Dhru Purohit Show - How to 10x Your Charisma and Connect With Anyone Using The Power of Mirror Neurons with Jennifer Kolari (Rebroadcast)

Episode Date: August 31, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Lifeforce and Cozy Earth. I’m sure many of you are parents and can relate to the many challenges that come with it. Sometimes, our emotions take over, our past experiences drive big reactions, or we can’t get through to our kids the way we want. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, we are re-broadcasting a deep dive episode on all things parenting, charisma, and connection with child and family therapist, Jennifer Kolari. In this episode, Jennifer explains how anyone – not just parents! – can become more relatable in the eyes of others using the power of mirror neurons.  Jennifer is one of the nation’s leading parenting experts and the founder of Connected Parenting. She is the author of Connected Parenting: How To Raise A Great Kid and You’re Ruining My Life! (But Not Really) Surviving the Teenage Years with Connected Parenting. Jennifer was the Parenting expert on CBC’s Steven and Chris show for eight seasons and has appeared frequently on Canada AM and Breakfast Television. Jennifer has been helping children, teens, and families get connected for over twenty years. In this episode, Dhru and Jennifer dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): -How Jennifer discovered compassionate parenting and family therapy as her calling (1:33 / 1:33) -The power of limbic bonding for you and your child (10:31 / 7:17) -What traditional parenting got wrong about “You should know better!” (18:50 / 15:39) -What are mirror neurons and how they can help (22:20 / 19:07) -How yelling impacts the fight or flight response and stress hormones (27:40 / 23:28) -Breaking down the CALM technique (30:59 / 27:48) -Practicing active listening with the CALM technique in real situations (47:46 / 44:38 ) -Approaching disagreements with teenagers more mindfully (55:10 / 52:00) -Dealing with full-on tantrums and what happens when you give them permission to meltdown (59:59 / 56:52) -Advice for couples and how to use mirroring for intimate relationships (1:18:56 / 1:15:50) -Taking a modern approach to the modern problems kids are dealing with (1:34:42 / 1:31:30 ) -Why too much power leads kids to feel anxious (1:52:21 / 1:49:11) Also mentioned in this episode: -Connected Parenting: How To Raise A Great Kid -You’re Ruining My Life! (But Not Really) Surviving the Teenage Years with Connected Parenting -The Connected Parenting podcast with Jennifer Kolari For more on Jennifer you can follow her on Instagram @jenniferkolari and through her website connectedparenting.com.  Right now, get 15% off your first purchase of Lifeforce at Mylifeforce.com with code DHRU. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to cozyearth.com and use code DHRUP. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Drew Proet podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Jennifer Kalari, and today we're talking to her about how we can instantaneously become more charismatic and relatable in the eyes of others, including if you're a parent, the eyes of your kids, but it's not just limited to kids and children. the power of mirror neurons will help you improve every single relationship in your life. What's this mechanism that allows us to do this? It's our ability to leverage the power of mirror neurons. What are mirror neurons and how can we leverage them to become more likable? That's what Jennifer Kalari is going to break down today. Now, a little bit more about Jennifer.

Jennifer Kalari is a child and family therapist, author, and a deep expert in the area of the practical applications around the science of mirror neurons. She's the founder of connected parenting and the author of Connected Parenting, How to Raise a Great Kid. But I promise you, today's episode is much more than just about raising kids, although that's very important too. Jennifer has been helping children, teens, and their families, and even corporations use the power of connection for over 20 years.

stay tuned to this fantastic rebroadcast of one of our top episodes on the Drew Proop podcast on charisma and connection with Jennifer Colore. I want to start off with your origin story because you have such a unique background of experiences that led to this methodology that you use not only with parents and kids and teenagers, but also for just human beings in general who are looking to improve their relationships for the people. So take us back to this time period where you started off your career as a social worker and you found yourself working with what people would say would be troubled teens. Yes, absolutely. So this is going way back. This is probably going back

almost 30 years ago. I'd finished my undergraduate degree in psychology and I wanted to do something real. I wanted to get out there with real families and real kids and make a difference. I ended up working at this group home for street kids. So these are children who were 11 to 16 years. old. They'd been working on the streets of Toronto as child prostitutes. So they'd been sexually abused, physically abused, deeply traumatized. They were tough. They were scared. They were kind of prickly. And I had no idea what I was doing. And they could tell. So I got into this group on I had no idea what I was doing. They really kind of ran the show. And we were actually trained in this group home. We were taught not to connect with these children. That's what we were told. Don't get connected

to them. They're not here very long. It's what was called a receiving home. So they were only there for a few months before they were placed in a more permanent home. So we were told not to connect with them, that it's too hard on them. They'd start to like you and then they would just leave. None of that made sense to me. These are babies. These are children. They're 11 and 12 and 13 years old and they've been through terrible things. It made no sense to me.

So especially at bedtime. And it was what's called a semi-lockup facility. So they weren't locked in, but their belongings were. So that their shoes and their ID and things like that. So it was really like a jail, essentially. And so at night when the makeup came off and the teddy bears came out and the jammies came on and they turned back into kids, I could not just ignore them. I couldn't do it. So I'd sit on their beds and I'd rub their backs and I'd tell them bedtime stories and I would sing them lullabies and these really tough, scary kids would melt into this bedtime routine. They just loved it. And the next day, when it was time for me to get them to do the things I needed them to do, they were much more likely to do it for me. So that connection, that moment, feeling seen, feeling heard, feeling loved just for a moment had such a huge impact on their trust and on their compliance. So it's interesting because a lot of the other staff are like, oh, she's a bleeding heart.

They're going to walk all over her. They're just going to take advantage, blah, blah, blah. None of that happened. None of that happened. It was, I really did feel that that connection had a huge impact on their sense of self. I learned so much for them. And there was one little girl actually. We had had meetings for weeks before this child came into this home.

She was quite aggressive. She'd actually punched her six foot two social worker, male social worker in the nose and broke his nose. That's how aggressive this child was. She'd been through a lot, actually. And she particularly loved this bedtime routine. And didn't want to talk about it the next day because it's embarrassing. But at night, she couldn't wait. And she allowed herself to be a kid.

And she was only there about a week and a half. And I remember her leaving. she was leaving with her new social worker to go to a more permanent resident. She was only there for a little while. And she was walking to the car. She stopped. She came running back up the sidewalk. She put her hands on my cheeks.

And she said, I just want to remember this face, the face of someone who actually cared about me. So I never forgot that moment because that's the moment I knew that I wanted to do this. Right. I knew that I wanted to be a social worker. And I knew that compassion and empathy would be a huge part of what I wanted to learn more about. And that I wanted to understand what this power was. And then I went, then I did go back to school. I did my master's and did some more training and ended up working in mental health ever since.

And those moments, you know, she was a real teacher, that child. No one is beyond that. Everyone just wants to be loved. Everyone wants to be seen and everyone wants to be heard. And any argument, any fight you've ever been in, that's all you ever wanted. So true. It's the fundamental aspect of all communication, whether it's in the workplace or couples counseling. So of course it's going to be there.

with kids. I want to ask a follow-up question about that moment when this young woman shared that and held your face, which I saw you give, you know, in the preparation of the interview, I watched one of your talks online and I remember you sharing that story and I had chills. Yeah. You know, just listening to it.

What did you think when you went through that, did you share that with the other coworkers there? I did. I did, but it's interesting. And we'll talk about this over the hour today. People get very funny. When someone is misbehaving or they're not nice or they're abrupt or they're rude or they're giving you a behavior that you don't want, there's this strong sense of we have to teach them. We have to consequence them.

We have to set a limit, which you do and we'll get to that. But when it comes from self-defense and it comes from anger, that's so obvious to the other person. It's like if you have a child and you're yelling, don't you know I love you? like, no, in that moment, there's no love there. There's anger there. You love them underneath that, but that's the energy of it. And so there's this pull to constantly feel like you're doing something wrong if you're showing softness, if you're showing kindness. But honestly, it's usually the answer, always. It's just not easy to do. It's kind of the technique that I'll talk about soon is very counterintuitive. Pretty much the opposite of what your body is going to tell you to do.

This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth. recorded over 400 podcasts to date and experts of all types have continuously reminded my audience that their number one factor for better health and longevity is can you guess sleep whether you're looking to optimize longevity lose weight or protect against chronic disease prioritizing your sleep is super duper important and when it comes to creating an optimal sleep environment high quality bed sheets truly make a world of a difference i know they did for me enter cozy earth cozy earth's best-selling bamboo bed sheets are insanely, insanely soft and comfortable. I love them because they're moisture wicking, breathable, temperature regulating, so I sleep cool and sound all night long. My wife

loves them because they're no pill super durable and because I no longer wake her up by ripping off the sheets in a heated frenzy. True story. Right now, Cozy Earth is offering my listeners 40% off sitewide with the code D-H-R-U-P. That's my first lame and my last initial at checkout. Just head over to cozy earth.com and use the code Drew P at checkout. That's cozy earth.com slash D-H-R-U-P for 40% off. Are you ready to unlock the secrets to a vibrant life? Well, listen up because I'm super excited to tell you about life force.

The groundbreaking health platform that's been revolutionized. personalized performance and longevity-based action plans. Lifeforce is not your ordinary testing company. Their diagnostic plan analyzes 40 different biomarkers, including some of my favorite fasting insulin, APOB, and organ health indicators. This comprehensive approach paints a clear picture of your chronic disease risk and cardiometabolic health. And the best part is Life Force makes integrating personalized recommendations

working with practitioners a total breeze. They connect you with top-notch personalized medicine doctors who put all the pieces together. And they recommend supplements and lifestyle changes tailored specifically to your biological needs. It's like having your own personal wellness dream team. And just when you thought it couldn't get better, they make tracking your progress incredibly convenient. Every three months, they'll send a licensed phlebotomist right to your doorstep, helping you get all your latest bloodwork, which will ensure accurate measurements and help your dream team, adjust your plan based on how your body changes over time. No more hassle or

guesswork, just personalized guidance every step of the way. If optimizing your longevity is high on your priority list, then check out Lifeforce. And right now, my audience can get 15% off your first Lifeforce purchase. Just go to MyLifeforce.com. That's M-Y-L-I-F-E-F-R-C-C-com, my lifeforce.com and enter the code Drew D-H-R-U. That's me to optimize your health span today. That's Drew, D-H-R-U at my-lifeforce.com for 15% off your first life force purchase. So one of the terms of these experiences, and I'm sure there was a lot of reading and learning, and as you mentioned, you went back to school and you developing your own methodology, one of the terms that you talk about is limbic bonding and how important is with the power

of connection. So what is limbic bonding? So how is it related to connection? So limbic bonding is really when you just have a delicious moment with someone, right? You're sharing a laugh. If it's your child, you're rubbing noses. You just see them in their absolute beauty. You see them through the eyes of love. You're kind of seeing the best version of them, which is what all of us want, by the way. And there's a, there's a beautiful feeling that goes along with that. In the brain, what's happening is you're releasing oxytocin, which we'll talk about in a moment, which is a very powerful stress hormone, but also reward chemical that floods every cell in your body, natural endorphins, opiates. There's all kinds of beautiful reward chemicals that flood the brain when that happens,

and those are very, very protective, and those build a bond, and those also build resilience and encourage emotional organization and really keep us tightly bonded to each other so we can then listen to one another and learn from one another, which is really what parents are is all about. And it's more likely to happen when that's there versus the sort of, like my, I used to hear this quote from one of these speakers I read about. And they would say like, you know, when you try to overpower your kids or anybody in communication, you're using sort of brute force, try to try to get somebody to do something.

And we all know how much it sucks when somebody's doing that to us. Absolutely. Whether we're a kid or whether we're an adult. It doesn't matter. And we sort of think that because children are small and they're only five or six or ten, they don't feel the way we feel. They do. They feel exactly the same.

You won't find a human being that loves being controlled. On some level, it feels awful. All we really want is freedom and we want to be heard. So another word that you use regularly and you shared earlier is empathy. And you talk about how empathy is what connects us to one another. And it holds a relationship together. So why does empathy? and it probably piggybacks off of this limbic bonding,

but I'd love to talk about in the context of empathy and what it means to you, but why does empathy have such a big impact on behavior? So let me give you the big answer to that because it really has everything to do with the brain. So the mirroring technique, the calm technique, which we'll get into in a moment, is really a way to create that empathy and that connection

and that alignment, that attunement with what another person is feeling. whenever someone's in an argument and they're not being heard, they continue to make their point and sometimes escalate in making their point until they feel heard. We think sometimes as a parent or a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a wife or a husband that our job is to teach them. You know, you're making me feel bad or you need to understand this, or you need to behave this way so I can feel better.

And whenever that's the energy behind it, the other person is going to feel invalidated. They're not going to feel listened to and they're not going to feel heard and they will keep hitting the send button and that's what an argument is. That's what a fight is. So what's happening in that moment is you're becoming limbically charged. You're now reacting to the environment that you're in instead of responding. And that never goes well. So parenting essentially, which is probably the hardest job you will ever do,

really is about holding that person in sort of the highest version of them, remembering who they are in those moments, no matter how yucky they can get. they need to see in your eyes that version of them. If you're thinking, oh, they're a brat or oh, they never listen or why can't they just do this? Or how come this always happens? That's what they're going to see in your eyes and you're going to miss some important moments to connect. So what happens with connection is children are born premature. Human babies are born premature.

They're the only animal born who cannot sit up. They cannot run. They can't walk. They can't feed themselves. They are 100% dependent on their parents. Most of brain development happens outside of utero, not in. Right, versus chimpanzees and other animals and horses and elephants. Yes. Because they're in the wild.

They come up kind of ready to go with a little learning to do, but for the most part, they can stand up. They can eat. Right. So human babies are basically a giant head if you think about it. Their big head with a little tiny body. They can't roll over. They can't sit up. They can't even touch the top of their own head.

They are 100% dependent on their caregiver, on their parent. So nature's really interesting. So what nature did is it. created like a fourth trimester, and that's childhood, which sometimes can go right into the 20s. And what's happening there is they're bonded to you. The umbilical cord is gone, but the emotional umbilical cord is there, and that's connection. Right. So the good news is that with the technique that I'm going to talk about in a moment, mirroring and the calm technique, most of us are fantastic at this. We know how to do it. We know how to do it with a baby. No one's going to pick up a baby

and go, hi. How are you? I mean, nobody would do that. You'd pick up a baby and go, my goodness, at that little base and the baby reacts to you, you react to the baby, natural endorphins, oxytocin, these beautiful reward chemicals flood the brain, telling that little baby, I'm okay, this person gets me, this person seems to know what's going on, and literally the baby is thinking, I don't know what that sound is, I don't know what that shadow is over there, who's this person that keeps, you know, coming towards me, I don't what's going on in my diaper, but they keep seeing this parent who attunes perfectly to them, whose facial expressions match what they are feeling, which releases these beautiful reward chemicals, soothing and calming the baby down, so the baby can

then separate from you and crawl and move and explore and walk, knowing that that bond is still there. And take time to evolutionary create the most advanced brain that society and the planet has ever seen, at least before we know of. Absolutely. You know this. The human brain is phenomenal. It's so complex. And it takes 25 years to grow one. That's how long it takes. So you have to stay bonded to your children so that you can keep that connection until, so basically it's the frontal lobe that takes around 25 years to grow. And the frontal lobe inhibits, organizes, prioritizes, motivates, does all those things. Executive function. All that stuff. And kids don't have a fully formed frontal lobe yet, not really until they're 19,

sort of at 16, so they could drive. So what I always say to parents is you're not a parent. you're a substitute frontal lobe. That's what you are. And guess what your job is? Inhibit, organize, prioritize, and motivate. That's what you're doing. And that's why when parents say to me, how come I have to say the same thing 50,000 times?

Because that's the brain function that you're providing, right? I went to the same thing when they were kids. Exactly. People forget. Exactly. We think of them as many adults, but they're not. There's so much brain development that needs to happen and that has to happen within the context of love and compassion

and empathy and the parent believing. in their best all the time. They have to see that reflection in our eyes. You know, I talk about this with friends a lot, and I have a few friends who are always looking and very interesting studying history and the evolution of families and us going from villages and into like homes. And one thing that we look around is that, you know, for thousands, one of the theories that was presented to me by one of my dear friends is that for thousands of years, kids were primarily raised by a group and often the grandparents had a lot to do with that mirroring component. We intrinsically know that we kind of have as kids, there's this relationship with our grandparents.

And what is it about grandparents? You know, at that age, they've sort of seen it all. They know that their kid was a pain in the ass, right? They know that the other kid. They have the perspective. Now parents, and parents' job primarily, especially, you know, hunter-gatherer and we're in these villages was to make sure you had enough food on the table and that you didn't die. Yep.

Right? Yep. That you were protected and that there was that component. Now we have many people who are parents who never really had any experiences of being around kids growing up and really because of a lot of different reasons, they never really had any interaction with a deep interaction of having like that grandparent method. So there's so much pressure on parents. On the nuclear parents, absolutely.

There's so much pressure. And why I bring it up is because I think you're building a fantastic distinction that I'd love to set up before we go into mirroring is that the way that traditionally society looked at is that you said something very important. Kids' brains are not the same as adults. But in society, there's this understanding that they should know better in parenting. Yeah. Whether it was through the history of punishment, of like, you know, hitting kids like corporal punishment. or something else. And really what you're helping people understand

and any parent that's listening or anybody that's listening in general is that kids, brains, and adults is not the same. They're not the same. They're in progress, right? They're building. So it's interesting because that is a very big change.

And you touched on grandparents, which is so interesting because with a grandparent, you have that perspective and you almost always see your grandchildren in the best light. Because they get to go home, right? You can go to bed,

go to sleep. You don't have to be up with them until two in the morning when they're scared. So they have that perspective and that's really valued. But there's also this generational gap. So there's a lot of the grandparents are like, this is ridiculous. You're letting your kids get away with everything. This is why your children are having trouble.

And the current parents are like, oh, we don't say no. We don't talk to our children like that. So there's sort of a gap. So parents and grandparents are not always agreeing. Or the parent is trying to set up some nice structure. And the grandparents are like, ah, let's sit out and have a whole box of chocolate. Who cares? I don't have to deal with you later.

I want to stay up late at night. It's all good. So all along the line, communication is really, really important. And whenever you are raising a child, whatever your role, you have to understand that all the different people that are helping you raise your child. And it does take a village should be complimenting you, right? It shouldn't be that they have to be like you. They have to a parent like me. That's not helping your child.

If you go to grandmas and you put your feet up on the couch or up on the coffee table and she gets mad at you, a lot of parents would like, okay, don't talk to you. don't talk to him like that. He gets really upset and he'll have a fit for like an hour if you tell him not to do that. And I tell parents don't do that. Say, hey, you know what? If you want to put your feet up on my coffee table, that's our rule and we're okay. But if you do it at grandmas, she's going to get really upset.

And you're going to feel really sad when she yells at you. But you know what? If you do it at the grandmas, that's what's going to happen. They have to learn how to handle different adults in different situations. Because you are basically showing them, that's the real world. That's the real world. You know, when I think about your work and your books and I didn't get a chance to read them both, but I got deep into the second one,

watching your talks, listening to podcast in preparation of this interview, I really think about your methodology as the middle path because so many parents, and I'm not a parent myself. We have so many moms and dads that listen to this podcast, and I want to be a parent one day, and I'm super excited, and I had great parents growing up who I felt like practice this without knowing it, right?

Practice this without knowing it in a way. When I think about your work and your methodology, it's that middle path of you have some parents today, who are trying to protect their children from some of the pain that they went through or just implementing the best version of whatever they're reading. Yes. And then the information overload that's out there.

And then there's the old school sort of approach of like, they're going to walk all over you and there's going to be this. And it's not one of the other. Both parties have some things right. Yes. And these key concepts we're talking about is what this middle path, the comm technique and everything,

everything else is based on. So let's go into the next part of that puzzle, which is mirroring, right? So let's start off first with mirror neurons. What are they and why are they important to this puzzle? So mirror neuron cells, I think they were discovered in the 1990s. They're really, they're really what help us. They're sort of the building block, a foundation of empathy, really. It helps us to understand what someone else might be thinking or feeling.

So if I drink some water, our mirror, my neurons, your mirror, neuron cells are going to light up, which might make you thirsty. If we're watching a movie and we know it's a movie and they're actors and they're, but we're crying, this is the saddest movie. Our mirror neuron cells are causing us to feel that empathy, to feel that connection, to feel what the other person is feeling. And oxytocin, which releases when we feel what someone else is feeling and when we feel heard and we feel loved and we feel understood, actually really helps to bathe the brain

and calm the brain down so that you can now respond to the person that you're talking. to instead of react to the person that you're talking to. But you're saying that basically mirror neurons, when there's this mirroring, mirroring that's happening, are you saying that it allows the oxytocin to be produced? It can be, yeah. So if you mirror neuron cells light up when we're watching anyone, when we're copying anyone, when we're feeling whatever someone else is feeling. And that's sort of one of the building blocks, one of the foundations of empathy.

And so when someone is deeply connected to us and they're really listening, we're just having a moment where they just get us. Our mirror or neuron cells get very excited. They light up and then comes the release of those beautiful reward chemicals. And those reward chemicals are actually very important when it comes to emotional regulation. So when someone feels deeply loved, deeply understood, when there's a steady flow of those beautiful chemicals, they're much more likely to be more emotional resilient and respond instead of freak out. It's just it allows the brain to just respond to the world instead of react. That's the best

way to put it. But we have to control our own reactions in order to do that. And as you mentioned earlier, everybody intrinsically gets this when they're with babies. Yes. We're so good at it with babies, right? So what happens around the time of language acquisition, that's when we start to drop it. So if you have a four-month-old baby and they're fussing and they're cold, you don't say to the baby, oh, for heaven's sakes. Like, we've had a bath every night for four months. I don't understand why you're still upset, you're fine. No one would talk to a baby like that. You would look at the baby and you would say, oh my goodness, I know you're cold and your little lips are quivering and this towel is scratchy. They don't know what you're saying, but they see on your face a perfect

representation of what they are feeling. That neurological match happens. They realize, okay, she's getting me or dad's, dad gets me. I'm going to be okay. Because once the message is transferred, then they can calm down, right? So as soon as that happens, that's one of those beautiful were bored chemicals flow and the baby calms down. Now, what do you do when there's a four-year-old who won't get out of the bath? That looks different, right? Get out of the bath, please. Right now, look at mummy's face. This is not mummy's happy face. Mommy's getting upset. Look at your brother. He's already in his pajamas. Please get out of the bat. Just once. Can you do what I ask? Three, four, five, five and a half, whatever the count is, right? And now they're yelling and now

you're mad and now you're frustrated. And there's so much of that with a parent. It's almost always like pushing a boulder uphill. Getting them into the bath. Getting them out of the bath. getting them to bed, getting them out of bed, getting them out the door, getting them in the door. Like there's just kids struggle with transitions, and that is the job, by the way, of the frontal lobe. And the kids live in the moment, right? And parents are stressed and they are tired and it is frustrating. And what happens in the parenting world is nobody tells you really their terrible parenting stories. It's all like, oh, look at my child, and we're doing this, and she's in this class. And really, we should just all help each other out because parenting is really hard.

It's really, really, really. It can be wonderful. It is the greatest thing you will ever do, but it's really, really tough. And parents need to support each other and not judge each other so much because it really is a tough job. So when you think about mirror neurons and when you think about how, so you gave us, you gave a compare and contrast, right? And then we'll get into like the calm technique or you can do however you want to approach it. So you gave this example of getting out of bath and all the things that come up. What does it look like when we start first understanding? that kids' brains are different.

Empathy, if we want, because they don't have this frontal lobe and this decision-making ability and the executive function as an adult, now we want to encourage certain behavior to happen, but it's not going to happen if there is a separation of their brain of, I'm going through this and this person doesn't understand me. Yeah. So why would I listen? It's like there's not even the ability to listen. Right.

And so how do we, what does it look like to step into? a place of marrying. So the first thing I will say is this is you have to be very brave to do this. Your brain is going to tell you to do anything else. It's going to tell you to yell. It's going to tell you to stomp. It's going to tell you to get upset. One of the things that's so challenging as a parent is that we just, we have so much to do.

There's so many different tasks during the day that when our child is not listening to us, it's incredibly frustrating. And it causes our brain to go into fight or flight. right so you've got the frontal lobes job is decide what's danger and what's not but if it's the 10th time that day that your child hasn't listened to you and you just went through it with your other child and you were up to here and you just want everyone to go to bed so you can sit down and have your tea you're going to be reacting to your child instead of responding yelling which is a very popular parenting technique which we all use from time to time does not work and it doesn't work because i i would love to find a human being on earth where someone has you know screamed at you or yelled at you or reprimanded you and you've gone, oh, that was awesome. Thank you. It's not going to happen, right? Because your limbic system, you're the part of your brain that wants to protect you from danger is going to light up and it's going to throw you into fight or flight. And it's not going to know the difference between your boss yelling at you

or your wife yelling at you or your mother yelling at you. You're going to start protecting yourself. And then you have a situation where you're reacting to each other. Parents are now, and usually the end of the day by bath time you're done you're tired already you're frustrated already the child doesn't want to be controlled doesn't like to be controlled or so here's what happens when you yell a couple things i want to say about yelling first of all here's a good rule of them if you're angry and what's coming out of your mouth feels fantastic it's wrong right it should feel like stuffed back down it should be like oh it really like you should be able to feel your own brain inhibiting that yelling or that whatever you're about to say. So if it feels good, it's probably wrong. That's the first thing.

And then when someone is being yelled at, it feels awful. It doesn't matter if you're 4 or 44 or 94. It feels terrible. And so that little child who's literally just having the best time in the bath, they're warm, they don't want to get cold, they're having the best time. They don't have the big picture of, oh, I really need to get to bed because I need my 11 hours of sleeper. I'm going to be cranky tomorrow. They're just having a blast playing in the bathtub. So what happens is when the parent comes in and demands compliance, you've got to get out. The child says no. The parent then gets really frustrated because they got 5,000 other things that they need to be doing. That disappointment of that behavior not happening when you need it to happen causes you to go into fight or flight and then

everybody explodes. And that happens over and over again in lots of people's houses. It's certainly happened in mine. What I love about the technique, which we're going to get into in a second, is you're going to blow it. Of course you're going to blow it. You're human. And by the way, that's a natural response. we don't listen to someone, especially if they're in authority, that person's going to get upset. So you get a chance to go back and repair. Remember yesterday when you wouldn't get out of the bath? And I got really, really mad. I didn't stop and think about how much fun you were having.

You were having the best time. And I was just yelling at you get out of the bath because your brother was already out of the bath. You can go back and use the calm technique, which will break down an hour later, a week later, two weeks later, a month later. And it's the most beautiful way to repair. and it gives you so much freedom as a parent because of course you're going to make mistakes. You're perfectly imperfect. It teaches kids that people make mistakes

and how do you repair and apologize and go through it? 100%. If you raised your child and never got angry and never yelled, you'll mess them up anyway. Because they'll go to work. Someone's going to yell at them and they're going to be like, whoa, what is this? I don't know how to deal with this.

You want them to have all kinds of experiences. You want them to have resilience. Emotional resilience. That's what you want. So let's go. Go into the common technique. Walk us through it. Okay. What's the methodology? How do we approach it? And how can somebody use it in their own life? Okay. So there are four key things that you're going to do. The first one is you're going to connect. This is an interesting one because we often have our cell phones in our hands.

Or we're thinking of five other things that we need to do or we're so busy trying to stick to our own agenda, let's say, that we have a difficult time taking our agenda, take care of our emotions, whatever those are and just parking them. You get to bring them back and we'll talk about this in the hour. I'm actually all about limit setting and all about structure for kids because I think that's really important, but you don't start there. You start with the connection and with the empathy first. So that's the C. And you're going to use your face. You're going to use your shoulders. You're going to use your body to really demonstrate to that little person or that coworker or your husband or whoever it is that you're present and you really want to understand them.

You want to get them. It doesn't mean you want to agree with them. It doesn't mean they're going to be right. It means you just want to get them. Okay. Then you take, then the next one is A. So this is the affect matching. So this is where the look on your face has to kind of match the look on their face. Right. There can't be a big difference there. So let's say your little one comes home and says, I thought Julie loved me, but I found out today she loves Noah. Okay. So that's really cute if they're like four. And you want to be like, oh, honey, this has nothing to do with what they're feeling. Yeah. For those that are listening, you're like smiling. You're like, this is so cute. You're laughing a little bit, but that's not what they're going through. Not what they're going through.

And if they see that on your face, they're going to go, okay. So mom's not getting them. Dad is not getting this. I need to ramp this up a little bit so they can see how upsetting this really is. And that's where you get the escalation. Right. So the affect has to match and you have to take your agenda, which is just, can you just get to bed? Or can't you just listen to me for five seconds?

Or why can't I just do one thing without you getting mad at me? And you have to put that aside. You get to bring it back. incredibly important to bring it back, but we want to bring it back at a time when it's actually your teaching that moment can actually be useful and not rejected. The next part is listen. So this is where you're going to paraphrase. You can summarize. You can clarify or you can wonder out loud. I'll take you through a whole example. And that's where you're choosing your words. The words are actually the least important. It's how you look. It's the look on your face. You can say absolutely

nothing. You can go, wow. Hold on a second. Like you just told me so many things there. That's a lot. Oh my gosh, I'm affect matching. I didn't say anything, but they're going to wait and go, ooh, she's really getting me. I want to see what she has to say. Right. So much of it is affect-based. It's really about the connection. It's about the moment. Which, if I could interrupt for a second. Yes, please. Anybody who's listened to this podcast and knows the work of Stephen Porges and the polyvigal theory, and especially with kids, you're talking about how just connecting the dots for the folks who are listening, kids don't have that fully developed prefrontal cortex.

And instead, a lot of that self-soothing is happening in the vagal for kids and adults. And our body, whether we realize it or not, is looking to other human beings to see, can we get some level of self-soothing? And that's why when we talk with babies, we use this high-pitched voice with this, that. It's just indications that there is a level of soothing

and that the body is feeling like, okay, I am maybe not gonna experience this pain because I'm being protected in this moment. So this just ties right into the work that you're talking about. Completely. And I'll break it down into little steps so you can really follow it because it really is very prescriptive. And then the M just so you know is when you've done all those things, you've had a moment where you've mirrored. Human beings are social beings. Every single one of us is here because somebody loved us. Somebody loved us enough to pick us up, feed us, make sure we were safe in some way so that we survived. And when we become afraid, the first thing we do is we want

comfort. We want to be a part of something. We want to be around other people to help us feel safer. And so we have to create that emotional safety for our kids. And when we blow it, we have to know how to repair it and we have to know how to fix it. So that's kind of breakdown. We'll take it through, I'll take you through an actual example. And if you want, we could even do some role playing so you can feel it. You can see. Yeah. I love that. There's one context that I want to talk about, though, right before we start digging into that. And it goes back to what you were talking about a little while go about the grandparents and the village. I really feel as a family therapist that parenting has changed so much in the last

probably 15 to 20 years, like significantly. And some of it's good and some of it's not so good. It used to be what's called a parent-centered model. So certainly when I was a kid, adults were here, up here, and children were down here. There was a hierarchy. There was authority. There was some not-so-great things that came from that, but there was some really good things that children felt like, oh, he's in charge. She's in charge. There was some

safety that came with that. And all the TV shows that kids, I certainly grew up watching, you know, chaos would happen. There'd be trouble, but who fixed them in the old shows? The parents. The parents, the grandparents, the principal, the old man down the lane. Like, there was a sense that adults could be trusted and that adults kept us safe. And that's a really important thing that we've lost recently. So if you look at the show, that kids watch now, and I'm not saying don't let your kid watch TV, it's part of life, it's not going anywhere or YouTube shows or whatever, but be very aware because a lot of the programming is kids know everything. Chaos happens in the show, and now who fixes it?

Kids. The kids, the adults are idiots. They're stupid, silly people who don't know anything, especially TV dads, they're the worst. And kids kind of grow, and it's funny, but they grow up with this sense of like, whoa, I'm in charge. I shouldn't be in charge. I don't have a frontal lobe yet, right? So that change in parenting, I think, has caused, at least for me, I feel like I'm seeing a lot of young people, and they're amazing, and they're brilliant, and they're empathic, and they're wonderful, but they are struggling. They're having great difficulty with emotional regulation, with depression, with anxiety, all of the things that, guess what, that's the job of the frontal lobe, right? So I think we've, parents are well-meaning and we love our kids so much, and none of this was done

to harm our children in any way. But one of my big messages is I want parents to understand that you love your children deeply, also by setting limits, also by expecting more from them. Right? That's really important. And they have to know you're in charge. I don't mean nasty and controlling.

I mean they have to know that you're in charge. And the analogy that I give is if you were on an airplane and it was a bumpy, turbulent, terrifying flight, and you are petrified. And the captain decides he's going to wander down the aisle and say, how's everybody doing? I know it's really bumpy, but I could go 28,000 feet if you want, or I could try 30. I could maybe try going around the storm. What do you guys think?

How would you feel? You'd feel like this guy or girl know what they're doing? Exactly. Oh, like, I'm at the mercy of this person who's asking me what to do, right? Terrifying. That's not going to help you feel good. And for the sake of argument, let's say the cockpit doors open and the captain's in there yelling. I don't know why the control tower is not.

answering me, I don't know what that red button is, you're going to feel safe in that sea. Our children look to us to know that we are managing the big stuff, right, and that we're not freaking out and that we know what we're doing. And if we think about ourselves, if we're really honest, we are often either yelling and screaming, because we just are so frustrated, we can't take it anymore, or we're like, you know what, fine, fine, eat the whole box, I can't take it anymore, fine, get a cavity, it's up to you. Like we sort of flip, we pull ourselves, or you'll often have, if you're parenting in a couple, you'll have one parent that's, oh, it's not his fault, he's tired, she hasn't had her sleep. And the other one is like,

this is ridiculous. We just need some rules in this house. This is crazy. And you end up polarized. You really get at that, by way. You end up compensating for what you believe is a weakness in the other one's parenting. When if you actually got to that middle of ground that we were talking about right at the beginning, you're a compliment for each other. You're both right. I'll settle that argument right now. You are both right. You need to start with empathy. You need to start with connection.

You need to start with love. And then you move into containment and really solid, predictable, loving limits. That's the formula. You know, you told, we're talking about kids, but obviously this applies to people at all different ages. I actually want to interject with the story that you told in a talk of yours where you were talking about a more extreme example. of a young woman that you were working with. And I don't remember the full context of it, but I remember her being critical.

Oh, this is a prickly, yes, yes. This is a very challenging young woman who's going through a lot. Yep. And can you tell us that story? Yes, absolutely. So this was one of my first clients that I had finished my undergraduate degree

and my graduate degree, and I was now a therapist and training in psychotherapy. And she was one of my first patients. And this was a girl, she was only about 12 or 13, I think. And she had actually been the product of a rape. Her mother had decided to keep her. So there were all kinds of attachment issues going on there.

And there was a lot of struggle. And this girl had developed this. Do you think that she knew it or did you know that she knew it? She did know it. Yes. And the mother, you know, who was also traumatized and also struggling and also suffering, definitely told her that often. So this little girl, when she was about four, she used to throw herself down the stairs.

I mean throw herself down a flight of stairs just to get her mother to pick her up and show some kind of compassion. Those are the lengths that that child would go through to feel some kind of connection to her mom. And her mom, she really struggled and she had her own trauma. What that mother was able to do, though, is let me be the therapist to that child and let me show some of that to that child. So that is love, I think. she didn't do anything to get in the way of the therapy or, you know, have, I don't know, just block it in any way. She was very supportive and wonderful, and I believe that's the way that she loved her child and the way that she needed to do it. But by the time I got to see this kid, I can't even describe her to you.

She would literally sit in the waiting room at this agency. She would stick her foot out and she would trip people that were walking by. She would throw magazines on the floor. She would go into the bathroom and like stuff the sink with paper towel and run the water. She would make horrible noises. She was just awful. And she had perfected being prickly and unlikable. And she did that,

but she could protect herself from being hurt and from being left and from being abandoned. She was going to make sure she got abandoned, so at least it was on her terms. And we'll come back to that theme because you'll see that in different ways on a different continuum with lots of different kids. So she was prickly and nasty and she was really a tough kid.

And I had really fallen into this whole idea of compassion and empathy and nurturing. And I really tried with this kid. And she was really difficult. So I would say something to me like, your teeth are all crooked on the bottom. I can't even listen to what you're saying because your teeth are disgusting. Right. And I would be like, what do I do with that? And so what most adults would do would say things like, you know, that's not very nice.

How do you think you would feel if somebody pointed out a flaw that you had? And we sort of take this approach of like, I'm going to correct this behavior. it feels wrong not to correct the behavior. And of course, with a child like this, what you're going to get is a fight. Yeah, while your hair is ugly too. Like, it just was going to keep escalating. And I remember one of the strategies that I learned

to kind of cope with this kid was I'd be a few minutes late before going into the session. And honestly, I'm not kidding. I had to deep breathe and be like, okay, it's just an hour. It's only an hour. I can do it.

And I go in, and the second I'm in, you're an idiot, you pronounce that word wrong, you're stupid, how did you? It was just a barrage. and it would usually be that I was late and she'd be swearing at me and you're stupid and I want a different therapist and I would typically do what I'd learn to do in school which is active listening we'll talk about the difference between the calm technique and active listening but I would do empathic or active listening I understand that must feel very frustrating for you and how do you think that went over like really then why were you late like it just it didn't work she would just spit back she'd just spit it back at me and I was at an complete loss I did not know what to do. And I remember going back to my supervisor, almost in tears, saying I really thought I was a kind, empathic person. I thought I could find a place of love with anybody that I'm

working with. This kid is awful. She's so mean. I used to hate Thursdays, okay? And my supervisor told me three things that day that became the foundation of connected parenting. One was that you have to go back in that room and you have to show that child ruthless compassion. You have to be ruthless in your compassion. You have to see past all that prickly stuff and show her that you see the beautiful little person that's in there because there's always a beautiful, behind anyone who is angry, who is lashing out is someone who's afraid. Always. And she's, you know, we talked about her history and what had gone on with this little girl. I knew all this. It was just really hard. And then she taught me a bit about mirroring, which I have sort of taken and put my own spin on it

with a calm technique. And then she taught me. about intersubjectivity, which basically means that reality is an interpretation, basically. And that whenever we interact with another human being, it's through our own successes and our own failures and our own mood and whether we've had a fight with our teenage daughter on the way to work that morning or whatever it is, it's going to impact whatever we're interpreting in front of us. This is the way that I see it. I'm right.

I know all the circumstances instead of you couldn't possibly be able to really see it from their perspective. Yeah, and we're always the good guy in our movie, right? Always. Totally. So, always get the best of a gal. Exactly. Exactly. So those were the kind of three principles. And so I went back into that room. She taught me about mirroring. And this child literally said to me, I can't even listen to what you're saying. Your teeth are crooked on the bottom. It's disgusting. I can't even look at you. And normally you would correct or normally you get defensive or normally you'd get angry. And I looked at and I said, you know what? You've got the kind of brain that notices things. When things aren't lined up and they're not straight,

you notice that like stands out to you. And guess what this child did? She went, oh, it's okay because your top teeth are really, really nice. Yeah, and the story you shared that you said, you know what? My, this is a little crooked and my eyebrows are a little bit this way and that way. But, you know, you got this type of brain. Non-defensive. And something happened inside her.

Something happened. There was this moment where she instantly felt like she had to soothe me. Right. Oh, that's okay. Your top teeth are really nice. No, I can connect with that. That's something I can build on. And that's what I did with this girl.

I made sure that I just mirrored her all the time. And I remember in one session she was telling me something. And I went like this. I always have this piece of my hair falling in my face. And I went like this. And she prickled up and she got very angry and she started to be nasty again. I couldn't even think for a second what I did because it's such an automatic thing. And then I was like, you know what?

You were telling me something so important. You were sharing something really, really vulnerable and deep with me. And in that second, I thought about my hair. And she burst into tears. That happens to me all the time. nobody ever listens to me and that opened up a whole conversation that we could have about that the non-defensive stance is hugely important understanding that reality is shared is also hugely important and staying neutral really important and then finding that compassion

which is very difficult to find it is not easy you have to be very brave this is not does not come naturally and it also takes takes a little bit of time but the question is always what's the alternative is it more yelling and you know I always am mindful about the fact that I have zero experience being a parent. And so I just try to focus on asking good questions about it. And I always want to emphasize, but you've been doing a great job of emphasizing is that it's the hardest job in the world. And there's also too, I hear from so many parents that every kid is different and this worked with this kid and this then work with that. But I do think the universal idea of if something's not working, the question

is always like, what's the alternative? Exactly. Even if this takes more time, it takes other stuff. Absolutely. It's playing into the science of what we understand about kids' brains versus the difference of ours. So let's go back to the bathtub analogy. Yep, sure.

And you have a child who's four or five, six years old. It's taking a bath, refusing to get out, parents in a traditional approach, feeling this kid should know better or whatever narration of the story is happening at that time and is either yelling or maybe practicing active listening in that situation. Yeah. Okay, tell me more about that and, you know, like the kids going through what they're doing.

Right. How, what does the, what would the calm technique look like in that moment? Okay, I'm going to take you through that. There's two things I want to say first, and I want to go back just for a second and what you said that sometimes it takes more time. I would say, parents sometimes say to me, I don't have time to do all this. I don't have time to do those. I don't have time.

I just need to get them out of the bath. The truth is you don't have time not to. because if you don't do it, you're going to have probably more time and more energy and more angst spent not doing it than actually doing it. So it's actually conserving energy and is being proactive. And the other thing is the getting your kids to cooperate and the, you know, the compliance and all that stuff, that's nice. And this, you can certainly bust a tantrum in seconds with this. I mean, it really is a superpower and not just with kids, with everyone. But that's just the bonus. The real reason to do this is that over time, you're having an impact on the way that little

brain is growing, and you're helping that child to become emotionally literate, more emotionally organized, much more resilient. And the neatest part about this is you don't have to teach a child how to do this. They will naturally start doing it with you, and they will naturally start doing it with their peers. It is the greatest social skill anybody could ever have, and to be raised this way is just a gift. and it's a gift they can give to their children. So that's the big setup for the bath story, right? So typically the way that it normally goes, you know, in most households,

is you're tired, you've had a long day, you've already told your child, you're only having a 20-minute bath or whatever it is. And then you come in and you're like, hi, honey, you're ready to get out. No, honey, please don't do that. Please don't do that. No, I'm not getting out. Honey, please don't do this to me. We talked about this. We know you've got to get to me.

No, don't talk to me. I'm not getting out. and up the situation goes. So the typical way is the parent continues to try to use logic. This is why we have to get it. This is what we agreed upon. Life is full of things you don't want to do. We do all that stuff.

And all the child is hearing is, you don't get it, Mom. You don't get it, Dad. I'm having the best time, and I don't want to get out of the bath. And so as they try to send their message, which is no, no, no, in a minute, leave me alone, I will. And the more you're saying, this is ridiculous. You need to listen to me. I'm getting upset now. we're going to take your TV away or you're going to lose your iPod or whatever it is.

The situation just escalates. You end up expending a tremendous amount of energy. And here's something else that happens. Because we were talking about yelling a minute ago. Two things happen when you yell. You're either terrifying to a child and dominating and very frightening or you're hilarious. That's it. There's nothing in between.

So one of the things you have to know and you'll find this fascinating because this is all about the brain is because the children's brain, a child's brain, a child's brain, the frontal lobe isn't working that well. yet because it's growing. The frontal loath's job is to light up and inhibit the limbic brain, the feeling brain, right? So when we get upset, what ends up happening is we blow up and we yell, and the child then gets a blast of adrenaline. adrenaline is a stimulant, very much like concerta and vifance and adderol. It stimulates the frontal lobe, lighting the child up, and I've had so many children in my office say to me, you know, it's really fun. My own daughter said this to me just before I get in trouble, right? And what are they describing? They're describing adrenaline. So when we try to stay calm, we try to stay calm, we're getting more mad, we're getting more right,

and then we finally snap, then the child goes, oh, now's the time I'm going to have to listen. Got it. Okay, now I'm going to listen. They end up actually feeling pretty good, and mom and dad are a dishrag on the floor exhausted and likely have to go through the same thing with their other child, And the pattern gets set. And the pattern gets set. So they learn, they regulate off of the parent. I'll know when it's really time because mom's going to snap, right? And then what happens is you end up being the kind of parent where you cry yourself to sleep at night.

I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be yelling. Like how many parents say to themselves, you know what, tomorrow I'm not going to yell. I'm going to be so good. I'm going to be so patient. I'm going to be so good. And then half an hour into the morning, they're like, get in the car. Right?

Because they feel like that's the only thing that. and what they know actually leads to the result that they're looking for. Exactly. Exactly. So we're kind of training ourselves and we're training our children of what we look like when we mean it. Right. So you've got to find that neutrality and you have to be able to set that neutrality ahead of time. Then you also have to understand with the connection and the con technique, you're actually going to be creating the environment, the chemical environment where they actually want to get out of the bath because they feel good and they love you because they got oxytocin flowing, not cortisol, cortisol being the stress hormone.

And by the way, I should say, and then a promise, we'll get into this. Oxytocin has some pretty amazing characteristics. So it blocks cortisol. It actually blocks the stress hormone cortisol. It increases neuroplasticity. So you want to be smarter. You want to have a child that's learning at their absolute best. You want that brain making fast, fast neural connections.

Oxytocin. Strengthens the immune system. It helps with emotional regulation. And the best part is it's free. You don't need a prescription. There are no negative side effects. And I think the best thing of all is that when you use this on another human being, it doesn't have to be your child, you'll get the bounce back.

You'll get all those same amazing benefits for your own brain. So that's the gigantic setup for the bath thing, right? So now, if I come in and I use the calm technique, I would not come in immediately demanding that my child respond to me and do what I want. Because I don't know which fantasy land that happens in, but most of the time in everybody's house, it will not happen. kids need a window. So you come in and you sit beside them, you know, beside the bathtub and you touch the water and you go, my gosh, this water is so warm. What are you doing? Oh, I'm playing this

or this boat is doing this or whatever's happening in the bath. And you just kind of, you're present with them for that moment. You already say to yourself, this is going to take a few minutes. I'm not going to come in and say, get out of the bath and the kid's going to get out. Like maybe some kids do that, but very rarely does that happen. And you're just kind of connecting with them around why they're having fun. I say, you know what? I totally. get why? You don't love getting out of the bath because you're warm and you know that it's cold out there. Plus, you know, you have to go to bed. So I totally get it. So I'm going to give you five more minutes and you enjoy every warm minute of those five minutes and I'll come back in and

then maybe then we'll get out of the bath and it'll go here. And I'm telling you 85 to 90% of the time, you will come back and then they'll be, why do I have to? But they'll get out because you took that moment, right? Because you tried to understand where they were coming from first and didn't just grab them and try to control them. And you can't always do that. And when you blow it, because you will, you go back and you repair. And you do it the next day about what you should have done the night before. It honestly, it's a superpower. I would say 90% of the time you're going to get compliance. And when you don't, that's called the vortex. We can talk about that later. You know, you talk about this also with teenagers, right? And you talk about, and there's a bunch

of questions that I have with teenagers. And I'm going to jump back and forth a little bit on this. So let's say in an instance, let's talk about the calm technique, you know, a couple layers in. We have a teenager where there's a fundamental disagreement on something. It's not a matter of like a get out of the bath or that sort of thing. It's like you're wanting them to show up stronger in school or give more attention to something. So how does the calm technique look like at that level where let's say you've had, well, somebody who's paying attention that they have, let's say a pattern or a history? of what they deem as behavior that's not showing up correctly.

Right. For our, in this case, let's use a teenager as an example. And they say, and they don't get out of, their equivalent of getting out of the bathtub or putting attention on it. And you,

and they're actually upset at you. You know, you yourself, we were talking about a story where you were talking about a first-hand experience of hearing the words of, you've ruined my life. Right? Yeah.

From a child. Yeah, absolutely. What does it look like at that level? So it's really interesting. So listeners who, first of all, if you don't have kids, take notes anyway because this works on anybody. If you have little kids and pay attention because you're going to want to be good at this by the time they're teenagers. And if you have a teenager, this is teen whispering. This is literally, I believe, the only way to talk to a teenager that will actually get you anywhere.

Teenagers are already in a stage where they're individuating from us. They want to figure out who they are. They want to be independent. No, they want both. They want to be loved. they want to be listened to and they want to be heard, but at the same time, they want to be respected and they want to make their own decisions and I'm 15 now and you can't tell me what to do. And that's sort of a developmental stage that they're in.

And they look like they should have a fully formed frontal low, but they don't yet, right? They don't. So arguing with a 14-year-old is a mind-boggling experience, right? It really is, if you have a 14-year-old, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. So it really is worth investing. I mean, I first really started teaching and really coming up with this model, I was wondering how it would work on teenagers. And I was thinking, well, maybe it would work better with little kids, but it actually works even better with teenagers. Teenagers really want to be seen, and they really

want to be heard, and they don't like to be controlled. And so whenever you're approaching any kind of conversation from, hey, help me understand you, I want to get where you're coming from. I still think it needs to be done this way, but I really want to understand why you're having such a hard time with that. Right there, you're going to have a complete change in the energy, right? And it is challenging with teenagers because they have really big feelings. They don't have a frontal lobe yet that can handle all those big feelings. It's like they're like having emotional seizures. Like it's just... The flood of hormones that are going through their body. Yes. And then you've got social media on top of that where that adds a whole other layer of

anxiety and stress and depression when kids are looking at everybody with their self-marketing and thinking they're so happy and why am I not happy? And keep, in mind that they've also been raised many of the kids today without healthy adversity. We've come in and we've rescued and we've run to school with the gym bag and we've gotten them everything they wanted because we couldn't, we're upset. We don't want them see them upset, sorry, because it's hard for us to see our children upset. And teenage years are full of angst. They're going to get dumped.

They're going to get not invited to parties. They're not going to make that team. That's just the way life is. And parents who are listening will understand when your child is, you're going to be in pain, when they are suffering, when they've been bullied or they've been dumped or whatever it's happened to them, you would take it from them in a heartbeat because you don't want them to feel what they're feeling. And a lot of parents, especially if they have really feisty, what I call gladiator kids, these parents literally walk around with a pit in their stomach.

Like it's, and it never goes away. And they're just constantly seeing their child's life flash before their eyes and they're feeling their child's pain. And one of the most difficult things about this is if you're looking at your child and you're thinking, you're not doing what I need you to do. I need you to show up more for school or I need you to be taking care of your homework or I need you to be doing whatever it is and you're not doing it. And the look in your eyes is sheer disappointment about how they are not meeting your standards, then that feels horrible. And that's what they're going to see and that's what they're going to show you. Right. So no matter how far your child is from where you think they need to be, you literally have to hold in your mind's eye the best version

of them. The part where you know they care about animals and they care about their grandparents and they're so funny and they're so lovely and down under this hormonal teenage mess is someone is really lovely, you must see that in them and they must see that reflected back or you're in big trouble, right? So what can we learn about putting it all together? This is often an example that I hear a lot about. Parents being at the, let's say, the grocery. store or the big box store and a child who is throwing an all-out tantrum. When we apply the mirroring process and the comm method inside of there, especially when there's a full-on big feelings that are going on, is it the same exact approach?

Is it the same exact approach? Whether you're in Walmart or at home, right? It's the same thing. Basically, you have to be able to suspend your agenda. which is you're embarrassing me. I'm not buying you that. Oh my goodness. If my kid can't handle this, what kind of adults are they going to be? Wherever you go in your head, you have to suspend that, and you have to be prepared to be present in that moment. So let's apply the calm technique to this. You've got it. So first of all, there's so many layers to connect to parenting, and it's so hard

in a short time to do it all. But you would also front load first. You'd say, we're going into the store. We're going to buy a present for your cousin. We are not going to buy you anything. Because it's not good for your brain to have something every time you want something. So I just need you to know that's the expectation today. So they go in already clear about what the standard is going to be of that visit to that store. Then of course. And even in that front loading, if I can interrupt for a second, is it also super important? To mirror, yes.

To mirror. You would say you're going to see all kinds of amazing stuff. You're going to see things that go with your set. And they're going to put things right at eye level. So you're just going to see all this cool stuff that you want. And it's so hard to go into a store and want something so. And I love that you want stuff, but you're not going to get stuff every time you want it. I wouldn't be a good mom.

I wouldn't. And you have to say, I love you enough for you to be mad at me, right? And I think the important thing about that is that naturally, because there's so much on parents' plate as a whole and seeing my friends with kids and being in that exact situation, like we're running errands on the weekend and I'm catching up with them, but we're also with the kids too, is that people might front load. They're not looking the kid in the eye. Yep.

Right? Or they're doing in a controlling kind of demanding way. They're doing a controlling way. You better, I behave this way when we go in the store. Yeah, that energy. It's really quick. Like, hey, look, we're going in. It's not for you.

And then it's just like a get it out of the way sort of situation. And basically, it's not mirroring. Not mirroring. Yeah. And you're going to, you think you're going to save time and energy, but you're going to get it back when they fling themselves on the floor in that store and they're having a full blown meltdown. Right.

So you do the front loading first and a little bit of pre-miroring first. Then you get to the store. Then inevitably, there's going to be things right at our level that they want, and they're going to have an amazing case why they should have it. And some kids have unbelievable staying power. Like they will, please, please, please, they'll keep at you until you absolutely lose your mind. And sometimes I think they don't even remember what it is they want anymore. Like they just get into the whole thing about I have to make it a yes. Or we're wishy-washy.

Maybe we'll see. I don't know. Or worse. Here, fine. Take it. Which really you've just bought yourself a whole lot of trouble when you're just. you do that. And the challenge with the, the, you know, one, you're not honoring the boundaries, right, that you mentioned earlier on the last example. And you're not meaning what you say or saying

what you mean. Which is a confusing sort of thing. It's back to the pilot situation of like, hey, do you want to try to take over? Like, you know, who wants to fly this plane? And the challenge with the other one of the being wishy-washy, which also plays into boundaries is that it's, it's a, I understand why people do it. I understand why not even just parents do it. I understand why employers do it. Bosses do it. I understand why everybody would do this situation is that they are just trying to get to an end task. Yeah. And avoiding conflict. But it can lead to other patterns in a relationship where it's just not the clarity that's there. And this is why I love that you're bringing this up because this is so important. And I tell parents that feeling of you get like, oh, please, can we just get through

this without an issue? Like, I just want to get through this without a tantrum. I just want to get through this without a tantrum, the minute you feel that way, your child is 60%, maybe 70% more intuitive than you are around feelings. They already see that you're feeling that way, and they're already thinking, hmm, okay. I'm in control. Right. I'm in control. How can this work to my advantage so I get that toy? And I'm not suggesting that debious, but there really is this energy exchange where they can feel whether they have a little bit of room. So you've got to be able to go in that store and say, if we have a meltdown, so be it. I can handle it. We got this. So there's a few things you're going to do when the child sees something they want, you get down at eye level if they're little

or whatever, just emotionally get on their level and say, you know, I get it. That thing is awesome and you've been wanting that for weeks and tell me why it goes with your set and, oh, that's so cool. Oh, you're right. He's got that amazing sword. You kind of get in there and really visit and try on what that child wants so much about that toy. Then inevitably, inevitably your child is going to say, okay, so can I have it? Right. And then you can say, you know, I so get why you want this. this is so hard because this is awesome, but this is where you set the limit. This is where you say, but you know what?

I love you enough to say no. And I trust you and I believe in you and I'm pretty sure you're going to get through this, but I know as your mom or I know as your dad that if I buy you something every time you want it, it's not good for you. Plus, we made a deal before we came in. Now usually, if you've really mirrored properly in the first part,

that means three or four statements without your agenda, without teaching them a lesson, and without like, when I was a child, I only got a toy for my birthday, and there are toys, there's just children in the world who don't have any toys. Like, forget all that stuff. Just in that moment, that's for later. In that moment, you are just present with that little one who sees this really awesome, cool thing and they can't have it, and that's where they're stuck.

Then you present the problem. Then most of the time, they will say, fine, can I have it next time, or can I do something to earn it or whatever, and then you're having a very different conversation. Right? But if they do have a meltdown, and that's the vortex that I was saying, was going to report for two. That's just a full limbic takeover. They are gone. They actually have a crazy look in their eyes. Like they're they're completely limbic in that moment. That's where you just say, you know what? We're going to move some things so you don't hurt yourself or knock anything over.

And you just go ahead. I call it the paradoxical response. And it's so freeing. And you say, go ahead. Buddy, have a meltdown if you have to have one. You got big feelings about this. I get it. Roll around on the floor, screaming, you know, do what you have to do. You say to people, there's going to be a show. It's going to last 10 or 15 minutes. Just walk around them. It's okay. Right? And just stand there and let it happen. 99% of the time, if you've allowed the tantrum, there will be no tantrum. Because the tantrum is designed to train you into giving them what you want. And I don't mean be sarcastic or rude or anything.

I was kind of joking when I said that about the people in the store. But you literally say, honey, do what you have to do. I get it. But it will not result in this toy. So even if they do have a huge meltdown about it, they will not get the toy. They will not get you mad, which is the other thing. I'm going to take my parent down with me then. I'm going to make them so sorry that they said no, they're never going to say no to me again.

Right. So you just stand there really neutral. Go ahead. Not done yet. That's okay. These things happen. I believe in you. I trust you.

And maybe walk away a little bit. Don't leave them. But like, you know, get a little bit of space. And then usually they'll recover. If they did end up having a fit, what did they learn? I didn't get mommy or daddy mad. I didn't get the thing that I wanted. That behavior got me nowhere.

I didn't get shamed. I didn't get embarrassed. I didn't. Nothing bad happened to me. I just didn't get that thing. So that was a lot of energy for nothing. I'm not going to do that again. And the next time you go to the store, it won't happen.

And the beautiful thing about this is that it's not just kids and teens, it's also adults. And I think it's a great place for me to share the story. I'll keep it slightly limited out of protection of not putting people's business out there. But Stephanie and Giovanni from the Archangel Summit. And I think Stephanie's going to be, she's a past podcast guest. Yeah. And such a great couple doing amazing things. they, when they were talking about you and implementing the mirroring technique with Stephanie's

kids, they were saying, but it's not just for kids. And they went on to share an example about an individual who was an acquaintance of theirs, who was very upset about something that on the surface looked like something not to get very upset about. They're very upset about something that was a minor item, but who knows again that reality is different for different people. Maybe he feels like they never invited him over or this. I mean, there's so many versions of what could be going on. There's layers. There's layers. Right? There's that whole quote of, if people are hysterical, it's historical. Right? So who knows what else was going on? And he, this individual, started expressing why they were so upset, grown man, about this incident that had

happen. And Stephanie, who was interacting with him at the moment, instead of just saying, like, what are you like talking about or discounting his feelings? Was like, oh my gosh, that's so crazy. If that happened to me, too, I could also be upset. And I understand that. And yeah, you do take such good care of this thing and this thing that's going on on our side is affecting you. And she was mirroring. Yes. There's the affect matching. There's the urgency. being reflected back. Right, their facial expressions. Like you said, it's not just about what's communicated.

It's also the body language and this individual had this moment where it's like, yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, it was upsetting. It was that. And then naturally started to calm themselves down and say, I don't remember the exact specifics, but like, yeah, thank you. Okay, yeah, you know, it's not that bad. And like, you know, why don't you guys do this or basically putting out an olive branch and some recognition of like, well, I came in.

in guns blazing because again whatever is historical and it may be related to them or it might be related to a fight they just got in it. Could be anything. It could be anything. And instead of being defensive, it's almost like the mirroring, the affect matching, the calm technique as a whole, it's a version of like Akito. It is. It's verbal Akito.

It's verbal Akito. For those are not familiar, it's a martial art technique of redirecting your opponents' energy to lead to the result that you want and you're matching. And I really think of it in the sense of like you are you're almost like you're like a like a Zen monk or like a Buddhist guru but with the high EQ component. That's a great way to play it. Because you're not just listening and with no reaction at all and saying that nothing is affecting.

You actually need to let people know kids. that you get it. And a lot of that is not just what you say. It's what shows up in your body language, your tone, and how you can. Yes, that's absolutely right. And that's why I call it a superpower. And that's why I say it's not just for parenting. Like you will approach conflict. You will be able to de-escalate people if you really stick to this. And it takes practice. And it sounds a lot easier than it actually is. When you go to practice it and we'll actually take it apart a little bit more just so people have the foundation. It'll change how you respond to everybody. You'll barely have conflict in your life. It is that amazing. Now, the one thing that's so important, and you

kind of alluded to this, when you were talking about the Zen thing, it will not work if you are just trying to get a result. It won't. It's such an affect-based technique. It will only work if it's genuine. Because when it's genuine, you feel it. And that's when the mirror neuron cells and get excited, and that's when those reward chemicals release. If you're literally doing it to manipulate someone, it won't work. Here's a great example of that. Going back to polyvigal theory, the human mind in our vagal system is designed to notice the difference between a real laugh and a fake laugh.

And there's so many layers into it and has nothing to do with the laugh. It's actually that when we are fully laughing, we get little faces in our eyes. And there's a thousand little micro little movements than the brain versus when somebody's doing a fake laugh of like, ha, ha, ha, and there's no smiling of the eyes. Our body intrinsically knows that this isn't real. So it's not that our brains are looking at it and saying like, oh, this person is definitely just trying to get a result.

That's why they're doing this. It's that we won't elicit that mirror non-effect in our own body, is what you're saying. Absolutely. And it's something that happens. Like you can feel it. And if you're having a conversation like this with another person and someone else is witnessing it, they're also going to get the oxytocin release. Like it is something, and I keep putting my hand on my chest because that's where you feel it.

Right? It's not an up here. It's a here. Right. And it's quite a beautiful thing. And quite often when you mirror really well to someone, they'll cry. Because it just feels so wonderful. It just feels so incredibly delicious to be heard.

Yeah. I remember I had a mentor. mentor, his name is Serrano Kelly, incredible individual who had gone through a really tough situation when he was younger that led to this work and this development that he focused on. And he would train executives and top agents in Hollywood and people on Wall Street who are in a high sort of stakes sales environment, but at the top, top most level. And one of the things that he would say about their work, he said, you people can always tell when you are just trying to close a deal.

100%. Because there's things that naturally happen in your body where you won't be mirroring them. If you actually look at when people are vibing, if they're learning from each other, they start to match body language. Yes. If your hand is over here, my hand is over here. Someone crosses their leg. People can pay attention to see that.

And we're not intrinsically thinking that's what we have to do, but we just do it. We're joining and we're connecting and we're calming. Yes, you're absolutely right. And I think about that all the time. And when I was reading your work, I think that that is a natural or just even the fundamental component of that eye. When we're present with people, when we're looking them in the eye, I often notice even growing up, my parents meant the best. But I could tell when I wasn't really being seen or heard, they're upset. But they're not, they're not, you know, they would be talking in a distance of like, you're doing this or that.

Like, I'm not getting like a look in the eye. or sometimes it would be to be like, look at me in the eye and it's the brute force sort of approach of like you need to see how serious I am about that. So there's so many things that are happening in the background that lead to this point of authenticity that you're talking about. Absolutely. And it really, the best way to think about it is resonance. If you hit a tuning fork and there's another tuning fork nearby,

it's going to start vibrating. So literally you have to have that emotional resonance. And if it's not exact, it won't work. If your agenda is, let's just get this over with or let me see if this works or I just got to get this kid out of the store, it's not going to work. You literally, and that's the hardest part, is suspending your agenda. That sounds easy. But really sort of stepping into their world and seeing it from their eyes, whoever it is, is not easy to do. I'll tell you a quick story because this is an example of how you can use it in everyday life.

I used to work for the school board in Toronto and I worked in the inner city. And I never had my own parking spot. I always had to block someone in. And I had like 10 different schools that I worked at. And I was coming to this one school this morning. And one of the teachers asked if I could block her car in. And she said, well, fine. But I have a dentist appointment at 1130.

So you better move your car by then. And I said, oh, no problem. I have a group at 11 at a different school. I'll be gone. I end up dealing with this whole crisis with this kid from another school who called me and said he had a gun in his backpack. And then I had to call that school. And that school was he never did.

But we didn't know that for a long time. That school was on lockdown. We had the police involved. It was a whole thing. And of course at 1130 I hear Jennifer Colerre, please move your car. Jennifer Collarry, please move your car. And I can't move my car yet because I'm dealing with the situation. I came down maybe 15 minutes later and this woman, she had curly hair and it was literally

standing on end. She was beside herself. She was so mad and she'd already been standing there for 15 minutes, I'm sure, rehearsing what she was going to say to me. And as soon as she saw me, she's swearing, how dare you? She's completely, like my own hair was blowing back from this yelling. And I'm the school social worker. So if I react to her and say, do you have any idea the morning that I just said?

How dare you speak to me? Like, I can't get in a fight with someone in the parking lot. I'm the school social worker. That does not look good, right? So I had to collect myself, which in the moment, it's not easy to do. But I had to literally, and I use this so often now, it's so naturally to me. I literally just looked at it. I walked up and I said, oh, my God, I literally promised you that my car would have been gone 15 minutes ago.

You've been standing here for 15 minutes and you're late for your appointment. So I'm matching her, her emotions. I am not arguing with her. I'm not defending myself. I'm not being quite neutral. I'm not being defensive. I probably made three or four statements. And she was literally like, you know, she just,

you could see her trying to come up with something, but she couldn't because of what's happening. I get her. I am mirroring her. And she is being literally chemically calmed down. The oxytocin is flowing. The cortisol is dropping. And she, in front of my eyes, is calming.

down, which is how magical this is. I mean, I can't even put into words how useful this is in life. She then, the conversation was over, and certainly I drove home and I was like, oh, I wouldn't want to be in her class and blah, blah, blah. I was mad for a little bit, but then I actually felt really good because I felt like I handled it in a way that I didn't have to be embarrassed about after. I didn't have to go, ooh. I didn't like the way my Olympic system handled that conversation, right? I stayed in my frontal lobe the whole time. And the next day, when I came back to the school, you know, she came right for me again. I thought, oh gosh, here she comes again, but she looked at me and she said, you know what I'm so sorry. You were so lovely.

You were so kind. You were so understanding. I was horrible to you. I couldn't sleep all night because I was so nasty to you. That's how powerful this technique is. There is nothing I would have said to that woman that would have gotten her to that place except that. If I'd active, listen, I understand. That must be very frustrating.

I call that the customer service response, right? Really? You understand? Then why is your car still there? Like, it really doesn't work. And if somebody's super bright, they're going to feel like it's a strategy. They're going to feel like it's a technique. The mirroring is so real.

It's so organic that it is happening in the moment to both of you. So it is not actually a technique at all. It's a moment. It's being real. Yeah. I love that story. Thank you for sharing that with us. I want to ask you couples and people who are married or in a relationship.

I'm sure you get asked this all the time. And obviously there's universal themes of this work all across. What are some unique things or what is some advice that you've given people when it comes to intimate relationships? So here's what's really interesting. It's the closer the person is to you, the harder this is to do. Right. So I would say that people struggle the most doing it with their spouse. And I think it's because you're so intertwined and it's it you're collectively experiencing so many things.

But that's what that's what happens in any couple's fight. The reason it gets louder is because you're not listening to the other person. You are so busy, not even listening to them, but thinking of your retort, right, or thinking about, the other thing that happens with relationships is that we spend a lot of time fighting when we're not fighting. Right. So all day we're like, oh, of course he did that last night. Of course I'm probably going to go home and find it, blah, blah, blah. And you're having conversations.

This can happen with colleagues. This can happen with coworkers. All day long, you're having imaginary fights with them in your head. So they say, hey, how was your day? And you're like all ready to go after them because you've been thinking about it for an hour, which is just the wrong energy. So the first thing I would say to everyone and with your kids too is watch the stuff you're saying in your own head. Really clean up those thoughts.

You don't want that kind of pollution in your head all day. And if you find yourself doing that, try to think about something neutral or try to think about something else. Or try to write down some wonderful things about that person. Or ask yourself where the root is coming from. Yep. You know, in the Gottman method and John Gottman and the work that they do, And a big part of it is that it's almost like those narratives are like smoke detectors and they're an indication of where was that time early on in the relationship where you decided

that they don't support your work. Yeah. And what's underneath it and what's underneath it? What are the components that are there? Yeah. Otherwise as a protection mechanism, we're just going to stay on the surface. Right. And it's having that awareness of yourself.

But if you can't even, if you're in a moment where you can't even do that big work, because sometimes you get to a place, you're like, I don't want to do that. Yeah. I don't want to think it has anything to do with me. I want you right. So sometimes you can't do it. You can't take that big of a leap. Right. So then at least take your brain and think about something else. You know, the temperature of the air, the, I don't know, the taste of the tea you're drinking, a view out the window, a beautiful piece of architecture that you see as you're driving by. Do you take your brain somewhere else. Just to give it a break for a second. And when it goes back, take the wheel. A lot of what I teach parents and I teach kids when I work one-on-one with teenagers and parents is take the wheel.

These are programs. You can just write new ones, right? You don't have to be a slave. When there's that awareness that we are not our thoughts, so we can take the wheel. We're not our car. And, you know, I think about how important that is because one of my favorite quotes is from Byron Katie, and she says, you know, defense is the first act of war. And so you come in super defensive into a conversation and a dialogue. And all of a sudden, you don't even know what you're fighting about. Exactly. You don't even know what you're, it's not even about the thing. It's not about getting resolution. Yeah. It's about just all these things. It's about everything. And the biggest piece, I think, and then we'll come back to how to mirror to your, to your spouse or your partner is

we get ourselves very caught up in trying to control conditions. And we do that as parents. We do that in life. You will never be able to control all the conditions ever. But you can always control your emotional response to those conditions. That you can always control. And that's worth learning. And that's teaching your children at a very, very young age, right? So that you are the thinker of those thoughts and you can change where your brain goes. And you can't, it's not like you can't necessarily go, oh, I'm mad at my spouse, but I'm lucky to be married and I do live in this nice house and there's lots of people in the world who have to, you know, sometimes if you're a super sensitive person, all you do is feel worse. Well, now there's people who are really suffering the world and I'm

so selfish that I'm upset about my perfect life. Right. So you can't, that's too big of a leap. But you can take a little leap. You can find one thought that's slightly better than the one you're thinking. And then when that feels better, find another one. And when that feels better, find another and find another one. So that you're entering the conversation in a completely different energy. Right. If you're going to have a talk with your spouse and you've been having the fight with him in your head all day,

you're already doomed. It's already not going to go well. You start with first of all, and then the conversation goes from there. Right. So the first piece is to really control the direction of your own brain. And this is honestly the key to happiness. It truly is. If you can control where your thoughts go and what's going on in those thoughts and find that place of peace and happiness, because that's really what anybody, any fight you are having with anyone, anything you ever want in life is because you think you're going to be happier if you have it. And you will only get happy when you know how to get happy. And I know that sounds crazy, but to be successful, you have to be happy and then successful. We got it backwards. And we're doing it backwards with our kids. Go get those marks and you'll be happy. Go get that job. Get into that school. Get on that team. Then you'll be happy. No, be happy. And then whatever happens to you, you're going to be okay. And you're going to be better at all of those things because you're

coming from a place where you're happy. So that's the piece. So mirroring with your spouse means taking your agenda, which is whatever has gone on in your head all day. Or every couple of has had the same fight over and over again. It's just the details are different. It's always the same fight. You don't appreciate me or I do everything and you don't ever notice or, you know, I always, I'm never good enough. It's never good enough. We all have our intrinsic memories. We all have our theme songs and we project those on to all of our relationships. If you look at any fight you've ever had with anyone, the root of it is always the same. You either feel like no one's appreciating you or that you, you aren't good enough. I'm not enough is usually at the bottom.

and just being aware of that theme song, it's never going to go away, but you can know when it's playing loudly. And you can know when you're like, oh, that's my theme song. Maybe I need to turn that down a little bit, right? So it's being aware. That's what we talked about at the beginning, too, that reality is shared, right? It's definitely shared. And then you have to, you have to use this calm technique with your spouse. So when they come in and they say, I've told you 50 times not to park so close to the side of the wall in the garage because of the car bangs.

Our instincts is it, don't tell me how to drive my car. And you know what? I've told you that 50 times about the front door and blah, blah, blah. And then we just start rehashing all the things we've ever fought about. And there we go with our checklists, right? If you just take a minute and you go, you know what, I get it. You care about that car. This means something to you. You think about it all the time.

And you've taken the time to tell me about it a zillion times. And I always forget. And that must make you feel like I don't care. Of course that's going to make you feel like I don't care. And then just start there. And usually what happens, oh, it's okay, it's fine. Like, it can change everything. It can change everything.

A lot of times you see a dynamic. between a couple or somebody in a relationship. And it's like, oh, you're gonna pick on that. Like last week I told you that this was going on. Right? And it's like both people feel unheard. And having two separate conversations and they're just in a in, I call it ping pong. I literally call it ping pong.

When I have, when I do marital therapy and I have a couple in my office, it's like, well, you do this and I've told you me, well, I wouldn't do that if you didn't do this because you always do this. Well, that's fine because you do this and pink. I could literally get up and walk out of the room, right? It's just ping pong. You are never going to fix anything in any relationship. You will not fix the other person.

You will not change the other person. You can only look at yourself. Look at the stuff you're doing. And if your partner acts a certain way, ask yourself, what am I doing that is bringing out that behavior? Not that you're 100% at fault. And there are situations where you need to get out of relationships where it really is toxic and it has nothing to do with you.

But for the most part, if you're in a fairly healthy relationship, whatever, you're responsible in some ways for the behavior coming back at you. And that's the intersubjectivity. And that's true with your kids too. If your kids behave a certain way, you literally have to look at it and go, okay, what am I doing here? What can I learn? What can I change? I can't remember if I just said this, but I was talking to a client on the way here this morning.

And what I say to parents is parenting is one of these weird things in your life where if you walked into a room and there was a pole in the middle of the room and you hit your forehead on it, what would you do next time? Avoid it. You'd avoid it. You'd walk around it. But as parents, and sometimes in relationships as a couple, we will literally bang our heads on the same pole over and over and over again, wondering why we're not getting a different result. So as much as connected parenting sounds kind of hard,

and it sounds like almost counterintuitive, and a lot of questions that people might be having are, well, you know, if I do all this mirroring and all this empathy, isn't that just going to turn my kid into a giant baby? And he's going to need everyone in the world to do it for him. The exact opposite is true. He will need no one else in the world to do it for him, right? That it builds emotional resilience. It thickens your skin. It will help your child handle all

kinds of stuff. Even you. So if you're mirroring really well and you're in a completely different place and you've got all kinds of deposits in this beautiful emotional bank account, and then one day your kid comes on when you're on the phone and you're like, get out, get out. Instead of your child going, oh, what's with mummy? She doesn't love me. He's going to, what's with her? She's crabby. And walk away and have a very different experience. Because part of this mirroring is that if I'm hearing you correctly, it's also for your own peace of mind. Right? The other day I was having a conversation with my sister who works with us and is the director of content in our companies and writes books with Dr. Hyman. And we were talking about how there was something that kind of was upsetting that we had gone through.

Not together, but something that she had experienced. And when she was talking about it, I was using the analogy of how I'd been in a similar situation and how usually when even if I was I'm not happy about how a situation went, but if I feel like I handled it well, even if the situation didn't end up well with the circumstance that I wanted or the resolution that I wanted, if I handled it well, I'm at peace.

Versus even if the situation worked out, like you eventually coming down and moving your car, and I didn't handle it well, I'm not at peace anymore. So mirroring isn't just for the people around us, for our kids. It is for us. It's for us. Because at the end of the day,

you have peace of mind knowing that I did my best. I tried, and I've been in situations, I didn't call it mirroring. I think I've just learned and seen how my parents communicated, and I try to mimic a little bit of that, where I've done my best that I knew how, and still the situation didn't resolve. And maybe even in a situation could have,

from the external perspective, gotten worse because a combination of different reasons. But I still walked away. There's conditions you can't control. There's conditions you can't control, but I walked away feeling like, wow, that's tough and it's a tough situation for me to be in and the other person to be in, but I did the best that I know now.

Which is lovely. And you'll carry that with you. That's a huge piece, right? And the other, that's an example of controlling your emotions instead of the conditions, right? And that's something you can be really proud of. And if you're doing that in front of your kids, you're teaching them. Look what they're learning from you. I don't have to freak out.

I don't have to yell and scream. And if I do, I can repair it. Right, we're teaching our children when we try as best we can to respond to situations instead of react and to come at it from our best self, which you're not going to be able to do that every day, but you can keep trying every day, right? And in the end, you're happier, but you're also a really good teacher for your kids if you can do that. You've written a little bit and talked about it of parents working with kids who have special

needs or might be anxious or on the spectrum. from, what can you tell us about the connected approach and mirroring and the comm method in those circumstances? So I would say, first of all, this works on everyone. And by the way, I just want to mention, I just kind of lumped a bunch of things that are completely separate together. I'll de-lumped them for you, don't worry.

My audience, you know. Of course. Just for conversation purposes. You know, it's interesting because I'll sometimes have people say to me, well, how does this technique work on everyone? And my answer would be the same way water works on everyone, the same way air works on everyone. This is emotional nutrition.

This is brain food. And next to food and water, this is the most important nutrition you can give your brain and your child's brain. So that's the first thing. So this will work on kind of ordinary kids. And if you're lucky enough to have just a regular kind of kid, fantastic. Use this. It will help their social skills, their emotional resilience, their emotional intelligence,

everything. And in a world where we're probably very quickly moving towards, you know, AI and computers, these are going to be soft skills that are going to be very, very important. for us to have. If you have a child that has any kind of special needs, so we end up working with a lot of gifted kids, I would say the majority of our kids are gifted, which is interesting because people think, oh, I hope my kid's gifted. And I'm like, no, you don't. It's not such a gift. It's really hard to have a brilliant mind that doesn't stop. That's always questioning, that can see connections everywhere. And the same way that you can understand something really quickly,

it can go the other way on you. There's an equal and opposite shadow to that, where you can get very worried and very depressed and have enormous feelings. Lots of kids with ADHD I work with and that's just a fast-moving what I call a Ferrari brain, which is great if you know how to drive it. But if you don't know how to drive it, you're going to go in the ditch and everyone in their minivan is going to pass you, right? So, and then if you're on the spectrum, again, and a lot of these situations, what's happening is you're a human being who doesn't quite fit the way the world thinks that you should fit. And the education system, which certainly doesn't fit everybody, and is probably lagging greatly behind our technology

in a lot of ways. And a lot of educators know that it's kind of frustrating will feel lost. They will feel frustrated. They will be, especially ADHD kids, they'll be hearing, sit down, stop that, why can't you do this? Do that.

They're constantly being corrected all day long. And under there is a little human being who really just wants to be loved and wants to be seen and wants to be heard. So however challenging your child is, and sometimes it's just temperament. sometimes you just have a kid like entrepreneurs i work with a lot of families who are entrepreneurs and they're like love their businesses and they're running huge companies and that's fantastic and that's

great in the boardroom when you think outside the box and you rip everything up and start over that is a nightmare when you have a child that does that at home right when you have a child that has that entrepreneurial why would i do it that way when i could do it this way and you can't tell me what to do and i don't questioning everything and negotiating and arguing incessantly um that's a kind a child who I think, all of these kids that we talked about, I think, are the kids who are going to save us all. They're the kids that are going to really change the world one day. But we have a very, very important responsibility to parent them in ways that bring out that entrepreneurial spirit, that fighting spirit, that uniqueness and not crush it. And that's really hard to do. So I kind

of think that our parenting is out of sync. It's a little bit old fashioned. Kids are changing. They're different. They're learning information so much more quickly. They're empowered in a of different ways and we're trying to parent them in an old-fashioned kind of way that just isn't working anymore. And I think what's really unique about connected parenting is it brings the compassion and the empathy and this neuroscience and psychoneurobiology altogether and at the same time helps you set those predictable loving limits so that child can function in the world and end up being somebody who has the emotional strength and confidence to change the world. So it's a big job. And I think the other theme about what you're sharing is that

throughout every generation, parents, kids, the relationships, they're always changing. It's changing now and it's very pronounced and there's always technology. But when TV first came out, that kind of got the focus. And there are very much things that we need to pay attention to. But even zoom back, you know, a few hundred years ago, like 500 years ago, kids were infant mortality was really high. Kids were property. Yep. Kids were seen as sort of economic engines. Often

young women were married way before. They had any sort of development except for physically inside of their bodies. And there was a bunch of challenges with that. Every generation. Every generation has it. This is the evolution of things growing

and us getting a better understanding. Just like we understood that if you hit a kid, they're more likely to be abusive growing up themselves. Absolutely. We're now paying attention to essentially a firm of brute force, verbal abuse, overpowering, overshadowing, but bringing back some of the things that also have worked in the past, like boundaries. Yeah, don't throw it all out.

Don't throw it all out. We need to find the approach that's there for everything. It's interesting just to tap into something you just said there too. Another form of parenting that can be really damaging is giving your kids everything they want. I call it affluenza, right? That's not real. getting everything you want all the time and constantly looking to your parents to give you more things and give you your next thrill and your next rush and your next whatever is very unhealthy.

You want your kids to experience some contrast. When you talked about the situation where you might not have done it right but you felt kind of good about how you handled it, we learn a lot from contrast. And you've got to have contrast in your life. It can't all be good. Then the small things become terrible. So I'll give you an example. If you had an eight-year-old child and you have rescued them and bought.

them something every time they cried and called the teacher every time something went wrong at school and made sure they got into every class and every birthday party and everything all the time which a lot of parents spend an extraordinary amount of energy trying to control all those conditions so their children won't be unhappy feelings are your emotional guidance system you need them and if you blunt them and if you cut them off and if you solve problems for your children all the time they're not going to develop the neurological hardware that they need to handle trouble when it comes and it always comes. You can't stop it from coming.

Like I said earlier, they're going to get dumped, or they're not going to get on that team, or things are going to happen, and you want your child to have the neurological hardware ready and installed to be able to handle that trouble. So if you've got a child where you've done everything for them, you've never let them be upset for more than five seconds, you've handed them something every time they cry,

and you've given them an ice cream cone, and they're eating that ice cream cone, and it falls out on the floor, and your child starts screaming. The reason she's screaming is that actually is the worst thing that's ever happened to her in her entire life. And she is reacting accordingly. All you're doing is you're just shifting the scale.

You're just making smaller things more devastating, which is actually causing big, big problems in children's mental health. This is why the balancing part of connected parenting is so important. It teaches you how not to rescue your kids, not to solve every problem for them, to have the confidence and the bravery,

to sit with them when they're sad, to soothe them when we're sad. It's a very difficult thing to do as a parent when your child is suffering, they're sad or they're hurting or they've been bullied or whatever it is, you immediately want to cheerlead. You know what, it's okay. I'll buy you something or we'll have your own party or it's okay, come and do this. And that's okay after. But in the beginning, you want to show them that sad is okay and you can recover from being sad. And sad is actually really important in the grand scale

of things. And I'm not saying kick your kid out and it's all Lord of the Flies, but I'm just saying don't rescue them all the time. That sadness is really important. And it's an indicator. And it helps you figure out what you need to do to feel better. And if you're constantly, constantly rescuing your child, they're going to end up unhappy and maybe more unhappy from you doing that. And so when you cheerlead or when you talk them out of that sadness, you're robbing them of some ability to learn how to recover from that sadness. What do you think is going on that, and we talked a little bit about it earlier, but I'm

interested from your perspective, what do you think is happening inside of parents' brain and why it's more prominent now that we want to be so protective. Because the intent is good, but the question is, what's the root issue that's driving that behavior? So I think it's a swing. I think that a lot of us were parented in a way

where it was, you know, suck it up. You'll be fine. If you're bullied, oh, it's fine. Get over it. You'll deal with it. We had a lot more time. I know in my generation, we had tons of time to play outside.

There weren't adults watching us every five seconds. We didn't have screens. We played. in a large group outside and had a lot of independence and freedom. And we learned some really good stuff that way. You learned how to be heard. You learned how to play. You learned how to make a point.

You learned how to give in. Really important things. But our parents didn't always soothe us. It was a lot, oh, you're fine. You know, go to bed, shut the door. I mean, what was it? Dr. Spock put the, I think you put towels under the door if your baby's screaming. Like, that was a very different style, right?

So I think in some ways it's a reaction to that. I didn't like feeling like that way as a child, so I want to do something very differently in my childhood, but there's been an overcompensation. Right? So now there's too much of the soothing. There's too much of a reduction in that contrast so that kids aren't getting exposure

to lots of different things that can actually help them be well-rounded, comfortable, confident, resilient adults. And part of it is the hardest thing is to see your child suffer. It's so hard to watch them suffer. And it's so important. to be brave enough to go, you know what, I can sit with you while you're feeling sad, you know, that you got dumped or you didn't get invited to that party. And I can just sit with you

and hold your hand, right? If your child fell and they cut their knee, you wouldn't say to them, oh, it's fine. You have another knee. Like, that's okay. Your other knee's fine. And, you know, you'll stop bleeding soon. Like, you would sit there and you go, oh, my goodness, that hurts. Oh, that does hurt. Come here. Let me give you a hug. Okay, let's, you would sue them, right? You'd be able to stay there and that. We're much better at that with physical pain. We're terrible at it with emotional pain. We either freak out and go, my God, okay, don't be sad. We'll fix it. I'll call somebody. I'm going to call your teacher. I'm going to call that mother. How dare her child say that to you? We get into kind of solving mode really quickly. Or we just want to make it better and do

something else. We'll buy them something, take them somewhere, do something, which you can do after. But I just don't want that to be what your child learns to depend on. We want them to depend on themselves. I can be sad and I can be okay. I can recover from sad. It's almost like the physical equivalent of like, okay, great. When a kid is really young, you have to, they can't walk on their own. And so, you know, you're carrying them around. But imagine carrying them around for the rest of their life or pushing them around in a wheelchair

and they have the ability to walk. Yeah. Their legs aren't going to work anymore. Very good analogy. And they don't have this emotional intelligence and the ability to primarily more than anything self-soothe. Yes. And know that they'll be okay. You know, we had a really great author.

and professor on the podcast, Dr. Joan Rosenberg, and she wrote a book about moving through uncomfortable feelings. And she said, you know, resilience and confidence in life is not knowing that it's all going to work out. It's knowing that even if it doesn't work out, you're going to be okay. Yeah. And the confidence it comes of even if I go for this business venture and it doesn't work out and I, you know, I'm going to be okay.

I'm going to figure it out and we'll pivot and we'll do this. even if I get into this challenge, even if this thing happens, I know that I have the ability to fully feel the motions, not try to resist them, work through them, listen to what they're paying attention to, what actions it's telling me to take. They're telling us something. They're indicators.

And be able to move forward. Yeah. You can't go over, under, or around. You have to go through. And as a parent, you've got to hold your child's hand to go through it. And that's very painful to do because you don't want to see your child's suffering. You don't want to see them struggling. But you also want to send them a really strong message of confidence that I know you've got this.

I got you and you've got you. You're going to be okay. And that's going to help them. That's the pilot you want on the plane, right? You want the person who's confidently flying the plane and not freaking out and has confidence in himself. And that's that's that confidence knowing that you're that kind of parent and you're not over rescuing is huge. But this is very difficult. I mean, the biggest message I want to give is it's messy.

It's really messy. And people think it's not. They think it's going so well in everyone else's house. It's not. It can and there's moments, right? But certainly using these techniques and becoming a student of them. Because what's going to happen is people are going to be like, oh, this sounds great. And I don't want people to be like, oh, I can't wait for my kid to be upset.

I'm going to use this. This is great. You don't just use it when someone's upset. You use it when they're happy, when they're telling you something exciting that happened at school. You use the calm technique the same exact way, right? It's the same principles so that they just. just feel deliciously loved and heard, and the more you do that, the stronger they get. You're going to think, oh, this sounds easy, and then you're going to go to do it, and it's

going to be really hard. But even the clumsiest attempt, as long as they genuinely feel like it's coming from you really trying to hear them, it'll work. And sometimes kids will say, well, what book have you read now? And why are you repeating everything? I just said, that's weird. You know, you just say, look, I get it. I'm trying, I figured out that I do a lot of talking, but I don't always listen and I don't always really hear how you're feeling and I'm working on it and clearly I need more work. And the most of the time the child will be like, okay, and they'll walk away, right? You just have to be able to kind of play around with it a little bit. It's harder than you think to do, but it's so worth doing. It's the greatest gift, honestly,

that you can give your child and yourself. It's true and yourself. Jennifer, there's an incredible conversation and just the way you've broken things down, the way that you've presented, all these connections for so many different ages and backgrounds is really incredible and I want to thank you for that. I feel like people are listening at home like fired up. Good. Because it's such a big task and even to the level and degree that my friends who want to have kids, there's this deep fear. Yeah. Right? They hear the crazy stories. They hear this. In one way it's actually really good because there's enough awareness, especially I think on social media in certain groups that it's like, we only hear about the good in parenting,

but there's more mothers that are now and fathers talking about the real challenges and what it looks like. And I think that because of that awareness, there's this initial thing of like, holy shit, this is hard. I'm freaking out. Right? But I think that hearing this,

even if you don't have kids or if your kids are not teenagers yet, there's a sense of like, oh, wow, I can understand this. I understand why people were doing it this way and why it didn't work. I understand the overcompensation, and you got a little bit better of a lay of the land. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. You still got to climb up the mountain, but at least now we have a little bit of a amount. And you'll have tools, right? There's tools in the toolbox. And it's so hard in such a short time because we didn't actually get to containment. And that's really how to set limits and how to set consequences and all of that stuff. And you know what? We have time right now. We can talk about it. So maybe we should dig into that because the mirroring is only the first part, right?

The second half is, what do you do when they won't stop? What do you do when they're hitting their brother? What do you do when they keep running out of bed and they won't stay in their bed? there's some real practical things that happen. That's the second half of the story, right? Let's jump into it. This is a podcast. This is our time.

Okay. Let's do it. Let's do it. So you always start with the mirroring and you always start with three or four statements. You don't have to lie them down and do a whole therapy session, but you have to start there. Then you present the problem. But the problem is you can't hit your brother. Or the problem is you have to go to bed.

Or the problem is we're turn the computer off, whatever it is. And you have to be able to be that frontal lobe. They need you to be that consistent. loving frontal lobe because they don't have one. When you're an adult, you learn to be your own frontal lobe. You learn to be your own parent, essentially. We're constantly parenting ourselves. I would love to eat that whole cake. But you know what? I only need a piece. Or maybe I don't need a piece at all. Or I'd love to buy all of this stuff, but I can't really afford it. So you're constantly doing the job of parenting yourself. And ultimately, you want to help raise your child so that they become the kind

of person that can parent themselves pretty well. Right. And that's not always easy to do either. We struggle with that our whole lives. So containment is really about having predictable limits, which I think should always be front-loaded. You should not walk in a room and go, that's it. Now you've lost your phone from them. Like that's just crazy, first of all.

You need to front-load it so that it's a contract. Hey, I don't like how much you've been on the phone. Always mirror, right? I get it. Your friends are on your phone. There's so much going on. There's a whole world going on in this phone. And, you know, kids will tell you my whole social life is on my phone.

So you get into their world first and then you say, but I'm a little bit worried this isn't great for your brain. Lots of evidence showing that being on your phone too much isn't great for you. I am your parent. I am your frontal lobe. So here are the rules. You need to hand it at 9 o'clock or you can only have it. There's blackout times or whatever you want to set up as a parent.

And then there's a consequence, right? If you don't listen to me, then you're going to lose the phone for, and I'd never suggest losing the phone for two weeks or a month. I think that's too long. I suggest losing it for 24 hours. Or if they're rude to you or if they're swearing, whatever it is, you say, you don't get mad. You stay completely neutral and you say, well, you've made a choice because I told you if you do that, it's going to cost you your phone. Phones are not a right.

They're a privilege, right? And they're a privilege that you have to earn. So if you're nasty or if you're not managing your time well on it, you will lose it for 24 hours. 24 hours later you get it back. If you do the same thing, you lose it again. So they may still lose it for a month, but it'll be because it will be because they broke that contract that they agreed to. What you're trying to do is you're trying to make that association. Yes.

They break it, the instantaneous thing, because a lot of times, parents will say two weeks and it'll be three days. They'll just give in and it's inconsistent. And two weeks by two, after two weeks you're mean, first of all, it's too long, or they just use their friend's phone and they've found a way around it. Yeah. Right?

When it's 24 to 48 hours, and don't go grabbing the phone out of their hand. Never do that. Say, I trust you. I believe in you. I'm going to give you 15 minutes to make the right choice and put that phone on the counter. If it's not on the counter, then it's going to be gone for 48 hours. And then you don't go and grab it. You call your telephone company and you say, hi, you know, can you please suspend service on this number?

We've lost the phone. You have the Wi-Fi if you have to. And then 24 hours later, they get it back. And there's no like, now let's talk about why you lost it. It's like, cool, here it is back. Action reaction. Yeah, pretty much. Neutral, right?

Every time. And when they're little, that's true too. Right? One of my favorite techniques with little ones is what I call Red Lake Green. green light. So you pick, so red light behaviors are things like hitting, you know, not wearing, you know, refusing to put your seatbelt on, not holding hands on a parking lot, you know, hurting words, you know, anything that's related to safety. And then green light would be, who cares if what they're, you know, if their clothes match or if they're, you know, wearing something you

think doesn't look great. Like, or they're taking three toys instead of two to the restaurant, who cares? There's a lot of things we tend to throw in the red light basket that don't belong in there. that's the whole pick your battles thing and then they're green and yellow light so yellow light is interesting yellow light is when you have to have some consistency but not necessarily every single time so if we use bath night as an example if you've had a day you are done you are exhausted you've had all you're not your best

you're you don't have it in you and it's bath night and your child says I don't want to think about you can say well let me yellow light that for a second let me think about it and if it's like please I don't want to it's not fair I don't know. If they start using red light behaviors to handle that, then you have to say, I'm sorry, you know what, it might have turned green, but you, after mirroring always, but you turned it red because you got really nasty or you called me names or you started yelling. Now it's a red light. Now I'd be the worst daddy in the world, the worst mummy in the world if I gave

in now. That wouldn't be good for you. So we're going to have that bath, right? And that's a battle that you enter and you follow through one. And you're not yelling. You're being very neutral. and in a very loving way you're setting that boundary. If they're like pretty calm about it and they're like, okay, mom, I'll wait for you to decide. Okay, let me know. And then you're like, okay, hey, let's green light it. Let's not have a bath.

Or if it's a cookie that they want too close to dinner, you can say, well, it's a yellow light, I'm not sure. And if they're like, please, please, it's not fair. I want it, I want it, I want it, I want it. Then, you know what? I'm sorry. Ah, that was red light. And I get that you want the cookie, but now it's a red light.

Now I can't give you the cookie. But if they're like, okay, mom, I promise, I'll eat my dinner. I won't bug you again about it. Then you're like, okay, let's green light that. But if you don't eat your dinner, I'm going to know it's because of the cookie and it'll be a red light tomorrow. Right. So it allows the children to get a sense of cause and effect, having a little bit of control or perceived choice. If you keep doing this, you'll be choosing this behavior.

And that's why if they do end up getting in trouble or the consequence, and there's a difference between punishment and consequence. A punishment is, I want you to feel it. You made me feel bad. So I'm going to make you feel bad. and it's going to come from this angry kind of energy, which is, I'm going to hurt you. Punishments never work.

Consequences, though, are part of life. There's consequences all the time, right? And you have to maneuver and learn to work in a world where there's going to be consequences for certain behaviors. And the thing that's so hard for parents, but it's so important, is that you've got to teach them those consequences. Because if you don't, life well.

And life is a much harsher teaching. Right? So it's really important to love. love them enough. And that's where the mirroring is so lovely, because if you happen to be a parent that's not great at containment and does tend to go back on things and doesn't really stick to consequences, it's much easier to do that when you've started the whole process with connection and with love. And I cannot tell you how many kids are in my office. And they'll say to me, I'm mad at my mom. Why? Because she told me she was going to take whatever away and she didn't.

It bothers kids. They don't like it. They want to know you're flying the plane. It happens all the time. It's like, season Milan, the dog whisper, not to equate dogs and kids. There are some similarities. But there are some similarities from hearing. Yeah. He said, you know, every, every, you know, I don't know what you call like dog mom or dad or whatever, right owner. I don't know if that's the right word.

Yep. You've got to be the strong, confident leader. And inconsistent behavior is just confusing. And it's going to make them anxious. And there's going to be this anxiety and they're not going to know. that's going to lead to all sorts of other behavior that's there. Yes. Children will act like they want power, but I'm telling you they don't want it.

It actually makes them uncomfortable. It makes them very anxious. And I'm pretty convinced that's why we're seeing such a huge leap in anxiety these days, is that children are feeling like they have too much power, and that scares them. They don't want to be that passenger on the plane with a captain running around asking what they should do. Right? They want to have choices and they want to make good decisions, but they want knowing that that captain is flying the plane. So an anxiety is a beast.

And anxiety is a whole other podcast, but basically anxiety is the brain's way of protecting itself, protecting us. It loves us. It's self-preservatory. But when you feed anxiety, when you give into it, and this is where parenting comes in, it'll double down on you. It'll be like, oh, the only reason I'm alive is because I didn't have to go into that gym class. Okay, well, now I'm never going into that gym class again, and I'm never going into that building again. And that's kind of how anxiety works, right? It's like a beast that you feed that. hardest thing as a parent is being able to say, I love you enough, but we are not actually leaving right now because that would be the worst thing that I could do for your brain. You have to

know that you are okay. So we're going to stay a few more minutes or we're going to stay for five minutes or we're going to go out in the hall instead of going home, right? This is really relevant to school anxiety, which is a huge thing in getting worse and worse and worse. That if you let your kids stay home because they're afraid to go to school, you will have a monster on your hands. Getting a child back to school that you've let stay home when they're anxious is a beast. Because you're already setting that pattern inside of that. Yeah, it's really about not letting the anxiety stake any claim.

So I love when I work with kids or to teach parents that you call the anxiety something. Give it a funny name, like the, I don't know, the anxiety bug or the anxiety monster, whatever they want to name it, volcano man, whatever you want. And then together you're like, hey, you know what, we don't want volcano man to get in the way here. He's going to tell you that it's not good to go to this gym class or it's not good to go here. But we know that he just wants to steal your fun. So together you're working against the anxiety instead of making it about them. And anxiety gets a bad rap. You need anxiety.

You have to have anxiety. You're not going to be motivated to do anything. You're going to tell your boss to F off. You're going to drive in the HOV lane with one person. You have to have enough anxiety to follow some rules and to be motivated and do what you have to do. It's when you have too much anxiety that anxiety will start to feed on itself. And it will actually, it's interesting. The way I teach kids is think of anxiety like a dog, like a guard dog.

like a guard dog, right? And you've gone to the pet store and you've bought this guard dog and he's going to save you. It's going to be great. And in the beginning, the dog just barks at scary people outside. And then the dog's like, ooh, they kept walking. I'm good. I'm going to, you know what? I'm going to bark at everybody that walks by, not just funny looking people. I'm going to bark at everyone because I'm doing a great job and I'm really saving my person. And then eventually the dog's like, well, you know, I'm going to bark at people inside too because people are suspect. So I'm just going to make sure my person's okay. I'm going to bark at everyone inside. And then eventually I'm not going to let anyone near my person. And then eventually this giant dog is just sitting on

your chest licking your face. And kids laugh, right? And you're like, because I don't want to make it a negative thing, anxiety, but the dog just overloves you. So now the dog, now you can't do anything. You can't go anywhere. You can't have any fun because your anxiety is just sitting on you, pinning you down, saying you're only safe here. Right. And some of the traditional CBT programs, which are phenomenal, by the way, and I'm not in any way suggesting that CBT is not fabulous. But one spin that you can put on it with your kids is we don't want to get rid of the anxiety. We don't want to get rid of the dog. We love the dog. We just want to train the dog. We want the dog to be able to sit in their little dog bed and come when you call it. And know when it's real. And when it's not real. And when

it's not real. So you learn to control your emotions so your emotions don't control you. And that's a really, really important thing. You have so many tools and resources that you've created going back to the map that I was sharing earlier. I would love for you to talk about some of them and the books that are out there and some of the different things you've created. Because so it's anybody who's fired about this interview, it is, it is challenging, right? It is challenging, especially when certain behaviors have been going on for a while. Sure. It's totally worth it.

If you're listening and you're like, this is worth it, then you know that there's a sense of hope or peace on the other side. Give us a little lay of the land of the different tools. and resources that you have out there that you've created for. Sure. So there's a team of us. I have a whole team of people that have been, and they're all superstars. They're amazing. And the people that I work with have to be empathic. They have to really connect. They have to really want to understand and love the people that they're working with. And they also have to be funny because I'm really big on humor because you've got to laugh,

right? And that's sometimes the only thing you can do. So there's the direct approach where you can work with one of our staff. And we work with parents from all over the world. So we do work online. People can do like video sessions. Yep, absolutely. We do sessions online all the time. Also with kids directly? Do you use video sessions? Yep. And interestingly, it can work really well with kids because it's their medium already, like being on a screen, right? So we have all these interact. Yep, we have interactive stuff that we do and it's really neat. So that's one way is to work with us directly. There's the books, of course. There's lots of

stuff on the website. I have a podcast. Can you just mention the names of the books? So the first one's called Connected Parenting, How to Raise a Great Kid. And the Second one, actually, I think it has a different name in the US. No, I think it's just had, I think it's just connected parenting. And then the second one is you're ruining my life, which is about teenagers. Yeah. And then I have a podcast. So a lot of the stuff I've talked about today is in the podcast, which is great for people who maybe financially, you know, don't have too many resources, but you can just get lots of usable information from the podcast. Then we have our parenting course. So that's a six week course where I take you through all of the details. There's so, I can't even tell you how

much more there is. There's just so much. And I help families, you know, go through every single step of the process, what to expect, lots of predictions, because there's things that'll happen as you're implementing in places that you get stuck and we just know where all those places are. And all the nuances that come from. Exactly. So you can just do the course. And actually, a lot of insurance companies will cover the course because it's considered family therapy. Not all of them will, but some of them will. And then I'm just starting a new program where it's the course and some of the live sessions with me and part of a Facebook closed Facebook group so parents can help each other

and also having one of our coaches assigned to them as they're going through the process to answer emails or texts during the week when things come up because things do come up. So like an ecosystem of like curriculum, but some live work and then also like community support, which I honestly think is one of the best ways that people learn. Because if you just do, and I've done so many online courses. Yeah. But one of the challenges that I have when I get really excited and I just sign up for just the online course. Yeah. You're busy and especially nobody's busier than parents. Exactly. So it's tough and I wouldn't want to steer anybody away from it, but I'm super excited that you mentioned that other option. So it sounds like is that coming or... Yeah, I'm starting that right now. So if people want that now, we're getting that going. What's it called? It's just the connected parenting program. Okay. Amazing. What's neat too about the course or this or the kind of bigger program is I don't take the modules away. Like you own it for life. Yeah.

because people are watching them over and over and over again because each module is filled with so much stuff that I just want people to be able to have it. And a year later, they do a refresher and they watch certain units again or they watch the whole thing again. I wanna make sure that people keep it for life. So.

What's your recommendation for maybe one parent who feels like, I really wanna incorporate this in? And I hear a lot of times like either another parent is indifferent or is just is not supportive. Yeah. Right? Or doesn't maybe think it's that big of a,

thing and maybe they're the parent that's not working with the kid as much or it could be the other way around. But what's the recommendation. So here's what I love. This is like my favorite thing about this program. It will work if one parent's doing it. Okay, great. It truly will. If you're just doing it all by yourself, it will work.

I'll tell you a funny story. I had a dad who called me this years ago. And he called me and he was absolutely sobbing. I couldn't even understand what he was saying on the phone. But I finally got out of him that he was upset about his son. and somehow he'd gotten my direct number, and I don't know how he got it. But anyway, I had a wait list, but I'm like, you know what?

Come on in, I'll help you. I never work with the children first. I always work with the parents because I'm downloading this curriculum. So even if people do want to work with one of our therapists one-on-one, it's still great to have the course too, because then you don't have to pay for that information to be coming in in individual sessions. You can go get that curriculum and then just fine-tune the sessions with the client,

with the therapist. So anyway, he came in to see me. He brought his wife. And I'm, you know, talking about mirroring, and I'm talking about the story of the group home, and I'm talking about, you know, why mirroring works in the brain, all of it. And he's, dad's writing everything down. And the mom is sitting there with this look on her face.

Like, seriously? Like, that's her face. And I look at her and I say, this isn't resonating for you. Like, this just isn't feeling right for you. Like, tell me what's going on, because you really seem like this is not working. And she's like, well, it's ridiculous. This is your big idea to be nice.

my kid punches holes in the wall and calls me the most horrible names. He is the most disgusting, violent person, and I'm going to be nice. And she's like, that's what your book is about. And I said, well, there's a little more to it. But essentially, I suppose if you boil it right down, it is definitely about kindness and compassion first and understanding that underneath all of that stuff is usually someone who's suffering. Well, I don't care.

I feel like that's going to make him worse. I fundamentally disagree with this, and she got up and she left. And it's never happened before or since. And the dad was like, never mind her, I'll just do it. And so I worked with the dad. I worked with the dad for four months. I never saw the mom. The dad was the most wonderful student.

He just took it all in and really practiced. And a lot of when you work with one of us, it's really going through. Like, we didn't do a role play, but you actually take the technique apart and practice it. Anyway, four months later, which is around the four month mark. So it doesn't matter if you're seeing one of us or reading the book or following it just by the podcast, whatever. It's around the four-month mark that you see some pretty significant, astonishing changes. And this kid started calming down, and his behavior was changing. And so there was this one day, he walked into the living room. His mother was sitting there reading

the paper. He walked in, and he was swearing at her. And where is my drying? You don't move my stuff, you and calling her names. And normally she would say, how dare you talk to me like that? And, you know, screaming yell back at him. And I'm your mother. And how dare you? And now you're going to lose this, that. And the other, oh, that's the other thing. thing I'd said to the mom when I'd asked her, what are you doing now? Because she wasn't very interested in this technique. She said, well, I'm just taking stuff away. Like, I'm just consequencing.

I'm just punishing him. And I'm like, is that working? Is that working right now? And she goes, no, but it will. Because a lot of people believe that if you just, you can just punish it out of them somehow. And sometimes you can, but not usually with a feisty gladiator. They'll usually double down on you most often.

It's just fuel. Anyway, it was interesting. So he's screaming, he's screaming at her. I guess she'd seen enough changes with this child and the dad that she decided, okay, I'm going to try this. So she looked at him and she said, you know what? I hate the way you're talking to me, but I watched you with that drawing. You spent three and a half hours on that shield, drawing the detail on that shield.

So I get why you're freaking out. And this kid stood there and went, okay, I guess I'll just go look for it then and walked out. He was not expecting that response from his mother. He was expecting what had always been there, which was fuel. But here's the best part of the story. He walked back in about five minutes later and said, sorry, and then ran them. And the mom burst into tears because there it was. That's all she'd ever wanted to hear from her son.

And there it was. And that kid went on to have a pretty normal adolescent. And that child was given a horrible prognosis. He'd been to a lot of different mental health centers and seen a number of different people who said, you're going to have real trouble with this kid. He was, okay, this is going to sound like an infomercial, so I'm apologizing ahead of time, but I swear to you, this is true. Please, please get into it.

He won the Empathy Award in 12th grade, that child. That is the truth. So his dad called me back a few years later, bawling to tell me that story. And he said, thank you for giving my son back. And I said, I didn't give you your son back. You've got your son. This is not easy. This is not easy.

It's not easy. But the reason that I'm really excited and also happy for you to talk about all the offerings you have is that fundamentally I just feel that people are looking for a resource and they don't know where to go. Yeah. And yes, you didn't give them a son back, but everybody can benefit from a coach, just like they can benefit from a teacher. Absolutely. And I think that if I could speak up for, especially a lot of the moms who write me on this podcast and thinking about my older sister, who's a mom too, I think there is this thing where they feel often alone. It's wonderful but terrifying being a parent.

It really is. And I think that anybody, whether your partner's into it, whether you're not into it, jumping in and creating a little bit of a community around it and having the tools and resources. And that story is just a perfect example of what's possible when we interact with each other in the way that our connection was designed. Yeah. And that mom came around. she came around like she just watched it happen she could see organically the change that was happening so if one parent starts it the other one will usually come on board and even if they don't it helps build enough resilience in that child that they don't need the other parent to come

on board as much as they did before so we'll put the links to everything that you mentioned the show note but just off the top of your head for people that are listening that are driving website URL so connected parenting dot com and they can find all these things everything's on there the show notes and the resources inside of that. Yep. And I really encourage everybody to check it out, read a book, listen to the podcast. Anytime I have somebody on my podcast who has a podcast themselves, is there, based on this interview, if somebody's completely new to you, is there one episode that you recommend?

You should start at the very beginning. The first two or three really take you through, probably even in more detail than today, the calm technique and some of the containment stuff. and then I'm just rolling with whatever happens, bedtime, sibling issues, you name it. We kind of try to cover it all. Jennifer, this has been an honor and a privilege. I'm going to listen to this podcast with my girlfriend. Awesome.

And we talk about the future and what life looks like. We both want to be parents one day. And I'm going to send it out to, I really think that as much as education that can happen before people get into it, everybody knows parenting is hard, but I just see so many people who are just now really deeply afraid. And that's not the energy that you want to come into with parenting. You need to know that it's challenging, but you also need to know that there's tools and resources. There are. There are. And that you can make a difference in your child's life and you can feel confident parenting. You can. Well, thank you for giving our audience the gift of that. And I really

appreciate you. It's been lovely. Thank you. Thank you to Stephanie and Giovanni for introducing us. Awesome. and for being such a great force of good in the world. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. It was wonderful. Hi, everyone. Drew here.

Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share with a friend. Share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to do. tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly

newsletter and it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy to digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is by the way free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-O-H-I-T dot com and click on the tab that says try this.