Dr. Sarah (00:00):

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(00:47):

One of the best parts of being a parent is getting to share the things that we loved as kids with our own children, and what better way to do that than through Disney songs. That’s where Disney Baby Playlist comes in. It’s the perfect soundtrack for your little one’s day, whether it’s tummy time, playtime, car rides, or those sweet everyday bonding moments. You’ll find yourself humming along and transported back to your own childhood with these cheerful sing-alongs, gentle, instrumental, renditions and timeless Disney classics. One of the things I love most about music is how it can instantly shift the energy in a room. So whether you need something playful to get your baby moving or a calming tune to help everyone wind down this playlist has something for every moment. These songs don’t just entertain. They create opportunities for connection, for play, and for building treasured memories together. And as parents, it’s such a joy to hear those familiar tunes again while watching our little ones light up as they discover them for the very first time. Because every magical moment with your baby deserves the perfect soundtrack. So wherever you stream music, search for Disney Baby Playlist and press play.

(02:05):

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.

(02:44):

Hello, we’ve got Dr. Rebecca Hershberg, Dr. Emily Upshur here, and we’re going to answer a listener question. How are you guys?

Dr. Emily (02:54):

Hi.

Dr. Rebecca (02:55):

Well, thank you. I shouldn’t say we. I don’t know how Emily is. Emily, how are you?

Dr. Emily (02:59):

Good. Thank you for being my mind share.

Dr. Sarah (03:05):

I’m very excited about this question because Rebecca, you literally wrote a book about this and Emily and I live and breathe this all the time with our own kids and also with our clients that we work with. So this listener wrote in and she says, hi. I listen to you guys a lot and a bunch of other parenting podcasts. I hear all about connecting and redirecting how important it is to get your child from a reactive state to receptive state with connection and empathy. But what about when we get stuck at the connecting stage because your child doesn’t calm down from the empathy, I can be like, oh, I see you are so upset about having to wait and I’ll say it with gestures and facial expressions, lots of affect, et cetera, but my kid will just be like, yeah, and escalate more. I also tried saying less and just using body language and less words, but it’s still super hard to get her to calm down and shift to receptive state. Any ideas? Thanks. You guys are the best.

Dr. Rebecca (04:07):

Wow. This person is like an a plus listener.

Dr. Sarah (04:10):

I love this. You’re trying so hard and you’re doing so many things that I think everyone tells you to do. So first of all, it’s hard when that doesn’t work. We have to redefine work. What does work mean? That is it. I think that’s what I heard in this question.

Dr. Rebecca (04:27):

Yeah, that’s a hundred point and I get, it’s like I hear the straight A student being like, but I’m doing all the things. Where’s my result? Where’s my A and your child may just sometimes, because I bet it’s not every time take a little longer to get to a receptive state, and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s okay to just be totally quiet. Don’t even use fewer words, just stop and be and know that you engage. You can even go do something else. Yeah, stop. Right, exactly. Just sort of be either with your kid, not with your kid, whatever it is you do what you can to let your child know you’re available for connection, and then you try again a little bit later and then you have to acknowledge the hardest thing that there is to acknowledge as a parent, which is you don’t control your kid. Your kid is still allowed to have all the feelings for as long as they want. Now, if the feelings go along with behaviors that are not okay, and you have to get in the car, at a certain point, you may be like, okay, I don’t care if you’re in a receptive seat. I’m picking you up and putting you in the car, but at the end of the day, it’s not for you to say when they’re going to shift and be ready.

Dr. Emily (05:52):

Sarah and I were talking about this, I think maybe it was before you got on just before we started, but I think it’s that invitation for connection, and that doesn’t have to be overt. It’s like you hold inside of you as the parent. You hold an invitation for connection and empathy and understanding, which by the way can be really hard. You might be pissed off at your kid in this. You might not feel very, but I do think trying to have that invitation for connection with inside you, having the understanding and empathy so that when and if they dip back into you, you’re there for it. And that I think is really important because a lot of kids, a lot, I also want to say to this listener, so many kids aren’t ready in the heat of these moments. We always say, strike when there is cold. This hot iron receptivity is very low for most kids too. So I want to normalize that for this parent. It’s not every other parent’s nailing it in the hot moments. It’s really hard.

Dr. Rebecca (06:57):

There’s also, I think a lot of, there’s a myth or whatever we want to call it in the parenting, parent verse, parent universe, whatever of what type of kid is, is my kid the type of kid that responds to empathy or not the type of kid that responds to empathy? Is my kid the type of kid that responds to a lot of gestures and affect or not the, it’s like you just try different things at different times and sometimes, again, I would be really surprised if this was a kid who never responded to the things that this parent is mentioning and they’re not going to always respond. And you got different tools in your toolbox at different times, and so long as you can take, you keep your eye on the prize and the eye on the prize is being as thoughtful and intentional, apparent with these tools as you can be with the understanding you’re not going to have it perfect. The prize is not how my kid responds because that’s not up to you. It’s just not. And so you can nail it and your kid can be having a terrible day, and both of those things are true and it feels like a nightmare even though you’ve done everything that you have learned to do because your kid’s just in a tough place and that’s okay.

Dr. Emily (08:22):

It’s so hard when you don’t see the outcome. I think that’s what this parent has said. It’s so hard because when Rebecca, at first you said it didn’t work, and what’s the definition of work? Well, it’s hard for parents to know if it’s a delayed response, but I do think we see a lot of planting seeds, but it’s hard. You might see a response in a completely different situation a week later that’s more appropriate because of the empathy and understanding and invitation for connection that you gave two weeks ago on the playground when your kid hit another kid. It’s just so hard to know to be reinforced as a parent for what’s working because that immediate gratification almost very rarely happens, I would say.

Dr. Sarah (09:06):

Yeah. I also think…

Dr. Rebecca (09:07):

Which is why you have to trust, I’m sorry, just to interrupt for one second, which is why you have to trust, how does it feel for you to be the parent you want to be, right? Are you parenting with integrity in terms of your values, the way you want to show up in the world for your kid? And you’re not going to necessarily get reinforced for that. Potentially 25 years later you’re going to be like, wow. Or you go to a parent teacher conference and they’re like, wow, your kid is so with that, and you’re like, oh, wow. I guess maybe somehow what I’m doing is working. But that idea of working just, I would caution this URA and all parents, and that includes myself. When we start thinking of working, we’re getting a little bit into, I’m thinking of Alison Gonick and the carpenter and the gardener. It’s like, am I building the kind of kid I want to build? No. Am I gardening? Am I creating the garden for Sarah? I’m too tired to, right. I’m too tired to go into that. And that’s what I mean, so feel free, but shorthand. Right.

Dr. Sarah (10:24):

Well, I think I love that. Like what is our job? And I think she uses very specific words in this question that show to me that she’s, and I see this all the time, like you were saying, Rebecca, I do it too. It’s so common. But she’s perceiving her job to get a child from a reactive state to a receptive state. It says it’s hard to get her to calm down and shift to the receptive state. I keep hearing how important it’s to get your child from a reactive state to a receptive state, and that you do this with connection and empathy. But what I think that is implicitly showing as a belief structure is that it is on the parent, the parent’s job is they own the task of getting a child from A to B. And that’s the fundamental error in this story.

(11:19):

If you believe it’s your job to get your child from a reactive state to a receptive state, and sometimes your inner interventions work and sometimes they don’t. You might feel that you are failing when your interventions don’t work. But there’s another variable here, which is your child’s human inner experience, and they own their movement from A to B, and we can believe we have control over that. If we do the quote right things and our calms down, we might assign the impact of our, we can assign causality to our interventions. Oh, I did this connection and empathy thing and they calmed down. Therefore, my connection and empathy got them to calm down and it might’ve helped. But the actual thing that caused A to B for that child was that their nervous system moved from A to B when it was ready. And we can do things that assist them. We can do things that hinder them from getting their nervous system to move from A to B, but we’re not the driver or at least not the sole driver. And so I think we get stuck thinking, I’m failing at my job because I can’t get my child to move from A to B when that’s not in our control.

Dr. Emily (12:42):

Well, my favorite is when those methods work on one of your kids and not on your other. I think to your point, Sarah, you think that because you do something and you get reinforced for it and you see it right away that that might work. Right.

Dr. Sarah (12:58):

It’s correlated. It’s not causal.

Dr. Emily (13:00):

Exactly. And I think also when you were saying that I kept, what kept occurring to me is every child, this nervous system is different too. This might be a child who just spends more time in this place right now in this stage of their development, and that’s really hard. But that doesn’t mean you have done, you’re doing something wrong or that you’re not impacting it correctly. And I find a lot of parents come to me when they’re like, but I’m the same parent. I did this with this kid and this. And I’m like, oof. But this kid’s a different kid and maybe they’re just more dysregulated and that’s okay. This whole, and I am a victim of doing this, or I could be accused of doing this with my own kids, which is my tolerance is also different for not judging my kids’ emotion regulation skills and sort of being more like this is meeting him where he is. This is where he is. I think we have to remind ourselves of that too. We are the separate being from our children’s being, and our job is to, I feel for this parent because this whole co-regulate your kid and implies tacitly that you’re supposed to do something and be really effective, but that’s not out of the question.

Dr. Sarah (14:15):

And that also that successful co-regulation means a calm child. And I think successful co-regulation could mean a lot of things. Sometimes it does look like a calm child. Sometimes it looks like a child who is very actively dysregulated but is coming back down, not continuing to go up. And sometimes it just looks like you did all you could and your child was so dysregulated that you’re not on their radar at this moment. You’re not touching the things despite your efforts that need to get touched for this child to calm down faster. And so they just have to ride the wave and all that we have to do in this moment, our job in this moment is to create a space that allows them to ride that wave safely, but that we understand the wave might have to just be ridden.

Dr. Emily (15:03):

And I will still add in, I think our other job is to regulate ourselves because I think that might also be difficult as you might feel ineffective. You might feel like I did all these things and now I’m frustrated or I’m upset or I’m in demand that you stop or, so I think our job is to sort of ride the wave, but riding that wave by trying to stay regulated ourselves as well.

Dr. Rebecca (15:26):

Well, that’s how we maintain the invitation. Once you’re not regulated, the invitation is gone. And that’s also okay. Exactly. I can think of 10 times in a given day that the invitation isn’t there for me. That’s what I said earlier. I was like, that’s really hard. I’m going to take a break. But when you get this regulated that there’s not an invitation to connect. And that happens sometimes too.

Dr. Sarah (15:52):

Yeah, so I love all of this. I feel like we’ve identified what the true question is, but I also recognize that this listener might still, I’ve had parents after I explain all of this, we’ll come back and be like, okay, but what do I do when I need them to be calm or be receptive or I can’t sit and wait for the wave to completely pass. We have to get on with the day, or I need them to be able to cooperate and participate in our family life. What do I do?

Dr. Emily (16:25):

Yeah, I love that. I mean, I will go to the, what do I do if I don’t have to leave immediately first, because I think that’s a really hard one. How do I tolerate that? My kid is still really dysregulated and I accept because I’ve listened to this great episode that I’m doing my best. I’m holding the invitation for connection, but that’s not being picked up right now. So one of the things that I always did appearance is you can disengage. I think that Rebecca, I think you said that. I think that that’s completely okay. But my disengagement in those moments, what I coach on that and what I teach on that is more like you can disengage, but usually I’m around. I might be folding clothes semi close by getting something done, washing the dishes, making dinner.

Dr. Sarah (17:12):

Your presence is still connected.

Dr. Rebecca (17:14):

Oh, yeah. You’re not taking off to the grocery store.

Dr. Emily (17:17):

But I think it’s important to define that disengagement a little.

Dr. Rebecca (17:20):

No, you’re right.

Dr. Emily (17:20):

Because I think that I’m always like, you might feel as the parent, you’re busying yourself kind of still babysitting in your brain and in your vestibular system, your kid’s dysregulation. So I do think if you can, I always say to parents, make a list of things that are tasky. Sometimes it’s hard. You’re a little in fight or flight. It’s hard to remember, oh, I could clean out this closet while I’m waiting for my kid to get down a little bit. Or I can do the dishes or I can tend to one of my other children, or, I think those are really important things to help you get through those times. I think there’s the times when you have to, I like Rebecca’s, if you have to leave, if they’re young enough, you pick ’em up and you say, I have to get you in the car now and I have to move you, and you’re not ready yet to do that by yourself, that’s done. It’s trickier when your kids are bigger. Yes. It just is.

Dr. Sarah (18:13):

Absolutely. Yeah. And I think if you have patterns where this is happening a lot and your kids are bigger and you don’t physically have that control, I think sometimes you have to build in time to be able to say, okay, we are in it right now. And I understand that for this moment. A lot of stuff I had planned might not be happening. And that gets into a whole other episode of when you really do have to start holding these limits or disengaging how to do it really systematically so that you’re not doing it all over the place and then burning yourself out and then being super inconsistent, right?

Dr. Rebecca (18:55):

And how you’re able to predict some of those moments and put proactive things into place to decrease the likelihood of a total meltdown before you absolutely have to do something. I think we’re probably getting away from this question though, and my sense is that this is about a fairly young child, just the way that it’s phrased.

Dr. Emily (19:21):

But all you problem solvers, psychologists trying to do skills. No, I think it really is. I think for this listener’s question, it seems so simple, but the skill is to regulated, stay engaged enough and to know that you don’t have control over your child, so that you’re just really trying to be there and have that invitation and support them.

Dr. Rebecca (19:47):

Yep. And be patient.

Dr. Emily (19:48):

Patience, whoo.

Dr. Sarah (19:49):

You got this though. You do. You are doing a great job. You are clearly paying attention.

Dr. Rebecca (19:54):

You still get your a plus.

Dr. Emily (19:55):

Yeah, that’s right.

Dr. Sarah (19:57):

Gold star. Definitely. All right. Thank you for writing in. Thank you, Emily, Rebecca. Always lovely talking with you.

Dr. Rebecca (20:06):

A hundred percent. Thank you.

Dr. Emily (20:08):

Yeah.

Dr. Sarah (20:10):

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.