The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Dr. Aliza Pressman On Developmental Psychology & How We Evolve Our Personalities From Childhood

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

#291: On this episode we sit down with developmental psychologist, Dr. Aliza Pressman. Dr. Pressman is the Co-Founding Director and Director of Clinical Programming for the Mount Sinai Parenting Center, as well as a Assistant Clinical Professor for the Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  She is also the host of the "Raising Good Humans Podcast" and on today's episode we discuss how are personalities evolve from childhood and how we can help our children develop theirs. To connect with Dr. Aliza Pressman click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) The episode is brought to you by AncestryHealth  Your inherited health risks don't have to stay unknown. Learn if you're at lower or higher risk for some commonly inherited conditions linked to breast cancer, colon cancer & heart disease, with AncestryHealth. Find out what your DNA says about genetic risk with AncestryHealth®. Head to Ancestry.com/SKINNY to get your AncestryHealth® kit today! This episode is brought to you by THRIVE MARKET. We use Thrive for our online grocery delivery on a weekly basis and we also now get our wine at Thrive! They provide the highest quality products and ingredients delivered straight to our door with unbeatable prices.  Be sure to grab our deal by going to to https://thrivemarket.com/skinny to select your preferred memberships package and start saving today! This episode is brought to you by RITUAL Forget everything you thought you knew about vitamins. Ritual is the brand that’s reinventing the experience with 9 essential nutrients women lack the most. If you’re ready to invest in your health, do what I did and go to www.ritual.com/skinny  Your future self will thank you for taking Ritual: Consider it your ‘Lifelong-Health-401k’. Why put anything but clean ingredients (backed by real science) in your body? Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Again, that's thrivemarket.com slash skinny to find a membership that fits your lifestyle. Everything is 25% to 50% below retail straight to your door, thrivemarket.com slash skinny. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness.

Welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her. Ha ha. Because that's where people get into trouble. Either you just tell kids what to do behaviorally, but you don't share with them feelings and like honor their feelings or let them know that you love them no matter what. Or you tell them all the time, I love you no matter what, everything is about your feelings and I don't like you to be uncomfortable, so I will never set a boundary. Oh, hello guys. Hey, what's up? Fancy seeing you here. Welcome back to the Skinny Confidential Him and Her Show. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Dr. Elisa Pressman. She is the podcast host of this major podcast called Raising Good Humans podcast. She just had Jennifer Garner on

her podcast, which is such a good episode. So definitely listen. And she's also part of Dear Media. She is a psychologist and co-founder of the Seedlings Group as well. She's smart and she knows her shit when it comes to raising good humans. Today on the Skinny Confidential, him and her podcast, we go sort of everywhere. We talk about how to deal with tantrums when you're on the plane. I'm sure a lot of you have been there. How to deal with tantrums in general, how to deal with postpartum. We get into it. Okay. So if you are looking to get pregnant or you have kids, this episode is for you. And as I say, in every single podcast where we discuss kids, we have 300 episodes. There is so much content

on this podcast. So if this episode doesn't speak to you because you don't want to have kids or you don't know if you want to have kids or you don't know if you want to have kids or you don't have kids, there is so many other options. We have everything from entrepreneurship to comedy to fashion, lifestyle, influencers, so many other options. But if you are a parent or you're looking to become a parent, this episode is for you. I think you're really, really going to love her. Like I said, we go everywhere. After this episode, make sure you listen to our episode because we did a swap on her podcast, Raising Good Humans. Check it out.

She is legit. With that, let's welcome Dr. Aliza Pressman to the show. This is the Skinny Confidential, him and her. So we just had a baby. So this podcast is going to be very, very relevant. And I know that there's a lot of listeners that have kids as well. So we're excited for this one. Let's just start it off with some really blanket macro advice. If you could whittle down one tip for parents, could be broad, could be micro, whatever it is. New parents, I think. New parents. What would it be? Basically, if you think about parenting, you have two responsibilities. You have to nurture the emotional experience of your child and also help them become functioning citizens of the world so they don't just do whatever they want at all times.

And so the way to do that is to think every feeling they have is totally acceptable. If they're upset about something, if they're excited about something, if they're feeling whatever they're feeling, we tend to want to tell people what the right feeling is. Like if, let's say, no, you love your friend, go give your friend a hug. That would be telling someone how they feel when they're feeling mad about it. But the behaviors that you have to contain are not all okay. So if you can always say to your kid, like, I'm going to love you no matter what you're feeling, you always get to feel whatever feelings you have. You remove

that sense of shame that many human beings have when they feel anything that isn't like right, quote unquote. But then you still are a disciplinarian. Like you still give them boundaries and say, here's the thing. You can hate me right now, but you can't kick me in the face. Right? That's an extreme version of all feelings are welcome, all behaviors are not. And in baby world, it might be you're so sad you don't want to say goodnight. And also you have to sleep, right? The behavior is getting your kid to sleep through the night. The feeling is in that moment when your baby is separating from you, they're feeling so sad. So if you just think as a big picture parenting thing, I'm always going to comment on sort of honor, label, name what my child is feeling. And then I'm still going to have the boundary that I chose, the expectation or the limit that I set because it's important

for them as a member of this household or as a member of this community or the larger world. You kind of are set in your relationship because that's where people get into trouble. Either you just tell kids what to do behaviorally, but you don't share with them feelings and like honor their feelings or let them know that you love them no matter what. Or you tell them all the time, I love you no matter what. Everything is about your feelings and I don't like you to be uncomfortable, so I will never set a boundary. So those are the two extremes on either side.

And the middle, the sort of golden middle to me is feelings are all okay and the behaviors are not all okay. And that's what we're going to work on. That is interesting because I feel like I'm the parent that's going to honor Zaza's feelings. And I feel like you're the parent that's going to create the boundary. Oh God, I hope we don't get into like a relationship therapy. We went into this the other day and I got into like a full therapy session.

I love like a manipulation therapy session. I want to ask before we go too much further, I'm obviously aware of your background because we have the show together and everything. But for those of our listeners that are not aware of your background, like it's a child developmental psychology. How did you get into that field of work? Because it's a very interesting niche. I was really interested in psychology because I just thought, oh, my God, people are so fascinating. And I didn't have kids or anything.

So basically, the short-ish story is I was doing volunteer work with kids. I thought, oh, I want to work with kids. But I also really think psychology is interesting. So I took some intro courses that were a prerequisite to applying to graduate school. And I took the four kind of branches of psychology. There's abnormal psychology and counseling psychology and blah, blah, blah. And I took developmental psychology, which is basically the emotional, social, and intellectual growth of a human being. But there's a real focus on kids. And I was just, it was like, I fell in love. I was just so blown away by how our brains develop. I just thought, this is bananas. Like, the coolest things happen. And there's stuff that we can do to help support healthy growth. And that was just what I fell into.

I mean, I just fell in love with it. And then I had kids. And I thought there's a lot of information that would have been really helpful for other parents that I learned from my studies. And so I kind of put that together. Is there a specific age range that you work within? And you're like, this is the time where most of the development takes place? The first three years are certainly

epically important. A ton of growth happens, but there's also continued growth throughout, you know, through adolescence really. So the brain's developing until between 18 and 27 years. I tend to let go after adolescence. Okay. I don't care about adults. Is it ever too late? Like I have a couple of friends that have kids that maybe have kicked them in the face or punched them or hit them or screamed and done some things that it's intense. And is it ever too late to sort of, I don't want to say help, but to guide the kid in a different direction? It's never too late. I mean, that's the thing. That's why I hesitate when I say the first three years are critical

because you hear that all the time from experts, and then it makes you think like, well, too late. But the truth is relationships are dynamic, and it's never too late. That's good to know. I feel like a lot of parents sometimes with social media, the other day someone was shaming me because, I don't know if shaming is the right word because there was a blue line on my baby's diaper which means she peed the diaper and it was like in an

Instagram story yeah and I feel like with parenting comes a lot of guilt and shame it sort of comes with it so to hear that it's never too late is important I think also what was the shaming about were they like you should change your baby's diaper? Yeah. It gets wild. That's definitely not part of healthy growth. I mean, obviously don't neglect a baby, but a little pee is fine. She's going to be okay. It was a speck of pee. I think we'll live. We have an alarm in our house that as soon as she pees, we go and everyone runs out of every room. And it keeps everybody super calm, right? Do you see a lot of mom shaming and mom guilt in your industry?

I do. And it's a liability for me too. When I first started in my private practice with parents, I would walk down the street. I'm from New York. And I would see clients and they'd apologize to me with whatever was going on. Like, I'm so sorry I don't usually give my baby a pacifier in the middle of the day, but dot, dot, dot. Or I'm so sorry she's napping in her bassinet. And I was like, what have I done to make you think that I'm judging your parenting?

I just want to be there for guidance and support and whatever feels good. Nobody's a good parent when they feel ashamed. Nobody's a good person when they feel ashamed. That's when we have our crappiest, excuse my language, but like our worst selves. No, you can use any language on here. Anything you want to use. Thanks. What I was going to say though, too, is that I do give Zaza a pacifier in the middle of the day, and she does sleep in her bassinet. Is that bad? Not at all. I mean, I think that the pacifier just shouldn't be, it's a great thing. Sucking on a pacifier is soothing. So babies need to suck. It's only if it's plugging a baby who's trying

to talk or make sounds. That's good to know. So when she starts to really want to be super verbal and I just put a pacifier in to shut her up. Yeah, pull that back out. Okay, I'm going to pull it out and put it in Michael's mouth when he starts talking to me because that's actually a really great idea. Like a good hack for your husband when he doesn't shut up is give him the pacifier and let the baby talk. Hold up. We are going to take a quick little break to tell you about the vitamins that you should be taking. Ritual. I am such a fan of ritual. I cannot shut the F up about it. Okay. I took them before my pregnancy. I took them during my pregnancy, the prenatals. Then I took the prenatals a few months after I gave birth. And now I am back to the essential for women. So here's the deal. I had my blood tested, which I recommend everyone do because then you can sort of get a gauge on what you need and saw that I was low

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Try it out. Let me know what you guys think. Shoot me a DM.com slash skinny. Try it out. Let me know what you guys think. Shoot me a DM. I'd love to hear your feedback. All right, let's get back to the show. When you talk to people or and it doesn't just have to be on your podcast or when you interview people or just talk to people that are in your industry, what's something that you see has been really successful for parents? I think letting go of a lot of the mom guilt and the mom shame or the dad guilt and the dad shame, although there's less for dads typically. It's just we know less. We don't know what we're doing.

Yeah. I think there is something about feeling like you, you know. We take a backseat. We're like, okay. Accepting that backseat. And sometimes when I think parents are most successful, it's when they take a deep breath and they're like, this is a marathon, not a race. I'm going to blow it sometimes, but I'm going to keep going. And other people are not my problem. I just have to raise this person and have my family. And then removing the spotlight from what others are perceiving to your relationship with your kid.

You know who you remind me of like parenting style? Do you read Glennon Doyle? I do. I love Glennon Doyle. She seems like the same type of mantra. You acknowledge the feelings, but you also set the boundaries. It's very similar parenting from what I've seen from her. She seems wonderful.

Yeah. So I take that as a compliment. It's a total compliment. What are the main issues? Like when someone comes to work with you and maybe they're struggling or they just want to know more about their child, what are the main issues that they're coming to you with or the main focuses of the work that they want to do? Where do you typically step in the most to help them? In the beginning, it's usually a sleep issue. Okay. And then after about a year, all the way until adolescence, it's usually something related to discipline.

Then there's other stuff that gets thrown in, friendships and social media and all that stuff. But really, it all goes back to discipline. And is it parenting, they have trouble disciplining their child or they're doing too much? Sometimes it's just, sometimes it's as simple as I just want, you know, some guidance to sort of have a check-in. And sometimes there's a real issue, like there's acting out that's going on or there's difficulty in the relationship. But many times I work with parents and they're just like, I just want to be prepared. So I just want to be armed with information and then I can make the decisions on my own, which is my goal, is that it's not like, come, let's talk only when there's a problem. It's more like, let's just get to know

this process of being a parent and what feels good for you. And I hope to give the research with the understanding that it's never going to be one size fits all because everybody is going to have a different vibe and a different style. What are some tools or strategies that you have in your toolbox that you use that someone could maybe apply at home to get the parents on the right track? As silly as it sounds, taking a deep breath before you do anything in your parenting and probably in life. Or talking to your wife. You take a deep breath. Yes. A lot of this stuff translates in relationships with anybody.

I need a ventilator. Take some breaths. Forces you to respond, to find that tiny little pause between reacting and responding. And that's where magic happens in parenting. Because you don't just go from your, I call it a lizard brain. I'm not the only one who calls it that, but just that gut reaction and you actually take a breath and then your body tells your brain, you're not being chased by anything. This is not an emergency. Let's make a reasonable decision right now. And that's when you make good choices.

And it takes a split second or maybe it takes four breaths, but you do it. And then, you know, if your child is having a tantrum, you don't start freaking out because you're able to take a breath and go, OK, what's this about? What do I need? What do I need out of this moment right now? What does my child need out of this moment? And if you don't do that, you're just like chasing a kid and getting yourself all excited and then they get more excited and it just ends up upsetting you.

Let me give you a four instance of like what we're kind of like our style here, what we're doing. Cause we're new parents and we've never done it before, but both Lauren and I, when we had, when we had the child, we really took the attitude like, okay, obviously we want to be great parents and we want to raise this great human, but we, we have the attitude of like, the child is kind of coming into our world and we're not stopping everything and making everything about the child. That's not that we don't love the child and want to take care of it, but it was not like, okay, we didn't stop everything and quit everything we were doing and stop having relationship with each other, stopping with each other. It was really like, how do we integrate

this child into the life that we've already built? How do you feel about that strategy? And I can give you more examples as we get into it, but from a high level, that's really how we looked at it. And I think so many parents, and I don't know what's right or wrong, when their new child comes in and it's all about the kid. And I get that because you love this thing more than anything, but we were really conscious and proactive about making sure that this child adapted to our life. I don't know if that's right or wrong. I don't think it's about right or wrong. I think it's about what's going to make you both the most comfortable parents, the most confident parents. And so you're going to be better parents and more present if you are still doing the things that keep you fed as human

beings. So for you, it may be setting, you know, like making sure that you guys have date nights and making sure that you honor all the things that keep you healthy. And for other people, that doesn't make them feel good. And so it's not right or wrong. It's definitely, you absolutely put your oxygen mask on first. And for you guys, that's what that means. Yeah. Like a four instances when, right when she was born, we, you know, we, before kind of, before COVID, she was born in January, we'd go out to lunch, like the baby came to lunch. And she's now used to doing that with us. And so it's not a big issue. But well, you know, we've had friends that have children our same age. It's like, how are you bringing her to lunch? It's like, well, from the beginning, we just like she didn't really have a choice. She's just there. And now we've also had the camp like, oh, well, maybe she doesn't want to be there with you. It's I'm just like, we like, we're balancing this whole thing of like, what's right, what's wrong, like what's proper, what's not. I mean, you also have to let her like a little bit watch her. So I know for me, when I had my both my kids, this happened where I really cared very much about my own sleep.

So I cared very much about their sleep. And I found that when I made exceptions for sleep, it backfired because they would get up earlier, let's say, and then I would be miserable. So I didn't, let's say, take them to lunch, even though that's not an example because I did. But I didn't do the thing that maybe was more fun for me in the moment because I was actually thinking about myself and how I would want them to respond. So it wasn't that I was selflessly saying, well, no, my kids have to be in bed at this time. It was, or they'll get up at five o'clock in the morning and I'm not up for that.

So it's not, again, it's not really right or wrong. It's just when you're watching your baby, like if you had the kind of baby that can't go to lunch with you because she'd be crying the whole time, you would not want to go to lunch with your baby. Sure. Sure. I also, for me, like, and I don't know, and I don't really care what anyone else thinks. I mean, I would love to hear your opinion, but like as far as like outside noise, I don't care.

For me to be a healthy human, I want to be able to bring the baby to lunch. Like that's something that makes me happy for her to be able to be adaptable and independent and sit there and hang out with herself. Like independence is such a thing that I want to teach her. So if we're at lunch, I want her to be able to sit there. So I do think it's like playing off what you said. You have to figure out what makes you happy and sort of adapt the baby to that. One thing that we've experienced that, I mean, again, this is just because we were ignorant and didn't know. And it was hard in the beginning is the baby has never slept in our room. Like from the beginning, she slept in her crib. And so now she actually like, if we try to get her to stay in the room,

she doesn't want to go to bed. It's let's go to bed at seven. She's very anal about it. And she wants to get up at six 30. But I think we, we thought, okay, we're going to miss these early moments of being able to cuddle with the baby or in the bed early on. But now we have the benefit of like she sleeps all night and in her bed. And so but from a developmental standpoint, like how does that affect the child if they're not with us that early? Or is it good? Is it bad? Sleep is one of the most important things for their development. So like if you have a baby who's sleeping and only cuddling with you when they're awake, when they should be awake, that kind of works for everybody. Okay. I want to do another, for instance, since Michael gave one. So say you have a toddler

and they're throwing a huge tantrum in the middle of a restaurant because they can't have any more ice cream. They already had cake earlier in the day and it's over. The ice cream thing's over. And you said no. How do you finesse that and handle that when there's all these people looking at you? Is there like a step by step way to handle it or should you just go with it each time? It goes back to the feelings thing. Like they're feeling really mad, angry, dysregulated because they want that ice cream and can't have it. And that's OK. They can be mad as hell, but you're still not giving them the ice cream. Now, when you add this public part have it, and that's okay. They can be mad as hell, but you're still not giving them the ice cream. Now, when you add this public part of it, because if you were in private, you would be

able to validate that feeling and say, you're so mad, you want that ice cream so badly. And then you just wait for them to finish crying, be present, but not give them the ice cream. However, in public, you have to decide how much you care about what other people are thinking. I personally feel like it's everybody has either been a toddler or has had a toddler or both. So if they can't handle an upset toddler because they, you know, they're and it happens. People will be like, oh, help. You know, do you need help? And you're just like, no, it's just they're upset about a boundary that I'm setting.

And this is what's going to happen. I think if you can fight the urge to fix it in a different way because people are watching, then just do what you would do behind closed doors. If you feel like, oh, man, this is rude to other people, you got to swoop up your baby and take them out of that setting and just say, you know what? That's really hard to be there and not have the ice cream. So we're just going to go take a little walk around the block say, you know what, that's really hard to be there and not have the ice cream. So we're just going to go take a little walk around the block. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. I think once you have children and you've experienced those tantrums,

you're much more empathetic to other parents. Before you ever have children, you're like, I will never do that. You're like, what's this kid, this bratty kid? But then you see it like, oh my, you empathize with the parent because like, especially on planes and stuff now. But you know, it's hard when you have maybe people that don't empathize and they're sitting there looking at you with daggers and you know, you want to be a, you want to be a good human and like a socially, I don't want to say acceptable, but, um, but being thoughtful sort of the people who came out to lunch and who didn't, don't want to ruin their experience. That's something that I think about a lot. Like I don't want to ruin, like if someone's gone into a nice place or a

flight and I don't want to ruin their experience if someone's gone to a nice place or a flight and I don't want to ruin their experience because I'm being selfish at the same time, like you have this child and you got to take care of the kid. Hey, hey, hey, have you tried Thrive Market? Here's the deal. It's 2020. We want everything delivered to our door now. And that

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that vein because that's I think what a lot of parents do they get flustered and the kid's crying and they're in a tantrum. They're like, oh my God, how are we going to stop? Just give them the ice cream. But what does that do to their development? Well, I mean, once in a while, nothing doesn't, you know, everything's fine. But over the long term, it sends the message, you're going to give them whatever they need if they dysregulate and flip out versus, okay, if that happens to you, we're still going to keep our boundaries because we made them with thought and care. But we'll be there for you.

We're going to take a walk. And you're not going to be left alone to be upset. I mean, the research suggests that the kid whose parents keep the boundary but support their feelings is probably going to do a little bit better. But I think just on a human level, it's intuitive when you really think about it. And the times you get stuck where you're just like, fine, I'm just going to give you the ice cream, are if you, the adult, just either feel guilty about how other people will perceive you, or you just can't handle seeing your kid upset. and it just feels so hard that you just want to fix it. Planes.

Everyone wants to know about planes. Yeah. What do you do besides giving them a mini bottle of whiskey? Yeah. I mean, I feel like planes, unlike restaurants, are so rare that you can kind of get away with a little bit more. You know, don't set the boundary that there's only going to be one ice cream. Just set the like, just get do whatever you can to get to the flight. Yeah. Like don't set yourself up to have to say no, because you're going to end up having to say

yes because of the flight. I'm just going to take a Xanax pass out and let you deal with it. I just, you know, I think you just let planes be a time for screens and a time for treats and a time for stickers and a time for whatever the hell keeps you and the people in that small contained space from going crazy. And understanding that and pacifiers and understanding that sometimes there's nothing you can do. And it's just going to be one of those moments where you just want to crawl under the seat. I have a pacifier in every single purse, every single car, every single pocket. I have a question that I don't know if you get asked a lot. How do you deal with children and death? And I mean, death of an animal, death of a grandparent, death of a friend.

What's the right way to deal with it? That's a heavy question. I don't feel like it's talked about enough. It's not talked about enough. And in fact, I was just recently told about someone who didn't want to say that a pet died and they said that the pet went away to a farm. And that's a lie. And it's a straight up lie. So two things. One, it goes back to like coming to terms with allowing all sorts of feelings to happen for your kid and not thinking like a sad feeling is so horrible. You start with toddlers where you look at like flowers and the life cycle. They do it in preschool, like the life cycle of a frog or a butterfly. And so they kind of learn in those cases like the flower dies. It falls off the – let's say it falls off the tree and you see that it died and its body

stopped growing. And then that's the same thing with human beings or a pet is that, you know, grandpa got very, very old and his body stopped working and now he's not coming back anymore. And then you decide what your religious beliefs are, your spiritual beliefs, if you want to give some more of a story. But not acknowledging that death happened is really, really setting kids up to be extremely anxious about death. Because they think like something could just go away out of nowhere. Just disappear out of nowhere with no explanation.

It's so off-putting. So I think being very straightforward, but in a developmentally appropriate way. So depending on their age, using language that they understand. It's really hard when it's certainly a peer that's harder than explaining someone older. A pet is easier to explain, but it's so important to be honest about it so that they can handle those moments and know that you're there. And you don't even have to say, you know, don't be sad because he's watching over us or whatever. It's, yeah, it is really sad. But we're going to, you know, then we'll get through it.

Let me ask you maybe another kind of heavy question. It's something I think about a lot as I've gotten older. You know, you don't really realize this until I think, I think until you get into your 30s. You're still kind of growing. You're not really reflecting going back. But as I've gotten older, I start to think like, hmm, I really am. There's a lot of me that's very much so a product of my environment. And I start like, why am I anxious? Or why do I get depressed about certain things?

Or why do I get angry? But whatever it is, and I start to think back, oh, that happened when I was this age. Or that happened when my parents were this way. No fault or no blame. But I really am starting to think about why I am the way I am. Are there any traits or things that you look at, not to scare parents, where you can look at a child and be like, okay, if we don't correct this or help with this, that this is going to manifest itself in this way later in life. Like maybe this person is going to be a very anxious person, or this person is going to be a very fearful person or things like that,

that you think about, you know, as the child's developing, because I think what I realized is like, holy shit, like a lot of these behaviors that manifested as a kid have really affected me as an adult, good or bad. And I think about it now as I have my own child. Wait, hold up. I am going to tell you about Ancestry Health. Okay, so here's the deal. Now as a parent, I can totally empathize with other parents because I feel like worrying is the job description. So when I was approached by Ancestry Health, I was like, okay, we can cross a few things off of our list because what they do is ancestry health helps you understand your family's inherited health risks. So you know what needs

your attention most. And to get really micro with you, ancestry health is better at determining if you're at lower risk for some commonly inherited conditions like breast cancer, colon cancer, heart disease. I just feel like it's one thing that you can cross off your list that you don't have to worry about. So what you do is you get your kit in the mail, you spit in it, you send it back, and then it takes like six to eight weeks to process. I just feel like this helps you understand what health risks could be passed down from one generation to the next. Two things you should know. It's offered to you at a very affordable price, which we love. And then they also work with PWN Health. That's an independent network of board certified physicians and genetic counselors who can help you understand your results. So they like will walk you through it.

I just feel this is so fitting because a lot of women listen to this podcast. One in eight women develop breast cancer in their lifetime and about five to 10% of them have inherited genetic risk. So Ancestry Health can detect up to 80% of DNA differences linked to the most common form of inherited breast cancer. This is major guys. This is so, so, so avant-garde. I'm all about it. Okay. So here's the deal. Find out what your DNA says about genetic risk with Ancestry Health. Head to our URL at Ancestry.com slash skinny to get your Ancestry Health kit today. That's Ancestry.com slash skinny. Okay. Back to the show. And I'll give you just a micro example because because this will be fun um his his parents they are very loud so like the tv is up on 600 the doors are like slamming every second the

the blender that this it but my parents were complete opposite. They were like very much music and aromatherapy and like incense. And my parents did other things, which we can get into. But it's just different. And so it's interesting when we come together. The way it manifests, to give you an example, is like when I wake up in the morning, my eyes are up. Like I'm go. And like when I think about it as a child,

like when my parents were like, wake up, time for school. Get up, go. Right. Like hers was like, hey like hey lauren like we're gonna get slow my parents would turn on music it was like very soft like if a feather hits the ground i'm up on my feet before it even gets there and i but she's the opposite and when we first were in a relationship i'd be like time to get up and like she couldn't handle it she's like what is it and i think like why am i like that and then i spent some time with my parents this last couple weeks i'm like oh shit this is like how this household was my whole life and it's not good it's just how it was I didn't notice that that's how it was like the news is up like all day long playing all day long I'm

like how can you listen to the news all day I just don't want to be around negativity like home alone when they're rushing to the airport yeah that is literally how he lived his entire childhood is Home Alone rushing to the airport. But you don't notice home. You don't notice what is home to you till you're away from it and then come back to it. And so it's super interesting, especially during this particular time when a lot of people are spending extra time with parents that they hadn't spent in, you know, with their adult parents. Wait, when they're adults. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yep. that they hadn't spent with their adult parents. Wait, when they're adults. Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean. Yep. And it's really cool because it shows you and becoming a parent. This is a huge part of becoming a parent. In fact, the third biggest growth spurt in brain development is when you become a parent. The first is in those first three years, then it's adolescence, and then it's becoming a parent. And it's because there's so much at stake. You're paying attention to things you hadn't been paying attention to. That act of caregiving just opens up your mind.

And part of that is coming back to your history and coming to terms with who you are. So maybe that's what it is. It's not because I'm in my 30s because I just had a child and I'm reflecting on it more. It is. That is exactly what it is. It's not because I'm in my 30s because I just had a child and I'm reflecting on it. It is. That is exactly what's happening. And it's so good to reflect on the experience of being parented in order to become the parent that you want to be. You just-

Like trying to pick like, and I don't know, this is a hard thing to do. I think for all parents, like pick kind of what worked and then get rid of what didn't. I think that's how we evolve as a species, right? You sort of see like what is good. I will give you credit too. We don't have the news on 24 seven. We never have the news. Not only do I not have the news i canceled cable i got rid of all the noise is not great you do still slam the door though and it's it's it's intense well in

some ways i think like i some ways i think like it serves me like um you know even with your media like i'm fast i go i have a lot of energy to do this type of thing and i think in that way it serves me but in other ways maybe like in my, if I'm going too fast or I'm getting a child, I don't know what happened. I developed these dad sneezes ever since I had a child. I never sneezed this loud in my life. And it scares the hell out of the kid. The baby starts crying. Oh my God, that is hysterical. And it is so, dad sneezes are so loud. Where did those come from? I don't know. I sneezed like a mouse before. It's like the corny jokes.

Corny dad jokes and sneezes. There's so loud. The baby cries. She's very upset. I would like to ask you what some issues and they don't even have to be issues, but just maybe pinpoint some things that you've noticed as a mother that have made you better at what you do. I think when I first started, I was like, well, this is exactly how it should be. And I know the right answer to everything. And the science tells us everything. So, you know, follow this map. And very quickly, I want to like, I kind of feel like I want to go back and apologize to some of my clients from when I first started, because obviously, that's ridiculous. That was my you, my young brain mixed with my not being a parent brain that was trying to use textbooks to explain something that is far more complex than a textbook can allow for. Like the big thing that I've learned is that

you need to be flexible about your ideas and know that you raise the child that you have, not the child that you think you're going to have or that you would like to have. Listen to the voice, you know, listen to your inner compass. It's not going to always be in line with what the experts say. And that's totally okay. How has parenting changed during COVID? What are your clients doing? I'm the worst parent ever during COVID. There's a lot of wine. Yeah. My kids are like now, I mean, they're 10 and 13, but they've made many jokes during this period of just like, should we put that on your website? Because my parenting is definitely more lax.

I would say parents are relying a lot more on TV and media because they just need help and support. I think families are also getting to know each other a lot better, which is really a beautiful component of this. But also, I love, I think COVID is making parents say, like, I'm never going to be perfect, so forget it. I'm not going to try anymore. And that was a desperately necessary shift in the parenting culture. And I think now finally parents are like, yeah, I can't do all of this. So I'm going to let go of that. That was huge. And I think I experienced that too. I mean, I never thought I was going to be a perfect parent. That's the benefit of what I do is that I'm easy on myself. But I think that's why. With social media, is it similar? Like,

do you find that you're seeing social media people are feeling less or more pressure? I think it's a mix. Mostly it's people, I think, saying this is not going to be so perfect. But there's still sprinklings of here are the 25 things that you need to do while your kid is staying at home or whatever. Or here's the food that you need to do while your kid is staying at home or whatever, or here's the food that you need to make. But that's just, I'm so excited for kids who, look, there's some horrible things, obviously horrible, horrible things about this. And there's going to be irreparable consequences for some people. And I don't even want to go into it because it's too intense to think about in this context. But for a lot of people, gratefully, this will probably be a time when everybody backed off of them for kids, like where it stopped being so intense because parents just couldn't do it anymore and they couldn't overschedule them and they couldn't leave as much.

And I think that's probably going to end up being an interest. I would say an interesting thing. And then also I think kids are becoming more independent because their parents are like, I'm not cleaning up after you anymore. I'm not doing the laundry anymore. It seems like there's going to be a shift with this. It feels like our world is in a shift. And I do feel like with social media right now, it was like the picture perfect curated, you know, mommy blogger. And now it's changing into a little bit more real. Yeah. I hope like just as, you know, doing what I do that people stop drop like dropping into people's inbox and giving unsolicited advice. Yes. I certainly hope that that, I can't even believe people still do that.

I'm sort of surprised that you just told me about the blue line on the diaper. But I think that if you call it out immediately and you're like, yo, not the person to give unsolicited advice to, they stop. It's sort of when you open yourself up to criticism, you have to sort of create a boundary too. Like you were talking about boundaries in the beginning.

You need a boundary for yourself as well. Yeah. And I don't just mean as an influencer, a blogger, or a podcaster. I mean even in a mom group. I mean I've seen mom shaming in – I'm not in a mom group, but my girlfriend is. And she was telling me crazy stories. There's like 12 of them in this mom group. And the story she was telling me, I'm like, how is this productive? Well, I think about parenting advice, if it's unsolicited,

it's very difficult because it's the one area where you don't know the value system. You don't know what's going on at home. You don't know the financial circumstances. You don't know all the dynamics. It's one of the hardest areas. I always joke and say, imagine if you were eating dinner in a restaurant and you had some big dessert at the end and I just walked up to your table and said, you know, you really shouldn't be eating that. People would look at me like I was a psychopath. But that's to me like what sliding into someone's DMs or just giving them unsolicited opinions.

If you did that in the context I said, people would look like, what a nut. Like this person just walked up to your table and told you what to eat. But it's the same thing with parenting. Like you don't know what those circumstances are and you shouldn't do it to people, in my opinion. No, of course not. You also don't know what you're bringing up for someone else. That's a really sensitive place. That is a place that gets to people in their gut, deep inside of them. And so a flippant remark or some little small moment of judgment can be quite painful or just make someone second guess

themselves. And as a parent, as you guys know, because you're new parents, that feeling is just brutal and you can't operate under those conditions. I think if in 2020, you're dropping into someone's DMs to say anything negative, I don't care if they have a thousand followers, one follower or whatever, you need to examine where you're putting your energy. It's a waste of energy. A huge waste of energy. It's like there's so many more productive things that you could be doing. Yeah, that always makes me, you know, step back and pause and feel sad for whomever is

feeling the need to go around and do that. Because you think what kind of parenting they experience that they need to go and find people to get in there and feel like they're defending the honor of that particular baby whose diaper wasn't changed that minute. At six months, obviously we have Zaza now. Is there anything that we can be doing for her that you think is really valuable? For instance, is there a book that we should be reading to her or music that we should be playing? Anything specific? Well, one thing that's really great during this time is that she's going to develop over the next couple of months this idea of object permanence, which is that things and people that go away are still, like they still exist. And she didn't know that before. So for example,

if you, which bear with me because this will be meaningful, but like if there was something that she was looking at and you covered it with a diaper cloth, up until now and maybe another month or so, you'll be able to tell you can play around with it. She would just move on. Like she wouldn't look under the diaper cloth for the object. She would – like let's say you covered your phone. She'd be like, I guess the phone's gone and move on to something else. And then one day, you know, like a flip switches and she's like going to know. Oh, you hid it under the diaper

cloth and she will pick that diaper cloth up. And that moment is when she will also start to cry when you leave the room and she will realize like people go away and they come back. Things go away and they come back. And so you play peekaboo with them and they think it's so funny because you're saying like, I'm gone, I'm back, or jack in the box, or any of those things that surprise you, that's all to strengthen the idea of object and person permanence. And it coincides with separation anxiety. So if you notice that she's like a little more clingy, you want to keep practicing like, I'm going to the bathroom, and then I come back, like you say goodbye. So a really important thing to do other than those peekaboo games is to always tell her when you're

leaving, even if it's like, I'm just going to go to the bathroom or I'm just going to get my coffee. And you just say, Zaza, mommy's going to get her coffee. And then when you come back, you say, I'm back with my coffee. And she learns, oh, you go away and you come back. So I don't have to worry that you're not going to tell me when you leave. And that those kids separate better because they get practice. I have a family member that had horrible separation anxiety from a young age, like really, really, really bad. What do you see are some things that people can do if they're adults and they experienced separation anxiety when they were little? Well, it's that same idea of like, you know, the thing with

separation anxiety, and this is temperament too. Like some kids are just, they can't, they come out like that. And then as parents, you can do your best, but you're not going to remove all of that. If a kid has to wonder, like the, like if you lived in a world where your parents snuck out, let's say they got a babysitter and they didn't tell you they were leaving because they thought- That's exactly what happened. Oh my God. So it's very common. Or like the in-laws and they're like, just go. She's fine. And so you sneak out because you don't want to deal with an upset kid in that moment. Over time, the kid is

like, are you coming back? Are you going to leave? Are you going to leave? And so they keep on looking for you. If instead you always, as an adult adult think, I'm going to tell you, or let's say you were in a part, if you have a partner and you say to them, listen, I have this weird separation thing because I never knew if somebody was coming or going in my life. And so it really means more to me if you are really honest with me. Look, I'm not going to be on my phone for the next few hours. And you can build trust up over time so you don't have to, you know, because adults don't need to take care of each other in the same way. But it comes from that place.

It's so primal. It's like from that early, those early months when somebody said, like, just sneak out and they're going to be fine because you didn't want to see a kid uncomfortable or unhappy. And so you didn't give them the skill to deal with it. It's almost kind of selfish of the parent because they don't want to deal with it. It is done out of love and it's totally not intentionally selfish usually, but it is. It sounds like a lot of what you do, and correct me if I'm wrong, is maybe teaching parents to not take short-term results at the expense of long-term things, right? Like, you know, you said the intention's in the

right place. You're leaving trying to sneak out so you don't have to upset the child. But what you're doing is you're maybe creating a long-term effect of that child constantly being anxious and feeling like they're going to be abandoned anytime. I really haven't thought about it like that, but yes. Because, well, it's hard for parents because you don't want to, like you said, you don't want to see your kid upset, but you don't realize maybe... One question I know we're running up on time, but I think about it's probably not a single answer. It's probably a fully loaded answer. Maybe we can't answer it fully here. But I think a lot about how do you teach a child to be confident and independent over time while also still realizing that they

can lean on parents and friends and family, but while also wanting to instill, because we get this question a lot from adults here, it's like, how do you become a confident person? How do you become independent? And I think from a developmental stage, how do you start to teach a child to be confident and independent while also making them not lose sight that they have their parents to lean on?

It's a little counterintuitive, but the more you give emotional support to young children so that they know you've got them, you're the rock, and they can go out and explore. And when they turn around, you're still going to be there. They'll start to go further and further away from you. And that's a healthy thing. And then they'll turn around and they'll go, oh, you're still there. And they'll check in with you.

But they won't feel like you don't believe in them because you're not grabbing them and saying, no, no, no, don't go do that. Don't explore. And so the act of being present and available to them emotionally, but believing in them that they can do things on their own is going to fuel a kid who ends up being confident. And so let's say they want to eat, they want to put their food in their mouth, but you really don't like a messy face. And so you take the spoon from them and you force feed them because you just want to control the amount of food they're eating. And it's like all those tiny little things, you're saying that little message there is like, I can do this better

than you. And that's not the message. The message is I'm here to make sure that when you are feeding yourself, if you drop your spoon or if your fork goes in the wrong place, like I'll help you figure it out, but I'm not doing everything for you. And so as babies get older, as they become toddlers, you want to teach them to do it themselves, but not because you're like, see ya, just because you're like, I'm going to sit here and support you sorting this out. And you basically want to teach them do things that you can do. Like never do things for a kid that they can do for themselves, including when they are old enough to hold the bottle for themselves. Let them hold the bottle.

But then help them do things that are a little out of their reach. And then for them, the things that you do for them are the things that they can't do for themselves. And so if you always do those three things, you're going to help them become autonomous kids who know that they are capable. And confidence comes from being capable. Like you don't become confident because somebody says you're amazing. You become confident because you become competent and you know you're amazing. You become confident because you become competent and you know you're amazing. That is so good. I think that I do have to shout out my parents because I think they did a really good job of not judging anything that I brought to them. Like I could come to them and say, I want to be this and it would be so random and something that maybe had nothing to do with

college. And they would say, well, go do it. Go figure it out. And I think that I hope that we can do that with Zaza. I think that it's hard when you're a kid and you go to your parent and you say, I want to do this. And they say, no, you need to be a doctor. You need to go to law school. I never want to put boxes or boundaries on my child. Yeah. What is a book, a resource, a podcast besides yours, of course, Raising Good Humans, you would recommend to our audience that can really sort of set the tone of parenthood? I love Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson's book, The Power of Showing Up. It's a really good one. I've never heard of that one.

It just came out in January, and it gives a beautiful overview of all the things that, you know, we're talking about of attachment and relationship and the things that you can do to help a child become confident and secure in the world. And so I think it gives a great foundation for how to deal with emotions and boundaries. Okay. Well, listen, I mean, I'm really glad we got, we could talk for hours and hours. It's so many questions, but I mean, you know, you have your podcast, where can everyone find it and listen to it? I mean, you cover so many of these subjects. I think it's such a timely podcast because there's so many people that are parenting, I think more at an extreme level. Now we don't have the luxury of a lot of kids going to school and people are really trying to dive in, like, how do I do a better job, us included? So what can they, what can they hear on your hear on your on your show what can they expect where can they and how you know um how often does it go out um so so Raising Good Humans I know all this by

the way I know you do I was like but I think you know um it's once a week every Friday um the idea behind that in my mind was like well you can listen to it over the weekend but I think that weekends are lost now. Every day is just a – it's confusing what day of the week it is. And I'm trying to keep the topics relevant to what we're all going through right now, but also evergreen in the sense that we're going to need to know how to get through all of this, regardless of whether or not there's a pandemic. We are going to be raising kids and developing relationships with kids throughout, hopefully, our whole lives. So that's every week. And I have

mom groups. And I don't know how you find me. I guess that's it. Instagram? Instagram, Raising Good Humans podcast. Perfect. Thank you. I know I'm going to listen and I'm going to get the power of showing up. That sounds like a great book. I had Dan Siegel on actually talking about it. And I will send you that episode because I think it was a good foundation. Aren't you glad you did the podcast? It's fun, huh? Yes. Oh my God. You know what? Thank you. I really thank you for the opportunity because I don't even know. I didn't even think about how powerful podcasting can be to getting information to communities and parents and getting feedback.

Like I feel like through Instagram, through the podcast listeners, I have relationships with people and can be supportive in a way that I never could be in, you know, just my day-to-day job. I think it's one of the most powerful. I mean, because you're in someone's ear, they have a chance to really like sit down for a long period of time and digest, you know, like all these today shows and the way that we consume media before it's like you get this five minute by buttoned up between all these other segments and these commercials. You can't really get deep with someone here. It's like, you can actually, you can go for an hour, two hours and like really educate people or have a conversation, let people partake. And I just think like audio

is so, even more than video, in my opinion, like you really have to pay attention. Video, you can kind of zone out, books, you zone out, my opinion, like you really have to pay attention. Video, you can kind of zone out. Books, you zone out. Like audio, you're really like listening to what people say. Thank you so much for coming on. You're incredible. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for your new baby. And also, we're going to go on your podcast right now and do a swap.

So head over there and also listen to the Dan Siegel episode, it sounds like, and listen to ours on your podcast. Thanks for coming on. Thank you. Thank you. seagull episode it sounds like and listen to ours on your podcast thanks for coming on thank you thank you to win a cute sparkly adorable pop socket and some new cheeky flirty skinny confidential stickers that you can decorate your hydro flask with simply tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest instagram at the skinny confidential and someone from the team will slide into your inbox and get your address i hope you guys loved this episode and we will see you on Friday.

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