Validation For Connection & Resilient Kids - Caroline Fleck

24:53Oh, I love that. Yeah. I love that's the digestion process. You make a really good point there. And this may be, I think it does relate to children, but it also relates a lot to adults. If someone keeps repeating an issue or bringing up the same thing over and over again, it's typically because they haven't felt validated in it or they cannot, they have not figured out how to validate themselves. You know, they're in conflict with their mother-in-law or their father-in-law or whatever or that kid at school. And you feel like you've said a hundred times, yeah, that sucks. And you're like, let's move on.

25:24But what's happening there is that person, in your language, they haven't digested it. and more often than not it's because they haven't they can't validate themselves they don't know how they're looking for signals from the environment that their reaction and their thoughts and their emotions are valid and they're just not absorbing it they're having a hard time internalizing it and so they keep coming back for more well this makes me think of like all of the

25:54Hunter Clarke-Fields:parents, right, the adults, like, why is it so hard for us to do this? Well, our feelings are probably were just invalidated so often. Don't cry. Go to your room. Here's the solution. Whatever it is like that, just validating feelings was not in the parenting repertoire, you know, 25 years ago. No. And I mean, let's be honest, at the other extreme, oftentimes, expressions of emotion were were responded to with violence or pain. Just extreme forms of invalidation. I'll give you something to cry about type of stuff. And I always want to believe that we're far from that, but we're not. And many of us grew out of that.

26:44And so, yeah, no wonder when our kids come to us and they're crying hysterically over something that seems trivial,

26:52Hunter Clarke-Fields:it's hard for us to just sit with the validity of their emotions yeah yeah i agree um it takes a lot of takes a lot of being able to tolerate discomfort to be able to be be there and sometimes i talk to when i'm talking to parents about validation and in mindful parenting we call it like reflective listening, right? Like reflecting back, listening. And one of the things I say to them that I say, like, use this mantra, not my problem. Because if someone else has a problem, it's not your problem. It's not you. You're not the one who has to fix it. You're not the one whose belly hurts. If you say to yourself, not my problem, then you can kind of step outside it a little and then you can just observe and you can be the helper.

27:42Hunter Clarke-Fields:You can be the healer. You can be the steady one. You can be the one who's validating, right? If you're not in it and the feelings aren't wrong or bad, they're just your kid's feelings and it's okay for them to have the feelings and it's not a problem or it's not your problem. And then you can kind of be there for them. I have a chapter in my book on this concept and it's something that someone, a supervisor, back when I was in grad school said to me, and it was like the greatest gift. I reflect on this multiple times a day, both in my practice and my life. And it's if someone comes to you with an emotion or an issue, ask yourself, should I respond with validation or problem solving?

28:27Now you can respond with validation up front and then switch to problem solving at some point. But at any given moment, you can only do one or the other. And if you just go on impulse, If you don't have that pause, if you don't ask yourself that question, you will nine times out of ten jump in with problem solving. And so if you can internalize, I want to tie that up as a gift, give it to listeners, and be like, please, please practice this. Introduce this pause. Put it on your phone. I've had clients do this as their screensaver. Problem solving? Validation? Not screensaver, but the wallpaper.

29:05right to just kind of internalize like which do i need to be doing and then the same applies to yourself right like if you're struggling if you've experienced loss or jealousy or pain do you need to problem solve it right away or are you really needing to just see the validity in

29:25Hunter Clarke-Fields:what you're experiencing and experience that yeah likely you need to digest those feelings things likely. Yeah, likely. Yeah, that's right. Okay. You point out that invalidation happens in subtle ways. So what are some of the common ways that parents unintentionally invalidate their kids? And well, we talked about some of them, what we could do instead, the problem solving, but are there other ways? Yeah, I think, you know, back in the day when I was studying invalidation and learning these learning validation skills, they always had these extreme examples like that, you know, walk it off or I'll give you something to cry about, right?

30:06These very obvious, obviously invalidating extreme statements. And our modern day version of that goes something like, you're too old for that. Okay. That's a big one. You shouldn't be having a tantrum. You're 11. You shouldn't be X, Y, or Z. You're in fourth grade. Okay. Can you imagine if someone came up to you after, say, like you hadn't worked out when you planned to and they came up and said, I mean, come on. They came up to me, Caroline, you're 43 years old and you didn't exercise today. Like, what's up? How long have you been hearing that you need to do this? Right? Like it's immediately shaming if you flip it.

30:51Right? We also do the friend comparison. Do you think Tanya does this when she's home with her parents? What we're saying in these moments is we want to say your behavior is ineffective. But what we're really suggesting is that your emotions, your experience is invalid. It's wrong. This is very dangerous when we couple emotions with behavior. I can say, I think you have other ways of dealing with this. But I would never want to say, your friend doesn't do this when she's out with her parents. Why are you doing it? Those are some kind of more subtle ways when we're doing these comparisons. When we actually teach our kids inadvertently, I am so guilty of this, by the way.

31:40These things have come out of my mouth, I promise. But I don't want to teach my kid to compare herself to other people in determining whether or not her feelings are valid. It's not like a great approach to how to manage yourself.

32:02Hunter Clarke-Fields:Stay tuned for more Mindful Mama podcasts right after this break. We know that chronic mouth breathing is bad. In kids, it can be associated with restless sleep, daytime moodiness, behavior challenges, health concerns. We want ourselves and our kids to be breathing through our noses at night. We're thinking about food, we're thinking about movement, outdoor time, screen time, bedtime routines. This is an important part of thinking about our health is thinking about what's happening when we're sleeping. And a lot of parents don't realize that their kids are sleeping with their mouths open. There's a simple low-tech answer for this for families who care about healthy rhythms and nasal breathing and just being more intentional about your sleep habit.

32:48Hunter Clarke-Fields:Muzzle Sleep Tape is sleep tape that helps keep your mouth closed at night. So you'll breathe through your nose. And unlike many solid strip mouth tapes that fully cover the lips, Muzzle has this patented breathe safe center opening. So it's designed to be just gently stretched over the mouth. And there's this large center opening. And it can, it's more, I find it more approachable for us as parents because it doesn't completely seal the mouth. And it still allows room to talk and cough and sneeze and drink water. So if you want to support nasal breathing, you want to be more intentional about sleep, if you want a simple tool for both parents and kids, muzzle sleep tape is perfect for you.

33:29Hunter Clarke-Fields:When kids sleep poorly, the whole family can feel it the next day. Muzzle sleep tape is a simple answer. Go to muzzlesleep.com and use the code mindfulmama for 10 % off. That's muzzlesleep.com, promo code mindfulmama. I want to interject here because those are definitely thoughts that would pop into my mind. Those are thoughts that pop into our heads. And we have these thoughts because we have all the thoughts, the good, the bad, and the ugly, right? And I think this is a place where sometimes people find it hard to understand, like, where does mindfulness help us, right? This developing, this kind of non-reactivity or this awareness of our thoughts, etc.

34:16Hunter Clarke-Fields:And this is one of the ways it helps us like, oh, look at all. I can see I have all of these ugly thoughts. I have thoughts like that. Like, oh, yeah, their friend doesn't do that, you know, but I'm just like, don't say it. I remember when Maggie was little, I was successful with this in another way. It was that I watched her telling all her little sister's friends what to do and telling everyone what to do in the play. And I remember thinking the B word all the time and then just saying to myself, nope, she has leadership potential. She has leadership potential. Anyway, I just want to acknowledge that it's okay that we have those thoughts.

35:03Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Anyway. I also want to say that in those moments, I've looked at, I've kind of chained out using the validation skills I've learned. Because a lot of it is about understanding where certain thoughts and emotions are coming from. And when I have those thoughts, like, what is wrong with her? Like, she should know better by now. When I have those thoughts and I chase back and look for where they're coming from for me, it's often guilt. Like I'm often feeling like what did I do wrong as a parent that she's acting this way. Yeah, yeah. Have I messed up? Yeah. That's a lot of what is coming out in those moments.

35:40It's our own shame, guilt, concern, fear that we've created a monster. Yeah. And so, again, it's like, as you kind of suggested, validation is like a mindfulness exercise in which the other person is the focus of your attention. In a nonjudgmental, present way, that is what you are focusing on. And there is no judgment there. It's just observation.

36:09Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. Yeah. Just seeing with curiosity. Okay, what is going on for this person? Yeah, I think of some of the thinking about the other ways we kind of unintentionally invalidate some some ways I think are so kind of like seemingly benign, like a little toddler, or you know, a little kid gets hurt. And I was like, Oh, you're okay. You're okay. You're fine. You're fine. You're fine. Right? Like, whereas we could just say, Oh, I bet that hurt. Right? Or something like that. And those are super benign ways. But it's nice to, of course, practice this when they're young. And it really helps when they're young, too, as well.

36:46Hunter Clarke-Fields:We've kind of focused a little, I think, on teens, but it really does help this validation as you discover when they're little. Yeah. And on that one, I want to give another note that just reminded me of when my daughter was young. Because you can lean in with validation. And sometimes, even if they weren't in tantrum mode, all of a sudden their emotion jumps up. Like my daughter, I remember she was afraid of Harry Potter. We had seen Voldemort. She saw the first movie, and there's like a scene with Voldemort in it, and she was terrified. She went to bed. She had a nightmare. She woke up. She's crying.

37:24She said, Mom, I had this nightmare. And I swept her. Oh, nightmares. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, nightmares are terrifying. I hate when I get them. That's what I said to validate her. And then she lost it. Oh, no. And I was like, they are terrifying. Voldemort's coming to get me. And I was like, uh-oh. And I quickly dialed it back with, you know, but we've got a dream catcher here that will help catch our dreams. You know, if we clap three times or something that I made up in the moment, whatever, I may have fibbed a little bit to get out of that situation. But the point is, if you upset the apple cart further, you can always just walk it back, you know.

38:02And like, if you experiment with this stuff, you're going to run into that. There's going to be times where like, whoops, that was too much. Whoops, they were kind of flooded and I didn't realize it. And that's okay. I want you to have those experiences. I want you to feel out where that line is with your kid because every kid speaks a different language when it comes to this stuff. And don't get discouraged. Yes. That's part of what it takes to develop these skills.

38:30Hunter Clarke-Fields:Well, let's think about, I mean, we've talked a lot about validation, but we haven't actually described some of the benefits and the changes that happen once we start to really use validation in our relationships, and especially in parent-child relationships. So in your experience, have you seen how dynamics change once validation becomes a consistent part of communication? So we often talk about the importance of trust in relationships. I think everybody fundamentally accepts that trust is pretty critical to our relationships. But what is trust based on? Trust is based on validation. If I don't feel like you see and accept me, if I don't feel safe with you, if I don't trust you in that sense, it's hard for me to feel connected to you.

39:27Right? It's hard to feel deeply loved by somebody that you don't think accepts you as you are. And that goes for children as well. And so one of the things that we find with kiddos is that it creates this alliance. It really solidifies the safety and trust within a relationship. Okay? That goes for kids. It goes for other dynamics as well. But being a safe confidant, being someone for whom it's safe to explore your feelings with is really just invaluable for children. So it increases trust. As a result, it increases intimacy. Okay. It also makes you so much more influential. And this was probably one of the greatest breakthroughs of the past 50 years in psychology, was this realization that when we communicate acceptance, we facilitate change.

40:24So when I am able to validate Akito's emotions really well, they are much more likely to explore how they can respond differently next time. All right. If they sense that I get what's going on, I'm a trusted advisor here. If I don't get it, why would they listen to me?

40:43Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. You're really seeing them and hearing them. You're listening. Yeah. So then they feel free to listen to you. It feels safer to do so. Yeah. They don't feel like they're going to get attacked with, and you should do this, and you have to do this, and what you're doing now is wrong or bad. Okay, if I really get that, like, you feel really out of control in these moments. Oh, I didn't realize how overwhelming that was. Oh, my gosh, thank you for making me aware of that. You know, why don't we put together a little kit with stuff that could help you calm down when you feel this way? Would that be fun?

41:22Maybe we could make a little art project out of it, you know, something to this effect. So I'm constantly getting buy-in, essentially. Okay. So if you want to effectively influence behavior, you have to know how to communicate acceptance. I think that is something that we've come to appreciate in psychology, that for whatever reason just hasn't made it out of, you know, labs and therapy rooms. So I'm picturing for the parents who may be stuck in a little combative cycle with a child, you know, a school-age child or a teen where they're stuck and, you know, a kid's giving you snark

42:07Hunter Clarke-Fields:and they're not talking to you a lot and you're having combative situations. What I'm hearing from you, Caroline, is like they should be finding ways to be able to listen and validate somehow. Is that what you would say? In some way. That is what I would say. And again, I've worked a lot with oppositional. Defiant disorder. Yeah. Folks who are really, kiddos who are really like, I remember I had one 11-year-old knocked over my bookcase in my office. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's a really defiant behavior. But I am constantly, with those folks in particular, I am looking for any behavior that I can reinforce with validation.

42:52Okay, because validation is deeply reinforcing. It's the most positive type of attention we can give. So when I say to a kid who's doing everything else quote unquote wrong, but they showed up on time, I'm going to say, whoa, hey, you did it. You came in on time. Oh, my gosh. I'm so excited. You've really developed here. Like, what's different? What'd you do different? I wasn't even on time. Dang it, you showed me up, right? So if I'm focusing and seeing, casting a light on where they are growing, where they are changing, and if I validate that, if I see it, then the motivation to get more of that light increases.

43:42Yeah, that makes sense. That is, yeah, how I work with those folks.

43:45Hunter Clarke-Fields:And I imagine like for maybe something less extreme, like if you have, I don't know, like a teen who's being snarky with you. I mean, I guess I might say, I guess I would say that there's room also for your feelings, right? Like some, I don't want people to feel the mistake, feel from this conversation that you just have to be like. A punching bag. go. Angelic punching bag and just completely validate. You know, if my kid was snarky to me, I might say, wow, you're really upset. And you know what? When you talk to me like that, I feel sad. And I makes it so I don't want to particularly hang out with you.

44:28Hunter Clarke-Fields:And that feels really sad. Yeah. And I might not get a, oh, my goodness, mother, I'm so very terrible. Sorry. Sorry, and right away, right? Like, it would turn around much more quickly and like within like an hour versus where it would be kind of go on and on and on for days if I had responded defensively. That's right. So again, like, it's not saying you have to do this all the time in every circumstance. You ask yourself, is this something to respond to with validation or problem solving? And if someone is behaving in an ineffective, invalid way, meaning it's not helpful for our relationship, for them, or for me, I'm going to say something.

45:07I'm not going to validate there. I'm going to say, like, if you could find another way to say that, that would be really helpful because I'm having a hard time hearing you.

45:15Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, if it's impinging on your needs. Yeah, yeah. We need to work on that, okay? But what I would do is I'm kind of zooming out, And because my relationship with this person is kind of strained, I know that I'm also really also focusing on the negative. That's part of what we do. When we're in a bad kind of off-balance dynamic with someone, we get into negative sentiment override. We are just drawn to everything they're doing wrong. And so I am looking for the comments outside of the snark. I am looking for the even just neutral interactions. And that's what I'm reinforcing. When I get the snark, I'm very clear.

45:55Like, no, I'm not going to drive you to your friend's house. No. You don't talk to me that way. Because in the world, that's not how the world works. You don't act snarky and then get things. So I'm not going to play that way. I'll also often do this thing of like, I think it hurts you. I don't think you feel good about yourself when you act or talk that way. and I care about you too much to just let this get out of control. I don't think anybody feels good when they're rude to people.

46:26Hunter Clarke-Fields:I like that. Yeah. I like that. I like that sort of, you know, I realized I invalidated a thing that I, just the other day, my daughter, I've been worried about my daughter getting up and checking her phone. And then the other day it was spring break. So she, I guess she's getting bored with checking her phone, but she got up and she was like lying on this day bed and reading a book. And I was like, oh, and I saw her and I was like, okay, I hope it's not too obvious. But I like went over and I was like, I love seeing you in the morning or something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, this is so this is such an amazing conversation.

47:01Hunter Clarke-Fields:This is so helpful to dive into the nuance of this. If you could just leave parents with one clear takeaway about why validation matters, not just for the short term, but for just raising emotionally resilient kids, what would it be? What would be my one takeaway? In the absence of a child knowing how they feel and why they feel that way, it is going to be incredibly difficult for them to be at peace with themselves. And the only way, the only way that they can learn that is through the example you set, both in modeling yourself and modeling them. All right. And again, this is not about making things that aren't valid valid or being a pushover.

47:50It's about having limits, having boundaries and rules, and seeing the larger picture of what's going on for someone when they break those rules or what have you. Yeah.

48:04Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah. I love that. Getting curious, trying to understand. I think that's really, yeah, what this is all talking about. This is so wonderful. Caroline Fleck's book is validation. It is available everywhere. Books are sold. You should definitely go get a copy right now. Do you have an audiobook copy? Did they ask you to read it? I do. Yes. Yes. Oh, you read it? That's good. Oh, my gosh. Yes. You can. If audio is your preferred format, please check it out. Oh, that's great. That's great. When Raising Good Humans came out, they had no idea. Like, they're like, we don't know who you are. They didn't realize I already had a podcast.

48:45Hunter Clarke-Fields:And so they had someone else read my audio book. Oh, no. I was like, I have a podcast, though. I'm pretty experienced. I talk a lot. Yeah. I've got a studio set up. I'm good to go. Anyway, go get Caroline's book, Validation. It's so good. Thank you so much for coming on the Mindful Mama podcast. It's really been fun to talk to you. Likewise. All right. Take care.

49:14Hunter Clarke-Fields:I loved talking to Caroline Fleck. I feel like this was such a powerful conversation. It's so important, so essential. I hope that you got a lot out of it because I certainly did. In fact, we talked about how compatible our work is and would just, yeah, it would be so cool to, you know, I do speaking in different places and workshops and someone, someone hire both me and Caroline for speaking in a workshop. That would be so cool to talk about validation and then the role that mindfulness plays in that. So, so essential. So, yeah. If you liked it, I know you're going to want to share it. text or tell a friend about the show today.

49:59Hunter Clarke-Fields:Text someone who could use it. It's so helpful. Text a bunch of people so no one feels singled out. And let me know what you think. I'm on the socials at Mindful Mama Mentor, and I'd love to know what you think. And if you want more episodes about how to talk to little ones, how to communicate better. We have so many episodes about these. And in fact, we can get you a unique to you five episode playlist if you do the Mindful Mama podcast quiz. And it's at mindfulmamamentor.com slash quiz. And you just answer some questions and you get this playlist. And one of them is all about communication. So just a quick quiz and a set of headphones away, mindfulmamamentor.com slash quiz.

50:50Hunter Clarke-Fields:All right. I hope this week makes your relationships better, stronger, more connected, and really impacts your life in a positive way. And I will be practicing those things too. I hope you're having a great summer and I hope you're enjoying all these great episodes. So many good ones going on. Next week is a powerhouse with blaze a gear. I know you're going to love it. So I will be back Tuesday to talk to you then. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. Namaste.

51:31Fall is the perfect time to refresh and reorganize your space. At the Home Depot, find power tools and tool sets starting at$50 to help tackle DIY projects, home updates, and more. Whether you're drilling brackets to support new shelving or sharpening your hedge trimmer blade with an angle grinder, The Home Depot has the tools you need to check projects off your list. Shop Labor Day savings at The Home Depot and gear up for fall projects with the right tools to keep your projects moving.