The word resilience is being used more on social media and normal conversation, but do we really know what that word means and why it is so important? The question we had is, how do we build resilience in our children and ourselves. Amanda Zelechoski is here to answer our question! She has a wealth of knowledge and has so many great tips and strategies to help us further our knowledge and practice resiliency.
Amanda is a licensed clinical and forensic psychologist and attorney who specializes in trauma. She is also a Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training and Purdue University Northwest
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Jen: Welcome to the Parents Place podcast with Hilary and Jen.
Hilary: Welcome to the Parents Place Podcast today. Thank you, as always, for being here for listening in. We appreciate to your love and support that you offer us and you offer our platform here. So we have a special guest with us today that I am particularly thrilled to hear from. This is Amanda Zelechoski and she comes to us from Indiana. Is that correct?
Amanda: That is correct.
Hilary: And she comes with a wealth of knowledge, which I think just ties in perfectly to our mission at the Family Place and on what we want to offer on this on this podcast as well too. So, before we dive into our topic, Amanda, why don't you tell us a little bit about who? You are and what you do.
Amanda: Sure. Hi, everybody. Thank you for having me. I am a clinical and forensic psychologist. I am a professor of psychology at Purdue University Northwest, which is in. Northwest Indiana, where I'm the director of clinical training. So focus a lot on training future clinical psychologists, mental health professionals, undergraduate students in psychology, we conduct a fair amount of research, very kind of systems and clinical services, focused research. And so yeah. So, I just do a lot of work and thinking about kids and trauma and how that leads to different trajectories in, in life.
Hilary: Oh my goodness. So, you're explaining your bio and I'm like. This is the type of person that we would love to talk to, probably for weeks on end, because you would have so much information that I think our agency would love to know. Being that we focus in on providing trauma, informed care you are you are the guru of all things.
Amanda: Ohh goodness no.
Hilary: So, thank you so much. So, we could discuss a lot of things in this area of trauma, but we're going to focus in on resiliency today which. Clearly we have mentioned in this podcast and for those listeners out there that listen and tune in regularly, they know that we have a segment that we refer to as our stories of resiliency where we have guests come in and share stories and experiences that they have had in their life that have helped to shape them into who they are today and so. Let's start with this. You know this word resilience. I think it's a little bit of a, I mean it's a buzzword, right? We've heard a lot about it, especially I think with the evolution of COVID, we've heard this phrase that children are resilient and people are resilient and I still think we're trying to define exactly what that means. So, to you, Amanda, what exactly is resiliency? Let's start with a working definition.
Amanda: Yeah. So, I mean, I agree with you. I think you're right that the term resilience and resiliency have been used in lots of different ways, some better than others, right. So, when I think about resilience, I think about this idea that it's kind of our ability to sort of recover from things that happen. I also think a lot about Resilience. People will talk about sort of bouncing back after they've had adversity or challenges, right? But I think the true essence of resilience is more this idea of kind of bouncing forward cause a lot of times we're not the same, right? Like things have happened in our lives. You've had adversity, challenges, unexpected stressors. And so, in many cases it doesn't make sense or you can't go back to who you were before. You can't truly bounce back. So really, you're trying to figure out how to bounce forward. And so that's what I really think the essence of resilience is, is this ability to kind of bounce forward to recover from difficulties when something challenging has happened.
Jen: I love that you say that because that's something that has always kind of just rubbed me the wrong way of bouncing back, because when we do have those traumas that define our lives or change our trajectory in the way we're going, you can't bounce back. Your changed. Just and you look at the world in a different way. So, I love that you say that.
Amanda: Yeah, that's right. And there's lots of research to support that, right. You could think about concepts like. You know the notion of post traumatic growth, right? Like there are these ways we can bounce forward. We are a different person. Not that anybody or I think most people would say. Yeah, of course. I wish that didn't happen. But look how it sort of opened up these pathways in my life or meant that I met these people or meant that I moved through the world in this different way. So yeah. I don't know that we are even able in many ways to bounce back as we sometimes talk about it.
Hilary: So, when you talk about and again, we've Jenna and I have discussed this using this term of bouncing back, it almost makes it sound like it should also be an instantaneous change. Right. Because that when we think of a bouncer, a spring, you push that down and it instantaneously comes back. And it's easy and it's pliable. And so, when we talk about this recovering process, I know we don't have an. Or, but what does that look like for many individuals when they talk about moving forward and recovering like in a time frame? I know people love having a time frame. So what? What do we want to know about that?
Amanda: Gosh, I don't think there's any time frame, right. I mean, I think with so many of these things you know, grief is another similar kind of parallel concept where you know how long am I supposed to be grieving? What's the average time I should feel these things, you know? And. And so I think with resilience it's similar, there's no right timeline. There's no set way that looks. I think sometimes well, well, resiliency, I believe is this muscle is not the right term, but this part of us that that is evolving our entire lives. I mean, there's many ways we need to keep sort of being resilient or showing resiliency or strengthening our resiliency. And so, I don't think it's any sort of timeline and it doesn't make sense to me in many ways to kind of compare it to timelines of other things like how long you might have symptoms of such and such phenomenon or disorder. Or you know, we want to see this or that decrease. So, I think it's looking more at like can I sort of continue activities of daily living can I accomplish the things I need to can I get up and go to work, go to school, take steps toward my goals. Am I able to do those sorts of things in timelines that matter for me rather than timelines that others define? I think a lot of times you, you'll hear a lot of noise when difficult things happen in your lives, and certainly this is the case in families, right? I. Think about parents and how. So much of our children's young lives is milestones and timelines and they should be doing this by this and this by this many months. And if they're not, then we're concerned and you know, we get lost in so many of those ranges in numbers and so I think that that makes sense. That of course it's like, well, my child should be able to bounce back along this timeline or I should be able to move forward at this speed and I just don't think it really works that way, and everybody's different. You could have two people who go through the same exact traumatic situation and their recovery from that looks very different and there's so many factors that go into that. There's a lot of those. You know, maybe we'll get to talking about things like protective factors and buffers and things that help boost your resiliency. Well, if one person has a lot of those things in their life and somebody else doesn't, their recovery bouncing forward process is going to look very different and be on very different schedules.
Hilary: You know, oftentimes even at our agency, even at the Family Place, when we talk about trauma, I mean, you mentioned having these different timelines, right, depending on different factors, protective factors, which we can discuss in a bit. But even just the definition of trauma in and of itself, right, and how one views a situation for someone that you know dealing with some situation, it might be incredibly traumatic, but for others it might just be another day, another day that I can, you know, where I have to maybe readjust a few minor things. But then I'm going to move forward and not even think twice about it. And so, when we talk about trauma, you know, and traumatic events, can you give us some examples of maybe what that might look like?
Amanda: Sure. So, I mean we have the clinical definitions of trauma, right? So if you look in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders or the DSM under post-traumatic stress disorder, there's very specific criteria that you know has to be met to sort of count as a traumatic incident. And that typically would include things like, you know, directly experiencing or witnessing. You know, threatened injury, violence, deaths or serious illness of somebody else, you know, so there's these very specific criteria. But I think most of us in the field would say, of course, that's not the whole story. And there are many things that can be considered traumatic for somebody that wouldn't necessarily meet that definition, like chronic and pervasive neglect, psychological abuse or emotional abuse, right? So, these things that don't quite fit in these neat categories in the way that the post traumatic stress disorder diagnosis was originally designed. So much of it, I sort of think about also is in the eye of the beholder, right? As you said, there are people who could experience certain things that were very difficult, that another person might not find to have been so profound for them. And it's because a lot of these other factors. Did I experience it directly? Was I a witness? Did I hear about it? So there's sort of the way you were exposed. There's thinking about things like my relationship to whoever the person is who was harmed, you know, was it a very sort of public situation or was it quite private? There's just a lot of these factors that go into whether or not something is traumatic for an individual, and it's also not just about what the exposure was. What is the thing that happened? It's how we experience it. So, when we are defining trauma in the field for people are measuring it, it's not only what they were exposed to, but it's the impact. So, did that have a considerable impact on your functioning? Did you experience symptoms as a result? Are you having flashbacks or are you, you know, so there? A pretty significant difference between things that are stressful and things we would consider traumatic, and so much of that is in the perception of the individual and then what the after effects were.
Hilary: Interesting. It reminds me I was having a conversation with my husband and we were talking about the experiences of 9-11. And at that time in my life, I was I was a teenager. I was in high school and I remember vividly hearing about that in school and then proceeding to mindlessly wander from class to class but sitting down in every classroom and watching that unfold in front of my eyes and with my peers surrounded by my peers. All of us, not knowing what exactly what's happening, what's going on, how this is going to affect our future. Right. As we're preparing to be young adults and moving on and experiencing all these grand things, my husband had a very different experience because at that point. He was serving a religious mission and they kept that experienced and they did not offer a lot of information to these to these missionaries at the time. And so, my husband for him, he almost didn't even experience that. And when he came back from serving that religious mission, he then started to find out information about it. But it was so intriguing as we had this conversation about how different our experiences were. That he almost didn't even know or was aware of what was happening. But then here I was seeing it with my own eyes, you know, and then you compare that to the experience of somebody that was there and so or somebody that knew someone personally that was there. And so, it's just so interesting as you talk about how it all depends. Right. All depends on.
Amanda: It all depends. Yeah, and on other, I think that's a great example too like other layers, right. So. If I even think about sort of you and your peers in that setting, right, some of you may have experienced that quite differently from one another because of your own life circumstances. If you have a family that is safe and secure and you know that you're going to go home to parents who are there and they're safe and like at the end of the day, trauma is often about loss of that sense of safety and loss of control. Like something happened that took away control. And so for you, even as distressing as that was to see those images again and again, and that is distressing. If you felt pretty safe and secure and going home and knowing my people are safe, I am safe. That's maybe very different than a peer who had recently lost their single parent caregiver. Right. Like their base isn't secure. They don't have that same foundation and sense of security and. And so maybe they were affected in even more significant way than you were because of again, a lot of these other factors, right. Whereas your husband, it was sort of, oh, this is like a news story I was hearing later. I wasn't living it in real time. I wasn't thinking about people I knew who might be in danger, maybe in the same way others of ours. So, I think it's so much more than just what is the incident that happened. You have to like peel away the layers that how people are experiencing that same situation very differently.
Hilary: And I think that just reminds us as well too that you can't necessarily judge what anyone else is going through because it might be easy for us to say that's really not that big of a deal. You should be able to recover from that quicker than what you're doing when we have no idea. Like you said, the layers. I love that visual of the layers. We have no idea the layers that are involved in this process.
Amanda: Absolutely, absolutely.
Hilary: So you know I would guess that 95% of our population doesn't seek out tough things. And then doesn't necessarily like to put ourselves in a position where we're dealing with something tough or maybe even traumatic. But I mean resiliency, developing this skill of resiliency, I'm assuming it's good, right? And so how does being a resilient person help us in our life?
Amanda: Yeah. So again, I would encourage us not to think about resilience as this static trait like you are a resilient person or you're not. Like I have this or I don't ,right. It's this constantly evolving process and something we can all work on and strengthen, so it's interesting when you said, you know most of the people listening or maybe most of the people we know aren't like running into the burning building like we're not looking for these difficult or stressful situations. But, I mean you also said you know thinking about a lot of your listeners are our parents. Well, like welcome to parenting. Right. It it's, I mean that is sometimes I feel like the emotional equivalent of running into the burning, burning building. You just you don't know what you're getting. We would love to put our kids in this protective bubble and. And not have the world challenge them and give them hardship. And that's just not how it works. Right. And one thing that maybe you do with one child doesn't work with another child. And so, you're just going to have stress as a parent. And so, you know, leaning into that in some ways and recognizing like. That is actually how we build resilience. Is working through these stressful situations. It doesn't have to be this big, massive traumatic event, but there are things that are really hard that we go through as families, as parents that our kids go through. And so one of the best ways I think to build that in our families and in our kids is for them to watch how we do it. You know, in the pandemic, the COVID-19 pandemic was this amazing example of that. None of us wanted it, but here it was. And you know, our kids had this front row seat to watching how we as parents and caregivers navigated those challenges, they saw our stress heightens, right? They saw, you know, a lot of really significant and systemic barriers impact everyone. People were losing their jobs, right. We couldn't get what we needed. And so I in some ways, I think it was really interesting for kids to be able to kind of see and their parents were teaching them in real time. Like here's how you navigate these challenges. Here's how we're gonna do it as a family. This is really hard. You know, my kids saw me crying over the kitchen sink many times, like just stressed and frustrated. And then how we navigated those things was one of the best lessons I think our kids could have learned. It was different than just how we talk about it, right? So again, not that we wanted that in some families experience that very differently than other families. That's important to sort of recognize. But it's this ever evolving muscle we're growing and we're strengthening. How we move through the world. And so I do think it's critically important to be intentionally like doing things and talking about things in your family that help with that. So some examples, you know, your kids or you and your workplace, right? Or your situations. You're gonna have situations that are uncomfortable. So, I think about things like for my kids, like the music performance or, you know, going up to bat with two outs and everybody's looking at them. Right, like those sorts of situations are resiliency, building situations. Right. They're time limited. They're predictable, they're controlled. And so they're anticipated. Like I can prepare for this. There are things I can do to get ready. I've got people here to support me. This is going to be hard. I may fail at the. And that's OK. Those are exactly. I think the kinds of things that are really important for us as human beings to have to push ourselves into areas that aren't uncomfortable and see that we can do it or see that we can learn from it. So and then of course, there are parallels in our adult lives. For pushing ourselves into things that are uncomfortable too.
Hilary: Hmm. Hmm. I love that. And once again, I have to remind myself, Hilary, my children are watching me. So I need to do work.
Amanda: They are. Well, but let me let me give you some, I guess, grace for yourself there too, because yes, we feel all this pressure like, Oh my gosh, they're watching us all the time. And boy, they sure are, especially the times we'd prefer maybe they weren't. But they also don't expect us to be perfect and I think we put that on ourselves and like that's one of I think the most beautiful gifts of having a long term relationship with somebody like you get to do with your child, which is we get do overs, we can apologize, we can say, “Hey, you know what I did not handle that conversation in the best way I could have, could we try again?” Or “You know what? You really caught me off guard with that question. Could you give me some time to think about it” Because I really want to be thoughtful about how we how I answer you like we get do overs and I think that's actually beautiful modeling for our kids that like, wow, my mom came and apologized like she said, she didn't handle that well. Or, you know, she I now I understand she had a really rough day at work. And so she kind of bit my head off when she came home about the dirty socks on the stairs, you know? And so. I think yes, they are watching us all the time, including in our vulnerability and our authenticity and showing them. Here's how you resolve conflict. Here's how you take ownership when you've messed up. And that's beautiful for them to see.
Hilary: I mean, will you think about this definition of recovering, you know, and when we're recovering from something, oftentimes that involves this process of creating new habits and that requires new information. And oftentimes, when we're developing new habits, we're going to make mistakes. And so, I think essentially showing that to our kids like this is the definition of resiliency is that you're gonna try things, those things don't pan out sometimes. And that's just kind of how life works. Right? And so. I love that that we can be open and honest enough to say I screwed up. Doesn't everybody do that at times? And so, I think that's a powerful lesson for kids.
Amanda: And sometimes in the screwing up the relationship actually deepens and improves like sometimes those riders are there to allow us to be vulnerable and deepen our relationship with another person. And so, a rupture doesn't have to mean the, you know, the end or we're never getting past this like I actually think sometimes relationships get better after that when you can kind of work through it. The other resiliency myths, I guess I just wanted to sort of bust a little bit more too is, you know, this idea like I talked about a little while ago that it's this static trait, or that people sort of are or aren't, and I I often go back to, you know, one of my heroes in this work, Doctor Bruce Perry, who said “Resilient children are made, not born.” And I think it's so important for us to remember that because we talk a lot about, you know, all kids are so resilient, like, oh, they bounce back so much faster, they'll be fine. They're resilient. But that is that isn't how it works, right? Like we, we have to model that and show that and give them experiences to help them build their resiliency. And it's the same for adults. Like, you could always strengthen your resiliency. It's not just, oh, I guess I'm just not a very resilient person. That's always something we can work through. And we now have science to back that up when we understand things like neuroplasticity and our brains ability to compensate, recover, rejuvenate. So, I just I want to kind of keep emphasizing this notion that there are always ways to build resiliency and there aren't just resilient people and not resilient people.
Jen: I think when I got first married, I married a guy who had two girls and his youngest was nine years old and. You know, divorces are hard and she was having a hard time and it didn't end on the best of terms. Their relationship communication was never their strong suit. And so when we got married, that was one thing that we really talked about is the importance of communication. When we had disagreements and not that we had our disagreements in front of her. But little things of just negotiating in normal day for her to be able to see that, that we could do that. And being kind to one another and see that has really. As I look at her now, when she's 17 and I’m like, She has really taken those traits on into her own relationships, of being able to solve things in a positive way and in a kind way, and not necessarily having to resort to anger and frustration. And I'm just so grateful that we've been able to do that because. You know, it's not that it was too late for her. She learned some new skills and she's been able to apply them and help her be more resilient in the relationships that she has.
Amanda: That's right. Oh, that's a beautiful example. Yeah, I mean, you were laying down new pathways for her. Of what communication can look like and it takes practice and it takes time and repetition. Right? And like, yeah, this is how we're going to try to do this. And I kind of keep at it. I stay the course. And then you really see the fruits of. That and. Yeah, just being consistent.
Hilary: So, Amanda, I know that. That you are incredibly well versed when it comes to to ACE’s. And so, I want to talk a little bit about that as well too. If we can tie that into our conversation and how those protective factors help as well too. Because we've discussed on this podcast a small extent as to what ACE’s are. But if you can provide just a little bit of an explanation on what that is and how that plays a role with resiliency as well too.
Amanda: Sure. So ACEs stands for Adverse Childhood Experiences. It comes from a study that was done out of Kaiser Permanente in partnership with the CDC. A number of researchers for levy and colleagues, you know, did this incredible study where they discovered things they didn't necessarily imagine they were going to discover. They went back and people medical histories and, you know, tried to look at look for patterns for, you know, where people had gone through what they called these adverse childhood experiences. And they had a specific list of them, you know, child abuse and neglect, type things, having incarcerated parent, being exposed to domestic violence. Right. There was a whole list of different kinds of child traumatic exposures. And then they mapped that on to things we were seeing in adulthood, right? So, things like early mortality, risk of heart disease, cancer, just all these kinds of medical diagnosis. These that people who'd had these higher, what they ended up calling ACE scores. So the more of these types of traumatic exposures you'd had in your young life, puts you at higher risk for these other things like early death, stroke, heart attacks, right. And that just wasn't really a connection we had been making in the field. You know, that there are real physiological effects and risks of going through these things as young children. And so right it. It speaks to. Some of what we're talking about that no kids aren't just resilient and it won't show long term effects as they move on into other areas of their lives. We certainly I think imagined in the field for a while that there were these psychological and emotional effects, but I think their study really shed light in a major way for us that no, there are significant effects on a cellular level physiologically, you know, and in our long term health in many ways. And so that study began a lot of conversations. It really opened the door to many subsequent areas and specialties focused on early childhood trauma exposure. And so we continue to talk about it and use it as a way to kind of understand and move the field forward. And so you know in terms of kind of connecting it to what we're talking about now, it's there are many more of course types of trauma exposures beyond just what's included in the original ACE’s study. But I think the interesting thing is that also began the conversation in mainstream. Public so people were able to go online and take this and see oh, wow. Like I have an ACE score of 6. That's pretty high. I didn't realize I had so many of these difficult things in my life and some of that, I think. It goes to a little bit of what you were saying in the beginning, Hilary of like people maybe not even realizing some of what they went through wasn't the norm, you know? So, like I work with a lot of kids in the juvenile justice system. And if I were to give them some of our traditional, like trauma assessment measures and there's a place to check off, you know, even like in the ACE’s, have you been physically abused? Yes or no. Well, for many of these kids, like everybody I know was disciplined that way in my neighborhood. So like, why would I consider that abuse? I would never check that box, that's. Just how we grew up. So, things like that. It really helped us have conversations, you know around that that oh wow. I didn't realize other people didn't go through this or that other families didn't work this way. You know where their parents were engaged in physical altercations. You know, so it just shed light on people recognizing some of these challenges or ACEs, they've experienced in their own lives, which I think has changed the narrative, has really helped a lot of people start to do some inner work like self work on just. Reparenting themselves or understanding maybe what happened in their families or trying to work on things like emotion regulation, being able to manage stress, trust and relationships, attachment. Because I never had a consistent caregiver or experienced a lot of neglect. And so, I actually don't know how to be in a consistent stable relationship. So, it just it I think it did a lot for our field and we continued to learn from the ACE’s study and of course the many thousands of studies that have resulted from that.
Hilary: Hmm. I have the opportunity to work with incarcerated fathers and we have a very brief discussion on the ACE’s. And as you can imagine, most of these men have incredibly high ACE scores. Given the background that that they had and. So, to shed some light on this, a score to them, I it's an eye-opening experience, but one of the things that they often say is. I don't want my child to go down the same path that I had, and so given that I have this a score and given that my child, probably because of that also has a high a score, you know, what is some advice that we can offer these individuals that are like well? Yeah, I'm in a six and seven and eight, you know. And is there anything I can do now at this point or is my child doomed to repeat those same patterns?
Amanda: Yeah. I mean I have a couple of thoughts, I guess I think about if we if we parallel this in its most simplistic way. You had a history of heart disease in your family, right? How would you handle that with your kids? You would like, oK. Hey, guys. Like, this is a history we have. We're going to watch things like, you know, we're going to get regular checks. We're going to watch what we eat. We're goanna make sure we exercise. We're going to make sure every doctor we know. You know, sort of has this in our history. We're going to monitor it, and we're going to take proactive preventive steps to reduce your risk. OK. So, we do a really good job of that in many cases on the medical side, when we start to talk about like mental health and some of these social and emotional stressors like that, I don't know that we do as much of that or think about it automatically in the same way. So, when I think about that, you know, Father, you're giving as an example, who's incarcerated, who's worried about his child. You know what are some of the preventive things we can do there? Well, one is we can, we can talk about it. We can make sure our kids know, you know, hey, these are some of the things I went through. I don't want you to have the same experience. You know. So, let's talk about that. Have you had some of these experiences? What can we do to prevent you from having some of those experiences? Where can we reduce the risk for you? Is that community violence exposure, you know, right. So. Why is that happening? Is it where you live? Is it sort of who you're hanging out with? Is it the school community? Are there things we can do to support you and reduce your risk in some of these places? And if things have already happened, you know, then it's important to sort of talk about it and get them what they need. If that's working with a mental health professional. If it's making sure you know that they have consistent protective factors in their lives. And so when I talk about those, I mean one of the things we know when working with kids who have a lot of ACE’s. Is like the single greatest predictor in many ways of resilience is did they have a stable, consistent adult in their life, right that they had a close connection with? That doesn't always have to be a parent or a caregiver. Sometimes for kids, some kids it's a teacher. It's a coach, it's a neighbor. It's the crossing guard. But did they have that stable consistent and grown up in their lives that they could go to that was just sort of there for them? So, if I am a parent who can't be that right now for any number of reasons, including incarceration or whatever the case might be, can I make sure that they do have that person? What can I do to make sure that they have that person in their lives? Because we know that that helps build resilience and can protect and prevent against more ACES happening. I mean, that's another thing. You know from the research is that, you know, once you've been victimized in some ways, one time it increases your risk of being victimized again. And so, with, we know that too. So let's put in preventative intentional, you know, steps and strategies to try to reduce the risk of a child having another ace. So, there are a lot of things. We can do, but I honestly think the biggest. I don't know. Some of the best strategies are like creating time and space. I heard somebody say years ago in a talk I wish I could remember her name. The power is space and time. And I think about that so much when it comes to healing people like have I created space for you to be able to do that, to have the conversations to share with me. What you want to? Have I set aside time and made you feel like my time with you? It like I'm right here with you. So that's at night inevitably, when our kids were trying to tuck them into bed, we're so tired, like we're just done for the day. And that's always when they dropped the bombs, right. Like, hey, this thing happened today and. You're like, oh, here we go. But it's because you had quiet calm time and space to work through that that they finally felt safe to share whatever it was. And so, you know, whether it's kids or adults creating opportunities that allow for space and time to work through these things, I think are what help us prevent ACE’s and help us deal with the ones that have already happened.
Hilary: That reminds me of an experience I had with my daughter and I was thinking about this a little bit earlier when you mentioned COVID so. I remember we were at the at the grocery store and this was days before we knew everything was going to start to shut down. And so, everyone was frantically making their way to the grocery store and buying whatever they could off of the shelves. And so I remember being at a Smiths marketplace. The line was about 15 people back and you could just feel this sense of stress. Everybody knew the inevitable of what was going to happen. And I, my daughter, was with me because I believe I had picked her up from child care. And I was on my way home and so she was with me. And we're standing there in line and everybody you know is. Right at that time and we weren't saying anything but. But as we're standing in line, my daughter just starts to sob and I think what was happening was that you know, everybody is feeling this, this alarm and this stress and. And although we weren't speaking about it, she felt it too. And I think it just hit her like a wave of what is going on here, you know? And my little body, I can tell something's not OK, but I don't know what it is. And I remember thinking to myself in that moment. I can brush her aside and I can say it's not that big of a deal and we just got to get the groceries and we got to get out of there or I can take this as an opportunity to. To comfort and to provide some teaching and some advice and feedback moving forward. And so I remember I bend down, I bend down, I got on her level and I said sweetie. How you feeling right now? And she's like I'm scared and I don't know why. And that was the thing she know, she didn't feel great that she didn't know why she was feeling the way that she was feeling. And so, we had a little moment there. And then we quickly got our groceries. And then we went out to the car and we continued to have a moment together where we talked about some of the things that she was experiencing and some of the things that she was feeling. And some of the things that we're probably going to happen in the upcoming days and weeks and months and but it was just it was one of those aha moments for me as a parent where I thought I need to take this time. Because clearly this child is saying hey, like, look at me. Notice me see me. I need you. And I'm so glad I responded to that call because. I don't always do. That but on that particular day, I did. And so I think that is such a powerful reminder for parents.
Amanda: Yeah. And you also? Did in in that example which I love and kids can feel it. My goodness, can they feel that tension. Right? Yeah. And so. And even when we don't have the answers, the fact the way you were able to sort of say like, hey, we're going to figure this out, you know, I know it feels stressful. Like you affirmed how she was feeling. You validated that. And you. You know, said OK, We're going to figure this out or how. However, you worded in it even though we didn't necessarily know the answer or what was coming, but it was like we're in this together and we will figure it out. And that's the safety and security they're looking for. But the other thing I really love in that example is. You did what Doctor Perry talks about is dosing, right? So you did it in little doses. And this is a mistake, I think. Sometimes we make of. We're long winded as adults. We have attention spans to be able to sit and have these long, intense emotional conversations or whatever our kids can't do that and actually quite frankly, we really can't as adults either. But we think we can, right and so you sort of swooped in and out. You had this moment or a couple of moments with her in that line and then you gave her a little bit of a break. And then you were out in the parking lot again and then you sort of revisited and checked in and honestly those little doses, kind of swooping in and out, is as much as a lot of kids can handle. Like they can't do the. We're gonna sit down and have this big family meeting about this for the next two hours, we're gonna hash all this out, right guys? . They can't do that, and especially in these really intense emotional experiences kind of coming in and out for those quick little doses of connection are really powerful. And they remind our kids, like, hey, I can come back in an hour or. So, I just think we, we and believe me, I am guilty of this too. I I like to. Have the big long soliloquy with my children about all the wisdom I have to impart, right. When it's like now, just sort of plant the seed and then come back to it and then cut, you know, later that night or the next day and they just know that you're there and you're the safe place to come and talk to as well. And it isn't going to always be this real intensity that they're maybe not emotionally ready for either.
Hilary: Great advice, great, great, advice. So I've been mentioning. A lot of our parents that come to our to our agency. And oftentimes when we're dealing with a traumatic event, with a difficult scenario in our family, not only our children experiencing it, but like you said, we are as well too. So, I guess what advice can you offer when I know as a parent I should be that person that helps my child through that event. But guess what? I don't feel like I can because even I myself I'm spiraling downward. Yeah. So what do we do in those scenarios?
Amanda: Yeah. So, I think a couple of things. One is recognizing exactly like you, you sort of just mentioned in that example of when I'm spiraling. So, if you think of yourself as this Co regulator of your child, right, and that is what we are. We're Co regulators of other people. You know, so this is why, like, it doesn't work right when your child is totally dysregulated, they're screaming and maybe you see a parent yelling at a child. Like, stop yelling, but like, you're yelling at the child to stop yelling. Like it's not gonna work, right? So, this idea of Co regulation is, you know, like the child is maybe up here at a 10 totally, you know, out of control melting down, whatever it might be. But you as the grown up or sort of keeping your voice down here like, you know, hey, buddy, I hear you. I can hear you're really upset. I'm right here. You know, I'm going to give you a few minutes like. My voice is calm. That's what we mean by sort of Co regulating is. How can I use myself as an instrument to sort of help regulate that child back down. But there are times we can't do that. Like you're saying like I am just as mad, just as wound up, you know, whatever the case might be. So, give yourself space from each other, right? Recognize that about yourself like I am not in a position right now to do any service with anybody. I'm actually just going to make it worse. And I need a minute. Like parents can take timeouts too. You know, we sort of think about timeouts for kids. Like I go in the closet and just take a few minutes to, like, breathe calm myself down, cause nothing that comes out of my mouth right now is going to be productive if I don't. And the other thing I would say is you. Know. If you have other people in your home in your life, like tag out, it is OK for other people to step in in those situations. And I think this pressure we put our on ourselves as parents or caregivers to like always be the one to have to sort of fix it or be the one there. Like kids have a lot of buckets that need filling. And there's a lot of people that can fill those buckets. It doesn't always have to be you. It can be you know your neighbor that has said, hey, like, I'm just outside gardening. If you wanna send her out to come weed with me. Like, cool. That's a nice repetitive rhythmic activity they can do together. Your daughter is away from you for a little while, so you can calm down. I mean, there's a lot of people in our kids lives that can fill buckets that we can't. If we can acknowledge. You know which is actually gifts for that them to have other people teaching them things and just spending time with them so, but that's hard to do right. We are sort of socialized to think we have to do it all like I have to be the one to fill all the buckets and do all of the things. And you know you're allowed to have stress and distress in your life too and tend to your needs, you know and so are there other people. Or things that can help in those situations and you know what? Sometimes I gotta put my kid in front of the TV for 10 minutes while I just kind of pull it together on my own. because and that's OK. Like, that's OK. But we have to give ourselves permission to attend to those things.
Jen: I think we, as for some reason we as parents have this idea that we need to be perfect and that we need to be able to do it. All, and I just love that it it I love the phrase of it takes a village, it does. And the more we have in our village, the more people we have to turn to and to get help. Yeah, if we can just take off that thought. Of I need to be a perfect parent because there is no perfect parent.
Amanda: And to be honest, they don't actually want you to be perfect. Like I think in these amazing studies they've done with kids of, like, their autobiographical memories. I mean, it doesn't even have to be that academic. Like, if you just ask your kids things they remember about, I don't know, that holiday gathering right where you were upset cause you, you know you burned dinner and this wasn't ready and you couldn't get the thing you wanted. And it was all falling apart. That's not what they remember about it. They remember spending time with you, baking cookies next to you, like they don't remember that the cookies were burned. And so I think this idea that, you know, we have to be perfect like our kids, don't they don't want you to be a perfect mom. They just want their mom.
Jen: Yeah, yeah.
Hilary: I actually mentioned that to my husband a few days ago, we were having a rough night getting one of our kids to bed and they were mad and we were mad. And finally, you know, she went to sleep begrudgingly and I said to my husband, what are my most favorite things about being a parent is that. You know you. You you're going to have these rough nights. They happen. They're inevitable, but the next. OK. That little girl is going to wake up and she's going to be so excited to see me, like, gonna have a big smile on her face. Going to give me a giant. Hug to say. Hey, mom. Good morning. Like, she has completely forgotten about my faults and I love that kids can do that, that they can say, hey, I'm mad. But you know what? I'm not going to be mad forever because the love I have for you outweighs. You know, the anger that I have in that particular scenario of, you know, not wanting to do my homework. Whatever it was. But I love that we can come back the next day and we can get that smile and that hug that that we need so.
Amanda: Yeah, I wish we could have as much grace for ourselves sometimes as our kids have for us.
Hilary: Yes. Well, Amanda, you have given us, I have jotted down notes and I've got some wonderful pieces of advice that I want to give to myself moving forward about the dosing and the time and the space and recovery. And I love everything that you have shared as we kind of wrap up for today, are there any final pieces of feedback that you would offer to our families out there?
Amanda: I mean, yeah, no, I I think it's just like. Stay the course, like show up. You know, that's, that's all we know how to do is show up and not necessarily show up perfectly. Just keep showing up for yourself and for your kids and the best ways you know how and when you don't know how call in your village.
Jen: Amanda, thank you so much for coming and being with us and sharing your knowledge. It's just one thing that I just love about this podcast is just being able to get good knowledge and little gold pieces of nugget Nuggets that we can share with each other. So thank you again for coming and being with us.
Amanda: Pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Jen: We want to thank you for coming and listening and we want to remind you to be kind and patient with yourselves and we will see you back here next week.
Thank you for listening to the Parents Place podcast. If you would like to reach us, you can at parents at the amilyplaceutah.org or you can reach Jen on Facebook. Jen Daly – The Family Place. Please check out our show notes for any additional information. Our website is thefamilyplaceutah.org. If you're interested in any of our upcoming virtual classes, we'd love to see you there.
Subject Resources:
1. All about Amanda: https://www.pnw.edu/people/amanda-d-zelechoski-j-d-ph-d-abpp/
2. Bruce D. Perry information: https://traumaresearchfoundation.org/programs/faculty/bruce-perry/
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