Why Validation Isn't Enough: Helping Kids Reframe Big Feelings - Anna Housley Juster

0:00Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hi, it's Hunter Clarke-Fields, author of Raising Good Humans. If you've ever thought, I wish I could help other parents the way I've been helped, this is for you. The Mindful Parenting Teacher Certification Program is now open for enrollment. You'll deepen your mindfulness, learn to lead powerful parenting groups, and join a supportive, heart-centered community. Are you ready to make a difference? I only take a very limited number of people into this program, so apply now. Visit mindfulparentingcourse.com slash teach. You're listening to the Mindful Mama podcast episode number 603. Today we're talking about why validation isn't enough, helping kids reframe big feelings with Anna Housley-Jester.

0:43Hunter Clarke-Fields:Welcome to the Mindful Mama podcast. Here it's about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent. At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have, and when you have calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children. I'm your host, Hunter Clark-Fields. I help smart, thoughtful parents stay calm so they can have strong, connected relationships with their children. I've been practicing mindfulness for over 25 years. I'm the creator of the Mindful Parenting course and teacher training, and I'm the author of the international bestseller, Raising Good Humans, Raising Good Humans Every Day, and the Raising Good Humans It's a guided journal.

1:22Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hello, welcome back. I'm so glad you're here. Welcome, if you're new, of course. I am Andrea Clarkfield. We are going to be having a great conversation today. I'm very glad you're here. We're going to be having a conversation with Anna Housley-Jester. She has come back. She's my friend from my hometown, as you'll hear. But she is also a PhD, a child and adolescent mental health clinician, early childhood education consultant, and award-winning author of How to Train Your Amygdala. And we're going to be talking about the strategies behind her new book, The Best Good Thing, to support parents. And we're going to talk about the importance of mirroring and validating feelings.

2:11Hunter Clarke-Fields:but we're going to get really into the nuance in it because sometimes if you're a parent and you've tried this, you know that validating sometimes doesn't work. It can be actually really frustrating so that we're going to really go into the nuance of it. I think you're going to really get so much out of it. So join me at the table as I talk to Anna Housley-Jester.

2:35Hunter Clarke-Fields:Hi, Anna. Hi. Welcome back to the podcast thank you it's so good to be here dear listener this is anna if you don't remember from my my last podcast she and i grew up in the same town in rhode island that's like a funky place it's an it's a unique individual kind of place and uh we just spent like a lot of our podcast time reminiscing about the various things including the the the very cheap uh place where we got globe-shaped earrings called bargains unlimited yes and i was impressed that hunter remember the name because i remember exactly what it looks like but i don't know if i would recall and there was a guy there was a guy he was pretty he was a little shady the guy who worked at bargains unlimited oh my gosh it was pretty special to it like you were saying to be able to walk down there alone or bike down and like go inside and check things out and i was remembering the tiny beach with the periwinkles there was that natural aspect that like that grounds me every time i think about it for sure yeah yeah for the listener who doesn't know if you didn't grow up in a coastal eastern state periwinkles are like teeny little snails that they're really little like they're like half an inch or less and they just attach to all the rocks and the boats and everything and then and as kids we both did this apparently we you could like just pull them off and see their little periwinkle bodies like suck in or come out or whatever and then you could put them back and put them back i remember being shocked uh sorry we will get to what we're going to talk about today But I remember being shocked when I was a little older and we had moved down to another part of the downtown area.

4:25Hunter Clarke-Fields:And this family was, they had a whole, gathered a whole bunch of periwinkles and they were asking us kids to stab them with toothpicks because they were making a periwinkle stew. And I was like, oh my God, you're going to eat these. Like, whoa, like this is next level. Okay, well, anyway, there you go. And we're thinking about how this is a good thing because you wrote a book called The Best Good Thing. And I wanted to just start off asking you what inspired you to write that and what were you seeing in kids and families because you work with kids and families. So what were you seeing in kids and families that made you want to write this?

5:06Well, as a parent, also I have two daughters. They're older now, but we spent a lot of time after school kind of being like, well, how is school today? and you get like the fine or if it's an especially bad day, you could get just all of the negatives, which is fine. That's one way that it can go. And in my practice, when I work with kids, I find that it can become a habit to sort of show up with the worst, I guess I would say, like show up with the list of everything that was bad. So I started a practice where I would sometimes, especially with certain kids, just say, do you think that today, we're going to talk about whatever you want to talk about today.

5:45But do you think that we might start with one good thing? And if they wanted to, they could. And if they didn't want to, they didn't have to. But it was about a reframe. And I think my first book, How to Train Your Amygdala, was more about sort of anxiety and the neuroscience of fear and how to help kids regulate to then maybe be able to talk. And this book kind of picks up where that book leaves off in thinking about how do we shift our thoughts to change how we feel at the same time that we acknowledge that all feelings are okay. So I'm trying, it was this book tries for the middle ground that you talk about in your book, which is being centered a little bit, right?

6:27Not dismissive, not all the way down the rabbit hole of negativity and sort of grounded in the center.

6:36Hunter Clarke-Fields:well it's interesting because there's you you probably can see that this is like a kid this is kids negativity bias in in process right you get it's of course it's so much easier to see in other people but you know we can see you know the human brain is you know they've said it's like it's like teflon for positive memories and it's like velcro for negative memories and this is just we evolved to be this way because it was much more important for us to know where the poisonous whatever was than the delicious strawberry, right? And our ancestors who paid attention to that passed that on to us. So we have this bias towards attention to negativity.

7:22Hunter Clarke-Fields:Do you tell kids about that and teach them about that so they understand it about themselves? Definitely. I mean, I talk about that like sort of confirmation bias that we're going to get what we look for or that what you give attention to grows um and all the time we have that that kind of conversation and for kids i've been working with for a little while they'll actually come in with both like you know this happened today that's the fact of what happened and at first so i call them ants the automatic negative thoughts that kind of creep in but they happen so fast they don't creep actually like ants.

7:55They're like speedy ants. They're like the fastest ant you've ever seen. Zooming along.

8:03Hunter Clarke-Fields:They're ants in the matrix. They're just like, shoom. They spawn. They're spawning ants. They're automatic spawning ants. We call them automatic negative thoughts and the acronym being ants. The child will come in and say, I had an ant. I know what was happening. And I decided to look at it this way. But that same child previously might have come in just with all of the broad statements. Everything is terrible. I always make mistakes. Nobody likes me. These like really big broad statements that usually are not based in fact and are more based on the thoughts we attach to facts. So that is exactly what I talk about with kids.

8:54And it's obviously like depending on their age, it's a different conversation. But yeah, exactly.

9:00Hunter Clarke-Fields:Sure. I mean, and I imagine like somebody's listening to this and saying, well, this kind of sounds like me. I have these automatic thoughts and I have this feeling of like, and I see that in myself. I can see my thoughts of like when I'm having a bad day or something's bad, like, oh, this is dirty and this is, no one can put their shoes away. and I always have to put away the dishes. I'm just like, I'm like latched on to every negative thing. So it's interesting because like this is obviously, this can be and probably often is something that we maybe need to notice in ourselves first before we can, you know, help our kids start to have that awareness as well.

9:47Definitely. It's basically like, that's, you know, I think in your book you say the thought I'm having is. So you're naming the thought. I'm having the thought that. I'm having the thought that. Yeah. So you're naming it like outside of the feeling and the thought, which is exactly, I try to do that with the kids I work with too, and the parents. I do a lot of parent guidance. It's sort of like the other word I'll use is story. So the story I'm telling myself about the fact. So the fact might be like a really strong, clear example I'll use with kids because they understand, And for better or worse, they understand like the impact of a grade, like what it feels like to not do well on a grade.

10:29And for some kids, they internalize like, I'm just always bad. So the fact might be that you got C on your math test. That is like fact. We can't like we can't change that fact right now. But is it a thought or a fact? I am bad at math. humans do a really bad job of distinguishing between the first which was fact and the second which was thought um we're really bad at that to your point because we don't have a lot of time in survival mode if you're just thinking like how do i get through this day how would i have gotten through my day hundreds of thousands of years ago to like really contemplate in that moment.

11:12Is that a thought or is it just a follow-up? Sorry, is that a fact or is it a follow-up thought attached to a fact? And the thought becomes another thought and another thought and another thought and another thought. And like six thoughts later, we just have a narrative that is like, I'm never going to be good at math. And that's just one example, but you could apply that to a friend gives you a look. That might be a fact. They might've given you a look. The follow-up instant thought is they don't want to be my friend anymore. I'm weird. Nobody likes me. And now that's your narrative. And that becomes what you said, like automatic pilot.

11:53And then we data mine for proof. And so then another friend gives you a look and now you're really convinced that you don't have any friends and no one likes you. And the really critical balance is like that hurts right like those thoughts hurt and they make us feel worse insert disappointed embarrassed sad um and it's super critical to pay attention to the feelings that they those thoughts bring up and not just banish them but more make sense of what's happening so that it's a choice. Do I want to sit in sadness right now? Maybe. And maybe just talk to someone about it. Completely reasonable reaction to sadness.

12:39It's teaching you about your life. It's teaching you about something. But there's an and, a both and, which is when you have the choice and you want to take the choice, we have this super, super power capacity to change those thoughts, to come back to a fact and change how we feel. I wanted this book to merge acceptance and commitment approaches with cognitive behavioral therapy so that the mom with the child is modeling both in a sense.

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14:30Hunter Clarke-Fields:If you want a simple tool for both parents and kids, muzzle sleep tape is perfect for you. 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. Yeah, you're talking about that messy middle, and it's tricky, right? Because as parents, we're like, well, what do we do? Do we do this? Do we do this? And we don't want to. You're describing like acknowledging and validating whatever that feeling is and that initial thought like, I hear you, I see you.

15:16Hunter Clarke-Fields:But then this is, and this is one of the things people get stuck on with something like a tool like reflective listening, right? Like where you're acknowledging things like that. And we want to validate feelings, but we don't want to reinforce negative thinking. So maybe you can walk us through an example of that with like someone, the age of our character in the book. Yeah, I mean, I can use the example of the book, which is that this girl has had a terrible day, starting with her. So the main character talks directly to the reader and says, this day is just very, very, very bad. Fell on the way to school.

15:55My milk spilled everywhere at lunch and then at recess. And this is a common one I hear. Nobody wanted to play with me. I never got a turn. Recess was over and we had to go inside. And all of that happens in her, right? Like she's experiencing that reality. And then mom picks her up and her face, like everything about the child says, this is a very bad day. She says, I was sad and mad, which is in the book, I call smad, which is a word I use with the kids I work with because we so often feel both, like we can't separate the two. and then what the mom does which is what I've I try I aspire to this and sometimes get it and sometimes don't just like the parents I work with sometimes get it and sometimes won't is that she first just simply validates like that sounds really smad like I like I hear you and I see you and what she does then is she uses an example on herself so she uses i which is like when i am having a smad day and it might not be about getting a turn on a swing as the parent but it's something like not getting a turn somewhere some in some way happens to a lot of us um i try to think of one good thing and so i guess what it's doing is it's like mirroring and reflecting back and naming that there could be a good thing to look for.

17:26And the girl is highly skeptical, completely rejects that at first, like a lot of kids would. But then they go to action, which is that they're just moving, dropping books off at the library, going to the grocery store. The body is moving, right? So they're not staying stuck even in the body. They're moving and doing something. And gradually, with her own initiative, from her own perspective, the girl notices the one good thing that she finds and that sort of like sets off. That's the turning point of the cognitive restructuring, which is like, oh, maybe. If I could open my end a tiny bit and find one good thing and then that turns into more of a journey where they find others.

18:06You know, she's not having a meltdown. She's not in a tantrum. So it's a little different from what you might do in that case. But in this case, that's just an example, I guess, of what your question is of like the balanced approach to the both end of validation and restructuring with choice.

18:24Hunter Clarke-Fields:Yeah, I could see how it can be tricky. Like if the mom was like, and what do you think is your one good thing? You know, like that could probably really annoy some kids. I see it really annoying my kids, they would hate that. I've probably done that. I've definitely done that, you know? yeah and um but yeah just kind of offering it there and then you know it reminds me of um and then you talked about the body moving it yes how this is a way and then i think this is so what you're pointing out is so helpful because we have this distinction between body and mind and body mind are not separate and when you're moving you're moving you're moving it sounds so woo to say like moving energy through your body but it's literally what is happening and things are processing and and changing and shifting so so i'm glad you pointed that that piece out yes and that's an example of when she's already having a spad day but i think just like with mindfulness like it's a practice of thought i mean mindfulness is like the brain body connection in an intentional with intentionality and awareness.

19:36Like, I try when I'm just out walking around, like we were talking about the periwiggles and those memories in Bristol, it's really like a sense of awe, I guess is the best word I can describe for like, the practice with a child starts way before the moment of the everything being terrible. It's sort of like a way of, it's like the way I describe it to kids is you're taking off the glasses you have on currently, and you're putting on a different pair of glasses. So you actually can change the schema, the way your brain interprets information. But it's this practice of finding the moments of awe.

20:14In the book, it's more called joy in the subtitle. But that is something you can do with a child anytime. Not because you're trying to change them, but just because of what you're drawing their attention to in the space around wherever you are. you know doesn't have to be periwinkles i lived in new york uh was the um water towers in cities it's like just the awe of a building or the way a pigeon might be acting as it has like no idea that it's in times square you know it's like it's just doing its own thing and that would bring like that's something to focus on it's it's just more tuning into what's

20:52Hunter Clarke-Fields:available maybe surprising yeah maybe tuning out of taking a moment taking a break from whatever that is and getting a little perspective, I guess, in some way. How do you know when a child is ready to move on from validation and that validation, that listening piece into some kind of reframing or problem solving? Yeah. I wouldn't think, so I think the most important thing you can do is be attentive because to know that, I think it's different for every child in a way. It's not, there isn't like a one size fits all, but in the adult, you would need to first be, you would need to know that you could come at this conversation in a way that makes sense, like that you're not going to be reactive.

21:40But also if you're really tuned into what the child is showing, you probably see like a softening of the shoulder muscles or like a relaxing of the body or the facial expression changes or something that is a signal, you know, that this might, That they might be in the right frame of mind. But I think you can do the reflection, the validation, and maybe something from an I statement, even if that's to get there, if that makes sense. Like, I don't necessarily think you have to wait to do any of those types of interventions or connect. I would call them connection moments with a child. I was at a school recently.

22:22This is in a toddler room. So the kids were like little, like two years old. and this girl was just having a really bad day. And from the outside, I could tell nothing seemed to be going her way. And she just sat down at lunch and cried because she didn't like the lunch. So that was just the icing on the cake, right? She's hungry and she doesn't like the lunch. So I sat down next to her and just made my face look as close to what her face was doing as I could. And she looked at me like, oh. And then I said, I see the sadness. Like, I actually said out loud, she's not producing a lot of words, but she was totally understanding.

23:04And her face just changed from being, like, overwhelmed sadness to just, like, sad, you know? And then I said, like, I sometimes have really bad days. and she had never been able to tell me that like that she thought she was having a bad day or anything but that that mirroring builds trust and then about a half hour later yeah her body told her like yeah her body and i didn't yeah she couldn't communicate to me but then 30 minutes later something else happened in her day and she ran across the room to me um and i'm only in this classroom one day a week. So it just like these moments that are like shared reciprocal feeling, like truly tuned in and reciprocating in some way, build enormous trust.

23:56And then that sort of settles the body. And then I think there is opportunity to try to help these same kids in whatever your relationship might be with them to do the harder work of the thought restructuring to help them in that moment or, you know, in the future. Okay.

24:13Hunter Clarke-Fields:So what I'm hearing you say is that there's this tuning in first that has to happen before you're moving on into reframing or problem solving or something like that. There has to be this moment of connection and tuning in, really seeing them and hearing them. And I was thinking about what you were saying, thinking about like the way I would describe that for me is like just really sort of getting out of the role of whatever role I'm in and just seeing them very human to human but I was thinking that some people may not that may not resonate with them or that It still may be confusing about that relating in that emotional way.

25:04And just thinking about how, you know, are there ways that, you know, like we can mess this up, right?

25:15Hunter Clarke-Fields:Like we can attempt this with kids and mess it up and come back and do it again, right? Because I know we're going to mess it up. Yes. I'm imagining the listener saying, oh, I don't know if I would do it that well, right? Like, we're going to mess this up. So if we did make a stab and maybe it didn't go so well, what might then they do? I agree. And I think that kids generally, okay, I have a general sense of goodness in the world. I mean, I really do believe that people, Well, we are wired to connect, and I genuinely believe that kids are pretty good at even seeing the trying. Yeah, I think so too.

26:04It depends on the relationship. It's different if it's a teacher or counselor relationship versus a parent. But I would say that the trying is the work and that there isn't really a failure so much as maybe a mismatch in a moment. But trying for the mirroring and occasionally mismatching is way better than avoiding. Because then we never give ourselves a chance to quote unquote mess up. But I actually think even in the messing up that that's progress, if that makes sense. Because I think the child knows. You said you thought I was embarrassed, but I actually wasn't. I was mad. but you tried you know like or it looks to me like you're feeling like I know you're feeling sad it's different from because that's making it about me and my body and not with the child's thing but like it looks to me like you're feeling really sad just that phrase alone the validation can go a long way in in helping but the reason I wanted this balanced approach in the book is it's not always enough.

27:22For example, like if your child is a, so one of the early reviews of the book said that it's a good book for Eeyores, you know, like the people who are raising kids where they come home, you know, every day and it's just again and again and again, nothing goes my way. It's always terrible, et cetera. If you stay in reflection, one concern I have is that like both of you then, now the, now the parents mindset is also pretty geared towards expecting. Now you're looking for what's going to be the thing that went badly today. And in the book I talk about at the back matter at the end, I talk about how like we, there is no I without we, and there's no me without us.