0:00:01 – Announcer

You are listening to the National University Podcast.

0:00:10 – Kimberly King

Hello, I’m Kimberly King. Welcome to the National University Podcast, where we offer a holistic approach to student support, well-being and success- the whole human education. We put passion into practice by offering accessible, achievable higher education to lifelong learners. Today we are talking about raising resilient kids and, according to an article in the New York Times, it is about the ability to bounce back even when times get tough, but that implies that it’s only about survival. This is from Dr. Kenneth Ginsberg, a pediatrician and the author of the American Academy of Pediatrics book Building Resilience in Children and Teens, “Resilient people not only bounce back, but also thrive in the best of times.” More on today’s podcast. Stay with us.

On today’s episode, we’re talking about parenting and raising resilient kids, and joining us are two experts in psychology, and Dr. Pam MacDonald is a professor of psychology and academic program director for the Child and Adolescent Developmental Psychology Program at National University. Pam has earned a doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of Houston and a master’s degree in experimental psychology. She’s taught at the college level for over 30 years- and you don’t look like it, by the way – and has numerous publications and presentations on a variety of subjects in developmental psychology and an emphasis on childhood and adolescence. Dr. Jill Blackwell is a professor of psychology at National University and she’s earned her doctorate degree from DePaul University in experimental developmental psychology. She’s a leader in the area of self-love and self-care and wrote the book Conscious Self-Love. She’s published two meditation CDs: Stress Management 101 and Stress Management 202, with original music, and a book for graduate students called The Dissertation Strategy.

In November, she will teach in a class for 12 to 18-year-olds on self-love and self-care for the new era at the Global School for Star Children. Please visit her website for free meditations and activities related to self-love at www.consciousself-love.com. And we welcome both of you to the podcast. How are you? Both of these are impressive backgrounds and you both look fantastic.

0:02:39 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Thank you. Thank you. We’re so excited to be here with you today talking about this important topic, especially right now.

0:02:46 – Kimberly King

I was just going to say that it’s super relevant, and especially for our younger generation, right with the self-love and self-care and resiliency. And why don’t you fill our audience in a little bit on your mission and your work before we get to today’s show topic? Either one.

0:03:02 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

Jill, because I think you’re a little bit more relevant.

0:03:07 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Oh, that’s okay, you are very relevant, all right. So I just want to say that right now I’m working on helping people feel good about themselves and I really feel like what the world needs now is a step away from the harshness and the fighting and the division. You know, everything seems to be an argument and there’s always two sides. It keeps showing up like that. And when we connect in with ourselves and really get clear on what our mission here, what our purpose is here, with love and kindness for ourselves, then we’re going to be able to be presenting a whole different person to the world, making different choices in our communications and our relationships and our actions, and that’s really going to make the world a better place.

And our kids are growing up now watching all of the adult kind of issues and they’re coming from a place that’s even harder for them because they’ve grown up with this air of social media and all of its cruelty. You know, in the media and it’s so upfront and in your face and with the screen time there’s not a lot of alone time, time for being, time for connecting with your soul self. You know, that’s a little more grounded and you know on purpose and on mission. So my goal is to just get everybody to kind of slow down, remember themselves, love themselves, be kind to themselves and remember that life is joyful. We’re here, it’s a celebration, it’s supposed to be fun, everything can be sacred and the earth is so beautiful. We’re missing out on a lot of stuff and I’m helping people to try to remember that.

0:05:05 – Kimberly King

Very nice Again, so relevant in helping people to try to remember that. Very nice Again, so relevant in this day and age and this timing. Well, thank you.

0:05:12 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

Well, yeah, I mean I agree with everything that Dr. Blackwell just said. You know, I think in our culture today, children are watching their parents and their parents are not able to self-regulate their emotions. Which is a huge part of resiliency is being able to regulate your emotions. And so then we expect our four-year-old to be able to regulate their emotions. But we can’t regulate our emotions. You know, they see dad yelling at the TV because the politician they don’t like is on there, and you know they’re just not controlling that. And so I think you know those classes that Dr. Blackwell is teaching are just so important.

My background has been in research is with at-risk children and program evaluation, and in fact I did one of the first research program evaluations of an equine facilitated learning program with at-risk children. And you can’t go off on a horse, you have to control your emotions around animals, particularly one that is as large as a horse and that can be a tool for these kids as well. But, yeah, looking at, you know, pre and post testing of these programs, intervention programs from these kids that come from homes that are maybe chaotic, maybe poverty stricken, maybe, you know, very broken, maybe there’s a parent that is incarcerated or on drugs and they live with a different relative or they’re in foster care and so they’re not getting these skills taught to them very well.

And then, of course, you know you add in that social media component and all of that. Yeah, we may have a problem in the future. We can’t teach some of these skills to these kids.

0:07:14 – Kimberly King

Yep, I totally agree. I also think it’s about critical thinking, which seems to be missing these days, and being able to do the research on our own and looking where to find all of that. So I think it’s fascinating what you both are doing. Today, we’re talking about parenting and raising resilient kids, and so I want to start with you, Dr. MacDonald. What is resiliency?

0:07:37 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

Well, resiliency in a broad term is the ability to adapt to and recover from challenges, setbacks, stress, adversity. In other words, it’s the ability to maintain mental and emotional strength in the face of difficulties.

0:07:54 – Kimberly King

Okay, what about- Can a child be taught resiliency?

0:08:02 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

Sort of. So you know, children aren’t necessarily born with resiliency, but they can have some innate traits that could lead to more resiliency. Let’s say they have an easy temperament, they, you know, kind of have a go with the flow type of personality and they’re very optimistic and adaptable, and things like empathy and humor can lead to more resiliency. And so, you know, we can teach kids some of those skills that can help them with that. It could be emotional regulation, problem solving skills, providing them with social support, having a positive outlook, helping them to see the positive things that are happening around them. We can teach these skills, but we have to make sure that they’re developmentally appropriate. So you know, like I said with the four-year-old, like you can’t expect a two-year-old to be able to regulate her emotions the same way that a 12-year-old can, and so developmentally appropriate expectations are absolutely key when trying to help our children develop resiliency.

0:09:12 – Kimberly King

And that’s a good point. Sometimes just that reminder that this is temporary. You know, this is a season we’re going through or whatever. You know it sounds so elementary but really, you know, I tell my kids, my kids are in their early 20s, and sometimes I’m like it’s a little season we’re going through. So how can we help our kids with difficult or challenging situations in a way that fosters resiliency?

0:09:38 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

Well, one thing we can do is to create a safe environment so that they can explore things, they can feel safe. They can have mistakes, they can make mistakes and not be punished for making those mistakes. They should be able to take risks. A good thing we can do is to provide natural consequences instead of punishments, instead of forcing our will onto a kid. You know, an example is you keep reminding your child to put his bicycle in the garage or it might get stolen, and you keep going by and you do it for him. Well, if you leave it there and it gets stolen, no more bicycle. Like now he’s going to remember to put his stuff away, right. Or you know, you have a four-year-old daughter and she doesn’t want to wear a coat and it’s cold outside. Well, if you let her go outside without the coat instead of like forcing it on this child, like holding them down and forcing their arms into the coat, which we’ve probably all been there, if you’re a parent you’re like no it’s cold, you can’t go out without this parka on.

You’re like no, it’s cold, you can’t go out without this parka on. But you know, let it be cold for a little while, you know, and then they’re like OK. An example from my own daughter, who’s now 21, when she was like six, she was messing around on a swing and she fell and she hit her head and she hurt herself and she was crying and I was like you see, this is why I tell you not to goof around on the swing set. It’s not because I don’t want you to have fun, it’s because I don’t want you to get hurt and I could see something click in there. It’s like, oh, you know, she previously thought I was just this no fun person who doesn’t want her to do anything fun, and now realizing that, oh, there is a reason to this. So I think another thing to do is to praise effort instead of accomplishments.

So saying something like I’m so proud of how hard you worked on your science project, instead of saying oh, I’m so proud, you got an A on your science project, no, it’s how hard you worked. Even if they got a C on it, you’re proud of how hard they worked on that science project.

0:11:52 – Kimberly King

I love that. That’s true. And you said something earlier which I love was and that’s just cutting it with humor I think we’re not laughing enough these days or we just need to just lighten up a little bit. These days, you know, or we just we just need to just lighten up a little bit. So I like that. Are there particular parenting styles that help encourage resiliency or mental toughness?

0:12:08 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

Well, if you’re familiar with parenting styles, there is a parenting style called authoritative parenting and it’s kind of the parenting style that where you’re really warm and supportive for your child but you have clear expectations, so there’s no surprises, you know, they know what’s expected of them, you’re warm and supportive, and that really can help a child to develop resilience. Promote age-appropriate independence is very important. You know, don’t try to. You know, I know we get in a hurry and we’re like, let me just tie your shoe for you and get you out of the house.

Like, let them struggle with tying their shoe, let them feel that accomplishment, let them, you know, discover that if they stick with something, they can solve it. That leads to high self-efficacy. And self-efficacy is, you know, the, the ability to persist when you’re faced with a challenge, not to just give up, to have confidence that you can be successful in that, and the opposite of that is low self-efficacy. If you make a child feel worthless. No, you didn’t fold the towels correctly. Give me that I’m going to do it. You know, just go watch your cartoons and they can then develop like a learned helplessness or depression, you know again, not in a single instance. Like you know, if you’re having a bad day and you, you know you don’t let the child take three hours to tie their shoes, it’s not necessarily going to be a negative thing, but you know, overall you want to show them that they can do hard things, that they can solve those things on their own, you know again, age appropriate. Like we’re not expecting, you know, a five-year-old to be able to, you know, cook Thanksgiving dinner, we want them to do things that are appropriate for their developmental level.

0:14:05 – Kimberly King

And I think we all learn better when we give our own try at it, when we give it a hand. You know and see for ourselves. But no matter what age we are, I think what is this, Dr. Blackwell? Now, what are some things that interfere with parenting? For resiliency?

0:14:22 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Well, yeah, great. I first want to just say that, Dr. MacDonald, I just loved all of your answers and it’s hard to allow that, to let the child grow. So I want to just really compliment you for encouraging that, because I think that’s beautiful. That self-efficacy that they will hone is totally worth it. That little discomfort that you might feel.

I just heard of a new term fight, flight or fix. We’re always fixing something you know in somebody else, and so watching the struggle is okay for a little while. But the first thing I have here is that the thing interfering with parenting is parenting is hard. We keep forgetting that. This is like some kind of easy job. This is our life mission to raise these little people. They look like us, we love them most of the time, you know right, sometimes we’re irritated, overwhelmed, we’re triggered by them from our own childhood memories. It is so much, you know. And at the same time we have this hugely important job we’re doing. We’re like raising the self-esteem and the efficacy and then presenting this child to the world. It’s like it’s a lot, you know, and we want to do a good job. And we’re trying. So just he self-loving kind of thought is, you know, always kind of catch it when we’re being hard on ourselves, or when they see us being hard on us. They pick that up. So it’s really something. It’s like a two for one when the parent starts taking good care of themselves and treating themselves with more kindness and respect, because that is really what’s modeled out, and we think we’re fooling kids, you know, but their kids are very smart. Kids are here. They’re teaching us what’s going on right now, you know. So we’re really learning from them. So I want to just acknowledge that parenting is hard and we’re all, like, really at a place where I think we’re doing our best and just kind of, you know, acknowledge that and give us the grace.

And you know the other thing, I think it’s like the role, the job description, is a little unclear, like with most things. Like you were saying earlier, Kim, like you could, you know, say what is the perfect diet, and you know there’s 10 perfect diets. You should eat meat. You should never eat meat. You should eat only vegetables. You should never eat vegetables. I mean, there’s so much confusion and misinformation and it’s like, and you know, not all kids are the same, you know. So there’s not like a one size fits all really model and you really have to.

There’s a concept called attunement and that’s where we’re aware of our child’s needs, wants and feelings, and then we respond to them kind of appropriately. And we are not often attuned with our own needs, wants, and desires, and so it’s hard to think about how to provide that for another person when we’re not taking the time to kind of be ourselves and be with ourselves. So these things are all very important. And the other thing is, you know, we want to communicate our love to them and it’s like I said, they can kind of read between the lines. So we have to be aware also of our facial expressions and some kids are sensitive and that’s such a beautiful gift and we don’t want to minimize that or diminish that. We want to really acknowledge that sensitivity and then not be annoyed by it, like oh, I’m going to roll my eyes and it’s going to just really turn things around for them, but just really honor everybody’s uniqueness and the special gifts. The special gifts, our soul gifts are, you know, what makes us contribute to the world in a special way with our divine spark. So recognizing that in yourself and then helping your child recognize those beautiful things in themselves and then really kind of nourishing and cherishing that and again, the whole love, love for it.

And I always want to say we want to use unconditional love in our parenting, so it’s parenting without conditions, like it doesn’t matter if you get an A or if you were bad or if you did this, like there is nothing you could do to even get more of my love, like it’s unconditional. And the word love actually does mean that- unconditional, without strings, without conditions. So some of the time, when we’re engaged in relationships and behaviors with others and we think it’s love, you know, but there are conditions and like fixing and strings attached, you know that’s not really love, you know. So we want to get really honest and truthful about our love for ourselves and our capacity to love this other human. And sometimes it’s easier to say to the person, the adult, like you know, this will be really helpful for your child if you start loving yourself more, because they’ll really pick this up.

So I think that’s kind of interfering and what we were saying too, like about the it’s not a one size fits all in the job description. You know, the child has their own soul journey going on here and we are like along with them on this journey and we’re not really molding them into like a mini version of us. I hear that- like he’s a mini me or, oh, my friend- you know, there’s like there’s like so many ways to go about it that are helpful, and helpful in developing self-esteem and resiliency. And there are some that you know, aren’t really respectful of their particular soul journey and you know, again, we can understand this because as children we were not really offered that. I really don’t think so. You know, no one really had a good handle on that.

So, as now we’re as adults and dealing with our past and everything we’re recognizing, we have this soul journey, we are trying not to be too judgmental and we’re offering ourselves loving kindness and we’re offering comfort to our kids now and validating them and seeing them and holding space for them. So these beautiful gifts we’re offering for them, we’re offering for ourselves and it’s like a beautiful- If you had a challenging time growing up or your parents weren’t there for you, or, oh my gosh, so many things could be happening. You know, this is a beautiful opportunity to kind of like rewrite that story and heal the wounds from a place where you’re now learning to relate to your kids with goodness and integrity and teaching them, you know, forgiveness, respect for themselves, compassion, self-compassion, and instead of fighting with others, blessing others. I mean we can all pick up on some new kind of pearls of wisdom that are, you know, really adaptive and relationship promoting, and then share that.

0:21:30 – Kimberly King

So when- Yeah, that’s, there are a lot of ways I guess that can interfere with parenting for resiliency. But how can parents cultivate their own resiliency? You talked a little bit about that, with forgiveness, I think, and just rewriting that script.

0:21:46 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Yeah, I kind of merged those, but yeah, so if you are getting triggered while you’re watching your kids or you know you have some unprocessed self-criticism, there’s this thing called our inner voice, right, and we have either an inner critic or like an inner friend. So that voice that we’re speaking to ourselves with is like very important. And when we’re encouraging ourselves as adults and being kind to ourselves with like, oh not everybody does get it perfect, and if we teach our children that, that is a huge gift to them. So I think, being conscious and aware of what’s going on with you, and when you’re triggered, that’s an opportunity to like not run away from something but to say, hey, why am I upset about this? So anytime you can drop back into your body, your consciousness, and be self-aware and say what’s going on here? Am I using my, my harsh inner critic here? What is this about? And you know it might hearken back to like beliefs of unworthiness. I think we all have that, especially parents, where I’m thinking we’re not doing enough for the kids. But when we talk to kids, they have that same unworthiness. It’s like we’re just- It’s like a vicious circle, you know. So everybody’s unworthy and it needs to stop.

And I think the place where we can is with the adult, cultivating their resiliency, feeling worthy, watching their self-talk, noticing, catching their thoughts. I just also read- thoughts, we have 60,000 thoughts in a day and 75% are negative. So we’re thinking about these things, about ourselves, about others, and then this is what’s happening, you know, and then we’re projecting that onto the kids. So getting yourself kind of in a good space: forgiveness, compassion. The self-awareness is huge and just, it allows you to make a different choice that’s more caretaking and loving towards yourself and kind to yourself. And that’s these little moments. It’s like not a self-love, it’s not a noun you have self-love or you don’t. It’s like a verb, it’s like a path, it’s a journey. And it’s you being aware and conscious most of the time and catching it when you’re not doing those things, and then making the change for yourself, you and then taking good care of yourself.

0:24:19 – Kimberly King

When you were just describing that, did you all see the movie Inside Out, the Disney movie?

0:24:29 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Oh, yes- yeah.

0:24:31 – Kimberly King

It was such a clear, you know, especially for kids, all ages I think. But it really showcased, you know, when you said about the negative emotions and how that percentage, which is sad, but when you show it up on the screen as these, these little emojis or whatever, these emotions I think it was well written, you know, for the times that we’re living in, I think.

0:24:56 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

That’s such a good point and you’re so right. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if that was the media you know for like everything was about helpful things, you know, instead of instead of harmful things. I love that.

And then the other thing is that there’s called the law of energy. We have these four bodies. We have our physical body, emotional body, mental body and spiritual body and around that is like our aura and it’s magnetic. And this is, this is all of our energy, and this is all of our energy. And if you are having negative thoughts and combining that with negative motions, we’re like echoing that out into our field and our field is magnetic.

And so why it’s so hard to change our thoughts and break out of this is because that’s where this little bubble is vibrating at and that is echoing out and that same thing is coming right back to us. And I’ll think about that as, like, how many people are doing that? Right, if the most of the thoughts are this, so everybody is in their little bubble and they’re kind of echoing out this harshness and this negativity. I mean it’s a problem. So if we start training ourselves and then passing that on to the kids about positive ideas and optimism and hope and love, then we start expressing that with our bodies and in our org field and then that energy is sent out for, you know, us and our families, our homes, our communities and literally the world. That’s. That’s really how we changed the world. I’m sure of it.

0:26:35 – Kimberly King

One step at a time. And so how does self-love and consciousness or conscious parenting fit in then?

0:26:41 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Yeah, so I think they go very much hand in hand, and it’s because a lot of the time we’re not conscious, you know, and being conscious means being in the present moment, and so we’re in the present moment. When we’re right here right now, connecting, relating. When we’re on our screens, we’re not probably conscious, you know. When we’re worrying about the future or thinking about the past, we are not conscious. We are not aware of what’s going on in the present moment, able to get sensory and feeling type of information, and so when that happens, our subconscious mind takes over, and the research is that we are functioning via our subconscious mind about, I don’t know. Can you guess how much during the day?

0:27:34 – Kimberly King

I’m kind of afraid to ask how much. What is that?

0:27:37 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

It’s 95%. It’s 95%.

0:27:41 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

We are running on autopilot and things like breathing and digestion. Of course, yes, our beautiful bodies are doing that on autopilot and like things like breathing and digestion. Of course, yes, our beautiful bodies are doing that on autopilot, but we need to get back into our bodies and our experience so we can, like, live this life, you know, and the beautiful thing about self-love being the path in, in catching yourself when you’re not and noticing it and making a conscious choice to change that, is we-and it’s like a mission and a job like you really have to spend a lot of time like listening for a negative thought or your inner voice and then teaching your child to do that and really kind of like, what is my child wearing today? Do we remember? What was the meal you put in their lunch? You know, we’re doing a lot of these things on autopilot and we’re missing out on a lot of stuff and a lot of opportunities to help ourselves and them.

So with the conscious parenting, that’s a practice where we’re mindful. We’re mindful in our parenting, with self-awareness and respecting the child’s own soul journey, and we get to reflect about our childhood experiences in the process. There’s a great book, Conscious Parenting that you know everybody should read, and I think, though, that you wouldn’t read that book if you weren’t loving yourself and feeling like you deserved that, that to come from that place, and you’re aware that you deserve to have your needs, wants, and desires kind of met. You know, to get to the place where you want to parent consciously, you have to kind of raise your own vibration and lift up and with the self-love, so being on the path and consciously choosing your self-care and kindness for yourself in the moment is really the way a lot of things are going to improve, and it is like one person at a time, it’s literally that.

0:29:43 – Kimberly King

How important is internal versus external validation for our children?

0:29:49 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Okay, I’m so glad you asked that and this is very, very important right now.

It wasn’t such a big deal when we were growing up, the adults now, but right now, in our era of social media and the far reaches of the internet, it is huge. So internal validation is the process of confirming, like your own beliefs, actions and feelings and feeling good about ourselves based on our personal assessments. And external validation, I’m sure you can guess, is not that. It’s defining ourselves by the outside, by the people. You are running around 95% unconscious, all the time, right, and so there is a need for approval and recognition from others to feel worthy or valuable. And you know, we just really can’t trust the others to do that for us. And with social media it’s like purposefully, it’s not only unconscious, it’s like unkind, you know, kind of on purpose, and so we need to help ourselves understand that because I mean, we’ll post something and don’t you think like you love this picture and there’s no likes. I mean, as adults we’re thinking, oh my gosh, was that the right picture? And we’re kind of like, wait for the feedback, yeah, the feedback.

And then we, we got it, now we feel kind of relieved, like, oh OK, it was good, it was good. So we’re doing that. And you know, I just want to say that it is definitely OK to enjoy compliments and seek advice from others, and it’s a human need to belong and fit in. And you know, being lonely is worse than smoking cigarettes, like, of course, of course. But I guess what I’m saying is there’s a big key in finding balance here and, like all of the things I think we’re talking about, because we don’t want to be dependent on external validation for our self-worth, and our children must be taught this, especially as, as we’re doing it, you know, modeling that, especially with social media, and especially like explicitly teaching them about that, because kids are egocentric to begin with and they think everything is about them anyway. So they’re constantly out in the world like magic making. Like this person got sick, it was best. It was probably because I touched them and I was sick three weeks ago, you know, and they again, they know when we’re lying or hiding their feelings and this is all-

This is so much going on for a young person. I mean, isn’t it? It’s like so much. So when, if we can just teach our kids a little bit about the projections that other people are putting onto them, not taking things personally and really this, cultivating your relationship with your own self, where you provide your internal validation, your positive, loving self voice, and you know we can also share contextual information, teaching kids like, consider the source, this kid’s mean to everybody. You know we can’t, we can’t, we don’t have to agree, we don’t even have to take in all the people, all the things that people are saying to us, like that’s, that’s just their opinion. And, um, sometimes there might be valuable feedback and it’s usually not from peers, though, so we should point that out. And then, um, but consider if there is some helpful information, you know, maybe, but most of the time those external validations can be like, you know, let go, take it back to the store, like, give them a little visualization.

0:33:21 – Kimberly King

I love that. You said consider the source. My mom used to say that and it kind of disarmed me when she said that I’d be like you know what? That’s a really good point, so thank you, so I love that you said that out loud, because it does make you think about it for a minute.

0:33:34 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Yes, yes. And then teach appropriate responses, like, if someone is mean, how do we handle that? And we children also think, you know, we’re teaching them to be nice, nice, nice, nice. And so when they’re nice, even when someone’s mean to them, a lot of kids like that’s very confusing too, isn’t it? So we can talk about how we don’t have to take abuse, we don’t have to take unkindnesses. We have these boundaries and you know, we don’t have to respond back with a fight or yelling at them. But we can choose, you know, again, our own internal kind of validation and that relationship with ourselves in that moment.

And as we’re all needing much less screen time and you know we can model that too. We’ll say, hey, let’s both get off our computer now and let’s go do something else right now. And more fun, you know, because it’s- I don’t know. I had to stop social media a while ago because it wasn’t fun, you know. I don’t know what the point of it actually is, if it’s not fun, I don’t know what we’re doing it for. But anyway, we can offer up like go outside, anything in nature, family game, talking, journaling, anything creative- art, music, I mean. Those are such a better use of time, especially if it’s not fun on social media. So maybe help the kids see the relationship with that too. It’s almost like a compulsion, and they have to do it, you know, so we can encourage them to again, internal things and validation- what would you find fun right now if the social media isn’t fun or if you’re not having fun there?

0:35:13 – Kimberly King

Yeah, or go bowling or do something fun where you don’t have to take that video and post it right away. You know it’s okay to wait a second and you know show it afterward.

0:35:23 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Right. Well, you could do a lot of modeling and role playing here now, like, say you’re out and you had this, you had a great bowling, or you know something. You take a picture and say you know, I would, I feel like posting this, but you know what I’m just going to like send it to you guys so we can have this, be private, like between us, and just kind of share this moment and just kind of be with it.

We don’t have to share every single thing, you know, and just kind of start showing them these healthier choices, more loving choices.

0:35:55 – Kimberly King

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.

0:35:57 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

I did jump on something that Jill said about the individual differences with children and like carrying the external validation and internal validation. So I have two daughters, one’s 21 now and the other one is almost 23 and the older one if she doesn’t like someone, she doesn’t care if they like her, I mean like she literally just does not care. I don’t like them either. My younger one no, she’ll be going on and on about, when they were younger. Now, well, she probably still does that now but when she was younger especially. So-and-so doesn’t like me. So-and-so doesn’t like me. Well, you don’t like her either. Oh yeah, but I still want her to like me.

And there was this sort of a more natural resiliency and social situations with my older daughter and my younger daughter. Now, you know, I’m sure there was some slight differences in parenting and maybe even some bigger differences in parenting between the two. You know, sometimes kids can elicit reactions from you and my younger daughter has ADHD and a little bit neurodivergent and the older one, you know, isn’t. So there’s some differences there, but just the differences in sort of what I’d see as this natural resiliency there, but just the differences in sort of what I’d see as this natural resiliency there.

And then, you know, at one point my older daughter was like trying to teach her younger sister how to be more resilient. She wasn’t calling it resiliency, but she was trying to teach her like, don’t care what this person thinks, if they’re being mean to you, go sit with some other friends at lunch, go to the study hall, just stay away from them, let them have their drama. And then, you know, you do your own thing. I don’t know how effective it was, but the you know there’s just a lot of individual differences with kids. And so you know, when we’re trying to be these perfect parents and do these right things. You know, something’s going to work with one kid that’s not going to work with another kid, or resonate with one kid that’s not going to resonate with another kid.

0:38:02 – Kimberly King

And that’s a good point too. I mean, we are two parents that grew up differently and so of course you know we all could be from the same family but completely different. With our children, our siblings, same thing, so it’s good to see those. I love that your older daughter was trying to help your younger daughter. That’s a good thing. What about, I guess to recap, what are some concrete ways parents can foster resiliency in their children, starting today? And you can both answer.

0:38:34 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

All right, Maybe I’ll start I. I think that the recap is, I think for me it’s helping kids love themselves and process their experiences, providing context in the tough times and just like an overall conveyance of your just unconditional love for them. They just couldn’t even have any more of your love, like no matter what- that is there. That is this relationship. It is a loving, approving, accepting. Now some of your behaviors, some of your individual differences, some of your choices, you know, you’re going to need a little guidance there. So I mean, for me it’s combining the love, love, love with the truth and putting those two together in a beautiful balance. And the truths are about, you know, not if you did, just too much truths, you know, without the love, then your kid grows up to be shamed and maybe, like you know, have a deficit, like in that way, and if you like are just too much empathy and loving and no guidance, no truths, then there’s like a term, grandiosity that we don’t want that either. You know, we want to kind of be at a balance of both right, and so that’s what I’m really going for here.

And now, my first thing I thought of. What is the activity? It’s grounding, grounding the kids, grounding the adults, grounding you, me, everyone. You see, and grounding is getting in the body, now, here. When you’re grounded and you’re conscious- we talked about that- and you’re present, it’s actually you, looking outside your eyes. Then the choices you’re making are much more adaptive for your personal self and for your relationships and we have a much greater capacity to be loving and kind to ourselves and others. So, getting grounded and a great way to get grounded is to go outside, to be on the earth, to walk with your shoes off, to sit down on the earth, to put your hands on the earth and kids love nature, so they- if whenever I say I have a 26 year old son, I say, hey, do you want to go for a walk outside?

He could be in the middle of anything and he will always say yes to that. He could be in the middle of anything and he will always say yes to that. And he’s old and he’s like, still ready to do something like that. So that’s beautiful and um, there’s something if you have a pain in one part of your body, you know you can put that part of your body on the mother earth and like say, take this pain. Or you could lay on the earth and you know you feel your heartbeat with the in the earth and that those are like hugely grounding and it’s really hard to be distracted, worried or tense when something like that is happening. So go out with them.

Hugging yourself is also very grounding. So you could put your right hand, like in a crisscross, touching your shoulders, and then you could like switch arms hand, like in a crisscross, touching your shoulders, and then you could like switch arms and put the other one on top or on the bottom. So that’s good for younger kids. Younger kids also can ground by- there’s a five, four, three, two, one naming thing, sensory activity. So right, being mindful is getting in their senses and getting back into their consciousness. So name five things you see. Good, good, I love that. Name four things you smell. Oh, wow, that’s amazing. Name three things that you’re hearing right now. You know. So you engage their senses and just anything in their immediate environment.

Another thing with younger kids to ground them is where you trace their hand on a piece of paper and you know, you make a little turkey hand. Have you guys done that? Yeah, and then they could say put their name in it, or you could, or they could write a little thing like I am, so that’s an affirmation. Anything with I am after it is an affirmation, and we always want those to be like present and positive, like I am joyful, I am present, you know something along those lines.

And then breathing activities are another great way for relaxation and for grounding and there’s two ways of doing that. You could do passive breathing for yourself or the kid and you could say just notice your breath and just stepping back into yourself for a moment and noticing how you’re breathing in and then how you’re breathing out is grounding. Or you could do an active breathing activation, it’s like just an activity and say, okay, let’s breathe in for four seconds. Say okay, let’s breathe in for four seconds, hold our breath for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds. So these immediately engage your parasympathetic nervous system response. They get you back in your body and conscious and relaxed, and that’s just my go-to for sure.

0:43:35 – Kimberly King

That’s amazing. I love those and I was thinking- touch grass. I always hear that now, you know, get outside and touch grass and I think that’s an important thing to just, you know, connect with nature and put our screen time down.

0:43:49 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Yes, yes, replacing that for that would make such a huge difference in our and our children’s lives. Yeah, we should start this week, yeah.

0:43:51 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

I was thinking too of like just some concrete things that you can do for your kids is like enroll them in sports and activities, because that’s going to build resilience, that’s going to give them experiences of actual earned accomplishments that they, you know, go out there and defeat and disappointment, and learning to handle adversity and disappointment when you lose the big soccer game. It’s going to set you up to handling it later on in life and it also can help with if you win the big soccer game can help with some of that. You know some of those things that Jill was talking about making kids feel really good about themselves and accomplished and that they can do hard things.

You know the research on risk-taking behaviors, so adolescents engage in risk-taking behaviors. They just do it is a natural developmental stage that they go through and if they have opportunities to engage in safe risk-taking, like in sports, in debate club, they don’t have the need to then go out and do the more dangerous risk taking like drinking or drinking and driving, doing drugs, engaging in sexual activities way before they’re emotionally or developmentally ready to do any of those things. You know, if you provide chances for them, to test those boundaries, to do things and see what happens, where the results aren’t cataclysmic, which they could be in the case of drinking drugs, sex, and things like that at a young age. You know, that provides them with that sort of a feedback loop. Right, here’s this really big disappointment, but it’s not life-ending. It’s a disappointment in that, okay, we didn’t get to go to the state championships, or, oh well, I made it to the end of the chess tournament, but then I lost to a kid who was better than me. So now I need to go back and get better, you know, and work harder, and it can just make that resiliency a lot easier to develop when they’re provided with those opportunities.

0:46:20 – Kimberly King

No, and that’s good too. It’s just really keeping it real and knowing that is not the end of the world. You know it’s not, it’s life, it’s going to go on and you just try it again. So, yeah, there are, I think, public speaking or, like you said, debate club. I think that that’s always usually somebody’s biggest fear, right that or going to the dentist.

0:46:38 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Right.

0:46:39 – Kimberly King

But if we start them while they’re young and learn those skills and get them out and get all the butterflies out and everything, those are great skills to have. Well, thank you so much. This has been so interesting. We appreciate you joining us today, both of you, and if you want more information, you can visit National University’s website at nu.edu. And thank you again, both of you, for your time today.

0:47:05 – Doctor Jill Blackwell

Oh, thank you. It was so fun to be here and, Dr. MacDonald, I loved what you said at the end, especially for the older kids, that’s fantastic. We need to think about them too, for sure.

0:47:08 – Doctor Pam MacDonald

Yeah.

0:47:16 – Kimberly King

Excellent, Both of you great information. Thank you. You’ve been listening to the National University Podcast. For updates on future or past guests, visit us at nu.edu. You can also follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.