Flusterclux With Lynn Lyons: For Parents Who Worry

Helicopter parenting isn’t just about being nervous at the playground. Helicopter parents is a loaded label, and we define it in this episode as a hovering parent trying to control an outcome. 4:27 WHEN WE CAN’T GO TO THE ER AS EASILY We discuss the pragmatic balance of reducing the risk of physical play during a pandemic when the same medical care isn’t as straightforward of an option. 7:19 HELICOPTER PARENTS DURING PLAY Lynn gives examples of parents intervening in play that isn’t helpful. She answers a listener’s question about her 6 year-old’s right to privacy and potty language habits while using Facetime. 10:12 HELICOPTER PARENTING AND ACADEMICS Lynn talks about the opportunities for parents who helicopter and intervene to step back in this new pass-fail scenario where the stakes aren’t so high and encourages ways to inject more independence with students. 13:06 WHAT DOES HELICOPTER PARENTING MEAN? Lynn explains that academic helicopter parenting is a fear-based effort not let the chips fall where they may, to not let a child fail out of fear of failure, being judged, or other reasons. 15:54 BRINGING UNSCHOOLING INTO THE HOME We talk about the opportunity to introduce the importance of learning life skills from parents around the home, and discuss the chance to introduce unschooling opportunities—the chance for child-led learning on topics they choose over the summer. Here’s the remote learning platform we are using. 20:23 NEARLY EVERYONE HELICOPTERS IN AT LEAST ONE AREA Some parents intervene more in their children’s school work, the safety of their play, their friendships or appearance. Lynn asks how parents might step away now from those areas and see what happens when the stakes aren’t so high. 24:41 THE CRUX OF THE HELICOPTER PARENTING We want to protect our kids from hard feelings. Lynn gives examples of moms who won’t buy a pet so her daughter won’t have to grieve for it when it dies. Her "Mr. Rogers Talk" is referenced. Watch it here. Lynn outlines the key parenting habit that is a predictor of anxiety disorders developing in children. 28:26 HOMEWORK FOR PARENTS Lynn gives parents to some homework to think about and some language to use with their kids. We suggest you join the Facebook group so you can submit questions for future episodes. A full transcript is available on our site. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You've finally gotten your little one to stop asking you to wipe his bum. Or you've finally gotten your teenager to be able to handle things without huge emotional disruptions. And now, the behaviors are back. Parents, that's called regression. It's a normal part of development. It's normal under the most usual of circumstances. And it's certainly normal during this time of pandemic parenting. 1:28 WHY WE’RE SEEING SO MUCH CHILD REGRESSION NOW 3:49 REGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR SHOWS UP AT TIMES OF STRESS AND CHANGE Lynn references the book Touchpoints-Three to Six: Your Child's Behavioral and Emotional Development by T. Berry Brazelton and Joshua Sparrow 7:13 REGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR IS LIKE COMFORT FOOD Robin references Susie Tallman's "I've Been Working on the Railroad" 10:15 LISTENER QUESTION Lynn answers a listener question about a 7-year-old boy who is now hitting and talking back, behavior that has happened since staying at home. 12:30 HYPO AND HYPER AROUSAL AND HOMEOSTASIS IN CHILDREN'S BEHAVIOR 16:37 WHY EVERYONE FEELS OUR OF GAS 22:00 LISTENER QUESTION #2 Speech regression and stuttering in a 3-year-old boy. Mom wonders if this new behavior is related to being stuck at home. 25:45 REGRESSION TEENS AND TWEENS Join the Facebook group where you can submit questions for future episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As states try and determine the safest schedules to reopen businesses and schools, parents will want to think about an eventual transition back to normal and which family quarantine habits will be tough to break. We didn't have time to prepare when we were thrown into this traumatic change, but we can prepare for our journey out. Full transcript available on our website. 1:37 Lynn identifies the importance of bringing back structure, chores, and sleep routines to assist children, and 8:40 She shares how teens might even angrier and more withdrawn more and what to do about it. We discuss this internet device to set screen limits. You can use our affiliate link for $20 off. 10:58 We discuss Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig doing a great lip sync duet to “Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now” from the movie Skeleton Twins. The scene will make parents of teens feel validated. 17:55 Lynn asks what we are seeing in our families and how has this increased stress manifested in your family patterns. Who is being more rigid? Blaming? Emotive? Withdrawn? How can this experience be a teacher showing areas of family behavior that can shift. 25:15 We discuss how the pandemic brought some powerful revelations, like "It took a pandemic to make me realize blank." Lynn references Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Parents must attempt to manage their emotions in front of their kids. Lynn talks about how to handle powerful moments of anger and panic in an an ideal way as well as how to conclude unintentional emotional outbursts in a positive way to model emotional literacy for your kids. What is emotional vomiting and why it is a destructive habit. We also talk about the trap of unhealthy reassurance, even when the Hogwarts ride breaks down at the Harry Potter theme park. Lynn outlines the list of behaviors that should always be off limits at home, too, around physical behavior and language. Full transcript available on our site. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What important family event are you missing out on? All of these events, these milestones, these celebrations, they’re being canceled and postponed. And it’s not just the actual event. It’s all the fun, the excitement, all the preparation, all the anticipation. In this episode, we find silver linings in ways to teach our kids critical life skills in adaptability and managing disappointment. We talk about why to put those perfection issues on the brakes and how to focus on creativity, silliness, and connection. 1:35 FEAR OF MISSING OUT VS. MISSING OUT Lynn talks about all of the ritual that we are missing that mark birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, and births. Lynn talks about how to be empathic for everyone missing out but still figure out a way to mark the celebration and give meaning to it. 3:20 MARKING MILESTONES Lynn suggests a way to acknowledge a milestone by changing something in the house or a family behavior or privilege when social gatherings can’t take place. 6:07 THE ROLE OF FLEXIBILITY Lynn explains why flexibility is so critical to manage anxiety. Anxiety want rigidity. Lynn challenges the commonplace advice of our need for structure right now. These new conditions are an opportunity to increase our kids’ skills in being adaptive and managing disappointment. 7:30 MANAGING DISAPPOINTMENT Teaching our kids that things are bigger than they are and to manage disappointment can be a positive outcome of our social isolation. Life will be filled with disappointments and learning to adapt well to it is an important skill. 10:58 THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA Lynn talks about the dangers social media can play now in making a parenting competition of how families are celebrating kids birthdays, for example. She warns that social media doesn’t foster social connection, but social comparison. 14:05 PROTECT JOY AND CREATIVITY Focusing on creativity and silliness are balms for anxious states. Indulge in the creative work of others being shared online instead. 15:02 PERFECTION ISSUES Lynn advises those with perfection issues to realize a pandemic is no time for striving for perfection. She advises those to use it as a time to work on authenticity and vulnerability. Perfection is a joy smusher, too, and it interferes with your ability to connect. 18:44 A HUMBLING MOMENT FOR LYNN Lynn talks about how great it is to have her two college-aged sons home from college now and how much laughter there is. I ask her to imagine these circumstances when her boys were both under the age of 8. 19:18 FACEBOOK GROUP AND NEXT EPISODES Thanks for listening and join the Facebook group for the podcast if you’d like to submit topics for us to talk about. We’re looking at all of that stuff coming in! We discuss upcoming topics we’re planning on family sleep, regression, and losing it in front of your kids. Full Transcript here. Show music is "First Little Steps" by Peter McIsaac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

0:05 THE STUCK-IN-THE-HOUSE PARENT We’ve got stay-at-home parents; we’ve got working full-time parents. We have entered into a new category of parenting. This is the stuck-in-the-house parent. This is our first episode ofA Mom’s Retreat podcast with Lynn Lyons (my sister-in-law). This podcast has stepped in to take the place of in person parenting retreats we began in the fall. Lynn explains why we feel like we are riding a new emotional rollercoaster, and why we feel so exhausted, as our brains are working overtime to absorb our new life conditions. She compares this time’s mental and emotional drain to having a newborn at home for the first time. 3:27 CATASTROPHIC LANGUAGE Lynn asks that we pay attention to the undeniable anxiety we feel and to avoid patterns of catastrophic language in front of our children. 4:47 DAVID BARLOW She references David Barlow who defined anxiety as an overestimation of a problem and an underestimation of your resources to deal with it but shares we are in the opposite of an underestimation of the problem with an overestimation of our resources. 6:13 CATASTROPHIC PARENTING Lynn validates that we have reason to be worried. We have reason to feel uncertain, we have reason to feel as if we’re off our kilter a little bit. Lynn gives guidance on communicating uncertainty reasonably and catastrophically with our children. 8:09 KEEPING YOUR COOL AND THE POWER OF SILLINESS Lynn talks about taking a reset or a reboot. She explains what she means be learning to be vanilla ice cream for your kids. Silliness and doing things that are unexpected are a great way to shift the emotional tone in your family. Lynn gives examples of how consciously injecting play can rebalance both parents and comfort children and gives examples how. Lynn talks about her own childhood memories of her parents doing the twist in the kitchen to At the Hop albums. 15:15 SLOWING DOWN IN SOCIAL DISTANCING We talk about the gifts that can come from this chapter with more time together at home when children’s schedules are lighter. Lynn encourages us to fill this time as a family with more play in a way that doesn’t feel like an additional chore for parents. Lynn’s book Anxious Kids, Anxious Parents has several examples at the end of every chapter of ways to be silly, inject surprise, and make family time more playful as a practice. She discusses the power of external connection among our family and friends to stave of the anxious and depressive patterns we are vulnerable to right now by stating in an internal state. 18:06 OUTRO So, thanks for joining us on this first episode of A Mom’s Retreat. You are not alone in this. Join us next episode as we discuss the milestones we are missing. We are all in this together. The purpose of this is for us to feel connected, validated, and supported. Robin Producer of A Mom’s Retreat A full transcript is available on our website. Our show music is “First Little Steps” by Peter McIsaac. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, This is Lynn Lyons, and I’m a psychotherapist focusing on anxiety and families. I’ve been in practice for close to 30 years and have traveled the world speaking to thousands of parents about how to best manage anxiety. Even prior to 2020’s unprecedented events, anxiety has been impacting more and more families. Now, we all face uncertainty that fuels worry. As parents, we’ll need to up our game in order to raise resilient children and navigate what’s ahead of us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices