Sian Morgan-Crossley On How To Heal From Emotionally Immature Parents

0:00Hello and welcome to Made by Mum as the podcast. I'm Zoe Hardman. And I'm Georgia Dayton. And this is your parenting safe space where no conversation is off limits. With five kids between G and I, we have seen a lot. We really have. Each week we'll be joined by some famous faces and experts and we'll chat about the brands and products that have saved us along the way. In short, we're the parenting podcast for you. Before we get started, hit subscribe or follow so you're the first to know when each episode lands. And they're on Tuesdays and Fridays. And it really helps if you leave a rating and a review.

0:32You can also find us on Instagram. We're on at Made by Mummies. But for now, George, should we get into it? It's nearly bloody half term again. I'm going back to Disney. Shut up. What? Yeah, Gigi is doing a dancing show in Disneyland Paris. I will be getting my Mickey ears out again. Please tell us that story. Oh my God. Okay, I'm going to just say it. Fine. I'm going to be a bitch. It's fine. No, you don't have to be bitchy about it. It's my personality now, apparently. Right. Okay. You're going to die when you hear this. I'm actually, I'm going to caveat this. I'm actually really looking forward to going with Gigi on my own.

1:18Yes. I am really looking forward to having four days with her and I. We've been like, do you know what? No, boys. if we want to have pancakes for breakfast, we will. If we don't want to have dinner, we just want to drink hot chocolate in bed, that's what we're going to do. We're really excited about that. We're excited to not have to eat three bloody meals a day with boys who are always like, ding, it's 12.30, I'm hungry. Come on, let's go and eat. And we have to stop our day. So I am actually really excited. And I'm excited to do the Disney bits with her that she wants to do, that she's excited to do.

1:54You know, all of the stuff that when we were in Florida, she necessarily couldn't do because she was younger than everyone else. Sure. I can give her my time. So there we go. A lovely caveat, that one. There's a positive, right? Right. We are going on a dancing trip and there is a dance group WhatsApp thing, which I don't speak in. I'm literally silent. I just look at it and think, okay, cool, great. One mum very kindly said that she would get Mickey ears made with all the kids' names on them. Oh, my gosh. and I was like oh that's really nice like that's really yes yeah like love some she then followed up with um I'll also do them for the adults but not with our names on them with dance mom

2:47now it's so good that is not a bit of me dance mom mom mom that is not me at all in any way shape or form so i just said i'm okay thanks on the group and i'm like that one i don't speak in ever okay i'm okay thanks for goodness sakes georgia you have to dress it up a bit better I know, but I'm okay, thanks. And now I feel really mean. And now I'm going to have to probably have double Mickey ears printed with a big sign in a banner saying, dance, mum. She's going to make you a T-shirt that says she's a cunt. Really mean. I know. Either that or I'm just going to wear a cap the whole time and not talk to anyone.

3:29With bunny ears, with Mickey ears on the top of it. Do you know what? It's so lovely that she would offer to do that. No, no, no, it is. It really is. But it is. Would you do it? 100 % not. I'm going to get you ears saying hockey mum. Hockey mum. Hockey mum. Listen. But soccer mum is okay, isn't it? You're not living in America. But why does I'm not okay? No, but that doesn't give me the ick so much. You know, like when I see someone go, oh, I'm a football mum. I don't feel icky about that. I have to wear bloody Mickey ears saying I'm a football mum. No, you don't. You don't have to walk around with him.

4:05You and I don't like anything that says, like, all those hoodies or T-shirts or cushions that say, like, fizzy Fridays or Mama's Out Out. Those sorts of things make me want to throw up. Hang on. Look at your phone case. Turn it over.

4:21What does it say? It's very deep, actually. It says, nothing changes if nothing changes. Yeah, it's live, laugh, love. It's not. It's leopard print. It's live, laugh. It's cringy. Oh, I really like my new phone case. I'm joking. No, you're not. You're absolutely right. I'm taking it off as we speak. No, do you know, George, you're going to have the best time with all your new dance mum friends. See, you're being mean now. I can't wait. I can't wait. And also, I love this Children's Mental Health Week. And we're literally like ripping the piss out of each other. All this week. How do we segue from taking the piss out of each other to Children's Mental Health Week?

5:02I mean, because it is important. Right. We're joking about everything here and saying it's icky and icky, dance mum, football mum is icky. But actually, this podcast has evolved since the days of feeding and sleeping and all of that kind of stuff. And I think for most of you who listen week in, week out, actually one of the most important things and topics that we cover is children's mental health. And it's the thing that we care about the most. Yeah. I mean, we talk about it constantly on the podcast, but also off the podcast. We're always probably too much worrying about how our kids are and if they're okay and how we can support them because times they're great and times they're not so great and we want to be there for all of it.

5:47So every day this week is Children's Mental Health Week. We wanted to get somebody on the podcast who was a real expert in this field to give us an insight into what is really going on. And also, you know what, we're all conditioned by previous trauma, whether it's a massive thing that happened that we absolutely know that's what it was, or whether it was by these tiny little micro traumas that have happened through our childhood and how we're consciously or unconsciously passing those on to our kids and how we can really stop that look at it address it and and and grow from it so today's conversation um actually today's guest was in malaysia when we recorded the podcast but she's just written a new book which is out at the end of this month um it was a great chat yeah it was and i think it was really interesting because she says that a lot of the stuff that she sees you know in her clinic and in her through her work are not the big things that have come out of childhood they're not you know huge tragedies that have happened car crashes you know whatever it's little micro things like you say so that happen every day you know sort of being told you know you're too loud or constantly yeah stop being silly stop being silly it's those little things and again like things that probably our parents were like weren't attuned to they didn't know that these small things would have an impact but you might be a parent now thinking gosh why do I feel like this or why am I scared not you know, to say this certain thing or upset someone or whatever it is.

7:16And I think listening to this, maybe it might help you kind of look at yourself and then how you're then going to parent your children in a different way. Yeah, it was a wonderful conversation. We cannot wait for you to hear it. Georgia, who are we talking to today? We're chatting to psychologist Sian Morgan-Crossley. Hello and welcome to Tuesday's episode of the podcast. A really brilliant conversation ahead for you, somebody who specializes in helping you recover from a childhood that may have looked fine but doesn't feel okay, in her own words. She is a psychotherapist. She is an author. Her book is coming out at the end of February.

7:52It's called How to Heal from Emotionally Immature Parenting. Please welcome Sian Morgan Crossley to the podcast. So before we get into the chat, it would be great to just get a little bit of your background, how you came to write the book, and just yeah let the listeners know a little bit about you. Okay so I've been a psychotherapist for about 15 years. I used to work in the NHS mainly with people who were experiencing anxiety and depression and then I had my daughter seven years ago and I started Break the Cycle coaching at that point and I started to notice a lot with the people who I was kind of interacting with through the coaching business, through both the cycle, and also just thinking back on the clients I'd had in the NHS, that there was this kind of group of people who didn't necessarily fall into having had abusive childhoods or kind of severe neglect in their childhoods, but who also didn't get what they needed either.

8:57And, you know, those people who were struggling with all of the kind of really common things that we struggle with, low self-esteem, low confidence, anxiety that kind of comes and goes, you know, struggling with mood, that sort of thing. And that's what led me to really start thinking, well, what sort of childhood environment creates those really common issues? And that's when I started thinking about this idea of emotional image of parenting and looking into it more and more. And that's how the book kind of came about, really. Sian, I guess a sort of starting point would be, you know, we go about our daily lives day to day.

9:38Georgia and I are both parents, you know, we're flat out, you know, 100 miles an hour, 360 degrees. It's chaos. I guess it doesn't really ever present, or at least we don't have the time to have a look at what happened in our own child until we become parents in our own childhood, until we become parents. When we do become a parent, it suddenly starts highlighting potentially all of the things that maybe didn't go that well in our own childhood. Why is that? Why does it happen at that point? I think there's a couple of things. One is that it's really natural to, you know, reflect on the different stages when we're parents, you know, whether it's in those newborn months or, you know, when we're parenting a toddler or older is that there are these kind of trigger points really in all of these stages that make us first of all we dig deep and you know try to figure out what to do how to do it best and then I think we start reflecting on well maybe how was it for me you know I wonder I wonder how my mum coped with this stage or I wonder you know how my dad responded to me at this time and so I think that really kind of creates this very natural process of reflection that as you say for lots of people you didn't maybe get there before or didn't really need to look at that stuff so much before um yeah I think that that's kind of the the main reason also there is something kind of unconsciously that happens as well in our parenting when we're particularly stuck on one part, if you like, when we have a specific trigger, is that then it's kind of a natural opening to think about why, you know, why is this particular part so difficult for me when it's not so difficult for my friend?

11:32But also, why is that particular part so difficult for my friend and not for me, right? So, we kind of start to recognize our own triggers, and that can also lead us to start asking questions, I suppose. It says on actually the back of your book, The Hidden Epidemic, why so many adults think their childhood was fine yet still carry deep emotional wounds. How does this manifest itself, I guess? What are the things that you're seeing most of the time and what was it caused by? so i mean obviously there isn't one type of emotionally immature parent if you like there's actually at the beginning of the book i break down the 10 types so there's kind of quite a lot of variation in this however commonly what happens is there's some form of an emotionally with an emotionally immature parent they're really just not able to manage their own emotional world so They really can't manage their child's emotional world, right?

12:35And their emotions, and maybe they're really not, maybe their child's inner world isn't actually on their radar even. And so what happens is the parent is trying to navigate life, which is hard and full of difficulties, and they don't have emotional skills to manage that for themselves. So they inevitably, in some form, look to their child to help them with it. and so what that can lead to is things like people pleasing being really hyper vigilant to other people's emotions and moods uh you know wanting to help and take care and there's nothing wrong with wanting to help but it's when it becomes part of how we manage the world and part of how we manage our relationships that then it can kind of cause issues we also can see things like boundaries being really difficult because it's pretty hard to set boundaries with an emotionally immature parent because they'll probably take it as a kind of threat or attack if their child says no or you know kind of wants to be their own person that's um that's so interesting another common thread yeah that's really interesting so that's about a child turning around to their their parent and saying do you know what i'm not okay with what you just said and the parent not being able to hold that to say actually I really need to have a look at the way that I've handled this situation and I need to reflect on it they will meet it with what anger or it could be anger it could be that they but they kind of go into their sort of victimized mode and get upset get offended um but you know what is probably not going to be happening with parent who isn't emotionally um aware or kind of developed in that way is they're not going to be able to say okay sorry you know put my hands up you know and i'll do i'll kind of try to do better and whatever that's not going to be happening and so that and also i think it's even more subtle than that i think it's when a child is just trying to just individuate which is a process that that kind of needs to happen at some stage is you know just when they're trying to be different from their family they're they're trying to do their own thing do life in a certain way experiment with things and in different ways and that will just go really badly basically and so then actually what they're learning is when I recognize myself and my needs and my wants my desires I lose love and I lose connection and I become less safe in this world and so then maybe 20-30 years later you have somebody who can't say no to their boss you know take you on that extra project they can't tell their partner that they don't want to go to their families at Christmas or you know like then suddenly boundaries become unsafe.

15:38Right so if you notice those things in yourself for instance like you like you say in the book there's so many people out there who would not say that they had a traumatic childhood they would think everything was okay but then they start noticing and I do think you start noticing when you're a parent because your time becomes less and you have less to give where it is harder to say no to those things if you've always said yes how how do you change that because if you've always been someone who has gone along or you know always been to your boss always you know played the good girl or you know whatever it is how do you suddenly look at that and think no I want to change I want to do me I think there are lots of ways to do it and it never needs to be one big moment I don't think it's you know it's tiny little moments when you just start maybe choosing yourself a bit more maybe just staying in connection with yourself a bit more you know emotionally immature parenting means that our connection to ourselves is is really interrupted and so maybe it's just about finding ways, small ways to reconnect with yourself.

16:56And I recognize as a parent, I have two children, you know, doing this in the middle of parenting sometimes, you know, sounds sort of outrageous. How can we do this at the same time? But actually, I do think parenting offers more moments in some ways to be able to do this kind of work than when we're just going through our normal lives and our coping strategies work really well you know often as parents one of the reasons it's so difficult is because our coping strategies stop working because we've got other you know humans obviously to be considering and tuning into so our coping strategies aren't available to us basically especially in those earlier years and so I think there are ways just small ways to be choosing yourself more to be staying in connection with your intuition and And of course, anything that people have at their disposal, whether that's accessing therapy or podcasts like this or whatever it is, just bringing in new information really to kind of update what that information that you got as a child.

18:05It's a really triggering time, I think, when you suddenly look at the way that you've been behaving towards your children, you know, the good, the bad and the ugly. When that light switch suddenly comes on and you go, oh God, I have picked up on the stuff that wasn't intentionally put onto me, but was. And it's very sobering. You suddenly think, oh God, I'm following that pattern. How do I heal? How do I mend? How do I move forward without being stuck in resentment? which can happen in a lot of cases would it be would you advise anybody that's listening to this that's feeling that to be able to if your parent is still around to go to that parent and say this is what I'm now feeling from my childhood please can we have a discussion around it I need to talk to you about things that I you know wounds that are there and I need some healing is that something that we can do I personally would never recommend doing that really um no No, and that isn't, okay, so that isn't to say that it wouldn't be beneficial for some people.

19:11Might as well caveat with that, but healing from childhood trauma is nothing to do with your parents. Like they can't heal you, even if you have, and I'd say this probably happens less often than it happens generally. But even if you said to your parent, this is kind of how it was for me, this is how painful it was, this is what has happened as a result. And even if you had an exceptionally receptive parent who said, I'm so sorry, this is awful, I wish I could take it all back. it it doesn't actually that's not the work like you're still going to struggle with boundaries you're not suddenly because of that conversation going to be able to suddenly set boundaries fine do you see what I mean oh my god I totally see what you mean I've just never heard anybody say that yeah yeah that's so interesting yeah you still got to do the work and I think sometimes sometimes if a parent has done a lot of work themselves maybe your parent has gone to therapy maybe they have done a lot of uh you know soul searching and self-reflection and maybe there's a useful conversation to be had but in my experience as a therapist that doesn't happen that often and so what it can actually do is it kind of re-traumatizes and then it can become this dance of trying to convince them of trying to sort of get them to see your side and agree and it's really I think it's a waste of energy I suppose I although it's human it's human it's totally understandable that you'd want someone who has hurt you to recognize that um often it's it sort of ends up being wasted energy I suppose yeah ends up you end up feeling more hurt and then reopening the wounds you have to do the work yourself don't you shan it's about yeah you know really stepping into it regardless of what's happened it's about you and your healing rather than looking to somebody else to heal you we'll be right back after this short break

21:19welcome back to this episode of made by mamas now where were we just um sort of i guess going back Give us sort of the most common traits of an emotionally immature parent and what that would do and how that presents itself. There are kind of types of emotional parenting that are maybe more obviously coming from a parent who is struggling with their own emotions and is kind of struggling to understand emotions. I think one that's really quite subtle is the everything's fine parent. So what this is, this is a parent that really just wants a home that is sort of not dominated by emotions, essentially, that's not kind of dominated by difficult emotions.

22:11So there might be phrases like, you're being really dramatic, let's calm down, you're making a fuss, stop making a big deal of things, stuff like that, which is really common. I mean, none of these phrases are kind of uncommon to hear a parent say from time to time. When this message is put out there on repeat, then what's really happening is there's this communication from the parent that anger isn't welcome here, sadness isn't welcome here, emotions that are inconvenient are not welcome here does that make sense oh totally yeah yeah we're just listening yeah total sense it's like oh you're being silly oh you know stop with the tears stop with the waterworks it's too much everything's fine let's just get on with it let's get on with it it's that sort of language I totally I really understand what you're saying there because what you're doing is shutting a child down from ever expressing anything outside of oh yep everything's fine yeah and then suddenly you've got a child that doesn't talk yeah I was going to say what does that lead to in adult like in adult years so typically somebody who has kind of issues around their own emotions one end of the spectrum so either somebody who finds that they have really big emotional reactions to things but they really don't know why it sort of comes out of the blue they maybe uh they kind of cry a lot but they can't put any words to it so there's this can be this sort of raw emotion without language because it's never been able to develop or it can be the other end which is somebody that's really quite shut down emotionally who and this is a subtle one because I think for many years this can look like really good functioning so it can look like somebody who's kind of calm and together and you know kind of keeps everything ticking over nicely but then actually something might happen in their life that really requires an emotional response in order either for progress to be made or for them to heal and grieve through something really painful for example but they just can't kind of get there and then actually it becomes apparent that it's shut down emotion rather than somebody who's really calm.

24:41It's really interesting hearing you speak about it. And I don't know what I would ask you, George, to kind of maybe have a think back to your childhood where I was brought up in a house where I had two beautiful parents who always encouraged open conversation. So one of the things that I know that I'm really good at with my kids is sitting down with them and saying, you know, let's talk about your day or like, how are you feeling or how are your friendships? And we'll have these discussions. But one of the negatives that I was definitely brought up with was one of my parents was always looking for something to be wrong.

25:13And I know that I have taken that trait on where I'm looking at my kids and going, are you, are you, are you okay? And they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm fine. I'm just tired. What, what, what do you want? And I'm like, oh my God, that's, that's one of my parents like, oh my gosh. And, and, and so, and I do it with my husband and I've had to learn that actually he's allowed to be a bit moody and he's allowed to be a bit grumpy and there's nothing major. And it's not about me. It's not about what I've done. So that whole like, you okay? Like it's so different. It's put someone on the back foot like, yeah, I'm okay.

25:42Stop asking me if I'm okay. And then suddenly this big rat. So like, it's very interesting when you realize that you have already taken on the traits that you were served without consciousness. And actually only when they're sort of highlighted to you can you go, oh gosh, okay. That feels quite emotionally immature of me to have picked up on that. But I guess it's quite common. What you're saying is quite common. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, we're always going to be affected by our parents and how they interacted with us. I mean, that's how we form the blueprint for what we understand a human to be and a human relationship to be and our role in human relationships.

26:23That's where else can we learn it in such a potent way than with our parents. Is narcissism on the scale? So, for example, if you grew up with a narcissistic parent, that's more than somebody being emotionally immature, right? Yes, I like to think of it as a spectrum. And yes, narcissism is further along the spectrum, if you like, than emotional maturity. And one distinction is emotionally immature parents kind of lack the skills, really lack emotional skills to attune and empathize with their children. and however with narcissism their whole world view is puts them at the center right so like there's overlap um and with an emotionally immature parent you can certainly have um a parent who's who is really sort of focused on their own emotions and needs but with narcissism A narcissistic parent has almost no concept of their child as an autonomous, independent human being who has their own feelings, desires, needs.

27:41They really can't register in that way because narcissism is that kind of protective formation of the self, really, which means that they're just so central. Nobody else can come close. If you're raised by a narcissistic parent, would that automatically mean that you would become a narcissistic parent yourself? No, no. Just explain that to me. Just explain that concept.

28:13so narcissists so often what happens actually is that narcissistic parents create highly sensitive children so like deeply empathic right so it's kind of what i was describing earlier but again it's just more extreme if you like it's kind of further along the spectrum again but it's this because the narcissistic parent is so consumed with their their own problems their own stresses their own struggles um and and you know obviously lacked the emotional skills to do anything with that their child's almost entire identity often becomes propping that narcissistic parent up so they just kind of really exacerbate a child's natural desire to kind of help their parent and so actually what often happens is the child becomes somebody who's very much a people pleaser or who is constantly trying to uh you know be needed and be supported or be supportive of other people because that's become their identity so actually you get you can often get this kind of inversion if you like whereby then actually the child grows up to be somebody who cannot meet their own needs at all who really does not know what they're feeling at all somebody who is very much self-sacrificing over-functioning doing for everybody else they come last um yeah sounds like a mother we'll be right back after this short break

29:57welcome back to this episode of made by mamas now where were we can we talk about people pleasing because yeah you know this phrase gets you know rounded around a lot i guess and i always sit like with it and I think I get it people pleasing you know your whole being shouldn't be to please other people but how do we teach our children and break that cycle that you don't have to please everybody but also you can't go around being a dick it's some parts of people pleasing is really good it's a really good quality I think I like some parts of people pleasing sometimes I want to please other people you do you please me regularly and I love it sometimes it's nice to make other people happy yeah but like how do you instill that in your kids to know the difference well so first of all the true definition for me of people pleasing is not being nice it's not being kind and helpful people pleasing is a strategy to manage other people's reactions to you right so that's what's at the core of people pleasing so it's like if I'm um so if I have a friend who needs help with something and I want to help them then that's lovely that's fine that's a normal relationship however if the reason I'm helping them is because I don't want them to be cross with me or I don't want them to think I'm a bad person then that's people pleasing which is actually quite different it looks the same but it's actually driven by something quite different so I kind of don't think we even need to instill does that um oh my god that makes total sense Amelia was saying to me in the summer she was like why are you spending hours of your night out talking to random groups of women because you want women to like you so much she went stop it we're on a night out in Ibiza put your fucking lipstick on we're going dancing and I was like no no because i can't get away from the conversation now and i really don't want them to think i'm being rude and she was like stop worrying about random people that we're never going to see again hurry up and i was like oh my god i'm a people pleaser i'm the i'm the worst type i that was it in a nutshell when you just said it yeah that's me yeah hi and i think the thing when we're thinking about children that's interesting because i have um my daughter is very um sorry very typical firstborn girl with natural tendencies to want to be helpful and good and nice and kind and she's you know she's a very very good girl you know yeah at home yeah in inverted commas yeah yeah right and so you know that I watched her and seen how that develops and that is quite innate actually in her and in lots of lots of people but maybe more so women I think it's in girls it's a bit more common and actually I think as long as you are communicating to your children that first of all all of their feelings are welcome they can be angry they can be sad they could and also they can express that you know i think there is a little bit of i don't know maybe confusion or maybe even maybe even i'll maybe regret saying this for a bit of preciousness about how children express anger because actually anger does need to be like sometimes they need to like shout and sometimes they need to scream and hit stuff not hit people but like hit stuff right like this is all normal this is all fine they have to mobilize that energy and as long as it's shown that all their feelings are welcome and ultimately they are loved and attended to and that how you know what they want is listened to and heard then I don't think they will become people pleasers as adults you know because there's it's not about they can be not they might be lovely people and kind people that's fine if that's coming from this sort of more genuine place but actually with people pleasing what happens is we're just trying to protect ourselves I suppose it's out of some sort of fear I guess like you know you might have grown up with a parent who expressed love towards to you if you behaved in a certain way but was cross with you if you behaved in a different way see I I not I struggle with this sometimes but you know how you said about um them being their own person and all of that kind of you know like you don't want them to be their own person yeah right but where you know like where the line where the line comes which I can I can kind of see it coming now I guess as as my son in particular is getting older hobbies that are good for you and hobbies that aren't good for you but letting them express their interest so where i'm at is like say for instance like gaming right so i would actively encourage my son to go out and play in the garden you know go and play in the garden go and kick a ball around go and hit do it you know run around whereas i wouldn't actively encourage him to go play on his play station both are his interests right so they're both interests but one is better for you you know in inverted commas and one is not so good for you but how do you like react to them and show them that they can make their own decisions and their their own person without shutting down something that you know is not as good for them if that's yeah would you be okay though just jumping in sorry, would you be okay with shutting it down until he's 18 years old?

35:56And actually, because that's what you want. You don't want Axel to sit indoors and game all day. I don't want Kit to do that either. And I don't care if he turns around to me at 18 and goes, well, you didn't let me have my gaming career. Because I go, no, I didn't. Because I don't want you to sit in. He may love it, but I don't think it's good for his mental health. I see what happens to him after he spends hours, if he ever gets it, on his iPad or on his Nintendo. He's a nightmare. yeah I know what you're saying this is where I'm at now because you know you're we hear so much about you know letting our children be their own person telling us what they're in there what they really enjoy and all of that kind of stuff but what happens when you know your kid says oh well I really enjoy watching these people on YouTube and you're sat there like well I don't enjoy that for you and yeah just so i'm not going how old are your your kids that you're talking about just so my son's nine turning 10 yeah okay yeah and my son's seven okay to me so parenting is not about obviously just like saying yes to everything yeah right there's absolutely like not just room there's requirement in emotionally mature parenting to say no set boundaries give guidance make decisions for them when they're not developmentally able to do that for themselves um and you know obviously developing brains uh you know of of that kind of age like they're of course not able to consider the full impact of gaming and you know all of these kind of things for longer years of time so i for me that isn't the same like allowing their interest whatever they might be just to kind of maybe even take over as sometimes it can or you You know, but that to me isn't what we mean by allowing a child to be themselves or to express themselves.

38:06I think like the expressing themselves part is useful and important. So, you know, my daughter's obsessed with, we're living in Malaysia at the minute. Everybody, all the kids are obsessed with K-pop Demon Hunters, the film. My daughter's quite young for it. I said, no, you can't watch it. she must ask me every day to watch it and it's you know a big thing for her and she kind of feels really upset by it but that's i like that's not a core part of who she is as a human being it does not depend on watching k-pop demon hunters yeah she's gonna grow up and write a book about how mommy didn't let me watch kate and now i'm totally and utterly screwed forever yeah right well she might and that's fine but it'll be a bestseller shana yeah i hope it would be for her But I, you know, that is not a core part of her developing self.

39:02And nor is, you know, your son gaming or whatever it might be. Like, I see some kids really, really love telly, whatever. And yeah, but they can express it. They can ask. They can keep asking and that's fine. I think the kind of emotionally mature end of this would be when you just shut it down or react really, really angrily. And then they might not want to express themselves in other areas, maybe, or they might start feeling like you're not a safe person to talk to about things. So it's just kind of tolerating the irritation. because that's exactly that's my worry where you just said it if you keep shutting them down it will stop them them wanting to talk to you about stuff because that's that is literally like my my fear with shutting things down you know like sometimes when say for instance like i'm giving the youtube as an example because i cannot bear it like he's watching something on youtube and i'm like oh my god this is rubbish turn it off and then i think oh like i shouldn't say this is rubbish turn it off because because then i don't want him to think that it's rub like do you know i mean he likes his rubbish but you're not turning around to him and saying your feelings and emotions are rubbish shut yourself down you're saying i don't want you to watch rubbish on the telly and as a parent you are in time yeah you can do that if he came to you and said i'm feeling really hurt something's happened at school and you went oh shut up that's rubbish yeah then you then you're doing damage but george like don't overthink that because i think that but i think you can get yourself into that cycle of like when you you know listen to you know oh if you if you haven't been allowed to be who you who you want to be and all of that kind of stuff you think oh god how deep does this go how far does this go how deep do we delve yeah could you sean could you explain trauma that doesn't look like trauma shining a light on small t trauma what does that mean so um okay so there's big t trauma which is all of the stuff that objectively anybody would say is traumatic so perhaps a severe road traffic accident or uh witnessing a murder being sexually assaulted these kind of things like these are big t traumas they are objectively traumatic um small t trauma is another way we speak about developmental trauma which refers to kind of small moments that happen frequently typically obviously to like as you're when you're developing and uh the brain keeps developing to 26 so it's kind of throughout that period obviously there are periods within that that are more intense but it's experiences in which you felt emotionally unsafe basically and so emotionally unsafe that does cover quite a broad range so this could range from being kind of shouted at by somebody who you trust or who you rely on for you know comfort or safety, typically a caregiver or a parent.

42:13But then it could also be being shamed, you know, it might be just a little comment that is made that makes you feel, yeah, constantly, being criticised. You know, these kinds of things that can easily go under the radar or that they're not kind of standout moments but when they happen often enough so you know one-off or if this kind of stuff is happening now and then but on the whole the relationship with your parent is loving supportive relatively consistent and attuned then it's fine you know that's not going to have much of an impact but if generally the relationship is filled with these moments in which you feel like maybe they're withdrawing their love because you've done something that they deem is not okay maybe you feel rejected because you've behaved in a way that they don't approve of all of these moments compound over time and they create childhood trauma or developmental trauma or small t trauma okay that's really interesting everything you were saying just then I do wonder yeah if there's people listening to this who might be wondering why they feel a certain way and that has probably articulated it quite well if they've had you know these little micro traumas happening throughout their life and then they you know they realize but it's never too late is it Sian and I think that's a really important point to leave on this podcast that it's never too late to make those changes and as a parent you mean yeah definitely It's never too late.

43:58And I think children always ultimately want connection with their parents. They want, you know, repair and, you know, ultimately there's so much a parent can do even if they've, until this point, maybe have been kind of not quite doing things in the way they'd want to. there's so much they can do to turn things around and children are of all ages are often really receptive um to their parent becoming more emotionally yes healthy and comfortable and aware and you know that's never going to not be uh welcomed really um the book is out at the end of february it is called how to heal from emotionally immature parents um everybody needs to go and buy it whether you think you've got a problem or not we've all got problems so we all need some help um Sian thank you so much for coming on the podcast today what a beautiful conversation thank you thank you so much it's been a pleasure interesting really interesting I think it's one of those conversations I want to go back and listen to and think about as well because I think you know a lot of people might be listening to this like I had a great childhood you know this isn't why I'm feeling anxious or this isn't why I want to constantly please people and this isn't but actually it could be that and that's sometimes enough you know like just knowing that actually this isn't my fault I feel like this it was this this is the reason why sometimes that's enough to make you feel better yeah and also I really loved how she said at the end when we asked the question it's never too late is it no to make those small changes like if you have been in a period where you've been maybe a bit shouty or maybe a bit short or maybe not giving your kid the time that you would really want to because you're stressed at work yeah you firstly we'll do that by the way but secondly it's not too late to kind of try and make that connection with your child again and I know that I'm going to be taking that book home and reading it and also just making sure that I've heard what Shana said today because I found a lot of it really interesting yeah um thank you for listening to today's podcast you guys are the best as always we'd love you to rate, review, subscribe and please give our podcast a follow.

46:14Yeah, and if you've got any feedback on this episode or guests you'd like to hear from, drop us a DM on Instagram. We're on at Made by Mamas and we'll be back on Friday.