time, but also I think a big way to help boost her confidence and help her have a good view of her intelligence is for you to really, truly internally feel confident in her. It’s really hard when your kid is objectively struggling with something, right? If they are not able to read at the level of their grade level or if there’s another thing that’s objectively getting in their way, that we sometimes as parents can start to panic or lose confidence or even unconsciously have our view of their intelligence shift. And so to perhaps be mindful of that, and again, not necessarily in the moment, you don’t have to prove to her in the moment that she’s saying this, that you do view her as intelligent, but to kind of in the outside moments in life, be checking ourselves and our own biases against what defines intelligence. I bet. I mean, I certainly do this, and I don’t probably mean to, but I’m sure I’m making comments in my life in front of my children on my, if someone makes an error, if I’m driving and someone cuts me off or does something, I might say, oh, they’re so stupid, or That was so dumb of ’em. I use intelligence as a way of passing judgment. Or those might be things to start to pay attention to as well.

(21:42):

How are we defining intelligence, not just in our words, but in our actions and our behaviors and looking at our values and how we communicate around that stuff. Does that make sense at all?

Dr. Rebecca (21:53):

Yeah, it does. And I think to me, it goes back to that I don’t actually think the conversation about what is smart and what is dumb is an obvious conversation.

(22:05):

You know what I mean? So to me, it goes back to having that conversation, which I think could be a really thought provoking conversation for us as well as our kids. I don’t think there’s an obvious answer that I’m waiting for them to come to. I think it really is an interesting question. What if you are incredibly intellectual and a lot about a lot of things and you keep making really dumb driving decisions? And I think where I would hope any of the conversations would lead either the ones we’re having with our kids or internally with ourselves, is just more of an understanding and therefore, hopefully a demonstration and a modeling that people are complicated and that there’s often not one word that describes a person in every way and every context. And to me, that would be the bias that I would want to bring to light and make an awareness of. We talk about being a kind person a lot with young kids. We want to be a kind person. Okay, well, we can be a kind person who once in a while doesn’t mean thing because we messed up or we were in a bad mood or you know what I mean? I just think that level of nuance is always going to be valuable for our kids, and I don’t think it’s obvious what intelligence is per se, and absolutely, let’s dismantle some of our biases and have conversations about it.

Dr. Sarah (23:34):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you were talking about that, it made me think of Inside Out too. Have you seen it yet?

Dr. Rebecca (23:40):

Not yet.

Dr. Sarah (23:42):

Have you seen the first one?

Dr. Rebecca (23:43):

Yes.

Dr. Sarah (23:44):

So first of all, I’m like, okay, inside out one and two, but especially two, although I think you kind of need to see them both for it to make as much sense as it does should be mandatory viewing, in my opinion, for kids and parents and teachers, because I just think it really gets at what we’re talking about, which is we are not defined by behavior or equality, right? Intelligent or not intelligent or kind or not kind or whatever. We have all of these emotional states that can show up, can take over the control board at different times. I think that movie gets exactly at this idea that there’s a lot of things that factor into how we end up showing up.

Dr. Rebecca (24:47):

And I think those conversations to have with our kids, those are the most important. Maybe we just tell this listener to go watch Inside Out 2.

Dr. Sarah (24:58):

Yeah. All right. Done. Go. We can let Pixar give us a royalty or something.

Dr. Rebecca (25:02):

Yes, sometimes I want to say, I’m tired. I’m going to let Pixar take over.

Dr. Sarah (25:06):

Yep. I went with my kids last week and I was crying the whole time. I think I looked over and my 6-year-old son, I’m pretty sure he was tearing up and I was like, dang, that is amazing and so cute. And also this is a moving movie.

Dr. Rebecca (25:25):

I can’t wait to see it.

Dr. Sarah (25:26):

Yeah, it’s really good. We should actually do an episode breaking it down. I think that that’s maybe in the future. Guys, stay tuned. All right. Talk to you very soon.

Dr. Rebecca (25:40):

Have a good one.

Dr. Sarah (25:43):Thank you so much for listening. As you can hear, parenting is not one size fits all. It’s nuanced and it’s complicated. So I really hope that this series where we’re answering your questions really helps you to cut through some of the noise and find out what works best for you and your unique child. If you have a burning parenting question, something you’re struggling to navigate or a topic you really want us to shed light on or share research about, we want to know, go to drsarahbren.com/question to send in anything that you want, Rebecca, Emily, and me to answer in Securely Attached: Beyond the Sessions. That’s drsarahbren.com/question. And check back for a brand new securely attached next Tuesday. And until then, don’t be a stranger.