Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - Sissy Goff and David Thomas: Teaching Kids Courage

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Today we sat down with two incredible resources and human beings, beloved counselors and best-selling authors, Sissy Goff and David Thomas from Daystar Counseling. We have learned SO much from them over the years. With decades of combined experience walking alongside children and families, Sissy and David bring wisdom, warmth, and practical tools to the table as they share insights from their highly anticipated book series for kids  called “The Daystar Dog Series.” We dive into topics like childhood anxiety,  emotional resilience, the importance of connection, and what parents can be doing to check in with their child’s emotions.  Whether you're a parent, caregiver, teacher, or someone who simply loves the next generation, we hope conversation leaves you encouraged and equipped. Love you guys! Shawn and Andrew  Pre-order The Daystar Dog Series ▶ https://www.raisingboysandgirls.com/day-star-dogs Beam Kids is now available online at https://www.shopbeam.com/COUPLETHINGS Take advantage of our exclusive discount of up to 40% off using code COUPLETHINGS Subscribe to our newsletter  ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow our podcast Instagram  ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson  Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things interviews. With Sean and Andrew. Today we have two of our favorite people in the whole entire world, the best parenting gurus you'll ever find, ever, period. Tissie Gough and David Thomas. We really are grateful to know these two. They have a podcast called The Raising Boys and Girls podcast,

and they just released two new books. One is called Lucy learns to be brave, a lesson in courage. And the other is called Owen learns. He has what it takes, a lesson in resilience. They've written dozens of books collectively, and we really look to them for wisdom as we navigate the parenting journey. David and Sissy are both counselors at Daystar Ministries here in Nashville, Tennessee, and they are, what I believe to be the best at what they do. We talk about a couple things on this show, including what it means to be courageous as a three to five-year-old, what it means to have resilience, how resilience differs from stubbornness, and how to instill these things like courage and resilience in your child. I thought it was a great conversation.

I thought it was a phenomenal conversation. I could talk to them all day, and I will be signing up to go see them personally. If you want to find out more about David and Sissy, as well as get access to their book, we'll link the information down below. And if you made it as far, please subscribe to the show and give it a rating.

Anyway, without further ado, we bring you Sissy Gough and David Thomas. I have so many questions for you guys. I'm so excited to talk to y'all. I'm so glad you guys are here. I just wish we could just catch up, though. I know. I know.

Let's go get dinner. That would be awesome. That would be so fun. I have to admit, I feel like since the last time we spoke, I don't want to say I've become slightly more nihilistic, but maybe I've gotten a little more jaded in terms of just a realization that no matter how well I parent, my kid's probably going to still end up needing counseling. You know what I'm saying?

Because it's something we did. So I read the book. I read the book Open by Andre Agassi. Have you read this? It's fascinating. And I first read it years ago, and it's all about how Andrea Agassi's father was really hard on him and would make him hit a thousand balls a day starting at age five. Not healthy.

Not healthy. Yeah, not good. And I kind of frowned upon the father there, obviously. You know, it's like, okay, maybe we overdid it there. But after reading it again and then having more conversations, being a little deeper in the parenting game. I realized like, okay, we're all going to go to counseling. So at least Andre Agassi got a couple of world tennis titles and whatever else. At least he knew what the problem was. Yeah. Add a name for it. There wasn't a search for it. It was like, this is it.

Right there in front of us. So anyway, I know you guys have written these books and I'm excited to dig into them, but that's where I'm at. And I just wanted to kind of launch the conversation. So thoughts? Well, I love when you talk about repair. And I would jump in and say, say, what a gift, though, because I feel like so many of our parents were making mistakes, but not acknowledging and weren't talking about it. And so to be parents who are as thoughtful and aware and intentional as the two of you are means that you're going to go in and say, well, I really goof that one up. And then in this age of anxiety and kids and rampant perfectionism, like nothing we have seen in 30 years of counseling, what a gift for kids.

It's to feel like the two people that I respect most in the universe make mistakes. And so it's going to be okay that I do too. Why is the anxiety rates and the rampant perfectionism on the rise? And why are you seeing that so much more in kids? And at what age are you seeing it? You go first. Well, there are a lot of things we could talk about. I mean, one of the things would be the pressure is greater than it's ever before.

academically, you know, there is such a push for kids to excel in all spaces of life, which I think makes it so much harder. Technology certainly contributes social media as they get older. Younger, how to psychiatrists say to me, even when kids are looking at devices, doing educational games, everything's so fast-paced. We're a lot older than you all are, but, you know, we grew up to on leave it to beaver. And the pace of things was so slow. and now it's like all the editing and all the, and that almost activates their brains in a way that mimics the amygdala taking over. It kind of sends them into that. And then I think the thing we would want to say was so much grace to anybody who's listening is we're certainly a part of the

problem. Oh, for sure. And we're stepping in and rescuing and helping kids pull out of hard things rather than learning that they are capable of doing the hard things. And it really is a range of factors. Like I think we'd all love conveniently to just point our finger at one thing. Blame it only on technology, and that plays a role. But the good news, I think, in that is we have influence over some of those factors. So we can bring about some change, but I think it's pushing against. So even back to what Sissy said about the acceleration of athletics, well, just because culturally we've decided, you know, five practices a week is good for elementary age kids, that doesn't mean we have to buy into those leagues. we can make a different decision so that over-scheduling, which we know is a key factor,

doesn't become a part of our equation as a family, which is a contributing factor to kids. We had our first run in with that recently. Sean and I actually were writing a book on essentially commitment. And I think right when we came in to talk to you guys, we were just in the ideation phase of that. But like we're stuck between, hey, we signed up for this league for our three-year-old. and then the weekend comes around and it's like hey well he also had a soccer practice this morning or he had a birthday party and he's wiped out we shouldn't go to baseball but like we're committed and then it's like the balance of what we signed up for it we want to show them you follow

through and you make it on your word and then but then we'll laugh and we're like we don't care and then but it's like are we then we have to keep your word and then you're trying to like teach all that i i get so caught up and i feel like i've read too much now yes to where I'm like, there's 5,000 things that I've learned running through my brain where I'm like tripping over myself trying to parent when at the end of the day I'm like, he's tired, we're just going to stay home and sleep. And that's it. That right there is it. Because, Sean, I think that's such a part of the problem too is that I think not only we've been talking so much about not only are kids more anxious, but parents are more anxious. So much more. And I believe

part of the problem is we have access to more. information than we've ever. You know, my mom read Dr. Spock. Yeah, like the leading parenting expert. The only takeaway for her was to smile a lot at your kids. And my sister and I both smile a lot and that's, you know, so it worked. But now we have all these voices that are coming at us. We all four are trying to help in that space. But we really believe it's making parents not trust their own gut, that they're abdicating to experts rather than trusting themselves. And that's what you need to do. Y'all are Brilliant. Parents who are listening, God gives you insight into your kids like nobody else. Trust your gut. It is funny, though, we've slowly, not slowly, actually, I feel like we've been thrown head first into the whole sports world. And we were on your guys' podcast talking about that. Yes. And it's funny, I can so easily and so freely speak about it from my domain with like gymnastics and I like feel confident about it. But now that it's my kid, I have people pulling us aside trying to.

to like scout kids for elite leagues and like all and I'm and I find myself getting wrapped into it where I'm like oh well I don't know this sport and maybe because I don't know this sport maybe she should do this and we went down one slow rabbit hole of being scouted and it just backfired and we lost passion for it we didn't want to go back we you know all this stuff and I was like you know what it was 100% my fault and there's so much pressure people put on kids at such a young age, but being thrown into it, I feel like potentially the mistake will make is pulling them out of something

rather than pushing them to be successful because I'm so afraid of pushing them to be successful. And I don't know what that boundary is. It makes so much sense. Which brings us to your book series. Yes. One is on resilience. You guys recently launched the Daystar Dogs series.

There's four total. Two are out now. Yes. And then two more in the first. fall is that right correct that's awesome uh is there more in the future because now i'm all excited we'll be reading these every night's work but one of them uh that we see here is about resilience what do you mean when you say resilience yeah well i think if we were to put a a simple definition of that it is you know just the capacity to do hard things that when i feel scared or nervous or fearful or

overwhelmed that I can still figure out how to step forward into that experience. And I tell this funny story of I had a Labrador retriever that I trained to be a therapy dog. And he not only worked with me at Daystar, but we went to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. And he loves kids, loves any interaction with kids. But when we went for that first visit, he was overwhelmed by the experience of all these people in white coats. They were pushing machines up and down the hallway. And to the point that it was debilitating for him. And so this dog who loves kids wants to be with kids couldn't even get in the room to be with this little boy

who was like motioning for him to come in. So I had to carry the 70-pound dog into that room. We need a job. Had he not been able to move forward into that experience, he would have missed the whole interaction, which was magical, what he experienced being with this little boy, what this little boy experienced being with him.

And I think that's something we're hoping to help kids and parents think about, like, what's something that does feel overwhelming for me? Like, I can remember growing up, this is going to date me, but back in the day when Opry land theme park was in existence here in Nashville, we used to go every summer. We had season passes, and the Wabash Cannonball was the biggest roller coaster. And my sister, who instinctively had a lot more bravery in her than I did, just boarded that thing as soon as she was tall enough. And I was so fearful.

And I just did not love the experience of my young. sister riding this roller coaster that I was afraid to, but there was something about, and I can even remember getting in line and getting out of line, getting in line and getting close to boarding and backing out. And there was something about finally getting to the point where I just kept trying that built this confidence, that this competence that I think leads to confidence that we rob kids of when we don't allow them to take those kind of opportunities, take advantage but we have two kids who are polar opposites one who will jump on any roller coaster at any time and one who will not but wants to and it's such this hard dynamic for a parent to jump back

and forth between almost talking one off the ledge because they will do too much and they have zero fear and then almost trying to tame a frustration as a parent and of like, what is this debilitating fear that you've conjured up in your head and how can I lay it down, but also encourage you? And is it, is it an attention seeking thing? Like, how do you balance that on both sides to be healthy? Well, we love to talk about, no, we love to talk about like muscles. Yeah. With kids that we're growing these different muscles and different kids have different muscles that they need to develop just like academically different kids have different things and so talking about it like that with them where one might need to grow his or her

courage and the other might need to grow his or her awareness or self-control you know that we just are talking about it like that but i would say specifically with the one whose fear gets the best of him or her one of the things i talk about in the lucy books is how fear tries to play tricks on us And it tells us things that little things are medium. Medium things are big and big things seem impossible. And so helping speak the truth and helping them learn to right size their feelings in response to whatever the scary thing is. And we have tools built into both books. I have a little thermometer in the Lucy book where they can start to figure out, okay, this really is just a two.

This is a nine. This is a ten. It's something we use all the time in therapy. And David has feelings charts that can help in all of those spaces. faces actually can you show the feelings chart on the on the back is that so cute the little doggy pictures yes I'd love to yeah I love it so it was fun to put this in the book and think about kids even kids who can't even read learning to identify how they feel because I think we all can learn a little easier with a dog that's great so

I'm I'm curious because I think I am under the belief that in some ways awareness with feelings and the courage to do hard things are mutually exclusive like in my mind in order for me to do the scary audacious thing i need to turn off the feeling of like um yeah i just like turn it off you know what i'm saying so i skew more towards forget about the feelings and let me just do the hard things you know what i'm saying that sounds like a me issue and i probably need to come see you guys more but does that have you ever seen like can can they live and coexist being Fully aware with my feelings and not letting those, like that awareness prevent me from jumping into the hard thing. A great question.

I love that question. I had two thoughts as you were asking. I think one is, you know, fear gets such a bad rap. And I think if we're to think about it within the context of the question you're asking, if I don't feel afraid, I really never have the opportunity to build courage. Like, you know, fear is fertile ground for courage to grow. So it has to be there. That's, I think, one great way to think about it. And that's maybe the upside of fear.

I think secondly, I was thinking as you were asking that question, that we talk so often about, and I felt it when you were asking the question about the differences with your kids, that, you know, the kids who are the most anxious are often the kids who are also the brightest. They're kids who think deeply, feel deeply, care deeply. And, you know, if I'm a deep thinker, that's going to make me a great student. and it also means I'm more vulnerable to overthinking. If I'm a person who feels and cares deeply, I'm probably a really loyal friend.

I'm maybe a great big brother, and I could go off the deep end over something insignificant. So back to the roller coaster story, I was a firstborn, and I had a younger sister who, again, was a lot like the other kid you were asking about it. She just would take two opportunities and sometimes wouldn't think those through enough,

and I would overthink those. And so how could we bring the strengths of both of those things into the equation where they can live side by side instead of just need to carve all that part out. Yeah. Does that just take practice or, yeah? I think it does. And I think it's also for us as parents calling out the superpower of that. You know, helping kids see it's two sides of the same coin.

It's a double-edged sword. Like the thing that makes you over think things sometimes is also where you ask the best questions. You think so deeply. And, you know, the fact that you do worry too much. comes from the place that you care so much it's why you're a great big brother a great big sister it's why you're so attuned to your grandparents when they visit us like calling out the superpowers of that while also looking at the other side for the growth opportunity yeah okay i joke i'm sorry i keep going i've made this joke actually a few times in the last couple days

where our family motto jokingly is if you're going to be dumb you got to be tough and it's like honestly we don't say that no that's not our official family mama oh my gosh it's for say we're not just saying but it's it's in line with that idea of like hey just do the hard thing and it's like ignorance is bliss kind of so I guess it's not sustainable or good to not have awareness over your feelings but is it also not good to have too much awareness and be too much over an overthinker that it prevents you like there's two extremes I guess absolutely yeah yeah well and i think even culturally what you're talking about is part of where we're so anxious i feel like the the two ends are almost where we've swung where as a world we used to

not talk about our feelings and so kids were more able i think they seemed more resilient they seemed more capable because they weren't aware of the fear they weren't talking about those emotions and so now we've camped out we've almost over corrected and camped out and talking about feelings without helping kids work through them. Yeah. And it feels like the two things together are where the magic is, not just, it's why we have a lot of books

where we talk about understanding help and hope. And we're kind of landing and understanding out of a girl that I was working with one time, which to your point about getting attention, she said, I've realized that when I have panic attacks is when my mom's most nurturing to me. And I think, and she went on to say,

I don't think it's why I have them, but I think it's why I don't stop them. Interesting. And we talk so much about whatever we pay the most attention to is what's most reinforced. And so we want to pay as much attention to offering a lot of empathy and attunement. And that sounds really hard.

And I can tell you feel a lot of fear. What do you think you can do about it? What's going to help? That it's both places. It's understanding and coping and working through the feelings and undergirding it with these messages of you're capable.

You've got what it takes. You're brave. All those truths we want to instill. So the gentle parenting gets a better at because it's all like, hey, tell me how you're feeling. So you're saying, actually, that's good as long as it's coupled

with the maybe action-oriented type of question or follow-up with that. Yes. And I would, I mean, I think it's the action-oriented question and opportunity. because sometimes we're short-circuiting the opportunity for them to do hard things

and not giving them a chance. Man, that's super good. I like that. We're on the opposite end of the spectrum where we probably open up way too many terrifying opportunities for our kids. We're like, you got this. And they're like, what? What are we doing?

Let's go to one side of the spectrum. The overthinker, the deep feeler, the very sensitive, perfectionist, just in their thoughts, 100% of the time. They care more about how we're feeling than anything else. How can you reinforce and encourage them to step out of that a little bit and have more confidence in themselves to be their own little person? Because I don't know where it comes from either, which is interesting. I think we would argue that it is so connected to core temperament. I'm fascinated by how many firstborns fit the very description of what you just described. And that's not to say 100% of firstborns do, but it is to say a high percentage

to. And thus why it's not surprising that a higher percentage of firstborn struggle with anxiety and depression. And so it, again, is that double-edged sword of the things that make us extraordinary are the things that can get in the way at times. And so, you know, back to that ageal wisdom of we can't name, we can't tame what we can't name. I think it's starts with we have to talk about it like the very things that make you extraordinary are the things that get in the way and so you know I think back to the roller coaster example like I could have stood in line and overthought all the possibilities a thousand times over and then there becomes a point where I just have to get out of my head and get in the seat and pull down the harness and I think we can give so much attention to the thoughts at times that they become the greatest barrier you do a great job of talking about that well the thing I was thinking about too is I think in those things in wanting kids to move toward doing the hard thing or even do the skills we know they can use to get out of their thoughts because we know those skills make a difference for us as soon as we learn about deep breathing

or grounding techniques we're like oh yeah I'm all over this well kids aren't and in fact they would rather you to your kids would rather you to be their coping strategy then have to do the hard work of learning to use coping strategies on their own. And so working through the thoughts, the feelings. And so we will often, and we do it kind of differently with girls and boys, but we will have kids earn brave beads when they not only do hard things like, I was going to say, jump across a creek. You all can come up with much better than that.

But not only when they do things like that, but also when they take three deep breaths, When they go to their space where we've stacked with coping strategies that David outlines beautifully with boys, I call them Brave Beads and I will tell parents get a jar that is sitting on their chest of drawers. They watch the beads or marbles or pom-poms accrue. And then they get to trade them in for something like, you know, a family outing or an outing with one of the two of you. Or they get to stay up 15 minutes later or whatever the thing is that they want. you all come up with the incentives together.

What do you call them for boys? I call them calming coins a lot with boys because I think back to your question, like those big emotions can so get in the way. And when am I in the practice, again, not just of naming those feelings, but figuring out what I need to do to get from level 10 down to level two. Yep. We're learning that for the first time. We're in that phase.

Yes. It's a learned skill. It is. It's also hard. We're in this era right now where mass. masculinity is being talked about a lot and how you're wanting to encourage emotions and in, you know, foster the right things in kids and not just teach boys to like, you know, what's it called? Pack it all down.

Stuff it. But there is this interesting thing happening with our boys right now where you're seeing such huge emotions and anger and like rage come out. And you're just like, I don't know, where did this come from? What do you do with this? And how do you calm it or teach them to calm it? And it's been an interesting roller coaster going back and forth between the two. I've also founded a challenge as a parent to, there's a bit of selfishness involved. Because when the kid wants to use you as a coping strategy, it's adorable.

I know. It's so nice. And I want it. but also trying to fight that like yeah i'll i'll coddle you and i just love the every second of that but trying to instill the teaching lessons it's like it's a battle of the the wills i guess it was actually really sweet speaking to what you guys were saying with the the jars it didn't even it didn't connect the dots until just now um our daughter uh yesterday there was some scenario it didn't seem like a big scenario at all that needed you know

help with parents but she's like mommy I'm gonna go set up a calm corner for us and she set it up on her own we that's not something we've ever done in our household it's from school and she set it up and she went and got books and she's like can you please keep this here for me because this will be my calm corner and I was like that is incredible yeah that she's like self and how old is she she's five that's amazing that is amazing shout out to her teaching teaching teaching yours for that. That is not us.

And y'all, the work that you're doing with her and she's learning at school, but I mean, really, the reason we wrote these books, when we have workbooks for six to 12 year olds, six to 12 year olds, but we thought the earlier, and we know, science backs up, the earlier we're intervening, the better off these kids are going to be for the long call. And so the fact that she's doing that at that age is just remarkable and that y'all are reinforcing all those things. Another scenario. This was me as a kid. So you have the kid who won't speak up. They won't use their voice and everything is like they're shy, they're quiet, they're afraid to answer a question, they're afraid to look you in the eye. How do you, how do you work on that scenario?

I had this family that came in to see me years ago and her, their son was seeing David and they brought their daughter in to see me and they said, really, she's fine. But, but. he is so controlling of her older brother he comes in and chooses her clothes for school each day and she said my whole goal for her to see you is i want you to teach her how to say no because i want her to learn how to say no with her brother so that when she's 16 and sitting in a car with a boy who tries to kiss her or do something that she is not comfortable with she feels like she can sock him in the nose yeah literally is what the mom said i said that is a great reason for that child to be in counseling. But I think it's practice. I think it's helping others step back, not answering

for her, and maybe you even include that in brave beads. You get a braid bead every time you look a grown-up in the eye, and you ask a question, practicing, asking questions around the dinner table, using their voice, the things y'all are probably doing already. Sissy, if it's not rehashing what we've already discussed, Owen is about resilience and then Lucy's about courage. Yes. Can you define what does courage mean for a young child? I would say courage is believing that they are capable to step in to something that feels scary, which sounds a lot like resilience too. Yeah.

But I think it's that sense of I have it in me to do what I need to do in this moment. And the way the book goes, so Lucy was my little dog that practiced with me for 15 years. And the first day I had Lucy, she held her little Paul up at me. like she was waving and and then I noticed she would just do that and so when we started puppy school I said how can I encourage her to do it and they said we'll start calling it a wave and teaching her to do it on command and so she did I mean her whole life every kid that would come in I'd say lucy wave at so and so and she would and you know kids are so scared to being counseling and so it would just melt them and anyway there's this whole theme in the book of you have these special gifts

and the more you know that you're loved by guys. by your parents, the more you're going to feel safe to use the gifts that God has given you and not believe kind of that old idea of the worry monster. Those voices are going to be stronger about who you are than the worry monster playing tricks on you and telling you that you're not capable. And so helping them learn that again at three, four, five can make such a difference for them as soon as they can start to understand it. I've gotten caught up a couple of times and trying to teach courage. So, like, a three-year-old is just kind of imagining monsters.

Actually, there was a toy in his room. I still can't believe this. With glow-in-the-dark eyeballs, I don't know where we got this. But we turned off the lights, and it's sitting on his shelf. And, like, yeah, it's scary for me. That is scary. I felt so bad. I went in his room three times because he kept talking about something was, like,

it was eyes looking at him. And as a parent, I'm like, it's not there. It's not there. It's a reflection of something. And I was like, buddy, it's totally fine. And I kept thinking it's some sort of picture, like a reflection. And I was just trying to like, buddy, you're safe. We did our prayers.

We did our prayers again. You're safe. It's not there. It's not there. And then he just, he kept crying. And I was like, buddy, what are? And so I finally sat in his room with him, turned lights out. And glowing eyeballs.

Yeah. Anyway. Whoever, whoever did that needs to be fired. A child's toy. Glow in the dark eyeballs. It's hard because I don't want to, uh, kind of over-exaggerate the monster topic. I know. I don't want to

have to talk more about monsters than I need to in order to talk about courage. Yes, you're right. You know what I'm saying? Yes, with little ones, probably worry monster is not the best language. You can call it worry brain versus smart brain. There are a lot of different options. Worry bug is

another one. We often have kids come up with a name for theirs. So whatever that voice is and what it feels like, I had one girl who decided she was going to name hers Bob. I've no idea why she picked the name Bob. Another who said, I'm going to call mine Princess Worry, because then I get to be the queen and boss the princess around, which I love. You have a voice who call it. A lot of boys call it the Hulk because they feel like they get so

angry and explosive when it happens. Wow. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So just like putting, like, it's their other person. Yes. I had a high school girl last week who reminded me that she had named her Tiffany after Tiffany and Mean Girls. So that felt fitting to me. I love that. I love that. I've seen mean girls. It's a classic. It's a classic no kids should watch these days. Exactly, yes.

Which is shocking. When you go back to watch movies, I'm like, this is horrible. Okay, a couple questions I want to make sure we get in before we lose track of time. How, with anxiety, perfectionism, everything that we're seeing in the uptick these days, what are signs that parents can look for to know that this is maybe something their kid is struggling with? and they could either work on or get help with. I think it often looks different with boys and girls, so we can even talk about unique to gender.

You want to talk about girls first? Yeah, I think a lot of girls, kind of big picture, we talk about how boys generally can be more explosive and girls more implosive. And I read a study years ago that talked about when something goes wrong in a boy's world, he blames someone else.

And when something goes wrong in a girl's world, she blames herself. Right. every time yes so girls tend to go inward yeah and and i and what's confusing i think for girls and boys the statistics girls are twice as likely but boys are taking to get help more and i think it's because you go to the parent teacher conference and the teacher says yeah i wish every child in my class acted just like your daughter and anxiety's fueling it so much of the time and so there are the kids who are making great grades and the teacher's just praising them all the time

But it's really inside, they're so walked up trying to get it right and perfectionistic. And so it's so important for us to pay attention to that. And for those kids, often it's going to show up as a lot of physical issues. They're going to have recurring tummy aches, headaches with no physical explanation for it. Or another way that I think it can show up in girls and guys are, we talk about it like the one loop roller coaster at the fair. So we all have intrusive thoughts. If we're not anxious, the intrusive slash worst case scenario. thought comes in and it goes out. But for kids, it gets stuck and it loops around and around. And that

could be being away from my mom or dad. It could be, I'm going to get sick. It could be I'm going to fail, but that gets stuck. And so when they have repetitive questions based on one topic, often at bedtime, it's about the schedule. What's happening tomorrow? Then what's happening after that? Then what's happening after that? And we kind of fall for answering the questions, but we want to be aware of the loops, give it away. And boys, what would you say? Well, I would only say that I think if it if we were going to generalize overgeneralize is showing up as more perfectionistic and pleasing with girls I think boys are more angry and controlling so when they're losing it a disproportionate response to something insignificant so I talked to the family last week

who they have an eight-year-old son and they were eating out as a family at his favorite restaurant well they got there and the wait was an hour so they're like we got to change gears and his response to that was so explosive the dad had to take him home like there was no rebounding it's not even like we're going to go home and just eat what's in the cabinet it's like we're still going to go out to eat just not the place you imagine so it's that i had an idea in my head of exactly how this was going to happen and i cannot let go of that so i'd say those two the only other thing i'd say to your question is i do think sometimes anxious boys in a classroom can look underfocused and restless and fidgety the very things we would think about when we think about ADHD.

So I've lost count with a number of boys I've seen over the years who were identified as likely having ADHD, that when we did some exploration, there actually was an undercurrent of anxiety that was underneath it. If we can address those symptoms, often some of what looks like ADHD in the academic space starts to lessen. So that's another feature of how it can show up. You say girls are twice as likely to seek help than boys? Girls are twice as likely to have anxiety. as are women. Oh, interesting.

But boys are taken for help more because they go outward so much of the time with it. Interesting. And girls are the perfectionist. So a lot of times people are like, it's perfect. Yeah. But the great thing is, I think little ones often it can show up as rigidity and control and they can be explosive, which is going to sound crazy. But I will say to parents, if she's getting angry at you, it is a gift.

because there is a point in her development that she will think that's not appropriate anymore and it'll turn on her. And so if it's coming out of you, you have this beautiful opportunity to teach her how to be more gentle with herself, how to give herself grace, how to work with that angry voice

before it unleashes that venom on herself. It takes quite a lot of discipline and awareness as a parent, which I feel like back to kind of your opening statements, my revelation that I had and just talking with you guys is like it's not about optimizing to try to be the perfect parent or put them on the perfect routine or nutrition plan it's like no optimize for awareness like how can we how can we kind of notice the most about kids and about ourselves and and then like navigate with

whatever best discernment you have at the at the time but like that discipline of of like realizing hey this is an opportunity I shouldn't get frustrated because she's turning it's it's super hard as a parent And I'm even thinking, like, the restaurant example, as a father, how do I differentiate my resilience as a man versus, like, stubbornness as, you know what I'm saying? Like, sometimes those feel like they might overlap in a tough way. Like, no, son, we're going to stay here. And even though we're all miserable, like, is that me being resilient or stubborn? You know what I'm saying?

I don't know. But you know, the more I talked that through with this dad, he said to me, which I thought was so wise, he said, you know, David, instead of it. taking him home. I wish there was a park across the street. I wish we'd gone across the street. And I had had him run some laps. Like just get some of the intensity, the physicality of the emotion out and then to see if we couldn't talk through some of why he was so, why he was in so much distress over a restaurant change. But he said, you know, I just was over attending to the behavior and not digging into what was underneath. And I think I could have accomplished more if we'd done

that you just feel like these visceral reactions as a parent sometimes where it's like like your hand starts sweating or like the anger just hits or and it's like man creating white space as a parent it just it's a practice thank good for it but i keep it's really hard no no i was just to say it's something really cute a self-awareness thing same child um but she started recognizing she'll tell us when she's mad hungry oh my gosh and it's so it's so it's so sweet and it's so sweet and it's so quiet but she's like mommy I'm mad hungry and I'm like good for you

we're gonna go get your food and it's so sweet I don't know how she who taught her it but mad hungry and I'm like I feel that I feel that but the self-awareness side is interesting and hard and I'm still trying to figure out how to do it 99% of the time

what ages are you looking for signs? And what age can you bring a kid into counseling? Or should you? Like, what age should you start? Statistically, anxiety, the average age used to be eight. Now we're seeing it drop to six with signs as young as four and five. And so I think you can see some of that rigidity and desire for control at four,

maybe even at three, sometimes, but also developmentally, they're learning to work through those things anyway. And so we don't want to jump on and think, oh, no, my child has clinical anxiety at this point. But I think it's good if you have a child who's leaning towards a lot of rigidity and control to practice more flexibility. And how can we strengthen that muscle back to that idea

and maybe use brave beads as a part of it? And with counseling, I think being a good student of development, we certainly have had parents of two-year-old. who will call our office, and there's a lot of parenting that you can do to help at that point. But at five, six, I mean, what we would say to parents is start reading the books, start having the conversation, see what you can do at home. If they're older, we wrote the work books, strong and smart and braver, stronger, to kind of be a first line of defense.

Try this first. If it feels like the needle's not moving, then take them to get counseling. But we see kids really eight or nine and up. because we do more talk therapy, pulling in a lot of different elements, play therapy for younger kids can be really helpful too. Is counseling great for maintenance? Like, not in the sense of, like, I see something wrong with my child who's six, but is that something you should put in your toolbox to say, every quarter, let's take our six-year-old

in or eight or seven? We see a lot of that with parents. We do what we call parent consultations, where parents come in for what probably feels like a well-visit with a pediatrician. We're not here because we're sick, but we want to just ask some questions. Quarterly even. And think on what we could be doing intentionally, and yes, often once a quarter. And I think particularly for parents of younger kids to be able to think more strategically about what are some things we could do to lay a good, solid foundation on the front side of development.

So I think it absolutely can be helpful. Yes. And my favorite story, I may have told you this before, but ever a mom brought her daughter in, her daughter didn't want to be there. And she said, why are you making me do this? and she said, honey, my job is your mom is to build your team. And we're going to have people on your physical team that are your doctors. We're going to have people on your academic team that are your teachers. Of course, I would have someone on your emotional team.

And so we're going to go and see this person and we're going to establish a relationship. And then as you're growing up, when you need somebody, you already know who your person is. And we'll go right back into school. I love that. Beautiful. I love that. Build your team. I've heard you speak before about the fine line.

between like over vigilance as a parent and under could you unpack that a little bit for us because we do live in a time and age where it's like man I can learn anything I need to or I should know everything I need to and let me just implement all these different things but where is where is it too much you know well I think culturally we're at too much I mean I just think we're at hyper vigilance now to the degree that kids almost feel too much power and what we would say to parents over and over is the very best gift you can, if your kids is to do your own work. Back to your awareness idea. Because just like anxiety is contagious and it certainly is, so is health. So we're coping strategies. So is the kids we love watching us use these

strategies even if we're anxious. I mean, we had parents who were anxious likely, but y'all may have my parents were not using a lot of coping strategies in front of me they weren't modeling that and i can't imagine i would rather have an anxious parent who's using strategies in front of kids than a parent who is denying their emotion because that's never going to work for the child either rather than this is what life looks like there are hard things that happen and i can use tools that help me work through it in a healthy productive way that makes me feel brave and resilient i remember when you spoke at the family made event? I will never forget this. It's like ingrained in my

head. But you said, I don't remember exactly what you said it, but you said make a long list of everything you do in a day. And you said like 80% of that your kid should be doing for themselves. And I was like, oh, yeah. I like that. And it did. It changed how we operated at home. I was like,

okay, you're going to get your silverware and your plate and you're going to go fill up your cup of water and you're going to, they serve themselves their dinner. And I was like, I did all of it. this and now you should do it and they love it that is so great yeah thank you are you serious i'm really grateful for you guys is is they start ministry's uh like spiritual based is it spiritual based counseling so backstory i i guess experienced sports induced anxiety or something uh when i went to the pros my rookie year and you described that anxiety as like a looping thought i'd never had this

in my life and I'd played in front of bigger crowds for more high pressure moments in a game but I showed up in Kansas City and I was just like paralyzed by this thought of whatever the like long snapping thing was but I was like okay you're gonna you're gonna roll this snapback Andrew you're gonna roll it back and that's terrible in my in my role and I just couldn't get that on my mind so much so that we'd have team meetings and I would have to like bite my tongue physically to prevent myself from yelling out these weird things and I'm like what is happening I just couldn't get out of my mind but as I've kind of grown through that and it took years to do it but like the idea of a god that was way higher

than the NFL was tough for me to comprehend but like so powerful and as you said right sizing things it's like oh shoot this matters yes I'm not saying it doesn't matter, but like the right sizing of it really allows you to move way more freely and have like a healthy, a healthy attachment or maybe a healthy detachment towards these little things that we might get hung up on. So I just love your guys' perspective. So thankful that you share it. I know you've written 13 books now. Is that right? Go by every single one of them. And you've written 10? Go by every single one of them. You guys. Listen to their podcast by everything they do.

You guys crank it out. It's crazy. I will say for how many, like you said, we live in a culture where there is way too much information and everybody lives on a certain side and says this is the right way or this is the wrong way,

this is how you mess up a kid, this is how you get right. Everything you guys do is so reassuring as a parent. They're tangible, they're easy, and they just make sense. And it's not polarizing, controversial. It's just to raise good humans. and not to raise like an elite athlete like people are doing these days.

Yeah. You've definitely positively impacted our parenting journeys. Yes, thanks, y'all. That's more than you know. We love time with the two. Yes, we do. Sign us up for a well visit. We're going to come in.

How can people buy your books? Yes. Anywhere books are sold. And if you go to our website, Raising Boys and Girls.com, it'll take you to the podcast, all our books. we try to put out a lot of easy reachable content on social media as well so it'll kind of link you to everything you guys do a great job with that so it's on amazon and the website is that right yes what i love about the tools that you provide so you have the uh feelings thermometer is that right

and the feelings chart yes is as a guy who is working on my emotional awareness to me it's like a great default like hey i don't know what they're doing in this situation with my five-year-old daughter let's go to the feelings chart you know what I'm saying it's like I don't I don't have to know it all because it's like okay let's just do this so it's an easy third thing to incorporate so thank you for that but thank you both yeah and for those listening that don't know about sissy and David will link their information down below link to the book link to their website but thank you guys so much y'all are the best it's so fun to be with y'all thank you guys