- I'm looking at the BFFs and I see a bunch
of women in there, and some wonderful gentlemen as well.
And that's right guys.
And in the mood board of life,
which I do call this show.
I try to make it a mood board.
I'm gonna switch gears and talk about
something very personal to me.
Several months ago, I found myself looking
to change how I reacted to my daughter
when she would, I would try to get her to do something.
And she would say something really hurtful back.
And it gutted me, and I wanted to stop the cycle.
Break the cycle, if you will.
And I thought, "What can we say to ourselves
to combat that hurt, like redirect, de-escalate,
get into the solve in a meaningful and healthy way?"
So of course, I turned to expert parenting
psychologist and friend of the show, Dr. Aliza Pressman.
And one of her videos, that's actually on our website,
was an ah ha moment for me.
And so we thought we would talk about this on the show.
Aliza, are you there?
- I'm here.
Hi! - Hello!
How are you?
- Doing well.
- Okay, let's get right into it.
Of course, I wanna sidebar and be like, "How's it going?"
Why do so many people struggle with the communication
when things get really tense,
and feel straight-up mean with your own children?
- Well, no one likes to be told nasty things.
So no matter what, when someone says something like,
"I hate you," and they're not your child, it's terrifying.
You know, it just sends you into a tailspin.
But when it's someone that you're raising,
you start to take it really personally,
in a different kind of way.
Because what happens is, our brains go
into, "I'm under attack."
So you go into that, that alarm bells go off.
I'm being chased by a bear.
Like, that's a primitive feeling.
And so, and automatically, when you feel under attack,
your body goes into fight, flight, or freeze.
That's how we respond.
And so we wanna attack back,
or we just shut down, or we run away.
- Yes, exactly! - Right.
- That's exactly-- - But you have
to keep that down. - Okay, so our response,
does it affect the situation?
- Yes, because if you think you're being attacked,
and you go into your stress brain.
Your attack, you know, the bear is chasing me brain,
all of the resources that you have
to think clearly have to go into, "I've gotta
get away from the bear!"
And that's what happening.
So you can't be the kind of parent that's showing your kid
how to self-regulate because you don't have capacity
to get yourself to self-regulate.
So they borrow our kind of emotions,
and they borrow our responses.
So if we come at them when they're coming at us,
it becomes a fight.
If when they go into their threat state,
which is what's basically happening.
Like, Olive doesn't hate you.
Her feelings are so big, that that's what
comes out of her mouth.
She's just sending a message.
So we have to think: What is the message,
what's the emotion under the behavior?
That's our job, and our other job
is to show our kids that no matter what,
we can handle their big feelings.
We might not like their behavior,
but their feelings are totally acceptable.
- I mean, when I saw this video of yours
that talked about how to stop yourself,
and sort of get out of that fight, flight, freeze.
Because that is, it's like a knife
going through your heart when
you hear your children saying that.
You wonder if it's true, you wonder if you failed
as a parent raising them a certain way.
It's so big and catastrophic,
and what our talks did was I just stopped
making it such a big deal.
I started changing my own reactions.
Which did de-escalate the situation.
When I would walk out dejected,
my child knew, Olive knew that she had the upper-hand.
She was accomplishing exactly what she wanted to.
And I didn't feel good.
Nothing was being accomplished.
And when I started changing my reactions,
now when she says, "I hate you,"
I'm like (laughs) "Yeah, okay."
And I actually feel that way.
But it took me a while, there was a transition period.
But it's like that Don Miguel Ruiz book,
"The Four Agreements: Don't take it Personally."
Which is such a powerful thing, hard to practice,
but very, very, very crucial.
I mean, you, it's like we as parents think:
What do we need to do to our kids,
for our kids in that moment?
And for me, you helped me empower myself
to realize that my reaction
is going to start the ball rolling.
And you talked about how it, actually,
in that moment, shows them how to cope,
handle a situation as well.
You're not only de-escalating,
but you're imprinting good behavior?
- And you're imprinting self-regulation.
Like what you said, you know, we spend so much time
focused on: Will my, like what can I do
to make it so that my child doesn't
do this anymore or behaves better?
But what you're teaching them in that moment is,
when someone is attacking you,
when something goes wrong,
when someone's having a difficult feeling.
I take care of myself first.
So right now, I'm putting my hand on my heart,
and you know, you take a deep breath.
(Aliza takes deep breath)
Because that's regulates you.
And if you all do that now,
like you just can't help it.
You give yourself a little bit of a hug
and feel a little calmer to respond.
So that when your children watch that,
they now know, "Oh, there's a point,
I'm not there yet, but there's a point
when someone does something that upsets me,
I don't have to go into attack mode.
I can think about: What do I want to accomplish here?"
Hey, sometimes you might want to attack back.
There may be a time when that's appropriate.
But you don't do it because you weren't thinking clearly.
You take a breath, and then you decide.
And then you're in control of your own emotions.
And that's what our kids are learning by watching us.
- Yup, you're not going straight to hurt.
You're imprinting good behavior.
Taking that deep breath has changed
so much for me and my chemistry.
And you have really helped me break years long cycle,
where the parent child dynamic was completely off.
And it is on track right now.
And I cannot thank you enough.
Please check out this video,
as well as others on or website
that Dr. Aliza takes us through.
The steps of parenting: There are no manuals,
but there are people out there like Aliza
who can truly reboot us and redirect us
in a very, very helpful, amazing way.
I'm telling you, my life is the proof of it.
So I've really turned things around
by talking to people smarter than me about these things.
So thank you, Dr. Aliza, I love you.
(upbeat music)