3 Reasons Self-Awareness is Crucial When Talking With Kids About Tragedy

In today's episode, Lindsay shares ideas and practices to help you bring self-awareness into your conversations. At the time of recording there are many parents having tough conversations this week as they explain world events. The goal with this episode is to help you process your feelings so that you can show up for your kids as they process their feelings.

Segment 1: Why is Self-Awareness Important

We explore the benefits of self-awareness and why it's worth taking the time to practice it.

Segment 2: Personal Self-Awareness

Lindsay shares insights around how to tune into your own feelings and reactions.

Segment 3: Holding Space for Kids' Emotions

By processing our own emotions, we can hold space for our kids. Lindsay shares a few examples of what that might look like. 

Segment 4: Connecting to humanity 

When we bring our awareness full-circle and using the energy from emotions to make a even just a small difference during challenging moments we can empower kids and provide them (and ourselves) with a sense of hope.

In Conclusion:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Stress Nanny podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate the podcast here, or review us on your favorite podcast platform. And don't forget to join us next time as we explore more ways families can teach kids to regulate emotions and build resilience.

Other episodes and resources mentioned in the show:
The Stress Nanny - Talking with Kids about Strategy
The Stress Nanny - The Thought River
IHC Tips for Talking with Kids
IHC Coping with Crisis in the Media

Lindsay Miller is a kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and  host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks  and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using  her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification  to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having  been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications,  Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression  wherever she goes. To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here. 

Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not playing catch with her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes. To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.

Transcript

0:18

Welcome to the Stress nanny podcast. I'm your host Lindsay Miller. And I'm so glad that you're here today. And I'm grateful that you're a part of our podcast community. This has been an interesting week when it comes to parenting and navigating world events. I know our listener community includes people from all over the world. So my hope is that this episode lands in a way that offers you support from wherever you are listening. Today's a solo episode and we're going to be talking about why self-awareness is crucial. When talking with kids about tragedy. Some of us are going to be talking to kids about tragedy happening right before our eyes. And others of us will be talking about tragedy that is reverberating from across the ocean. No matter where we find ourselves in this moment or in future moments, when really hard conversations need to happen, having awareness will enhance the quality of our conversations with kids. And here's why. When we're, self-aware, we're taking into account several different things. We're noticing our own reaction and response. We're attuned to the reaction response of the person in front of us. And we're putting all of these into a bigger context. While, this takes place. It allows us to be fully present and connect with our child or with our children. So that they feel really seen and heard in whatever moments we find ourselves in. Today, we're going to explore each of those elements within the context of talking with kids about tragedy. Well, I have several other episodes which I'll link to in the show notes about talking with kids about tragedy. In the time that I've been recording this. This last couple of weeks events have been particularly challenging to process. Acknowledging that I am processing them from a distance. And we have listeners who are living them real time. I want to encourage anyone who feels the need for support for themselves or their children to access it. As you are able, my words today are meant to support you in daily moments. And there are so many skilled therapists out there to support traumatized children and their families. The reason I want to focus on self-awareness as a key component of hard conversations, is that no matter who you are or where you are. You likely felt a lot of things this week. The people around, you likely felt a lot of things this week and the world at large is processing hard conversations this week. If we try to plow through, without noticing our reactions, it's likely going to be challenging. If we can, to the extent that we're able process our feelings, show up fully for our little people. Hold space for them and do all of this within the larger context of the world, they will feel a sense of support. How can we do this? I have three suggestions. I'm going to summarize each suggestion and then go into them in more detail. The first suggestion is noticing and honoring your own reactions. Because if you don't, you will likely confuse your children. The second is without judging the emotions of your child, hold space for them to tell you how recent events made them feel. And the third one is remember that you are not alone. The world is collectively reeling. And while hard things take time to work through focusing on the helpers and finding ways to be a helper can give us a sense of hope. When we keep these three things in mind, we can weather the conversations. Let's discuss each in greater detail. Because I have trouble being concise. My weekly coaching clients will definitely confirm this to you from the email updates I send them that sometimes resemble novels. Each of these suggestions has two components. So let's go to the first one notice and honor your own reactions, because if you don't, you will likely confuse your children. Notice and honor your reactions. That's the first part of this one. This is important because if you don't accept your feelings, you're going to have a really hard time accepting your child's feelings. What we are unable to accept in ourselves is extremely hard for us to accept in others. I'm going to repeat that. What we are unable to accept in ourselves is really hard for us to accept in others. You may be saying to yourself, I don't know why I feel this way. This didn't happen to me, or I don't have anything to be afraid of, or I don't know how I'll ever get through this. And whatever you are feeling right now is valid. I repeat, whatever you are feeling right now is valid. Take a few minutes right now, feel free to pause the podcast. If you need to I'll hold space for you from across the airwaves. Take a few deep breaths and notice how your body feels. Allow yourself to feel any emotion that is surfacing. If tears come let tears come. If anger comes, let anger come. If fear starts to creep in. Give it space. If grief arrives, allow her room. If you're not sure what you're feeling or you just feel numb. That's valid too. Just don't try to plow through your feelings to fine. I know all about this because I do it all the time. In addition to disconnecting from our own emotions when we just plow through and say that we're fine, even when we're not. The trouble is if we are clearly not fine and our child asks us what's wrong. And we tell them we are fine. They will be confused. I remember when someone taught this to me and it was such an aha moment. I thought it was my job as the mom to always be fine, but it actually is really helpful for children when we label our emotions for them, especially when they're noticing those emotions and guessing them correctly. It's confusing to them when we label everything as fine. We can tell them how we're feeling without making them feel responsible for our emotions by saying something like I'm feeling really sad right now. It's not your fault. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm taking good care of myself while I'm sad and I'll be okay. In addition to potentially confusing them in their efforts to read emotions, kids often think things are their fault, whatever it is, they make so many mistakes on a day to day basis that they just kind of assume if we're upset that they did something to cause it. So with that, as a default here they are the smallest people in the house. It can be really helpful for us to label the emotion and let them know that they're not responsible for it. So again, let's label the emotion, let them know they're not responsible and show them that we're taking good care of ourselves while we're feeling big things. Feel free to substitute any emotion for that sentence. Instead of sad, you could use worried, afraid, frustrated, angry. Again, when children are given accurate, developmentally appropriate information about emotions, they're witnessing, we avoid confusing them, we build their emotional intelligence, and we make sure they know that they're not to blame. Onto the second point without judging the emotions of our children, hold space for them to tell us how recent events make them feel. Let's break this one down too why would we judge our child's emotions? Often the answer is that we feel a level of discomfort with that emotion, or we feel really uncomfortable with the child's display of emotion. Or we haven't been taught to hold space for other people's emotions so any emotion in general just kind of scares us and makes us edgy. These are all really real reasons that we might not be okay with witnessing emotion from our child. Often taking a breath, taking a break or taking a moment to circle back to point, number one, noticing and honoring our own reactions. When we feel triggered by our kids. Those can be helpful ways to let judgment go so we can hold space for them to tell us how recent events make them feel. A common misnomer with this is that if we allow space for our kids to feel their feelings, their feelings will get bigger and bigger and more overwhelming. Actually the opposite is usually true. When we allow our children to express emotion, they can process the emotions. And they get better and better at it with practice. If we ignore their feelings, tell them to suck it up or not to feel a certain way. We increase their emotional baggage. And we leave them with more and more emotions, rocking through their little bodies with nowhere to go. When you help a child acknowledge and organize the emotion by holding space for them to communicate about it, you allow them to create a narrative around it, which then allows the brain to organize it and put it away. Think of it kind of like a cluttered room. If your child's emotions are not allowed. Then they just have emotions strewn all over the place. And with each passing day more and more emotions get added. And it's hard to do anything in that room because it's so full of clutter. Hard to walk in it hard to put anything away because you just feel so overwhelmed by, by the contents. Emotions can be like that in our brains and in our bodies. If we don't acknowledge and organize them, they can clutter our thoughts create bigger messes. And more and more emotions tend to accumulate. And when we process emotions as they come up, it's like tidying the room. We can keep things manageable, by regularly addressing. Emotions, sorting it out and giving us space. When we accept all of our kids' emotions, we help them keep a tidy mind and heart. And. It really just allows them to feel whatever they're feeling. One thing to note here is that our inability to sit with a big emotion can make it feel even bigger and scarier for kids. Kids can already be scared by big emotions if they get the message from us, that what they're feeling is so scary that even their most favorite adult can't sit with it, then it must be bad. If we want to keep connecting with our kids, we need to continually enhance our ability to hold space without judgment. My last suggestion is to remember that you are not alone. The world is collectively reeling and we'll hard things take time to work through, focusing on the helpers can give us a sense of hope. Sometimes when we're feeling big emotions, either in crisis or in witnessing crisis, it just feels completely overwhelming. And there are definitely times when we need to turn it off. If we can, if that's the place in the world that we occupy right now, where we can turn it off and take a break. If that's not the place in the world we occupy, then we do our best to go inward, take a deep breath and take a break. We might look around and see other people handling something better than us, or you may wonder why no one seems to notice the amount of suffering that you're currently facing. During times of tragedy, it's important to realize that everyone processes emotions in their own way. And while someone else's way might not look like yours. It doesn't mean they're not feeling something deeply. So giving ourselves the patience and space to sit with our feelings as they come up, realize we're not alone, no matter where we are or what we're doing can be supportive. When it comes to kids, we don't want to overwhelm them with the grief of the world if possible or minimize their feelings, but it can be helpful to them to know they're not the only ones experiencing something. We can point out that there are other people who feel similarly, we can also point them to the helpers. There's a Mr. Rogers quote that says"When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, look for the helpers. You will always find people helping." As we sit with kids in their feelings, normalize those feelings, and then help them direct their attention to the helpers, we accept them where they're at connect them to the larger human family and invite them to focus where they might feel a spark of hope. And then we can follow that up by being the helpers in whatever ways we can. We don't do this in an effort to fix or remove the emotion, but rather to use the energy from the emotion as a catalyst for goodness, hope and healing, wherever possible. Let's walk through these three concepts using an example to illustrate each point. I know that I'm uncomfortable when I feel fear. Thanks to self-awareness. I know that when I feel fear my stomach tightens, my shoulders tense, my jaw clenches, and I start grinding my teeth. And my mind starts racing through all kinds of what- if scenarios. I know that to navigate fear. I acknowledge it by noticing one of its symptoms. And then I ask myself what I'm feeling fear about and whether it's rational or irrational. If it's a rational fear, I explore ways I might take action to create more safety. If it's an irrational fear, meaning it's very unlikely to happen. I label it as irrational and I let it float down my thought river. I have an episode on the thought river and I'll link to that in the show notes, if you're not sure what I'm referring to. So in terms of processing recent events, I've needed to sit with fear more often. I also tend to wear my emotions on my face. So when my daughter notices, I look tense and asks if I'm okay my choices are to say, yeah, I'm fine or I can honor what she's picked up on and say,"I'm feeling some fear right now. I'm taking good care of myself and I'll be okay." If she asks why I'm afraid. I might say"There are places in the world experiencing a lot of chaos right now, and that means there are people experiencing a lot of chaos right now. And that feels scary to me. I'm focusing on ways I can help, but that means sitting with some fear. I'll be okay." I don't need to leave her stranded in my fear. So I let her know I've got it. While also acknowledging that she was correct in her assumption that I was feeling something really strongly. Carrying on that example for point number two, if she later tells me something that she's afraid of, I might notice my own aversion to fear coming up and try to change the subject or remind her she has nothing to be afraid of. That wouldn't serve her though. What I can do is listen while she tells me of the fears, notice and process my own responses while just holding space for her to share what she's afraid of. Often kids can let go of the fears or organize them once there's a safe space for them. We can choose to be that safe space when we have self-awareness. One of the strategies we use for feared at our house is something shared by my friend, Dr. Patty Hlava. In actually, what was the first episode of the Stress Nanny Podcast. As a therapist, she helps her clients work through fear until they get to a place where they feel safe. So asking things like what happens next? And then what would you do? And who will be there to help you then? Can help kids practice finding their way through big feelings, to a sense of safety, amidst worry. And then for the third point illustrated in this example, When carrying my own fear and holding space for my child's fear, I can also remind myself and her that there are a lot of people in the world right now who are filling a similar response to world events. While that realization alone doesn't fix anything, it does help us to connect to a greater sense of humanity. As part of that conversation, I might say it does feel so scary when things like this happen. There's so many people who feel the same way. Many of those people have used the energy from their fear to try to help. Usually when really awful things happen, if we look, we can find the helpers, what do you think we could do right now to offer help and support for people who need it the most? Before practicing self-awareness. I used to shove down those feelings of fear because I didn't like them. They were uncomfortable. So I'd make myself busy, ignore them and pretend that they'd just go away. The example that I just shared is one that I was able to have after years and years and years of practice. Because it used to be that if my daughter brought up fear she saw in me, I would have denied, felt embarrassed or too, proud to admit that I was feeling fear as an adult, and that would leave her confused and unsure of her ability to identify and connect with emotion. Later on. If she would have brought up her own fear, I wouldn't have recognized my aversion. I would have just tried to get rid of the emotion as quickly as possible. I might have even gotten really irritated or frustrated with her and asked her why she was even worrying about it, leaving her isolated with the emotion. And now responsible for managing the unnecessary irritation that I had just swung onto her because I didn't want to deal with the emotion. And because of my aversion, there would be no normalizing of the emotion, no greater connection and no ability to hold space for whatever she needed to sort through. In short, she wouldn't have had access to my 43 years of wisdom in a moment of need, because I didn't have the self-awareness I needed to take care of myself and I couldn't be present with her in what she was feeling. We have all had those moments. I'm not here to judge any of us, but big events can often trigger big reactions from adults and kids alike and I know we all want to show up for our kids the best that we can. The more we can practice self-awareness, understand ourselves, hold space for our kids and then seek to connect the more we can skillfully work with whatever emotions come up, even during trying times. I hope these tips and suggestions have been helpful and that they allow you to show up this week in the ways that you want to. I'll put links to the episodes I referenced as well as several other links that might be helpful in the show notes. I hope that you're able to take care of yourself this week in at least some small way no matter where you are. If this has been supportive for you feel free to share it with a friend And feel free to follow along for other ideas on how to navigate big emotions with kids. Until next time take good care of yourself i'm sending love and support your way. Thanks again for being here