The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to shout less at your children or help your clients shout less at theirs - psychologist tips

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi there, it's Marianne here. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to quickly let you know about something exciting that's happening right now. If you've ever wondered how to create income that works for you, rather than constantly trading your time for money, then you'll love the Race to Recurring Revenue Challenge with my business mentor, Lisa Johnson. This challenge is designed to help you build sustainable income streams. And whether you're an aspiring psychologist, a mental health professional, or in a completely different field,

Starting point is 00:00:32 the principles can work for you. There are also wonderful prizes to be won directly by Lisa herself. And if you join the challenge by my link, you can be in with a chance of winning a one-to-one hours coaching with me, Dr. Marianne Trent. Do you want to know more? Of course you do. Head to my link tree, Dr. Marianne Trent, or check out my social media channels, or send me a quick DM and I'll get you all the details. Right, let's get on with today's episode. Ever find yourself shouting at your kids only to feel guilt afterwards? You are not alone.

Starting point is 00:01:07 Shouting is often our go-to response when we feel overwhelmed or when we feel like we're not being listened to, but it doesn't need to be. In today's episode, I am chatting with Dr. Jade Redfern, clinical psychologist and parenting coach. We are breaking down why we shout, the hidden functions behind our outbursts, and most importantly, how to regulate your emotions so you can calmly guide your child through theirs. Hope you find it so useful. Hi, welcome along. I am Dr. Marianne and I'm a clinical psychologist. I am a human first and a psychologist second and interestingly those are the exact orders that I got my qualifications in but after becoming a

Starting point is 00:01:53 qualified psychologist I then became a parent and I know that for many of us we might find ourselves working in services or suddenly becoming a parent ourselves and thinking, oh, I'm woefully ill-equipped. One of the hot topics in parenting can be when it feels like you are shouting more than you would like to. And there's such important reasons behind that. Let's dive into today's episode, which is just complete soul food and so incredibly useful. Hope you will love it. I just want to welcome along our guest for today, Dr. Jade Redfern. Hi, Jade. Hi, Marianne. Thanks for having me.

Starting point is 00:02:32 Thanks so much for coming on. We have been regulars in each other's inboxes over the years, but it's really lovely to have you on the podcast. Yeah, absolutely. It's always lovely to have the support online, but yeah, lovely to be here. I've been a fan of your podcast, so it's always lovely to have the support online but yeah lovely to be here i've been a fan of your podcast so it's good to be here oh that's really kind of you today and i'm such a fan of your work jade i find you to be calm in the storm of parenting chaos that's how it feels it's funny because we've had this conversation before being the calm and I think sometimes yeah well we'll unpick it today but there's so much that we can say about that yeah so the people

Starting point is 00:03:10 tuning in what are they gonna get by listening to or watching this episode what's our hope for today Jade I think really to think I mean it's a couple of things I guess there might be you know some listeners who are parents themselves. So I hope for them that they can kind of walk away from this episode kind of feeling a little calmer themselves, but also feeling like, I don't know, I think there's just so much guilt in parenting around, we're questioning whether we're doing it right. Am I messing my kids up? And so I think anybody who faithfully listens to my work or works with me doesn't feel that. And that we don't have to be a calm parent all of the time. There's lots of things we can do that will help us. But I think also, as we were chatting earlier, for anyone who isn't a parent, you know, understanding when

Starting point is 00:03:52 you're working with parents, what might be going on for them? You know, yes, they might be bringing their child to see you in clinical, but we also want to kind of bear in mind what might be going on for the parent. How can we support the parent as well? Yeah, and it's so important, isn't it, that we think about families holistically. And it actually starts from before a baby's born, sometimes even before a baby's conceived. How have people planned to become parents? How have they chatted with anyone around them about how they might plan to parent, how they might plan to create safe boundaries and safe discipline and to hopefully have a relationship that thrives. But I know that if people are watching this and thinking about the

Starting point is 00:04:31 guilt and the shame, I know from working with psychologists and being one myself and people working in social care probably feel similarly, that you have that normal parent guilt and shame, but you also have the, oh, I'm a psychologist or I'm a social worker or I work in social care. I should know what I'm doing. I should be finding this easier. Yeah. So being a psychologist or working in social care or just understanding, you know, we have that kind of awareness, the impact that, you know, the early years on childhood or the way that we respond to our children, we have that awareness that it can have a big impact on our children's lives. And so then we can sometimes use that as a kind of pressure on ourselves that, you know, from our training, oh, I should know,

Starting point is 00:05:09 you know, how I should be doing this. And in fact, for me, before I became a parent, you know, I'd worked in child and adolescent mental health. I'd worked with looked after children, trauma. So a lot of my work was with parents. I'd done a lot of training on parenting. But then when I became a parent and the anxiety that I felt and the, you know, my nervous system just felt like it was lit on fire and was never off, you know, just on kind of high alert. And I was really struggling. And I had this double layer of, I was struggling because it was hard. I was finding it hard because it is hard. And then I had the extra layer of guilt or that I've been supporting parents for years and now I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and so for me I think yes as professionals we could sometimes put that extra layer of guilt on ourselves particularly if

Starting point is 00:05:53 you work with children and adolescents because you're thinking well hang on a minute I'm helping other families you know in my day job and then I go home and I'm struggling with my own and so we put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Yeah we we absolutely do. And, you know, if anyone is not yet a parent or doesn't ever want to become a parent, that's okay too. But wants to actually support families to parent more effectively, like it's okay that you're not a parent or you're not a parent yet. And I think one of the important questions is to kind of work out how it is for that person. You know, empathy can be important, but you don't always need to have been hit by a bus to know that it hurts. And so it's just trying to understand how it is for that person and what that means to them. Sometimes knowing

Starting point is 00:06:34 a little bit more about what came before for them and what their experience of being parenting was can kind of help you do your job better. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's having that understanding that if, you know, a child is coming to you or, you know, it's more than just the child that's coming to you. When you're working with a parent, you know, there may be a load of preconceived ideas about what they're hoping for. Maybe they're hoping for a diagnosis in their child because for many reasons, you know, diagnoses, yes, they can be helpful, but also sometimes parents are looking, the deeper layer can be that they're sometimes looking for it to be, please tell me this isn't something that I've done wrong. So it's just understanding that, you know, there are just

Starting point is 00:07:13 deeper layers to the ones that might be being presented to you. And actually sometimes when we suggest, oh, I think it'd be really good to have a session just with you. Some people might respond really well to that. Other people might be like me me? Why me? What have I done wrong? And so actually just being really clear that actually, you know, being a parent is hard and that's okay. And so actually you having a space where you feel you can safely kind of share what your experiences are like and how things are for you and what's going on for you is really, really helpful for me understanding you as a whole family. This isn't just about me understanding your child. I really want to understand you. And it's just taking that slightly different angle because you're aware that a parent is going to

Starting point is 00:07:47 come with their own feelings of anxiety am I going to be judged am I going to be seen as the parent that's failing you know and particularly if there's social care involved there's so much stigma involved in that around is there something you know that I've done wrong and so when I work with parents very much speaking to some of the challenges that they might be having have have probably actually been there for many generations before them, you know, and that they are carrying, you know, many stories, many experiences, many challenges predate even their existence. And I think that can be hard, but comforting sometimes to hear. Yeah, absolutely. And we're just, you know, really aiming to de-shame this process. You know, none of us were born experts in parenting, you know, and it's something that we can't expect ourselves to be an expert in something

Starting point is 00:08:31 we've never done before. We do need to allow ourselves to grow. And, you know, that starts right with working out how you work out how a child is hungry and whether they're tired, you know, when they need their nappy changed when you know how to change a nappy like it's a normal there's so much to learn isn't there let alone how to begin to work out to feed that child once you work out they are hungry yeah absolutely and it's funny because I often think like if there was any other job we went into like imagine if you went into the job of a psychologist or a mental health worker and it was just like, here you go, here's your first case. And they can't do anything for themselves.

Starting point is 00:09:09 You know, you'd be like, oh, by the way, the manager's off sick. There's no supervisor. There's no rule book. There's no like, you know, just anyway, I'll check in in a couple of weeks, see how you're doing. And, you know, you'd be lost. And I think yet there's this expectation that society have, that we have, that it's just a job that especially for my whole motherhood it's just the most wonderful natural thing and actually for many of us it isn't and I think what I didn't even appreciate before becoming a mum was just how much my own stuff regardless of whether you feel you've got

Starting point is 00:09:39 trauma in your history or not whether you feel like you know for me like it activated parts I didn't even know existed before I became a mum, you know, and so that really shocked me. And then I had this other layer that it shocked me that it shocked me because I thought, again, there's that I should, as a psychologist that's worked in trauma for 20 years, this actually isn't that shocking. It kind of makes sense. But it was having that kind of lived experience. And I think just being aware that, you know, there's still a child that lives on in all of us, you know, that sometimes, you know, inside of me, you know, she wants to stomp and scream and demand ice cream, I don't know, or something like that. But that, you know, our kids are going to activate, you know, when our kids don't listen,

Starting point is 00:10:16 because kids, you know, get engrossed in what they're doing, and they don't want to do the thing that we want to do. And we can have a part of ourselves that gets really activated by that, that our voice doesn't matter, that, you know, we're tired and exhausted, and we want to do. And we can have a part of ourselves that gets really activated by that, that our voice doesn't matter, that we're tired and exhausted and I want to be able to ask once and you just do the thing. And of course that makes sense. And from a child perspective, they're just being kids and they're engrossed in the thing that they're doing. And it's having that kind of dual process go on when working with parents and helping parents, because we've got to understand that these are two separate human beings that can get very enmeshed with one another. And so again, it's the reason why when I work with parents where they say, but I help other parents and children. So why am I finding it so hard with my own kids?

Starting point is 00:10:54 Because they're your own kids, because we get quite enmeshed with them. And you see parts of yourself in your own children. And that can be very triggering. But yeah, expecting ourselves to be an expert in this. And I sometimes feel uncomfortable when people kind of say we're being a parenting expert and in fact recently someone said to me oh let's watch and then I think my middle child he was having a bit of a tantrum as they do and and my friend sort of quietly said to me oh let's watch the expert play over thinking oh please don't because you know I was also having a human mom moment of like, okay, I'm in public. My child is having a tantrum.

Starting point is 00:11:27 We can know how we could respond. But also, I now have three kids and I'm one of four and my husband's from a big family. So we often talk about how you might start to get to know your child and it takes time because I like parenting as a relationship, right? So you're getting to know your child, how they respond and react and react what they like what they don't and how you react with them and then you have another child you think oh yeah i'm going to be better this time you're gonna be better this i know what i'm doing this time and then they don't respond in the same way as your first child and they need a slightly different approach you know hang on a minute

Starting point is 00:11:59 so by the third child surely i've got this down and no i'm still finding you know new ways of like having to kind of react and respond to my children so I think we're always learning that is so true Jade and really what I brought to the parenting game for my first baby was he seemed to really like breast milk so he fed a lot and anything he needed hungry tired cold indecisive teething he was happy to have milk. And he loved singing. He loved it when I sung with him. And they were my two go-to strategies and kind of being silly and kind of bouncing him on my knee and stuff with, you know,

Starting point is 00:12:35 the grand old Duke of York. And then my second one came along and I thought, I'm quite a good pair. This is going to be all right. We're going to have two of these wonderful boys, you know, just really, really delighted and happy all the time. And the second one came along and he only wanted to feed right at the right moment. Otherwise it was lots of screaming and he didn't like it when I sang. I would scream more. He didn't like baby massage, didn't like being naked. And I like oh I'm all I'm all out of resources I do not know what to do here like clueless where do I go with this yeah absolutely and and so I guess it's getting to know that these are just separate beings with temperaments that they're born with you know and some of our kids you know they are born you know with a more highly

Starting point is 00:13:22 sensitive nervous system with a shorter window of tolerance. I mean, kids, young kids in general have short windows of tolerances anyway, but you know, in our deeply feeling kids, some kids respond really well to having their emotions validated. Other kids, you know, you validate their emotion and it seems to make it worse. It's almost like, I think because some of our kids are so porous to the world and it's at the wrong moment. Like you say, it's got to be at the specific moment in a specific way. And you could end up feeling like you're getting it wrong but actually if we can change that narrative to like how can i bring compassionate curiosity to this moment like ah okay so that doesn't quite that didn't quite work like isn't that interesting and that can be so hard in the moment i think it takes

Starting point is 00:13:58 a lot of practice i mean we talk a lot don't we about compassion and it's much easier to have compassion for others than it is for ourselves right but just giving ourselves permission to to be curious about what's going on instead of having that story that I'm getting this so horribly wrong because my child is upset or I don't know being emotional but actually kids are big balls of emotion and I often say you know there's there's no tank big enough sometimes you know to kind of contain some of it it's it is really hard and you know I remember my my son my middle child walking to school when it was preschool so it was probably about I don't know six seven months ago and he said to me I wish I wish I had two mummies and I recognized there was a part within me that was like oof

Starting point is 00:14:42 ouch because that part was sensing this, I'm not enough. But through some of the work that I've done, what helps is to actually go, what a wise thing to say. And actually, I was able to respond in a way that was, I wish there were two mummies too. Wouldn't that be amazing? And actually understood it that actually he just wants more of me. That doesn't mean I'm

Starting point is 00:15:05 not enough there just isn't enough of me and isn't that wonderful that he can articulate that and then that brings a very different kind of flavor to how you feel about yourself and how you can respond in those moments it really does and you know I think I look at my children and I look around at all the people that love them and just want to adore them. We can't be kind of entering into a relationship where we're feeling like if they want to run to their grandparent or their aunt or their uncle or even a friend, that that reflects badly on us. Because it's not, you know, our children should have abundant capacity to love and be loved. And that doesn't diminish our role as a parent. And we've got to get out of the way of our own ego. And I think in terms of the shoulds, I only really discovered compassion,

Starting point is 00:15:52 self-compassion and compassion more generally after my dad had died when my youngest was 18 months old. Probably discovered it around 20 months of his age. I wish I'd discovered it sooner because I would have got in my own way less. I would have asked for more help. I would have known that I don't need to do all of this alone and it's okay to be supported in that. And that doesn't say anything about me as a parent other than that I would have been better resourced and my window of tolerance would have been bigger. You know, we need to make sure we're making safe choices about who we're asking to help. But I was fairly certain the people around me were already safe. Why couldn't I give myself

Starting point is 00:16:34 permission to accept or ask for that help, even if it's just washing up or walking the baby around the block so I can have a shower? Like, sometimes I didn't have a shower for like days, days, days, weeks, hadn't washed my hair for weeks, like just pure Batiste. Like I deserved more than that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think when we think about, you know, what we want to give, gift, give to our children, you know, there's nothing really more that we don't love more than our children really. And so we want the best for them we really do but so much so that sometimes we give give up so much of ourselves and kind of leave ourselves you know running on empty when actually and I can think of times when I've been working with young people in the past or and I've sometimes suggested oh I'm wondering if and I've kind of you

Starting point is 00:17:19 know shared it kind of collaboratively with the family but I'm wondering if I don't know what do you think to the child you know what do you think if mummy had some sessions or if mummy had a space or she had someone to talk to where she could take some of her feelings as well as you have somewhere where you can share yours and so often the kids would be like they're doing this really big nod like not because they and it was it never ever felt like it was because you're pleased you know but but and in a really light actually they were aware that you know a parent needs that support too and i think actually our kids i often say you know kids don't do what we say they do what we do and they internalize how we take care of ourselves they internalize so whilst we're in the moment with our kids especially young kids they are needy they are demanding they

Starting point is 00:18:00 do need a lot of attention and it is you know hard but equally they're learning from us all the time that if we're never giving to ourselves or we're never kind of holding that boundary and saying I will be with you in a minute I'm just going to have a glass of water because I'm thirsty we're teaching them so much about not just their needs matter now but their needs matter when they're older that their needs matter because we're modeling it and that can feel hard sometimes but actually we can't pour out what we don't pour in. Yeah, really strong point. And I know from when we've spoken before, you said sometimes it's really nice to as soon as your child says to you,

Starting point is 00:18:34 Mummy, come and look at this or come and do this with me. Sometimes it's really nice to say, OK, rather than going, give me a minute or, you know, not now, five minutes, mummy's got to work or I've got to do this so I've got to finish you know doing x y and z it's really difficult when you've got a young child because you might be in the middle of changing their nappy and it was you're gonna you know you probably need to finish that job but sometimes it's really nice if it's safe to do so to say okay lovely show me now I've got time for you now yeah and I think that's where the more we can be as a parent the more you can become

Starting point is 00:19:06 aware of where your tanks are and kind of do this continual check-in so i have this really simple thing where i will ask myself and get my clients to ask themselves all the time what do i feel what do i need and the more you can have that practice you know when you wake up in the morning it doesn't have to take more than 10 seconds whilst you're on on the loo, whilst you're in the shower, just pause and slow down. You cannot be compassionate towards yourself. You cannot regulate yourself if we are always in a rush. And the modern way of parenting, the modern way of life, if you speak to anybody, how are you doing? Mostly the response will either be, I'm fine, or it will be, I'm fine, I'm just so busy, right? Or I'm just juggling all the things. Because we are, because the modern way of life is we're doing all the things. And I have to say out loud to myself on a daily occurrence,

Starting point is 00:19:50 Jade, pause, slow down all the time because I rush. I rush from thing to thing. And I want my kids to see me do that. I want my kids see me kind of just pause and take a breath instead of telling my kids, slow down, pause, breathe. I do it. And that's the power of that kind of co pause and take a breath. Instead of telling my kids, slow down, pause, breathe, I do it. And that's the power of that kind of co-regulation piece. Instead of telling our kids to calm down, we have to be the person to kind of model it, show it and do it in front of them. And so I guess, yeah, it's really hard to do that if we are always in a rush, if we are always spinning all of the plates all of the time. So I guess I invite people to think that if they are feeling like their nervous system is lit on fire, if they are feeling like they are overwhelmed, that they are stretched thin, it's not because you're bad or faulty in any way. It's because

Starting point is 00:20:32 your nervous system is lit on fire, stretched. And so how can we slow down and pause and breathe and do some of that really basic stuff, but actually that we just, sometimes we don't even realize we're going through our day and we're holding our breath and we're holding ourselves tight and we don't realise until we stop and ask ourselves, what do I feel? What do I need? And just pause, give yourself permission to just pause. Such powerful advice. It really is. And just re-centre yourself, just re-ground yourself. So obviously shouting as a parent, and then even as they get a bit older, having that shouting reciprocated, that is a big one. It doesn't make any of us feel good

Starting point is 00:21:12 as a parent. You know, I'm quite calm for the first three or four times of asking someone to do something. I think already from tuning into what we've been saying, I think me to be a bit less busy and not just expect that I can request something to be done from another room is my learning point, really. Go to the child, gently put your hands on them and come on, baby, it's time to get your shoes on. We need to do that now rather than just cranking up the volume is my first learning point from today. How can we clout less as parents, even on the fifth time of having to ask someone to do something? So yeah, great. That's a great question. And one I'm asked all the time. So the first thing to say is that in my house, even though people will say,

Starting point is 00:21:58 you know, you know, go see Jay, go speak to Jay. She's the calm parenting, you know, coach. It's really important for me that listeners, that people understand that I am not calm all of the time and shouting does happen in my house. I grew up in a very loving home. I was very fortunate to have a very loving home, but a very, very loud shouty home. And so it has become, I guess, kind of some of my life's work. And so it is stuff that I still work on on I don't think nervous system regulation and all this emotion regulation healing our parenting triggers that we can talk about all day long is a one and done thing you're going to come up against because of the way we live our lives right so that's the

Starting point is 00:22:34 first thing is it is something that we do have to work on consciously in terms of asking three or four times what I would say there is that ask once maybe twice know your limit but I would say there is that ask once, maybe twice, know your limit, but I would never ask more than twice. If we're having to ask a third time, yeah, we get to feel empowered. We get to change the way that we then communicate instead of expecting our kids to change. And you're going to get much less triggered then. And so it is a case of, like you said, going to the room, getting down on their level. And I know it can be frustrating feeling like we're on repeat but that that is the nature of of helping kids because we're working with immature brains we're working with you know reminding I remind myself daily another mantra of mine is 25 years Jade it takes 25 years for the brain to be fully developed you know and I guess

Starting point is 00:23:21 really it's being able to so for me one of the things is shouting whilst we don't enjoy it nobody likes being shouted at people don't like shouting it is actually a thing that we do because it does regulate us so on our vagus nerve that brings us back into a grounded state of being is attached to your vocal cords it's an it's an expression of like you know it's getting something out of our bodies that needs to come out of our bodies. So we do have to find other ways that we can do that. Just to try to stop shouting is like telling a child to stop hitting. It's like, well, where's that energy going to go? We've got to find an outlet for our energy. One of the things that really helps me if I get to a point where I'm feeling like the shout is coming, I do have to take myself off. I do have to kind of breathe, push my back against the wall, push my feet into the ground.

Starting point is 00:24:06 There's lots of things I can do. One of the things in my house that really helps me is I sing. Because for me, it's still using my vocal cords. It's still getting something out. And so I'm not a singer. I'm tone deaf. But anyway, it might go along the lines of something like this. It's getting very stressful.

Starting point is 00:24:23 And for me, it stops this like huge shout coming out out my kids tend to laugh and it tends to kind of simmer things down it doesn't work every time but that's just one example but it's thinking about instead of thinking how can i stop shouting the same way with any behavior with a child instead of thinking how can i stop that behavior get beneath the behavior and think what do i feel what do i need because when you understand that what is creating what's what's beneath the iceberg is you know the tip of the iceberg is the shout for example but there's just so much that's going on beneath the surface when we can access what our unmet needs are and find ways that we can meet those needs then you're going to end up shouting less but it does take practice that is so interesting jade i've never

Starting point is 00:25:00 heard that about the singing before but it is something that I tend to do. But I had always thought it was not a great thing. And I sort of realised I would do it and I'd try to be more mindful of it because I thought it was almost like dissociation. But actually, I think that's really empowering knowing that the physical experience of singing might actually help the calming process especially if I if I'm more careful about what I'm singing I think I will often just sing I don't know like a chorus that I've got stuck in my head but if I could actually sing some of the moment it might bring everybody more online so I thank you for that I really love that yeah lots of my clients do end up saying now

Starting point is 00:25:46 that they spend they spend a lot of their time singing but I think it's just that the more aware you are of your body I think we are all of us at times quite dissociated from our body because as I said we tend to be holding our breath we tend to be either stuck in the past worrying about the things that we've done the fact that we shouted at our kids this morning and sent them off to school and now we feel terrible or we're stuck worrying about the future like how am I ever gonna I don't know you know cope with whatever it might be and I think I mean the other thing is that a lot of us will say is like I stay calm I stay calm I stay calm and then I flip and it's usually you know tea time bedtime because we've kind of we've held it together we've held it together especially doing kind of the jobs

Starting point is 00:26:22 that we do in terms of we pour a lot of ourselves out as psychologists we're giving to others we're working with trauma and we end up coming home our window of tolerance has been shrunk and we have to continually as a parent like our capacity as a parent once you are a parent is is much lower you know because you can your kids are going to push or prod you and ask for things and you know meltdowns tantrums like it all of these things load your load nervous system. So they shrink your window of tolerance. So we have to be thinking, actually, what can I build into my day? Instead of just getting through my day and then think, oh, my child's now kicking off. I now need to regulate. We need to be regulating all day long. We need to be getting up and moving and having a break and sipping water and taking some breaths,

Starting point is 00:27:02 telling ourselves to slow down, all this stuff throughout our day. How can we weave this into our day instead of expecting ourselves to kind of stay this idea of staying calm? Really what we're doing is we're just holding something very tightly and then the lid flips. So it's kind of reframing how we regulate ourselves throughout the day and not just during those moments of chaos. Such wise words again. And even yesterday, I was on my way back from a very high energy, high intensity gym class called Blaze. And I was, you know, physically tired and spent, but mentally energized and thinking, oh, I know I'm going to be going home in a calmer state than that which I left the house, you know, having just cooked dinner and then kind of got changed and run out the house. I knew that I

Starting point is 00:27:50 would have more capacity for whatever was about to unfold at bedtime. And for me, it's only really in the last four years, I would say that exercise has really become very integral to me I kind of wish I'd had that realization earlier in my life but maybe someone watching this or listening to this hasn't yet discovered the thing that's going to really help them to manage everything in their life better you know not just parenting I think it's that finding that thing isn't it and for some I think movement is key because movement does regulate our nervous system. But for some people, it might be running, for some people, it might be the gym or personal training, or some people might be restorative yoga or just getting out for walks. I always say to parents, if in doubt, if you feel like your child's

Starting point is 00:28:37 feeling kind of, you know, on edge and you're feeling on edge, get outside. If anything, just get outside. Again, that has lots of restorative kind of you know ways of being outside and being in nature that there's no one way of doing it that's in some ways the lovely thing and can be hard when you've got more than one child because you might find that one child you know in terms of their sensory system they need you know they need to be climbing walls and you know jumping on trampolines and that really kind of like restores them and then you may have another child who actually needs to do drawing and puzzles and so having these kind of different needs within a family system can be really challenging or if you have a child who is really high energy and you're kind

Starting point is 00:29:13 of like trying to down regulate yourself from that that can be really hard and parents will often ask me you know well how do I regulate myself when I don't have any space from my kids you know they literally will follow me to the loo and and that is hard but I also think therefore parents of young children do have to have these kind of practices where we are doing it with our kids they are there and and that's why I sort of often recommend you know sometimes wearing earbuds you know where you can still hear your kids but it dampens down the noise a little bit can be really helpful you know I definitely have a noise sensitivity which is wild having three kids but like yeah putting it back against the wall reducing stimuli around yourself so that you can just regulate

Starting point is 00:29:51 yourself a little bit and it's hard but it's it's actually really important for our kids to see us doing that work because as i said they don't kids don't do what we say if you tell your kid to calm down actually think about a time when someone has told you when you're in that enraged you know your brain is enraged and someone says to you just just calm down take a breath you know it actually enrages us so actually instead of in those kind of meltdown moments the best way to respond is to regulate yourself and actually focus more on you than your child obviously keeping your child safe but instead of telling your child to breathe to down. You do the thing you want to see in your child and you'll see that co-regulation happen much sooner. Yeah, and that's just brought back a really special memory actually of when I just had one child and doing things like bathing him every day

Starting point is 00:30:39 like in the evenings when he was kind of a toddler. That went right out the window when the next one came along. But he was tired. It was getting to the end of the day. Sometimes bath times would be a little bit more difficult. And I, you know, I was the gentlest of gentle parents when I just had one. And I remember him vexing me a bit at bath time. And he must have spotted me do things like time and time again. Suddenly he went, and I thought, oh, yeah, I do do that. Because I really didn't want him to have the experience of being shouted at. So when I noticed I was going to shout or wanted to shout, losing my temper I would and just take a moment and he began

Starting point is 00:31:30 to do that and that's you know exactly exactly what you said isn't it yeah absolutely I remember a time watching one of my kids kind of with another child who was getting really upset and and she was you know only I think like four at the time, my daughter, and she was doing it with this other child. They had this kind of breathing ball that I have. And she was always teaching this three-year-old like how to use it. And it was lovely. And there was one bit where they wanted to sort of run into the playroom

Starting point is 00:31:57 because I saw it happening and just start doing a crazy dance and cheering and letting off. And I thought, no, just let it be. Just let it be. It's happening and it's lovely. But also there's a time, you know, when you go let it be, just let it be. It's happening. And it's lovely. But also there's a time, you know, when you go from one to two, it's a big transition, right? And I can say going from two to three is another big transition. My youngest is nine months now. And there was a time, and it was a very popular social media post because I was very, very honest. I had to get asleep. So, you know, I was incredibly tired. I can't remember

Starting point is 00:32:24 right now the semantics, but I just remember in front of my other two children having the baby and shouting, shut up. It was not a fine moment. And actually my child saying, don't say that to him. He's a baby, which she's right. But it's what I did next that really mattered which was just like I gave myself a moment to pause and acknowledge this is hard internally this is hard I'm a good parent having a hard time so I repaired internally with myself which then enabled me to say this is a lot baby down and apologize to the baby and say do you know what you're absolutely right mummy needs to go calm herself down. Shouting's not okay.

Starting point is 00:33:07 And so one of the things, if a parent can get good at anything, it's repair. Because we are teaching our kids how to mess up, how to be human, how to be imperfect, and how to take responsibility and to say sorry. But the bit that's often missing when we repair with our kids is that first initial bit, which is to repair with yourself I am a good mom having a hard time and not a bad mom doing bad things because if we don't do that piece the shame builds up and then it's really hard to apologize when we're feeling shameful it's really hard to take responsibility and you're more likely to shout again the next time because again it's it's layering the pressure that we put on ourselves yeah so i try and talk really openly and honestly about that because i never ever want to think that

Starting point is 00:33:49 anybody thinks that there's any psychologist or parenting coach out there doing this parenting gig perfectly there's no such thing and i don't actually believe it would be helpful to our kids if we were personally yeah and you know i was moved by that story um both when when you told me it for the first time, but also now, like really hard. And when you've got someone screaming in your face that doesn't seem to want to stop or respond to normal things you've tried, it's making no difference. And it's very loud. You know, they use baby screaming as a torture, don't they, for prisoners and kind of SAS practice. Because it's supposed to be a frequency that we find very uncomfortable because it's supposed to move us to take action, to work out whatever it is that's causing our baby distress.

Starting point is 00:34:40 But obviously, if we've tried all those things, it's really hard. Yeah, it's really hard. And I think, again, why I use this language, like it activates a part of us. It was a part of me that was distressed, overstimulated. I was dysregulated. It's not all of me. I don't take it on as an identity. It's this part of me was just, woof, and I just blew and then I repaired.

Starting point is 00:35:03 And then again, going back to that, what do I feel? What do I need? And sometimes we can't always meet those needs. Because if I'm brutally honest, what I've needed more of this year is sleep. But I have a normal baby, very active, not a fan of sleep. Don't know why I thought third time around might be different. But sometimes just acknowledging, having that acknowledge that there's an unmet need there can be enough in itself. Acknowledging I'm finding this hard because it is hard, not because I'm failing or doing it wrong in some way. The stories we tell ourselves matter. And I think therefore being part of, whether it's through a friend or a friendship group or some kind of way that you can connect with other people that you feel you can be your true self with and I think that could be hard in today's even though like in some ways you can be on social media and have you know 30,000 people follow you like it doesn't necessarily mean you're connected to people or you can you know you can have all these friends but I think you know as parents we really have to have like that connection with someone or a couple of people

Starting point is 00:36:03 that you feel you can be your true self with that you're not going to be judged and and that in itself is very regulating to give us that permission to feel and I always say you know when you're helping yourself or helping your kids we can only regulate a feeling that you give yourself permission to have if we are telling ourselves I shouldn't feel that feeling is going to grow that feeling is going to get hard and you end up actually the problem is not the feeling itself so if you're feeling anxious for example about something anxiety is never really the issue it's how you feel about the feeling right you feel anxious about being anxious and not being able to cope with those feelings and so we really have to expand our tolerance so that we can help our kids do the same and I think that's I personally think that some of the hardest parts

Starting point is 00:36:42 of parenting is actually the sort of reparenting of ourselves, that regulating ourselves and allowing ourselves to feel what we feel, because that is how we're going to help our kids to do that. Oh, Jade, you know, everything you say, you know, and it's just really nice that even you say I don't get it right every time. And I think for me, it's knowing that I'm a good enough parent and that's okay. You know, we don't need to be amazing parent. We don't need to be the best parent. You know, you don't need to literally be nominated for mum of the year and get an award from Carol Vorderman. Like, we're all parents of the year. Like, you know, at some points of the day, the week, the year, the month, you know, it's just that we haven't been nominated. Maybe we should nominate ourselves. But we're just, it's okay to be good enough parenting is more than okay because we're not teaching our kids how to be perfect I mean how would they live up to that right if we want

Starting point is 00:37:51 our kids to be more kinder to themselves we have to be kinder to ourselves if we want our kids to learn the idea of like growing up like sometimes we do want our kids to kind of be in a certain way it would make our life easier if they kind of you know followed our every word they said yes mom no mom to everything that you know we did and you know that we don't want our kids to become adults who follow authority blindly who never stand up for themselves who never assert themselves and say no that doesn't feel good so that can make parenting challenging but knowing that if we want our kids to respond to mistakes they can make mistakes in life like we all do and I love this idea it really helps me in business actually the idea

Starting point is 00:38:25 that fail is first attempt in learning you either get the outcome you wanted or the lesson you needed and if we want to raise kids who can kind of be resilient and you know stuff's going to be thrown their way that is going to upset them hurt them the first heartache you know and so we want to help them yeah feel that they can cope with that you know and so actually part of the discord we have with our kids and the disagreements and the arguments or the sibling rivalry it's all part of life and yeah i think it's it's the good enough is good enough and also if we can work at not taking our children's behavior personally which is hard it changes the way you you know when you change the way you, you know, when you change

Starting point is 00:39:05 the way you look at something, the thing you look at changes, right? So if we can change our perception that our kids are not giving us a hard time, they're having a hard time and we can be in that with them, it's messy and that's okay. That's part of life. Yes, indeed it is. And I'm just hearing, as you say, just in case we haven't really covered this aspect already, and I know it's a big topic to kind of cram into a couple of minutes, but some parents might be watching this and thinking, well, this doesn't really apply to my child. Perhaps they've got an autism diagnosis or are heading towards one, or perhaps maybe even selective mute or ADHD diagnosis is pending or due. How do we begin to kind of apply some of this trying to shout less

Starting point is 00:39:48 to children if it feels like our children are not as typical as some of the examples we've used? I mean, I think the first thing is that regardless of what's going on really is that being able to ask for some kind of support and whether that's paid support if that's possible you know in terms of kind of because there's a lot at the moment with you know people on long waiting lists or waiting for an assessment and if you can get support because ultimately regardless when kids do have greater needs it's harder but equally we start to question like well I've tried some of these like traditional strategies so for example with highly sensitive, well, I've tried some of these like traditional strategies. So for example, with highly sensitive, deeply feeling kids, I've tried to validate their feelings, it doesn't work, or it seems to explode them, then the first thing is, use the observation

Starting point is 00:40:34 that you're making and know that okay, this isn't working, not because I'm doing it wrong, something isn't working. And that may be a time when to access support, whether that's through a community of other parents or a professional or what that might look like can be different for different people. And yeah, like we said right at the beginning, like trying to parent on our own, it just, you know, even for myself, like trying to work out certain things with my own kids, like it's really helpful when I can have a conversation with somebody else that can kind of help me stand back from my own kids and my own situation. Why do coaches have coaches?

Starting point is 00:41:03 Why do therapists have therapists? For that very reason, you know, to help ourselves with our own stuff we having somebody else that could help us get outside of it is so important so i think seeking out that support as much as possible and just knowing that if you watch something or read something or listen to something and it doesn't resonate with you we think that doesn't work for my kid then take that as as truth like that's okay that doesn't, and it's seeking out more specific kind of knowledge and experience. You know, an example would be for a deeply feeling kid. I often, and this is one tiny tweak, I often recommend instead of validating the feeling,

Starting point is 00:41:34 I suggest validating the magnitude of the feeling. Because actually for deeply feeling kids, they really want us to know how big it is. And if we're trying to say to those kids, it's not that big, or it's, you know, oh, you're feeling anxious and it just gets bigger. They want us to know how big it is and if we're trying to say to those kids it's not that big or it's you know oh you're feeling anxious and it just gets bigger they want us to know how big it is and so then when we when we say you know is it is that feeling as big as the house or is it as big as the street like it is likely to tell you it's bigger than the street it's as big as the universe and that's the kind of validation piece that they need but it's testing and trying and observing and just learning allowing ourselves to learn we don't like have to know this stuff but we may need support to help us understand

Starting point is 00:42:10 absolutely we may and that is okay jade where can people learn more about you and what you offer if they're like yes i need this dr jade in my life so the main places are I have my website you know www.drjaderedfern.co.uk but also I have my Instagram account where I share all sorts of kind of parenting tips particularly around kind of emotion regulation for kids emotion regulation for parents I guess my kind of niche area is kind of helping not just with the kid but also what's coming up for you and so I often liken this to this idea of with parenting from the inside out because that is going to be the most effective way of how you're going to help your kid. So I have my Instagram, which is at DrJadeRedfern. Yeah, I also run a free parenting community called The Conscious Parent Group, which any parent or parent to be

Starting point is 00:42:59 is very welcome to join. It's completely free. I share daily tips and ideas in there and that's where people can kind of mostly find me. You haven't said it, Jade, but I will help you say it because I think it's an incredible resource. You also run a membership, don't you, for parents, but you also have a great free webinar available that people can access. Yes, absolutely. So my membership for parents is called Inside Out Parenting. And we very much focus on kind of developing skills for helping our kids with emotion regulation, you know, their meltdowns, tantrums, kids not listening and how we as parents can show up. But also we very much focus on parents and their own nervous system regulation.

Starting point is 00:43:36 So there's lots of grab and go videos, we have Q&A sessions and all sorts going on there. It's a really supportive place for parents. And yes, in terms of the free webinar that people can, it's an instant download. It's a 25 minute webinar and it talks parents through kids not listening unless I shout. And it gives lots of actionable strategies

Starting point is 00:43:54 and it's had amazing results for parents. Parents have come back to me saying, this is like wizardry. It really is about those small moments and the way we can just shift the way we communicate, the way we say things and connect with our children in those tough moments, that will enable kind of greater cooperation and a much more peaceful home.

Starting point is 00:44:08 Absolutely. Thank you so much for your time, Jade. It's been absolutely beautiful speaking with you. And I know this episode will resonate with so many different people for such a variety of different reasons. What you do is very important and thank you for doing it. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. You're more than welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for our guest today, Dr. Jade. I adore you and that's why I needed to bring you to the podcast so that we can get your work out there

Starting point is 00:44:34 to support more families who need it. You're just, yeah, so de-shaming and so interesting to speak to and I love the way you talk about your work and the examples that you give. Please, if you have found today's episode useful, please do go and follow Jade on her social accounts too. Whilst you're on your social media accounts, please do come and follow me too. I am Dr. Marianne Trent everywhere, but please do like and subscribe. Do drop a comment because it helps this content to reach a wider audience. If you are listening on Spotify or Apple podcasts, please do rate and review. It is the kindest thing you can do for any podcaster. Thank you so much for being part of my world. If you would like to

Starting point is 00:45:17 come along to the Aspiring Psychologist community, which is my free Facebook group and is the exclusive home of Marianne's motivation and mindset sessions. Please do so. You'd be so welcome. If you are an aspiring psychologist, and that's why you are engaging with this content, please do also consider the aspiring psychologist membership, which you can access from just £30 a month. psychologist then let this be your guide with this podcast at your side you'll be on your way to being qualified it's the aspiring psychologist with dr marianne My name's Jana and I'm a trainee psychological well-being practitioner.

Starting point is 00:46:14 I read the Clinical Psychologist Collective book. I found it really interesting about all the different stories and how people got to become a clinical psychologist. It just amazed me how many different routes there are to get there and there's no perfect way to become one and this kind of filled me with confidence that no I'm not doing it wrong and put less pressure on myself. So if you're feeling a bit uneasy about becoming a clinical psychologist I'd definitely recommend this just to put yourself at ease and everything will be okay. But trust me you will not put the book down once you start.

The Aspiring Psychologist Podcast - How to shout less at your children or help your clients shout less at theirs - psychologist tips

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