316. Self-compassion, critical thinking, and connection: What the research reveals about raising capable kids with Melinda Wenner Moyer

Melinda (00:00):

It’s also about helping your kid recognize that if they’re feeling bad, even if they feel like it’s their fault, that they’re feeling bad about something, that they still deserve to do whatever it takes to make themselves feel better. Whether that’s asking for a hug or having a snuggle, whatever it is that makes your kid feel better, you deserve that. If you’re feeling bad, no matter the reason. You deserve to make yourself feel better.

Dr. Sarah (00:30):

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by the pressure to get everything right as a parent, you are definitely not alone. With nonstop headlines and overload of parenting advice and our own inner critics always chiming in, it’s no surprise that parental anxiety is at an all time high. That is why I’m so glad to welcome back Melinda Wenner Moyer to the securely attached podcast. She’s here to talk about her newest book, Hello, cruel World: Science-Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times, and the research she’s uncovered about what really helps children thrive in the midst of it all. In this episode, we explore three recurring themes she found popping up over and over again in her research, how to help kids feel seen and heard in a way that truly resonates and a simple but powerful question that you can ask to help your child reflect and build confidence in their own decision-making. Plus we dig into the science of self-compassion and spoiler. If we want our kids to be kind to themselves, we have to model that kindness toward ourselves too. This conversation is packed with practical evidence-based strategies and the kind of grounded clarity that can help you tune out the noise and reconnect with what really matters in parenting.

(01:51):

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.

(02:20):

Hello, we have a welcome back guest. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. We have Melinda Wenner Moyer here. Thank you.

Melinda (02:32):

Hi, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me again.

Dr. Sarah (02:35):

Yes. I just re-listened to our last conversation and oh my God, it was so fun talking with you and I’m so excited to dive into this next episode version.

Melinda (02:50):

Well, thank you. Yeah, I know we had a great conversation last time.

Dr. Sarah (02:56):

Yeah, so you sort of teased this in the last episode that you were working on a book that was going to come out and it is now out. And so can you tell us a little bit about Hello Cruel World and what you wanted to give parents in this book?

Melinda (03:15):

Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, in all honesty, part of it is rooted in my own anxiety as a parent. I feel like over, I don’t know, over the past five to 10 years, I’ve just become more and more nervous about the world that I’m raising my kids in and bringing, introducing my kids to and thinking about it seems like there’s a lot of rapid change. There’s a lot of things that we’re dealing with, a lot of turmoil, a lot of disinformation, just a lot of things that feel out of our control that our kids are now growing up in this world I’m going to be having to deal with day after day. And so I got more and more stressed. I was sensing and hearing from the readers of my newsletter, my substack newsletter, that they are also, they were like, we don’t know what to do to prepare our kids for this really kind of seemingly scary world. And so I am very much, when I get scared and anxious, I turn to research. And so I said, okay, maybe there is something I could do. Maybe I can dig into what are the key skills that kids really need to have to be able to survive and thrive in a complicated world, and maybe I can look into how these develop and why they’re important and then give actionable tips for parents on what we know from the science can help these kids develop these crucial skills.

(04:44):

So that’s essentially what I did for this book. I read thousands of studies. I talked to dozens of researchers and child development experts, and it’s really like a roadmap or a toolkit where each chapter represents a different skill or attribute that researchers say is really crucial for kids to develop. And then I talk about what do we know about how it develops? What can we do to nudge it in the right direction? And the whole goal is just to give parents a sense of control. And yes, I’ve got this, I have a toolkit here. There are concrete things I can do that aren’t actually that difficult to help my kids grow into adults who can handle this world.

Dr. Sarah (05:23):

I love that. And I feel, I think if people are just coming into this conversation and haven’t listened to the first episode we did, I’ll link it because it’s really helpful to go back because what I think you do so beautifully in your book and both books is that you are like, I say this as a fellow geek on research, but you really do a deep dive and then you translate it for anybody can understand it. It’s so easy to see what the takeaways are, but also I feel like what that gives parents is kind of like a distilling all the noise and saying, okay, yes, there are a ton of things that make us anxious right now. There are a lot of things out of our control. There’s a lot of unknowns, there’s a lot of stuff that is coming at us constantly generating threat responses in us. And so how do you sift through that and decide what do I want to pay attention to and what do I want to put aside? Otherwise, you’re just going to be constantly pushing through an overgrown path of bramble, and it’s like, no, we need a machete and we just need to cut a path and just be like, I can’t control this stuff, but I can control something. So what can I walk down this path and focus on?

Melinda (06:44):

Yes, absolutely. And what’s so interesting too, is when I started reporting it and I knew I was going to dig into these 10 skills, I did have this fear that what if the things that we should do as a parent to nurture resilience, conflict with the things that we should do to nurture empathy, and what if the advice is all over the place and just contradictory and what am I going to do? And then I actually found what you just described the opposite, which is that there were these themes that emerged that were very broad and that were in common that turns out a lot of the things that help our kids build resilience also help them build empathy and other skills too. And so it felt like it was clearing away all this noise and all these details ended up falling into these larger patterns, which was so reassuring because it was like, oh, okay, actually in so many ways, in some ways, less is more as a parent doing less is more. And then also just there aren’t all these, we don’t have to remember all these specific details in order to do to be a good parent. It’s really about the bigger picture.

Dr. Sarah (07:49):

No, it’s so true. It’s so funny because like human beings, we are so smart and so capable as a species, and yet we have one super bad habit of just overcomplicating everything. And if you zoom out and you think about what is the function of child rearing and parenting, it’s to raise the next generation and propel our species in the most optimal survival oriented way.

(08:25):

And if we look at other mammals, especially mammals that have very similar attachment systems to us, they’re not really freaking out about all these little things. And obviously some of that is because they have less complex prefrontal cortexes than we do. Their brains aren’t as complex as ours. But that complex brain also adds complexity to our systems and our anxieties and our rule books. And it’s like, I’m not surprised, actually that you found that when you kind of pair out the noise and you say, what is the research? If you look at tomes of research and you find simplified common threads that overlap that all point in the same direction, chances are they’re probably rooted in similar patterns and behaviors that you see in other mammals approach to parenting. We just need to get back to basics.

Melinda (09:19):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (09:21):

We already know humans know how to do this, we’re wired for it. We are, and our kids are wired to receive it. I dunno. I dunno why I just thought of that, but I was like, this is like, yeah, we get in our own way with our smart brains sometimes.

Melinda (09:37):

No, we absolutely do. We absolutely do. And yeah, it really helps to look at the big picture and think about, as you said, what is our overarching goal as parents? It’s like, we want to raise adults who can function in this world. And when we kind of focus on that and not on all the minutia of the day and of what you’re being told on social media that you should do it, all the scary messaging you’re getting, if you just pull back and think about that, it’s just so helpful.

Dr. Sarah (10:03):

Yeah. So what were some of these themes that emerged? What did you find was really orienting in the patterns?

Melinda (10:10):

Yeah, so yeah, I am just trying to think about how best to explain it. But I will say there’s three themes that I end up emphasizing throughout the book that I just kept seeing over and over again, prepare more than you protect. And this is about how we engage with our kids, how much we hover, how much we sort of let our kids experience challenges and failures and discomfort, and the value of doing that and how it actually prepares kids to, you know, because when kids go through challenging moments or discomfort, this is when they practice using coping skills. This is when they learn about their feelings. This is when they figure out how to manage their feelings and they over time develop the coping skills that they will need that will help keep them mentally healthy and able to cope with whatever the world throws at them. And so it’s a lot of that part of the book is really getting into what is helicopter parenting? What does it do? Why is it not always helpful? Why is it good sometimes for us to step back and let our kids be independent? I also have another theme is comfort more than You Tried. And this is really about how we engage with our kids’ feelings and how our instincts sometimes to correct, immediately to dismiss, to also interpret our kids’ behavior as like, oh, they’re doing this on purpose to make me mad, or they’re trying, they’re not cleaning their room because they are trying to defy me rather than, oh, they’re just very curious and they got distracted by something.

(11:51):

They saw a spider that was really cool. So it’s like helping parents interpret kids’ behavior and also how to respond to kids’ emotions and behaviors. And then the third one is listen more than You lecture. And there is just a really fascinating area of research on the power of truly listening to kids and ensuring that they feel heard and respected and valued and what that does for not just their self-esteem and self-concept, but also it is a way of promoting open-mindedness. And I talk a lot about polarization in the book, how does it develop, how do we prevent it? And actually feeling heard and feeling listened to is a way to combat the development of polarization, which is really fascinating. So I talk about some of that research as well, and just the value of really truly respecting what our kids have to say and being curious about them.

Dr. Sarah (12:47):

Ooh, can we dig into that one a little bit? That to me feels like, I think parents probably know, the parents that listen to this podcast have probably heard me and you and other guests talk about this idea that we need to give them chances to take risks. We need to help them make mistakes and find the struggle. We know that’s how we build resilience and grit and growth mindset. It’s hard in the moment, but I think that’s something that hopefully a lot of parents are starting to internalize as part of their goal. But the feeling listened to part, I know parents definitely know that they want to listen to their kids and that they want to feel heard too because humans really thrive in that conditioning. But it is probably one of the questions I get asked the most when I like, how do you do that?

(13:48):

What does that look like? Because I feel like I’m listening to my kid and they’re not listening to me. And in that question, is this other sort of clue for parents asking that is like, ah, that’s not listening. If you are listening to them as a way of waiting for your turn to insert your agenda and you don’t feel that reciprocal, I listen to you now. You need to listen to me. One, our kids are not developmentally at the same level as us. We have this not bi-directional relationship. We have an relationship, an appropriately imbalanced relationship in that way where our skills are greater than their skills. But also I think we’re really, don’t think a lot of adult parents of our generation grew up in an environment where adults listened to kids, so we didn’t get that modeled to us. And actually, as much as we want to listen to our kids, we don’t actually know how that well.

Melinda (14:48):

Yeah, it’s really true. It’s really true. And I think it is hard because I think also we constantly think of ourselves as being in teaching mode with our kids and they say something and it’s like, oh, this is an opportunity to teach them a lesson about something. Or they say something that grates against you, or you’re like, oh, that sounds a little bit sexist, or a little bit not empathetic. And then you immediately want to jump in with a lesson of like, well, here’s what you should say, or Listen, kid, that sounds a little off and let me insert my opinion in. And I think it’s really, really hard for us to pause that, to turn that off, and to actually just be curious about what our kids are saying, even if it is something that we don’t totally agree with or we’re like, Ooh, that could use some refining to just wait before we offer our opinion and really ask more questions and engage and be curious and be open-minded ourselves and try to learn.

(15:56):

There’s so many different ways in which this is helpful. I mean, first of all, by just asking our kids questions and being curious. We’re modeling a curious mindset, which is so important. If we want our kids to be curious, they’re observing us, and we know that when kids see parents being curious and responding in a curious way, that encourages them to be more curious. It also, it gives us an opportunity to learn and understand more about where our kids are coming from. If they do say something that we’re confused by, ask questions, try to understand more, and we might find that their opinion is not so zany after all, and maybe they have a point. There was a conversation I had with my son, he’s a teenager, so he’s 14, but he said something at some point about a movie we were watching, and I remember being so offended by what he said at first and wanting to jump down his throat. It seemed really sexist. And then I was like, okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. I asked him a few questions and then he gave me this explanation and I was like, oh, that’s actually a really thoughtful, interesting explanation. And it turns out my assumptions were kind of wrong. So that was really helpful. Sorry, I feel like I’m going on a little, I’m just going on and on.

Dr. Sarah (17:13):

No, you’re making my mind turn like, oh, we think so. Okay. This is what I’ll tell you where my head is going. So I was having this thought as you were talking. I’m like, okay, why do we as parents get there faster and then get there sometimes to the wrong conclusion? And part of it is that one, our processing speed is a lot faster than our kids. So as they’re talking something out and then we have already gone five steps ahead and they haven’t caught up to us, and so if we want, we’ve already got our agenda, but then I was like, so why do we have such a fast jump to why do we go there? Our internalized, we’ve internalized so much pressure as parents that our job is to produce kids that don’t embarrass us, that we can feel like we’re doing the right a good job. And then I was like, oh, we are conditioned to have a fixed mindset.

(18:10):

We are a product of a much older way of teaching kids how to succeed in the world. Most parents who listen to this podcast probably have some perfectionistic qualities to them and have some achievement, have to have achievement oriented learning where they were, I was supposed to be good at this, I was supposed to. So we do that with parenting and we’ve also, we are following a set of rules as parents that we are supposed to produce these high quality children. And so instead of just being with our kid in a moment, and I’m saying this for the record as someone who also does all of these things, it’s not like I’m sitting here as zen totally tuned into my kids all the time and being super curious. Sometimes I’m like, what? What? Me too. Let me teach the right way to do it so that I don’t get embarrassed when we drop you off at school tomorrow. Don’t say that in front of other people. You know what I mean? But when we are able to separate ourselves from that and slow down and just be curious with our kids, what we’re really doing is we’re showing up from a place of our own sense of self that is not outcome driven, achievement driven, performance driven. We are disconnecting from that agenda, which is a real agenda that we probably all have, and it’s okay that it’s there, but we need to be able to notice that and turn the channel sometimes.

Melinda (19:42):

At least take a breath or two. That was something that Judas sme, I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing her name correctly, but she’s at University of Rochester and she was talking about parent-child relationships and how to build them. So they’re really strong and she’s like, parents need to sometimes just take a breath when their kid says something that they don’t agree with or they don’t like or they want to jump in and just, it’s something where you can also bring it up at another time at a different time. One point she made to me is if you kid opens up to you and then you immediately jump in with a lesson, they’re going to not want to open up to you again. They’re going to be like, oh, all mom does is she doesn’t really listen. She just wants to correct me and make me feel bad, or whatever it is.

(20:28):

Sometimes just asking more questions and staying neutral is the way to keep that door open with your kids so that they keep sharing with you and keep saying things. At this point with my son where he will sometimes be like, oh yeah, with my friends today, we went and we jumped in Hudson River and immediately I want to be like, you did what? Never. You can never do that. What are you? And then I’m like, wait. He just shared this with me about what he did with his friends, and I’m very grateful that he’s telling me still what he does with his friends at age 14. And so I was like, oh, that sounds like an adventure. And then later on I was like, let’s talk about being safe when you’re with your friends. But in the moment I was like, I need to not jump down his throat. I want him to keep telling me what he does with his friends.

Dr. Sarah (21:16):

And if he gets there on his own, if you invite him to consider the risks of jumping in the Hudson River, which as a mom who lives in New York, I’m also like, Ooh, that is a recipe for some serious diseases and maybe also drowning or whatever.

Melinda (21:39):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (21:40):

So of course you’re going to go, you’re going to have that wave of panic, but if you want him to learn that that’s not safe, kind of goes back to your point, prepare more than you connect. Wait, what was it? Prepare more than you…

Melinda (21:58):

Protect.

Dr. Sarah (21:58):

Protect. Yes. I wrote it down wrong. So I was like, that doesn’t make any sense, because they were all alliterations. There should be a P there. Okay, prepare more than you protect. Yes, you could protect him in that moment by being like, these are the things that aren’t safe and this is how you do it. Or you could listen in, insert questions that lead him to consider some critical thought processes, some problem solving, some cost benefit analysis. You can help build his reflection capacities by asking questions. And if he gets there on his own, I guarantee you it will have so much more staying power for him the next time he’s faced with an opportunity to jump in the Hudson River with his friends. I don’t promise anything that it won’t keep him from doing it because teenagers are impulsive, but he will have caught to the thinking on his own.

(22:57):

If we up our kids do the thinking on their own and come to the conclusions on their own, we can guide them. But that is so much more, it’s building so much more useful wiring for them than if we tell them what to do or what not to do or tell them why it’s dangerous. Even something as simple as saying, huh, I wonder what could have happened, invite them to consider the risks instead of telling them the risks. You’re already activating a much different part of their brain that’s going to have so much more like it’s going to penetrate and stick around a lot more effectively.

Melinda (23:40):

Yeah, absolutely. And we can do it in so many areas too, just asking kids after they’ve spent a long time on screens, so how are you feeling? How do you feel after you spent four hours on a screen and just sort of getting them to reflect on their own experiences, doing things to help them understand cause and effect. And I’m getting that by the way from, I did an event last week where they actually brought, and I know your listeners have younger kids, but I still think this is a broad lesson, but they brought teenagers on stage and they said, they asked questions of the teenagers, what did you like that your parents have done and not done and whatnot? And one kid was like, my mom always asked me to reflect on how I felt when I was using screens. And he’s like, in the moment, it wasn’t like I immediately turned off my screen and was like, you’re right, mom.

(24:34):

I feel a little bit moody when I use my screen, but he’s like, but it really got me thinking regularly about how I feel when I’m on technology, and it over time has led me to make different and better choices about how I use technology. Just she came at it with a curious question for him rather than turn off your screen. And so there really is some power in, and it’s also giving kids agency a sense of agency and respect. It’s like, I respect that you can notice this and you can make your own judgements and you can come to your own conclusions, but I’m just going to kind of give you some things to think about.

Dr. Sarah (25:10):

It’s like give a man a fish heats for a day, but teach a man a fish heats for life. We can tell our kid to turn off the screen or we could tell them that it’s not good for them and they will either fight with us or turn it off in that moment. So we’ve gotten one day done. But if we teach them to think about their internal experience and what works for them, you’re respective of screens. Just I’m building the skill of internal reflection and noticing how I feel about things. And we do that by asking them questions, but also being genuinely curious about how they feel about things and wanting to understand it better. Because when we put our attention on their internal experience, we are showing them that that’s really valuable information, and then they start to value it. You’re going to get the outcome you want. It’s just a longer path, but it’s actually a more useful outcome. If you want your kids to use less screens and engage more with their in real life experiences, you nagging them about doing that is probably not going to be the thing that results in that, just going to do it when you’re not around because you’re annoying.

(26:35):

But if you teach them how to pay attention to what feels good and what doesn’t feel good, what their goals are, what their game plan is, and not just for screen use, but for life. I talk to kids a lot about this. I work with a lot of kids in my practice who use a lot of screens and I’m like, what do you love to do? What’s your favorite stuff to do? And it definitely included that list is games, but we expand. We don’t stop there. I’m like, okay, cool. We’ll put that on the list. What else do you love to do? And we make these lists and these maps of all the things they love to do. And then we talk about, okay, well how much time do you get to do this thing? And how much time do you get to do that thing?

(27:19):

And how much time do you get to do screens? And they always have a number for the screens because there’s always some screen limit that they max out and it’s like, oh, okay, so you get to have two hours on that screen after school or on the weekend. How much time do you get for the origami project that you love that you said you love to do? Well, I don’t know. Sometimes I do this. I’m like, well, does the screens sometimes take up time to do some of these other things you love to do? Well, yeah. I’m like, are you okay with that? What of these things are important to you that you don’t want to give up? And so then they’re identifying their own interests, their own plans, their own things, that there is their agenda, and they’re recognizing that one of those agenda items is kind of hijacking space for the other ones. And then they’re super interested in creating a plan to, I’m not telling my kids I work with, you have to come up with a screen reduction plan. Never have I ever said that to any of them, and yet that’s what we’re here to do.

(28:26):

So it’s like you can have the goal. I want to be clear. We are allowed as parents to have an agenda for our kids, but let’s make it an effective agenda. And sometimes the quickest path is not the most effective path.

Melinda (28:40):

Yep, that’s very true. And that really is a big theme of my book, and it comes up in so many chapters like media literacy, oh, ask your kids questions. Who made this? Why is it being presented this way? Just get them thinking about what they are engaging with, and that reflection is so powerful. It’s just so powerful.

Dr. Sarah (29:03):

And having a say.

Melinda (29:05):

And having and feeling like they have agency, they have autonomy is so powerful. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (29:11):

They do have other interests besides screens. And screens have a really tricky way of helping them forget that because nothing feels more dopamine rich. And Len gets super wired in as, this feels super good. This is going to really reinforce my seeking out this activity. And it just starts to become really big for them. It gets wired right into the front and takes up a lot of space, but kids are not cool with that. They don’t like that. If you can help them understand that’s what’s happening, I have yet to meet a kid who says, oh, I’m cool with that. They’re not saying they don’t want to get rid of video games when I’m done with these conversations with them or they’re their phones, but they’re not okay with these devices taking up more space than they want to give them. They feel impinged upon their agency is being subverted by these devices.

(30:18):

And when kids feel like their plan A is being interrupted or thwarted, they will not be okay with that. We know that as parents, anytime you try to interrupt your kid when they’re doing something they really like to do, they don’t like that. But if agent that is thwarting the plan is the technology, they also don’t like that. They also have a problem with that. And so helping them recognize that and connect with the parts of them that are very self-protective of their own agency goes a very long way. I feel like in doing the work, helping them, helping get there on their own.

Melinda (31:01):

Yeah. Yeah. I love that approach.

Dr. Sarah (31:05):

Yeah. You talked a little bit too in this book about self-compassion, and I’m curious, frankly might sound like a tangent, but really if we’re helping kids understand we care about their agency and their interests and their plans and we’re curious about them and we’re going to help them achieve them and move towards them and not get in their way, we’re teaching them self-compassion, right? Because modeling compassion for them, and that gets internalized and helps them build. I think self-compassion is a massive predictor of a child’s ability to say, oh, no, no, no. I will not let the tech companies beat me. I value me and my time and myself and my relationships more than that. I care about myself. I feel like they’re really connected. And I’m curious what you found in researching and how do we foster that?

Melinda (32:11):

Yeah. Self-compassion is my first chapter because honestly, when I started researching it, I was like, oh, this might be like a paragraph somewhere. Does self-compassion matter that much? And then I started looking at the research and I was just blown away. There’s a lot of research on the relationship between how much self-compassion a person has and then how they do in all sorts of areas of their life. And researchers have found that teens and adults who are more self-compassionate are more resilient. They’re less anxious, they’re less depressed, they are more motivated, they are less perfectionistic. They weirdly not so they have better relationships, healthier relationships. They also are more likely to go to the doctor and take care of themselves. There’s all this crazy stuff with self-compassion. And I think also we give self-compassion a bad rap. People think of it as, oh, it’s self pity.

(33:07):

It means forgiving yourself of everything and never taking responsibility for anything. And that is not what self-compassion is. It’s actually, it’s what helps us when we’re going through a tough time, and especially when we’re blaming ourselves for something that happened. It helps us get out of that rumination and that obsession with what we did wrong and helps us accept, oh, yes, we’re imperfect. Everybody’s imperfect. This is hard. But I can get through it and I will also take steps to make myself feel better so that I can get through it. Because also, I think a lot of, there’s so much self-criticism when there’s some evolutionary interesting reasons for why we’re so critical, but it also, I mean, it really holds us back when we blame ourselves for something that happened. We feel like we’re not worthy of feeling better. Like, oh, I deserve to feel this bad because I didn’t do my homework and my teacher hates me now and I deserve to feel terrible. And so when we feel this self-critical, we don’t treat ourselves kindly and we don’t take care of ourselves and we don’t do the things that we know will make ourselves feel better, and that holds us back even more. So self-compassion is great. It’s basically the point.

Dr. Sarah (34:27):

Yeah.

Melinda (34:27):

That’s not what you asked. You asked how do we nurture it? But I just wanted to start with that because I do feel like it doesn’t get the respect that it should and the research…

Dr. Sarah (34:35):

Well, I think that’s rooted in, I don’t know, maybe at least in the States, there’s this, we are these pioneers and you pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and we are like this. We just charge forward, and there’s no time for that. And I think we’ve moved, obviously evolved from that, but I do think there’s a lot of just in our culture that’s deep. Yeah, it’s self pity or it’s self indul. Exactly. Those two words that you described, it’s indulgent to sit there and bemoan that softness of who you are. It’s like actually, it makes you very strong.

Melinda (35:19):

Yeah, it really does. The research is really compelling. So in terms of how we foster it, I mean, I think a key point that researchers made to me was like, you need to work on it in yourself as a parent in order to also be teaching it to your kids. They learn so much from what we model, and if we’re constantly cursing at ourselves for burning dinner or forgetting to pack a water bottle or whatever it is, if we’re treating ourselves really terribly in front of our kids because of the mistakes we make, they learn, oh, that’s how I should treat myself when I make a mistake. So it’s important for us to model it, but so how do we do it? There’s three components that researchers have found to really practicing self-compassion fully. And I will just touch on each of them briefly. The first one is essentially mindfulness, but I’m going to describe it in a different way.

(36:12):

I know mindfulness sometimes that term is freaks people out or seems wooey or whatever it is. It’s really noticing your feelings in the moment and recognizing that you’re having a hard time, and you can do this with your kids too. It’s like, oh, you’re having a hard time right now. This is tough. You’re feeling frustrated, whatever. You’re feeling sad, you’re feeling embarrassed, whatever it is. And what this does, it’s like you’re taking yourself or you’re helping your child pull themselves out of the circumstances and the mistake they may have made just to acknowledge this is tough. You’re having a hard time, and it’s like you’re kind of stepping outside yourself a little bit and just recognizing that I’m having these feelings, and this is a really important part of self-compassion. It just helps you sort of pull out of your rumination and pull away from your obsessive thoughts and just say, yeah, no, this is tough.

(37:05):

This is tough. The second part is what they describe as recognizing your shared humanity or the shared human experience of what you’re going through. And so this is helping you or your child recognize you’re not alone in having these struggles in making mistakes. Everybody screws up. Being human means being flawed, and also anyone who is in this situation would feel the way that you do. And so with kids this step, it can be a little tricky. It can come out with the wrong tone of voice. It can come out as a form of dismissiveness. You don’t want to say, well, everybody feels this way. It’s not a big deal. Calm down. This happens to everybody. Why are you freaking out? You don’t want it to come out that way. But instead, you could say something like, this is really tough. You’re having a hard time.

(37:52):

And I think anybody who is in your situation would feel this way. And people have gone through this before, and if you as a parent have gone through something similar, this is sometimes a powerful time to share that with your child. And I just did that with my daughter who has a lot of social anxiety in groups when she’s around groups of friends. And I was telling her, I really know what you’re feeling, and I know how hard it is because I have been there, and I know what it’s like to think that everybody’s judging you or everybody’s talking about you or whatever it is. And she was like, oh my gosh, I didn’t know. I thought I was the only one. And so that you’re just trying to get your kid to have that recognition of like, oh, I’m not alone. This is not just me. And other people have felt this way. And then the third part of self-compassion is really the part that I think we all think of as self-compassion, which is treating yourself kindly and with kids. What I find helps, if you have a kid I do who will do something that’s totally mundane and then beat themselves up over it, they spill something on their shirt and they’re like, I’m the worst person in the world.

Dr. Sarah (38:59):

I have one of those too.

Melinda (39:02):

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, they’re common. I think it can be really helpful to say, okay, well, how would you talk to your best friend if this happened to them? If your friend Alice spilled something on her shirt, would you tell her she was the worst person in the world? Or what would you say? And so you’re trying to encourage your kid to really think about how they would treat a friend in this situation or what they would say to a friend in this situation, and then have them say that to themselves. And it’s also about helping your kid recognize that if they’re feeling bad, even if they feel like it’s their fault, that they’re feeling bad about something, that they still deserve to do whatever it takes to make themselves feel better, whether that’s asking for a hug or having a snuggle, whatever it is that makes your kid feel better, you deserve that if you’re feeling bad, no matter the reason you deserve to make yourself feel better. And so those are kind of the three components of self-compassion. And they’re not that hard. They’re not hard to wrap your head around, but they can be hard in practice for sure, but can be super helpful. Super helpful. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (40:09):

No, I think that, I love that. I often find myself, because my son tends to go into these, oh, just last night, he is having a really tough day, and he was in just really just shaky mood all night. Everything was making him upset. And finally by the end of the night, it just kind of exploded. He just really exploded. And he is not a super explosive kid. He holds things in. He’s much more of an internalizer than an externalizer. I have one of each. They have their, but the reality is the kids who internalize, they’re just as explosive as the kids who externalize. You just don’t see it. They keep it all inside themselves. And so I think we tend to have a harder time with the kids who show it because it’s harder for us. We have to hold it and navigate it.

(41:13):

More often. They’re sharing it with us a lot more, but then we sometimes just don’t pay attention as much to the fact that the internalizers are doing the same thing. We’re just not invited to the show until it gets really big. I know my son well enough that when he really loses it, when he really blows his lid, that has been brewing for a very long time. And so to me, that’s always a big bell flag to me that I’m not checking in enough on what’s going on. And he’s been holding stuff in for a long time, and I kind of know what it is. I know there’s certain themes that continue to emerge at school and stuff and whatever. But this morning he came downstairs, he exploded. He was not easy last night, and he did some stuff that in a normal situation, I’d be like, I wouldn’t tolerate that he kicked me and being just really difficult.

(42:18):

But in the morning he came down and the first thing he said was, I’m really sorry. I am the worst, just so I shouldn’t be in this family. And I was like, Ooh, bud, that I get that this feels so big right now that that’s where your mind is going. But I think that is just a guilty feeling. I think that what you’re feeling is kind of guilty that you did some things last night, but actually they all make sense to me. And there I think is the helping them know it’s okay. I am not saying it’s okay that you kicked me, but I also know that he doesn’t need that information. He already knows that.

Melinda (43:06):

Absolutely.

Dr. Sarah (43:07):

Hence the self beratement that he was doing this morning. I think the more important thing to focus on for him is how to experience a wave of guilt and not go to that super self-critical place as a way of coping with that feeling. Because guilt is really powerful for kids who internalize, and it can be really destabilizing for ’em, just like shame can be really destabilizing for kids who externalize. And so I’m really working on helping him understand when he’s feeling a guilty feeling and that feeling is really hard. And it also, so him being mad and doing some things that made him feel guilty also makes sense to me, and that helps diffuse some of the guilt. We have guilt because we think we’ve done something that no one else is going to understand why we did it, and they’re going to think we’re bad because of it. And so if we can help him disconnect those things, I’m trying to grow his tolerance for the feeling of guilt to not go to these self non-compassionate places. And so in doing this, I’m trying to build a self-compassion, but not just by going like, oh, don’t feel guilty, or, I don’t know, you’re not the worst. Of course, I could go there. And of course it’s helpful for him to know, but he already knows that it’s almost like reassuring, seeking an anxiety. He’s really feeling distressed by the guilt, and he’s seeking my reassurance by saying, oh my God, I’m the worst, and I don’t think I should be in this family.

(44:43):

He’s actually asking me in that moment, can you turn this feeling off for me because I don’t think I can handle it. And so actually, if I go to that place of reassuring him, no, no, no, no, no, of course, of course, course, you’re fine. I’m just hitting his snooze button. And as soon as he feels guilty again, he’s going to go right back to that behavior of self-flagellation in a bid to get someone else to tell him, no, he’s good. He’s okay. And I need him to get out of that loop. So my thought process is in helping him tolerate the guilt by making sense of it, and also in order to make sense of the guilt, he’s got to make sense of the rage he felt that he’s now feeling embarrassed about or bad about.

(45:27):

So I have to help him have compassion for feeling the rage. Yeah, it makes sense that he felt mad and makes sense that if you hold that mad in for long enough, you’re going to explode. And it makes sense that when you explode, you do stuff that you don’t mean to do, and then it makes sense that you feel bad about it. All this makes sense. We’re helping ’em create a coherent narrative for what’s happening again, so that you can not be it, but you can be apart from it. And looking at it and saying like, oh, okay. I am not these feelings. I am not these behaviors. I just experienced them. They came and they went, and I’m still me this whole time, and I’m still good, and I’m still lovable, and the people in my life will still see that.

Melinda (46:11):

Yeah. Yeah. And I think also the beauty of just, I think when kids sometimes say things like, I, I’m awful. I shouldn’t be in this family. I’m the worst person in the world. They also just really, they’re trying to communicate to us how terrible their feelings are, how deep their feelings are, and they want to feel seen. I want you to know how awful I’m feeling. And so the first thing you said was like, this seems really hard. I can’t remember exactly what you said, but what I usually say to my daughter is something like, wow, it must be really hard to feel that way no matter what. She might say something that I totally disagree with, and I want to jump in and be like, no, you’re not terrible at math. Or You’re not a terrible person. Or, of course you deserve to be in this family. You want to do the reassuring. But so much of what they want too is to just feel like they’re seen. Oh, my mom understands how awful I feel, and so I’m always, it must be so hard to feel that way, even if I totally disagree with the thought she’s having about, you know.

(47:07):

And I think that too is just so powerful. And sometimes that’s all that she needs to diffuse. The feeling is when I said, it must be really, really hard for you to feel that way, and sometimes I’ll ask me more about why you feel that way. And then she just vents a little, and then she’s like, fine. And she’s like, okay, I feel better now. Bye.

Dr. Sarah (47:25):

It, and you’re teaching her not to internalize. You’re teaching her to externalize appropriately, like vent, let it out. Right. I’m here. I’m opening up some space, and when we go to write to just shut down the negative, we actually skip over opening up that space for them to say, because it’s scary. You hear your kids say, I hate myself. I’m the worst. And you want to be like, no, shut that down. I don’t want you to sit in that pain. I don’t want you to misperceive that. We think that I want to correct that, but instead, I can open up the space, invite them to talk more. And then you are actually helping them exercise that externalizing muscle, which is we want to be somewhere in the middle with our internalizing and externalizing skills. We don’t want to live on either end where we internalize all the time or we externalize all the time.

Melinda (48:17):

Right? Yeah, yeah. Parenting’s hard.

Dr. Sarah (48:24):

Oh, God. But we have books like yours to help us through it.

Melinda (48:29):

There you go. I’m trying. Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (48:31):

Yes, you do. It’s great. No, I think it’s good that we are practicing and acknowledge that it’s hard and it makes sense that it’s hard. And there is one of the reasons it feels hard is because of all the noise and because of all the rules and because of all the stress that we think we’re got to do so many things to be effective at this. And I think that’s kind of the beauty of what you’re trying to communicate, right? Nah, just slow down. There’s a couple things to focus on. The rest will fall into place.

Melinda (49:07):

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Yeah. And right, we’re getting so many messages. I mean, I spend for my substack sometimes I go through and I read parenting advice, memes on Instagram. And I mean, I hate doing it so much. I do find, it makes me feel like they’re designed to make us afraid and to feel terrible as a parent because they’re trying to sell something half the time. They’re like, oh, look, you’re failing. You need to buy my, whatever it is. But sometimes I will go in and I’ll try to figure out, okay, why is this meme making me feel so bad? And then write about it and say like, okay, this is what this is trying to tell us as parents, and this is why this is not accurate and it’s not fair, and it’s why you read this and you feel terrible. Because I do think so much in our culture right now, and the just intensive parenting norms that we have are telling us we need to be doing everything for our kids, and it has to all be perfect, or else we’re going to screw everything up and our kids are going to fail. And those messages are so toxic.

Dr. Sarah (50:10):

I relate very much to that. That is exactly why. That’s the story behind how I started this podcast, actually. It was like the beginning of COVID, and I was spending a lot more time on my Instagram. I was a home a lot more, and I obviously, my son was two, my daughter was 10 months old, so my algorithm was feeding me all the early mom stuff, and I was like, Ooh, this is at best inaccurate, at worst, very damaging information to be putting in front of parents. And I was like, I think I could offset this a little bit. Like I’ll post something to counteract that misinformation. And so I started posting little things at just, I had no idea what I was doing, but I was just like, oh, okay, I’ll, I’m amm going to rebuttal that one because that seems pretty damaging and not helpful to parents. And so then I started recording podcast episodes. I would like to just counterbalance some of this noise. Not that I have all the answers, but I want to bring people on who can help give the data, give the research, explain it, help it make sense, give people strategies for not just learning new things they’re supposed to do, but learning why what they’re choosing to do is important so that they can then make decisions on the fly.

Melinda (51:37):

Right, right. Yeah, it’s such important work. I’m grateful for all you do.

Dr. Sarah (51:44):

The feeling is mutual. If people want to get this book or want to follow your work, where can we send them?

Melinda (51:53):

My website is like a one-stop shop, melinda winter moyer.com, and you can, their purchasing purchase links on there for both of my books and my substack signup if you want to subscribe, is on there too.

Dr. Sarah (52:08):

Amazing. Well, thank you so much. You’re going to have to come back on when you write your next book.

Melinda (52:13):

Oh, yeah. Long way. Nope. Not even thinking about another book right now. But thank you always.

Dr. Sarah (52:20):

Well, then you can come on no matter what.

Melinda (52:22):

Oh, thank you. Thank you. It’s always a pleasure.

Dr. Sarah (52:23):

We could talk about all kinds of things, I’m sure.

Melinda (52:26):

Yes, this is true. We could keep talking for hours. But yeah, thank you so much for having me again.

Dr. Sarah (52:31):

Yes, thanks for coming back. We’ll see you. We’ll see you soon.

Melinda (52:34):

Okay.

Dr. Sarah (52:40):

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