This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - FACTS About Raising Emotionally Intelligent Kids with Alyssa Blask Campbell M.Ed | 345

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Here’s the truth: Raising emotionally intelligent kids isn’t about making sure they say “please” and “thank you.” It’s about raising little humans who can actually handle big feelings, express themselves without melting down (well, most of the time), and build relationships that don’t implode at the first sign of conflict. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the underrated superpower that will serve your kids long after they’ve forgotten their multiplication tables. From playground drama to career success to healthy adult relationships, EQ is the thread that ties it all together. And while it doesn’t come with a manual (seriously, why don’t hospitals hand that out with the newborn onesie?), there are some universal truths every parent needs to know. To help us break it down, we’re joined by Alyssa Blask Campbell. With years of experience teaching parents and kids how to build emotional awareness, resilience, and connection, Alyssa has made it her mission to help families thrive from the inside out. In this conversation, she shares practical strategies, science-backed insights, and the FACTS about what it really takes to raise kids who can navigate their emotions (instead of being ruled by them). Because let’s be honest: you don’t just want your kids to be successful — you want them to be good humans. And that starts with emotional intelligence. Connect with Alyssa: Website: https://www.seedandsew.org/ Book: https://www.seedandsew.org/book Related Podcast Episodes The Good Mother Myth with Nancy Reddy | 274 How To Build Girls’ Confidence with Cyndi Roy Gonzalez | 308 What To Know Before They Go: Collegebound with Dr. Pamela Ellis | 280 Share the Love: If you found this episode insightful, please share it with a friend, tag us on social media, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! 🔗 Subscribe & Review:Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I am Nicole Kaleel and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing women's work in the world today. And for many of us, parenting is or will be part of that work, which means it's also long overdue for some redefining. As we dive into this episode, I love for all of us to pay attention. How many times do you catch yourself judging yourself or another parent as you listen? Because friend, judgment is the worst ingredient in the parenting equation. And I'm going to say

this directly for all of our benefit. It's a sign of emotional immaturity and of insecurity, which are more harmful for us and our kids than things like sugar ever could be. We don't do parenting episodes just because they're popular, although they are. We do them because they hit at something deeply human. That mashup of love, fear, guilt, exhaustion, and please for the love of God, put your fucking shoes on that happens when you're a parent. And because it's so deeply human and such a crazy mix of emotions, let's get something straight.

This episode is not, nor will we ever put one out about becoming the perfect parent. That myth needs to die a quick and painless death. Perfection doesn't raise emotionally intelligent kids. It raises anxious perfectionist adults who never feel like there are enough. So if you're listening with your critical inner monologue on full blast, now would be a great time to turn the volume down or better yet hit mute. This episode is about us as much as it is. is about them. Because if we want to raise emotionally intelligent kids, we have to be and

become emotionally intelligent adults. That means knowing when to regulate, when to rest, when to repair, and when to forgive ourselves if we happen to lose our shit once again. Our guest today is going to help us do just that. Alyssa Blass Campbell is the best-selling author and the founder and CEO of Seed and So, her mission to change the way we experience and respond to children's emotions, starting with our own. Her upcoming book, Big Kids, Bigger Feelings, is a much-needed guide to navigating defiance, meltdowns, and anxiety during the often overlooked but absolutely bonkers elementary school years. She's the creator of the collaborative emotion processing method and the

facts acronym, tools that are both smart and practical for when your kid or your inner child is teetering on the edge of a full-blown meltdown. So she's real, she's brilliant, and she's here to help us confident, connected kids without losing our sanity or ourselves along the way. Elisa, thank you so much for being here. And I just want to start with the basic question about what is emotional intelligence and why is it such an important skill for kids? So let's start there. Yeah. Emotional intelligence, thanks for starting there because I feel like it's gotten so buzzwordy. It's like self-care and it's so buzzwordy, but we don't really know what it means. We look at five components. We're looking at self-awareness. So my four-year-old calls this the volcano where you notice

when something's building before it explodes. You can like tell those internal cues of like, oh, I'm really annoyed at my husband right now. He just walked in and said something and I cannot in this moment. And just like noticing those internal cues before I then open my mouth and something comes out. Self-regulation, which you really repair with self-awareness because you can't regulate what you're not aware of. And that is where we say, okay, now for my unique nervous system, what helps me regulate in the moment? And this is what we go so deep into because there's no one size fits all. There, anyone who's met another human and been like, wait, you do what? Like, that's helpful for you in no world would me receiving a hug or me taking space be helpful. I want the opposite.

And so when we're diving into self-rag, we get real nerdy. And then we have empathy, just being able to connect with another human about what they're experiencing, not why. If you've ever felt disappointment, you can connect over the feeling of disappointment. You don't have to agree that somebody should or shouldn't feel that in that moment. You connect over the feeling. We have motivation, which is intrinsic versus extrinsic. It's the difference between, are you proud of me and am I proud of me? And then we have social skills. And this is the ability to really read the room and know what's appropriate in different scenarios. Is it appropriate to break down about this to the grocery store cashier? Or is this something that should be reserved for my

partner and my best friend or my therapist? And how do I show up at work versus in my peer group or at my grandma's house versus at my own? And those five things make up emotional intelligence, which really are like, how do you move through the world? What skill set do you have for yourself? and then for relating to others and connecting with others. Okay, and then I'm sure that there is a variety of different beliefs and opinions about when emotional intelligence can be, should be taught to children. I personally am in the sooner the better category, but I'm curious when and why do you believe these are really important skills for kids.

Yeah. It is, when we did our research, we started with kids as young as four months old and we saw growth in kids who were starting at four months where within a few months, a four month old who had been exposed to some of these foundations could then go and grab an emotion card, like crawl over and grab one or grab a friend's lovey and bring it over to them or their passive eye and bring it over to them. And these are early signs of emotional. early signs of awareness, of regulation, of empathy that we get to then build on. It's one of those things where it's never too late, but it's never too early in the same way that I don't wait until a kid is ready to learn to read to start reading to them. I'm not like, okay, once you're six, we'll start looking at books. I am starting to read to babies so that they learn these foundational skills and understand language, all that jazz, so that then when we get to, okay, now you're kindergarten age and we're going to start reading books, they have a foundation for that. It's not the first time they've ever seen a book or heard a word. When we're looking at emotional

intelligence, we think of mini-stones to milestones. So if the milestone is, they can say, I know what it feels like in my body when I'm frustrated. Here's things that help me feel calm so that I can regulate and respond with intention. We got to build up to that. There are many stones that happen before we get to those milestones. Okay. I started the episode by saying to watch judgment, and my judgments already popped up a couple times, and I am being mindful of that. One of the things I see a lot today is this idea that making kids' emotions okay, whatever

is that you're feeling is great. I believe that. I do think all of our emotions are valid. They're all, it's information for us. It gives us insight. And I also believe that we can't send our children out into the world thinking that their emotions are all okay, but they have absolutely no idea how to regulate them or what to do with them. And for me, that feels a little bit like the missing link. Like I get that you feel like throwing that throwing yourself on the ground and kicking and screaming or I get that you feel like hitting that person or whatever. And let's understand the emotion and let's understand what we can do with it because to me that is such an integral part of being a functioning human. So obviously I have judgment in there and I get to think about and work through that. And I'm just curious your thought. Where do feelings and regulation fit? What is your reaction to what I said? Yeah, 100% in agreement that I think that is a

huge missing piece is I think a lot of us grew up in a culture where we were not allowed to experience feelings out loud, right? We had to do them in silence. And there is a huge pendulum swing then that often happens where we're like, no, you can do whatever you want now because I want you to feel safe to feel. And what kids need is support in, what does it feel like when I'm feeling? What you explained there were two different things. One was the expression of emotion and one's emotion. So we have frustration and then the expression of frustration. What happens? What do I do to express that? And they're not all expressions are allowed. All feelings are allowed. And so just this morning, I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old.

And my one-year-old just kept looking to connect with her brother. And she's over and over and over, like bringing him his stuffed animal, going up and saying hi. And eventually, if he doesn't connect with her, she's going to go over and hit him. She's going to take something and run away. She's going to keep trying to connect with him. And he was in a mood, woke up early, and he was being rude to her. And at one point I said, hey, bud, it's okay to feel tired or to feel frustrated. It's not okay to be rude to her. Here's how you can speak to her if you want to be in this space where we're all hanging out. I 100% agree that we can't allow all expressions of emotion. I think the disconnect comes in that we are so often focused on regulation and self-control. Like, how do I help a kid feel calm? And I want them to use a certain tone in body language and actions and words when kids don't know what self-awareness is yet for themselves. And as I said at the beginning, you can't regulate what you're not aware of. If a kid can't tell me, here's what it feels like inside my body. when I'm starting to feel frustrated or when I'm feeling angry or when I'm feeling sad or I'm feeling

lonely, then they can't tap into regulation so that they can access self-control. We have got to start with self-awareness and it's just not as sexy. Right. And much more challenging. It's harder work to go and pay attention to yourself and learn about yourself and challenge and question yourself. Yeah, and it's just not as talked about, right? Like we can talk about. to kids about like, oh, yeah, let's do big jumps or let's take deep breaths. And then we're focused on regulation. And it's all over the place right now. And like, that's cool. But they have to know what leads up to it. I was just working with a classroom of first graders. And there was, the teacher was like, they know, this kid knows outside the moment exactly

what to do. He can say, I shouldn't hit my friends. I should use a calm voice. I should take deep breaths or take space. But he isn't doing it in the moment. And then it looks like you know better. and you're just not doing it. And then it feels like a choice. What we know to be true is that when you're in a dysregulated state, you don't have access to your whole brain. You can't choose your words. Just like if it's like I have the kids from like four to five, that lovely hour where they come home from childcare and everyone's really hungry and kind of a mess. And my husband comes in from work usually about five, five, 15. And I'm like trying to get dinner on the table, et cetera. And he walked in recently and it had just been like an afternoon. and he was just like, hey, what's for dinner? Which, like, wasn't something that he meant to be, like, off-putting or whatever in that moment. But I, at a fried state, turn, and I'm sarcastic, and I'm snippy, and I'm rude. And it's not because I'm in a regulated state in choosing my words, choosing my actions. Do I know how to communicate with him?

Yeah. Am I like, you know what? This is going to be the best way to communicate with my husband right now. It's going to be most productive for our marriage. Absolutely not. It's because I'm in a disregulated state. not noticing the cues coming up to that to then regulate and communicate with intention. And so when the kiddo knows, yeah, I need to take deep breaths or I need to take space,

but they're not doing it. What that tells me is, ah, we got to come back to awareness. What does it feel like in their body? So when we start to see somebody come into their space and they tense up or something happens that wasn't their plan and their voice gets loud. And I say, wow, your voice is getting so loud. Your shoulders went up to your ears. man, you sound frustrated. Now I'm starting to help them cue into, what are those cues in my body that let me know I'm getting there? And we can see it on our children. I can see when my child is tired from 100%. One day to 11 years old. I mean, it is so obvious. And, well, first, let me acknowledge that I have no idea what you're talking about, Alyssa. I never snap at my husband. I can do a party of one.

Oh, my God. Yeah, I think we can all relate to some version of that moment. So what jumps into my head is the opportunity, which I have to work on on a daily basis, because I am inclined to want to tell people versus ask questions. Where does asking questions of our children? Like you said, what does that feel like? Or you'd mentioned when you were talking about motivation, proud of me. And one of the things I learned from a friend, and I was so grateful that she is to ask, instead of me telling my daughter, I'm proud of you, I ask first, how do you feel or do you feel proud of yourself? How does that feel for you to help her to cue into what that feeling is and also to prioritize that feeling over me feeling proud of her? So all of that to ask, what are some good questions that we can ask to help our children build that self-awareness?

Yeah, I love it. A lot of this work happens outside the moment, which is the hardest part, right? Because we're going through our day all the time and we don't schedule in time for like, I'm going to touch base and make sure that we're doing this work. We're going from one thing to the next and then we get stuck in reactive cycles where now the siblings are fighting again or now this annoying behavior is happening again or they're melting down because they can't figure out their homework. And we're in that reactive state. We're now we're trying to build those skills. And what we know to be true about skills, is you don't build them in the hard moments. You call on the ones you have in the hard moments. And we build them outside of that. And so first and foremost, when we're asking questions and working on building that, we're going to look at where are moments in our day. For me, it's often like in the car is a space where my oldest is a sensory sensitive human, which he gets really overwhelmed pretty easily just by the world and by his

environment. And so for him, it's best if he doesn't have to look at my first. face when I'm asking him hard things or we're talking about things that feel really intimate and process kind of my emotions on my face. So the car is a really good spot for that where I can say like, hey, but or yesterday we were like playing with Legos and we're just playing and hanging out. And I was like, oh, I noticed there's a new kid at school. I didn't know who that was. And he was like, oh, yeah, that's Max. And I was like, oh, what do you know about Max? And he was like, well, she bit me yesterday. And I was like, oh, wow, okay. Cool. Cool. And I was like, oh, man, what was going on? And he was

like, oh, I was being a pirate. And I was saying R and I wasn't leaving her alone, whatever. And then I asked afterwards, I was like, oh, I wonder what Max was trying to communicate. What is she still learning how to say? And he was like, I think she was trying to say she wanted me to go away. And I kept following her being a pirate. And I was like, yeah, that makes sense. What else could she do in that moment if she wants you to go away? And so we get to have this conversation where it's like outside the moment, he's not fired up about something. We're just hanging and playing. I was eating breakfast. He was playing with Legos. And we're just at the table in like a casual manner. The car again is a nice spot for this for us. And looking for those little moments where you already

have together where you can get curious. And sometimes with some kids, I'm not going to ask about them. I'm going to share a story about me. Like, ooh, earlier today, I was working on something at work and it was so frustrating. I couldn't get it. And my shoulders were up to my ears and I was getting sweaty and my face was scrunched. And then Kylie at work asked me a question and I was so rude to her because I was so frustrated and I wasn't noticing what was happening in my body. And then at lunchtime, instead of sitting and talking with people and having my lunch, I just chose to have my lunch and sit outside. And gosh, it felt so good to just sit outside and calm my body down and slow down. And then when I came back to

my work project, I was trying again. And even though I didn't figure it out right away, it felt so much easier to work on because I took that space. And I'll just tell that story to them in a calm moment where they get to hear like, A, mom gets frustrated, navigates this. She has tools to navigate it. B, here's what she noticed in her body, that she had a scrunched face, that her shoulders were up to her ears, that she was getting a little sweaty. And she was rude to somebody too. And then she took space and that helped her calm. And then when she came back, she didn't just know how to do it, but it was easier for her to navigate. They get to hear that story as if they're reading a book about me. And I'll usually tell stories related to things I know

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Hey, happens to the best of us. Enjoy some goldfish cheddar crackers. Goldfish have short memories. Be like goldfish. Yeah. And it ties into a firm belief that I have of if we want our children to be anything, the best thing that we can do is demonstrate it. Because I think people, including children, learn best by experience

and observation. And so if we want emotionally intelligent children, then we have to become emotionally intelligent adults. It is the hardest part. Damn it. Yeah. My husband the other day he was like, oh, something about that my son was doing. And I was like, well, we've kind of been modeling this too. Like we haven't been shown him anything else. And he was like, do we have to model everything? And I was like, well, just whatever we are modeling, he is going to do. So do that what you will. I caught my daughter, like, basically bossing around her friends the other day. And I was like, yeah, I did that. Real sorry about that one. We're going to have to work on that together. Okay. I have to ask you about the facts acronym. Yeah. You can help walk us through that. I would imagine this is one of those things that we can apply to ourselves first and then to her children. Okay. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Yeah. So facts is what whenever there's like a hard thing happening, I'm going back to the basics of like, we're going to look at the facts. We're going to look at when was the last time they had nourishing food. And this just happened to us recently. This past weekend was my son's birthday. And we did a morning family party and it started with donuts, which are awesome. But then there was a crash and he was a disaster. And I was like, oh, right. All he's had is really sugar. Like, this is on me. I should, would you like yogurt? And so looking at when was the last time they had nourishing food? Are they hangary, essentially, or having a sugar crash? Activity.

This is where we get nerdy. When was the last time they had access to activity that's regulating for them? And we break down the nine sensory systems in the book. We go in depth on this. We also have a free resource for anyone that is interested in learning more about their sensory systems. If you go to seed quiz.com, you can take a quiz for any age, you as the adult included, or any age child. And it'll help you understand your unique nervous system or your kids' unique nervous system. We have nine sensory systems, sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, those five we often hear about.

And then four more that we go into in depth in the book and in the quiz that, for instance, one of them is vestibular. You're sitting in a chair right now that can spin a little bit, which gives you vestibular input. My chair is stationary because I'm vestibular sensitive. If I spin a little bit, I get nauseous or motion sickness. earlier when you talked about judgment, I'm sure it felt uncomfortable in your body and you were experiencing discomfort. And you started to spin a little bit, which automatically gave you some regulation. And when we're looking at activity, we want to make sure they're having

activity that's regulating for them, that it's not one size fits all. And then we have, and that quiz I mentioned is totally free. The next one is connection. When was the last time they felt connected in a way that is fueling for them. My two children are vastly different. My daughter is just like, I want to be a part of the hang as long as I'm here and people are talking to me sometimes and I feel close to your body physically, whenever I feel connected and included and this is my dream. My son, if somebody else is around or there is something pulling my attention, he doesn't feel connected. So if my phone buzzes, if I I say, oh, Zach, will you check on the stove real quick?

I left that pasta on there. We just check on it. It breaks the connection for him. So he doesn't need a lot of connection, but he does need focused connection. And then we look at tune out. When was the last time that you just like, have you ever been like, oh, my gosh, all I want is to lay in a dark room or no one's talking to me or touching me or needing anything from me? Every single day. 10 out of 10 can relate I that's what tune out is is like when was the last time that you just shut down and didn't have stimuli happening I started doing a thing where when I go to the bathroom I don't take my phone because I was multitasking I'm like sending up an email sending a text I'm ordering groceries I'm checking out a car I'm signing kid up for a camp and I was like you know what I'm just going to tune out every time I go to the bathroom I'm going to close my eyes I'm going to take deep and

breast and I'm just going to pee. Like, revolutionary, I'm just going to pee. And that is my little like dose of tune out throughout the day so that I don't get to a point where I'm like, I need a weekend of tune out. And then we have sleep. How far are we from sleep? Are we just over tired? And that's valid. This is now not the time to do emotion processing work. It's not the time to build a new skill. We're just riding this one out and knowing we're just tired. The other night, After we put the kids to bed, my husband was like, what's going on? Are you OK? And I was like, honestly, I think I'm just tired and I'm grumpy. And I'm just going to talk as little as possible for the rest of the night and go to bed. And he was like, great, perfect. I'm not like going to do a thing to come out of this. There isn't any level of access to coping strategies that's going to bring me out of being tired. And so sleep is our final one of the facts. And once we go through, though, those after we're like, yeah, check, we can meet all those, then we move on to next steps of emotion processing work. Okay. So you said several times through that for them. And I think,

and you said this earlier too, the inclination I think many of us have is to do what works for us for our children. And it is a two-step. We need to figure out what works for us because we do need to go first, and then helping them to figure out what works for them, which can be very challenging because, yeah, right? Like, I'm somebody who needs to tune out. I'm a, I need space person. I did not realize about the moving my chair, but I, like, when you were telling me about it, I started doing it again. I'm like, oh my gosh, this really is a thing. So my questions around how other than the quiz, which thank you for that, what are some other ways that we can be paying attention to ourselves and to them to learn more about our unique needs?

Totally. Honestly, I would start the quiz because we worked with a group of occupational therapists to put it together. It's not something that like I would expect a person to just like, people have master's degrees and doctorates in it. And I think where we live in an age and stage now where we're like, you should know all of this. I'm like, you shouldn't. Just in the same way that like my dad sent me to the encyclopedia Britannica to like go learn something because I didn't just know it, tap into resources that are available. When we're just like in that observation space is rad.

So just the other day actually, my husband and son are very similar in their nervous systems. My daughter and I are very similar. And I was watching my husband respond to my son who was having to. having a hard time and realize like, man, it's just naturally so much easier for my husband to respond to my son. Because if he responds in the way that feels good for my husband, that reaches my son, right? My husband's inclination is to kind of go quiet and shut down a little bit and take some space and say less and decrease the stimuli because they're both sensory sensitive humans. They like more of that tune out than my daughter.

I do. And then I watched him with my daughter, who was having a hard time and yelling about something. And he was quiet and like letting her express. And she was amping up. And I was like, ah, yes. Naturally for me, I jump in and I'm like, oh man, you were trying so hard to do this and it's not working. And like, I validate her and talk a lot to her. And that's what she wants. She wants that validation. She wants to hear from me. She wants a hug. She wants to touch, and that's what I want. And so it's so much easier for me to parent her because our nervous systems really desire those same things. I have to be super cognizant when I'm parenting my son because our nervous systems don't align. We're a sensory mismatch. And so when he's having a hard

time, I'm like, hey, buddy, I'm here. And I'm like validating for him. I'm like, do you want to hug? He's like, just shut up and leave me alone, right? Like, give me space and stop talking. to me. And I have to be intentional about that because it's not what feels natural for my nervous system. And so there are a million times where I do what feels right for me because I'm at capacity and I don't have the capacity to regulate and be intentional with him. And then we just end up like both escalating. I'm like, I'm here and I'm trying to help you and you're not accepted. If you would just accept the hug or come on in, like this could all be over. And like that's what's happening. inside for me and he's escalating and he's like spiraling. And so that is where repair. Thank

goodness for repair comes in to save the day. And I get to come back later. I'm like, man, I was overwhelmed earlier when you were having a hard time and you really needed me to be quiet and to give you some space. And I kept talking. I'm going to work on that buddy. You know, and then like move on from there. I'm so glad you said that because I was going to ask about repair as as a big part of emotional intelligence. We're bound to not get it right all the time. I don't care how emotionally intelligent any of us are. And so the necessary part of repair for the connection and for their relationship and for us and for them, but also again, back to for the modeling of it. So our children know that it's not only okay, but helpful and it feels good to repair. I think, I don't know,

we've gotten away from saying, I'm sorry, or, you know, acknowledging where the part we played. Yeah. And I think that there's this idea out there that if we do all these things, we take care of our nervous system and we are taking a walk. We're doing the 10 minute miracle or whatever. We're doing all these things that then we're just all going to be regulated all the time and everything's going to go great. And you're going to set that boundary for your kid. And if you say it the right way and you prep them, enough. They're going to be like, thanks, mom. I can tell you have my best interest at heart. I can really tell you keeping me safe here. Even though I really wanted to do that thing, I'm just going to say yes to your boundary that's been set, that there's a way that we can do all this quote right and that there will then not be dysregulated states. And that everybody cycles in and out of regulation and dysregulation, unless you have a chemical imbalance, you're going to cycle

in and out. And I think part of the repair piece is that a lot of the times I think adults are experiencing guilt around having dropped the ball and made a mistake because we feel like we could have done better. If we did X, Y, and Z, this wouldn't have even been a thing. And I just want to call bullshit on that, that we, there is no, we're going to do this perfectly. It's not necessary. It's not helpful. We are human. And our job isn't to make sure that our kids don't experience hard things. Our job is to make sure that kids have tools to experience hard things. They get to practice experiencing hard things under our roof for a long time. And sometimes we're going to be the cause of those hard things. Like, we're going to be the

cause of their disappointment or their frustration or their anger or their fear or their sadness. And they get to practice navigating those feelings. It's not our job to avoid those things. If I could give you a statting ovation right now, I would. I, like, I just think this is so important and align so much with my work on confidence. I often say, you know, people, I think, think if they do all of the right things to be and become confident that they're going to somehow magically eliminate fear and doubt and failure and rejection and blah, blah, blah. And that is unequivocally not how it works. In fact, it is necessary to learn to move through fear and doubt and failure and rejection in order to be and become confident. And like you said, nobody's confident

100% of the time other than sociopaths. And we're not striving for that. So not the goal. Not the goal. Yeah. And I think to, you know, being responsible and modeling repair and also asking and expecting our children to practice repair as well. I see a lot of parents repairing with their children, but not teaching them the skill to reciprocate. And I think that's really important for kids to learn early and often that they're contributing in the best ways they can, but not always in the right or good ways. And like, it's not all on us all the time as parents. Totally.

As they grow, they become responsible. I don't know. Maybe I'm off base, but. No, you're not off base. I think what's just like the tricky part to navigate. And this is where I think things have, again, like a pendulum has swung to like no apologies is that there's pretty substantial research that shows a forced apology doesn't, isn't productive for either party for the person apologizing or the person receiving it. In the same way that if my husband came in and said something that was rude or reacted and a third party came in and was like, you need to go apologize to Alyssa. and he didn't actually feel bad yet or wasn't in a space to apologize.

And he came over and was like, I'm sorry that I said that. I know it hurt your feelings. Next time I'm going to try and do better. And basically read a script, I wouldn't receive that and be like, oh, wow, I feel more connected now. Like, you're right, that was helpful. And it wouldn't feel helpful for him. And so what's key is that when we're navigating repair, A, we're waiting until people are

in a regulated state to do something. so so that they can even reflect back on, oh, this is what happened. And here's how this person might be feeling. And B, that we help them do it in a way that is not a script, but that is authentic. I'll give an example. Just recently, I was working in a classroom of kindergartners, and there's one kindergartner who repairs very new for him. And he had gone over and he had ripped up a kid's paper and he had thrown it in the trash. And then a little later in the day that he wanted to go play with that kid, they got like a frenemy vibe going on, right? And he wanted to go play with that kid. And that kid said no and was not playing with him and was

kind of like avoiding him. And I was like, oh yeah, I wonder, remember earlier when you were feeling frustrated and you wanted to be included, he wasn't including you, and you ripped up his paper and threw it in the garbage? I wonder how he's feeling about that. I wonder. I wonder. I wonder if that's why he doesn't want to play right now. What do you think you could do? And then he's in a regulated state and we can now talk about this and then he can enter into repair on his own, not from my words or my script, but just from my prompt and my scaffolding. Does that make sense? It does. And it's a really good distinction. Thank you for making it. I want to make sure I know, I'm sure everybody else wants to because we're all going to run directly to it right now.

Where is this quiz? Is it on your website? Yeah, seed quiz.com. It's also in the book. There's a QR code for it a few times. Okay. So the book is Big Kids, Bigger Feelings. Her website, Alyssa's website, is SeedandSow.org.

And she has a podcast, Voices of Your Village. If you want more of her, I know I do. We're going to put that in all the other ways to find and follow Alyssa in show notes. Alyssa, thank you for a really inspiring and important conversation. Yeah, thank you for having me. It has to be here, Nicole. My pleasure. Okay. Friend, how many times did judgment pop up for you while you were listening? Be honest, because I definitely caught it showing up for me a few times. My head trash, the comparison trap. It's all loud and it's sneaky, but here's the truth. If we want to raise emotionally intelligent kids, we have to start with ourselves. That means practicing

self-awareness and trust. It means regulating our own emotions before trying to manage theirs. It means choosing empathy over perfection and connection over control and it means letting go of the pressure to get all the little stuff right so we can focus on what matters most. Take a deep breath. Check your facts. Let your heart fill up with that big, wild, messy love. Let it live inside those tiny humans that we're raising and trust,

really trust that it's going to be okay. They're going to be okay because you're creating a safe place for them to launch from and to come back to. whenever they need it. Sending love to all the mamas and all their forms, thank you for caring as much as you do because parenting is hard. So hold them close and also let them fly. This is woman's work. Proof. Proof combines history, science, and culture to tell unexpected stories about food. Every episode is filled with aha moments that you want to share at your next dinner party.

New episodes drop every Thursday. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast and you might never look at food the same way again. Hey, JJ Virgin here. On my podcast, Well Beyond 40, we ditch the idea of aging. gracefully and go all in on aging powerfully. Every week I host powerful experts who can give you powerful insights on building muscle, boosting your energy, and feeling amazing no matter what your age. This is your one life. And trust me, being smarter and stronger are superpowers that can turn lifespan into strength span. Listen to Well Beyond 40 wherever you get your podcasts.