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. We are back with Beyond the Sessions. Rebecca Hershberg is here.

Dr. Rebecca (00:49):

Hi.

Dr. Sarah (00:49):

How are you doing?

Dr. Rebecca (00:50):

I’m doing well, thanks. How are you doing?

Dr. Sarah (00:54):

I’m doing all right. I’m doing all right. I have a question for you from a listener.

Dr. Rebecca (00:59):

Oh, fantastic.

Dr. Sarah (00:59):

For us, I should say.

Dr. Rebecca (01:01):

Let’s bring it on.

Dr. Sarah (01:03):

Okay, so this woman writes in. She says, hi, love your podcast. Thank you for everything you do. I have a question I was hoping you could answer on the show. My husband and I had a huge fight in front of our kids the other day. It got really intense, nothing physical, but we were screaming at each other. And I know it must have been scary for them to watch. We don’t usually lose our tempers like that. So now I’m really worried. How do we help them understand what happened and is there anything we can do to make sure it doesn’t leave a lasting mark? They are two and six years old. Oh man. Sorry. You had a big fight. That’s tough.

Dr. Rebecca (01:40):

Yeah, I know.

Dr. Sarah (01:41):

And clearly you’ve been holding a lot of feelings about the impact of that for your kids since it happened too, which is also really hard.

Dr. Rebecca (01:48):

Yeah, it’s interesting listening to this. There’s two different scenarios I’m picturing that would be different. One is, I’m trying to say this in a succinct way, knowing I’m being hyperbolic, but one is a happy, healthy couple and family that got in a really big fight and one is a stressed, unhappy, continual conflict family when there was a big fight. I guess because those are really different scenarios. I guess maybe it’s more the first, because she talked about how unusual it is. I don’t know.

Dr. Sarah (02:32):

But since people are listening who might have both types of situations, I feel like we could answer the question from both lenses. We can just kind of, because I do agree with you. I think they are distinct and they, especially in the context of the question is how do we help our kids understand what happens and help to prevent this having a lasting mark? And if this is a one-off and it’s really unusual, one, that means that those kids aren’t going to have a framework for what this means and could fill in a lot of the blanks. And so that’s where I would start. But if you are in a conflictual relationship that has a lot of fights and has a lot of tension, even if it’s not always explosive, but there’s this sort of tense, that’s what I was going to say, energy that’s always happening for those kids.

(03:23):

Actually, again, you still want to help them fill in the blanks, but I think we’re filling in a different blank, which is you’ve been noticing that a lot. This has been going on for a while. This thing that you, yes, we saw this fight, but really this fight is pointing to a larger tension that I feel like we also want to name for our kids. Like, Hey, I’ve been feeling this and I think you’ve been feeling it too, and I just want to name that you’re right. There is that tension. You’re feeling it. We can keep going and probably talk about how it would help contain that for a kid and create a narrative they can understand around it. But again, are we talking about a single explosive fight that they’ve never really seen that kind of thing before and it kind of just shook ’em up? Or are we talking about a like, oh, my kid is probably feeling confused about a different degree of conflict.

Dr. Rebecca (04:18):

And you said two things that I think are where we start. You already said name it and help create a narrative. And I think those are just two different narratives, but the task and the importance of creating a narrative is important regardless. I mean, I think when I meet with families and they report something like this, often the instinct is we’re not going to talk about it. We’re going to pretend we’re going to move on. We’re going to pretend to happen. And as we’ve said many times on this podcast, and I imagine if this listener is a regular listener, they know this, but that’s out of our own discomfort and pretty much never what’s healthiest for kids. Kids do much better when you just name what’s real name, what’s happening. And so having a conversation, I mean, if anything, you say, Hey, so I wonder if you overheard Daddy and me fighting the other night, let’s say to this 6-year-old.

(05:19):

We can talk about the 2-year-old in a minute. They may say no. And then it’s sort of like, oh, okay. And then you just have a very quick thing, well, just in case you did dah, dah, dah, dah. But I think parents often want to assume that their kids didn’t hear or wouldn’t be impacted because it’s easier then they don’t have to talk about it. But I think it’s almost always preferable to talk about it. And I think just naming it, saying exactly something like that. Hey, so last night or last week, I know I haven’t said anything to you yet, but I think you overheard right when Daddy and I really started screaming at each other in the kitchen, and then you give a narrative that makes sense in the context of your family. Dad and I were both really angry, and you can say we love each other very much.

(06:08):

I mean, again, it’s hard to know without, but we love each other very much and we got really, really angry and we yelled and we raised our voices, and I wonder if it was scary for you again, pause, wait, see what the response is, and then the reassurance piece, whether it’s dad, and it turns out we could not agree on that. That’s why we were fighting so much about it. And then we realized we got through it. We made up research shows that when kids witness fights between, I think it’s Cummings and Davies, I can’t believe I remember that, but my dissertation had some to do with it or my pre whatever. Leave that resume. When kids see the resolution, it’s tremendously healthy. So there’s a few things that can to this parent’s question, to this listener’s question that can interrupt a potential negative impact of seeing parental conflict.

(07:15):

It can really be detrimental for kids if they see, and again, that’s parental conflict over time, and you have to look at frequency and intensity and all that. And this person is saying it was one fight and it wasn’t physical. And so we’re already kind of doing okay by those benchmarks. But I think one of the things that research shows is can the kids see the resolution? Can the kids see that you find a place of compromise or agree to disagree, kiss and make up anyway? Can they bear witness to a peaceful resolution? And that has a lot to do with child outcomes.

Dr. Sarah (07:56):

And to be clear, it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the moment. Your kid might observe the fighting and not observe the resolution, or maybe there isn’t a complete resolution and then you’ve cooled off, your partner’s cooled off. You’re going to address this with your kid. The idea of resolution can be, I made sense of this. I have resolution. I can understand why me and daddy were fighting. I’m going to help you understand it, and we are okay. Now. That’s also resolution.

Dr. Rebecca (08:32):

Right, it’s we’re okay now. Resolution doesn’t matter if you were like, we agree, we’re never seeing your mother again, doesn’t the content doesn’t matter. Resolution just means that we are okay now.

(08:47):

And can you name that for the kid? And then can the kids see that you’re okay now? See, daddy and I are cooking pancakes together right now and I’m going to give him a kiss. That sort of thing. It’s also okay to say to your kid, and we’re still kind of angry, we still are kind of angry. We can’t seem to agree on this, and we both love you so much and it’s not your fault. And I mean, I guess that’s more of the other narrative. If it’s ongoing tension, there’s so many. I’m finding myself, I have in a cartoon, so many bubbles going off in my head.

Dr. Sarah (09:26):

I know. Well, because hard if we don’t have all the information. We’re trying to think of every possible scenario where this could happen.

Dr. Rebecca (09:34):

And then I’m like, oh, but if I said this, that would’ve been the exact wrong thing to say with these clients, would’ve been, I’m just getting stuck in, I’m getting stuck in the details. So maybe you can help us pan out.

Dr. Sarah (09:43):

Right, but let’s zoom back out because here’s what I’m thinking too. And again, anybody listening who’s trying to figure out how to address conflict that happens between grownups and explain it to their kids in a way that promotes this sense of containment, narrative resolution, I can make sense of this. That’s kind of the thing. It’s a template. You’re going to have to plug in the unique details, but the goal is ultimately to help your child make sense of what happened in a way that preserves their sense of safety with you and preserves their sense of people can get upset and come back together, but also you’re separate from this.

(10:36):

The grownups have, this is another piece that we really didn’t talk about yet, which is really helping. Yes, we want to help our child make sense of what happened. And also that means just making sense of their feelings of what happened, like, oh, that might’ve felt scary for you. You are safe and we are safe and everything is okay. The fight is over. And also not having our kid feel in any way that they’re responsible for taking care of that at all. The grownups have this. You don’t have to worry. We’re always going to figure this out. Even again, maybe that figuring it out isn’t…

Dr. Rebecca (11:16):

Living happily ever after.

Dr. Sarah (11:17):

Living happily ever after together. If it is, I’m really just helping. My intention is to live happily ever after with this person I just had to fight with and I just need my kid to kind of understand. We all get mad sometimes and say things we don’t mean in the moment. That’s another thing I often do when I get really my husband and I have had fights in front of our kids, and what I will often say to my kids is I try to help orient them to their own similar experience. How sometimes when you just get so mad and stuff just flies out of your mouth because you’re mad, not because you mean it, it’s just lava. That happened the other night with me and dad. I was just so frustrated and all this lava came out of my mouth and I don’t mean any of it.

(12:01):

I just was mad. That feeling. Do you know how that can happen sometimes? And so what I did was when I was cooled off, when I finally was able to not feel so mad, I said I was sorry. And I just made sure that if I hurt dad’s feelings when I said that lava, that he knew that I didn’t mean it. And you’re just modeling repair that kids do this too. Kids definitely know what it’s like to say a bunch of stuff when they’re mad that they don’t mean, and so they can relate to that. And that I think helps them understand, oh, this is like, I know I do this too, and I always kind of am okay afterwards and I can fix these relationships after that happens. And relationships are fixable, repair is possible after rupture, that’s really valuable.

Dr. Rebecca (12:54):

And that all the feelings are okay that it’s okay to get angry at the people you love. The inverse is true too. People who love each other, you sometimes get the most angry with people you love the most. They’re always here. Dad’s always here. I feel so safe with dad. Dad’s always here. And so sometimes when I’m really, really mad and my lava needs a place to go, it goes on dad. And so sometimes our family see that the most and then we can repair. So I think all of those are really important messages. I just want to highlight a point that I think sometimes gets missed. I think this listener, how old did you say? The kids are six and two.

Dr. Sarah (13:39):

They have a 2-year-old and a 6-year-old.

Dr. Rebecca (13:42):

So the 2-year-old. So I used to work just a quick side note in, I dunno, some people may know, but I worked at Montefiore Medical Center in a program called HealthySteps, which is for sort of high risk families. And there was a lot of trauma in these families, and a lot of times they would end up in the hospital in the middle of the night, let’s say after a fire or after an abuse situation or just a lot of stuff. And one of the parts of my job was teaching medical residents like pediatricians and ER doctors, how to interface with those families when they came in. And almost to a person, people would say, well, I would start with the older kids because the younger kids probably didn’t know what had happened or didn’t understand what had happened. And it’s actually really counterintuitive that the opposite is true, right?

(14:28):

Because sometimes we think that because kids don’t have expressive language or even receptive language, that they are not aware of what’s happening around them. That is certainly true perhaps from a content perspective, but from a nervous system perspective, those young kids, their brains are much sgi, they’re much more plastic, they’re much spongy. And so it’s really important to reassure those kids after something, parent conflict, trauma, whatever. And again, we don’t know whether this fight that this listener is describing is in the trauma category or not. It may not be that you’re saying all these things to your kids, to the young kids using that language, but you are picking them up, you are rocking them, you are holding them. You’re saying, look, we’re okay. Look, we were yelling and now we’re being quiet again. They may not get the meaning, but their experience of having you hold them and being safe in your arms and you being back to being a safe regulated person, they need that to co-regulate with you. Even if cognitively they don’t have any understanding of what happened.

Dr. Sarah (15:39):

And this is true for infants even, I know this kid, their youngest is too, you probably could do a little bit of language-based communicate like a language-based co-regulation with them. But yeah, for two even, and certainly younger physiological regulation, co-regulation is going to be so important. Even for a 6-year-old. I honestly, I think that that physiological co-regulation is undervalued in the older kids. We think we could just talk it through with them. And I actually think that if you have a 6-year-old who you’re explaining this to and can tolerate it, because not all kids are cod in the same way, but offering maybe to hold their hand while you’re not even like, can I hold your hand while I tell you? But just actually using some touch as you have this conversation, inviting them to sit on your lap or even just placing a hand on their shoulder.

Dr. Rebecca (16:40):

Helping their nervous system slow down like you said it before, and I just want to highlight it. I think you said it in passing, but even saying something like, we were yelling so loud before and listen, listen, right now, it’s quiet. Take a moment and notice the quiet, right? Because when you’re in that fight or flight following a conflict like that, or even if you’re not still in it actively because a couple days later, it’s like you actually have to guide your nervous system to notice the safety. And that’s something that even a 6-year-old needs, you can explain that a kid is safe, but if you’re doing it in kind of a fast and pressured kind of way, they’re not going to feel it. They have to feel it. So when you have these conversations with your kids, no matter the age, you’re speaking slowly and softly and pausing and helping their whole bodies notice that they’re safe.

Dr. Sarah (17:39):

Yeah, that’s so important.

Dr. Rebecca (17:41):

I just remember ER docs who were like, yeah, we get the babies and the baby’s like we just figure out later. It’s like, no, no.

Dr. Sarah (17:49):

Yeah, their bodies are holding it. They’re going to let their bodies let it go.

Dr. Rebecca (17:53):

Yeah. Great question though.

Dr. Sarah (17:56):

Yeah, and I think, I don’t know. My hope is if someone wants to have a takeaway from this episode that I think is really, that I really want to make sure you pay attention to is this idea of there is the goal here. No matter what the situation is, to help your child reestablish a sense of safety in relationship to you in relationship within the family system and in their body. It’s all about kind of bringing it back to safety.

Dr. Rebecca (18:30):

Safety and regulation. Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (18:33):

Yep. Alright. I hope this was helpful and thank you for listening and sending in your question. And yeah, if you guys are liking this podcast, if you get anything useful out of it, I would deeply appreciate it if you left a review and a rating wherever you listen to your podcasts. It means a lot. It really helps us keep this podcast going so we can keep answering your questions. And we love you. We’ll talk to you soon.

Dr. Rebecca (19:05):

Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Sarah (19:08):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.