Ever wondered how your stress levels could be painting the world for your little ones? I unpack the spillover theory and zero in on pivotal insights from current studies that reveal the depth of our influence on our kids’ behavior. It’s a journey of reflection—a look in the mirror at our own stress and parenting styles—and a step towards cultivating a nurturing and conscious home environment.
Finally, I arm you with the strategies to manage stress effectively. From recognizing what you can control and influence to establishing vital boundaries, especially in your most intimate relationships. I dive into coping strategies that target the source of stress and ways to address tension in marriages, comprehending how these can reverberate through the family. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with a deeper understanding and practical solutions to enhance not only your well-being but also that of your family.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! Get some discounts using the links below Thank you to our main supporters the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute at The Neuro and the McConnell Foundation.
Ever wondered how your stress levels could be painting the world for your little ones? I unpack the spillover theory and zero in on pivotal insights from current studies that reveal the depth of our influence on our kids’ behavior. It’s a journey of reflection—a look in the mirror at our own stress and parenting styles—and a step towards cultivating a nurturing and conscious home environment.
Finally, I arm you with the strategies to manage stress effectively. From recognizing what you can control and influence to establishing vital boundaries, especially in your most intimate relationships. I dive into coping strategies that target the source of stress and ways to address tension in marriages, comprehending how these can reverberate through the family. By the end of this episode, you'll be equipped with a deeper understanding and practical solutions to enhance not only your well-being but also that of your family.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! Get some discounts using the links below Thank you to our main supporters the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute at The Neuro and the McConnell Foundation.
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Speaker 1:
Hello, my dear friend, welcome back to another episode of the Kiersten Rahn podcast. My name is Cindy Huffington and I am your host. If you are new here, welcome. This community is all about supporting parents and specifically, their psychological wellbeing and emotional wellbeing and mental health. I think that we get enough parenting advice and we need somebody to take care of us, the parent, and that's what I'm here to do. I am a mom of three and I have a PhD in neuroscience, and what I try to do is share the science with you, and today's episode is about the science around something called the spillover theory. I'm going, I'm going to go over that, but also, um, you know, if you are a parent who's feeling a lot of stress lately and you are questioning whether or not this is having an impact on your child and what you can do about it If it is having an impact, then you need to listen to this episode all the way to the end. I'm not going to make it long.
Speaker 1:
It's a solo podcast and there are a few studies that I want to share with you. First, I would like to thank the Taninbaum Open Science Institute for supporting the curious non-podcast, as well as the McConnell Foundation. Both these organizations support open science and the fact that we are sharing this science with all of you, so I'm really grateful for that. I also want to thank you, the listener. If you haven't done so yet, please take a moment to subscribe to the podcast wherever you are listening to it, and if you have an extra little second, you could just click out of this episode. I'll be waiting for you here, but just leave a rating and a review and send me an email at info at curious noncom. I appreciate and need every single possible review and rating. It really helps to support the podcast and because of these ratings I get the funding to continue this. The funding is not for me, by the way. I use it to get a team of people to edit the podcast and help me advertise the podcast, and that's what helps the podcast grow. So thank you to all of you have sent me an email. I want to thank um.
Speaker 1:
There were a few new uh reviews and I just wanted to read them. So somebody called punk brister um, from the United States said curious neurons conversation. Curious neurons conversation is authentic and informed. These topics are needed and everyone willing to listen will leave with inspiration to keep on evolving as a human, as a healthy human. That was such a beautiful um review. So thank you for taking the time to do that. And then there's swin F 89 from Great Britain. Thank you again for you know taking the time to do this and they wrote really enjoying all the interesting and insightful conversations from curious neuron. As a new parent and a psychologist, it's so reassuring to know that I can access advice that is evidence based and in line with my own values. Thank you, cindy. So thank you swin F 89 from Great Britain, and thank you to everybody who's been leaving um their reviews. Please send me an email with a screenshot at info at curious neuroncom.
Speaker 1:
I know that that one week where I gave away a free um workbook, that I have this 100 page workbook that's filled with reflections and don't worry, you don't have to do all 100 pages in one shot, but when you're you're seeing some difficulties in an aspect of your life. I've broken it down so that you can just go into that section and work on the reflection prompts. And people are letting me know that it's helping them work on certain parts of their life to improve their psychological and mental wellbeing. Um, so I'm grateful for that I'll put the link to that in my show notes. And don't forget to take advantage of the um collaborations that I'm part of and the sponsorships that I have. So first, poc Poc, which is an app um for kids, and this app, if you are looking for something that will not lead to guilt, you know, with extra screen time, it is slow paced, it is open ended. It is everything that I look for in a fun app for kids. So Poc Poc is giving you 50% off your one year subscription. The link is in the show notes, and I've been working with better help because I know that sometimes reflection prompts and working on our wellbeing needs a little bit of extra support. So I have partnered with them and they are sponsoring part of this podcast as well, and you can get a discount. All the information is in the show notes. Holstee is another partner that I've started working with and they have these amazing, amazing reflection cards, um, and it makes it easy to work on something every day. So if you're not looking for a heavy book, you're not looking for too many things at the same time, you pull out one card and that's your focus for the day, and I love the fact that they have, that you can visit the link and get discounts from their website through the link that I have in the show notes. So don't miss out on those.
Speaker 1:
All right, let's get to today's topic. I'm going to open up my notes, that's right, because there's so much to talk about today, all right. So if you are following me on Instagram, curious at um, at curious underscore neuron, then you know I posted about spillover theory and that's what I want to talk to you about today because, as I mentioned in a previous episode, a lot of people were talking to me about or asking questions around divorce, and I know that if that's happening within the home, then there might be a lot of stress. Lots of people are also struggling with work and the work life balance or conflict, and so I decided that that it was time to kind of dive a little deeper into what this stress might look like in your home and what the impact might be on your kids. I added a poll question on Instagram and 82% it was just under 200 responses said that they are feeling more stress in their home than usual, and 70% of these said that they are seeing a change in their child's behavior and they feel that this is a result of the stress.
Speaker 1:
So I, you know thought that it was important for us to cover this in the podcast. And you know marital discord or arguments within you know your relationship are part of the relationship. But we do know that it is associated with more harshness or inconsistency or more psychological control or reduced acceptance of your child's behavior and their struggles as well, less sensitivity towards the child. So I know that it's difficult to kind of not accept this, but to maybe open our eyes and become more aware of this, because there might be things that we're seeing, that we become more aware of, that make us feel bad or guilty or, you know, feel that we're doing something you know that's detrimental to our child. I'm here to tell you that I'm not covering this topic to make you feel bad about this. I do want to increase your self-awareness around this and your mindfulness around this so that you can take the action necessary to work on this within your home.
Speaker 1:
So this spillover theory that I just spoke about occurs when a stressful experience in one context so imagine marital conflict or stress at work, family issues, financial struggles, etc. Has a direct, short-term impact on an individual's affect, so their emotions or behavior in another context. So you're feeling stressed because of work or your marriage and that stress and those interactions and that irritability comes out on other relationships that you have. It spills over to other aspects of your life, including your children. I know that if we're you're hearing this and you say well, cindy, that's great, but I have two jobs. I mean, I was raised by a mom who had two jobs, three jobs sometimes, and you know I can't let go of any of these jobs. I'm a single parent. I you know we are struggling financially and I can't let go of any of these stressors.
Speaker 1:
I want you to know that the point of this is to kind of reevaluate certain things, and I know that sometimes we have situations that we just can't change. We might be in a relationship that is causing us to stress, but we can't change that and I'm aware of that. I'm aware that sometimes we can't make certain changes because of not having control over something or not just not being able to leave a relationship for whatever reasons. But I do want you to know that spillover theory does have an impact on the child, and what I want you to be aware of is what I just said, right. So if you are feeling more stressed because of work or your marriage, then are, if you're aware of this, then you can say okay, in the situations when my child behaves a certain way or says something that to me feels irritable or I'm annoyed by their behavior, can I take a pause, can I take a deeper breath and wait to respond, so that I am responding rather than reacting to my child, knowing that I'm under a lot of stress? So notice that I'm not trying to paint this perfect picture of let go of that stress and let go of that job and change that job and become your own boss, and I don't want to do that. I need to be real.
Speaker 1:
And again, I saw through my own upbringing how much stress my mother was under, going through a very bad divorce and having to uphold, you know, raising two kids. There was no money coming in. My father just, you know, wasn't supporting and just took off. I saw the stress and I saw that this led to, you know, her letting it out on us and I want you to know that I see you. I know that this could be happening in a lot of homes and I don't want you to feel guilty around it. I want you to feel empowered that you know now, and you probably did before, but now you know that there's science around this and the stress that we are having and feeling and experiencing does spill over into other relationships.
Speaker 1:
Same thing with our marriage. So maybe everything's going well in your marriage, but you're feeling a lot of stress at work. It leads to us being less patient with our partner. It leads to us maybe being a bit more stern or colder with our language and our communication and our if we're in a conflict, if we're in a conflict with them, perhaps we're not, you know, taking the time for perspective taking or whatever it is, it spills over. So, whether it's from our marriage to our parenting, from our our job to our relationship or our job towards our kids, there is spill over when we experience stress. Being aware of it at least is the first step. Not necessarily making a change yet we're going to talk about that, by the way but at least being aware of it can give you the power to say what can I do in my interactions to lessen the impact of that stress that I'm feeling?
Speaker 1:
Now? Here's the why. Here's the why it spills over, and there's something called the emotional security theory. This theory says that children have the innate need for safety, security and protection, and also interparental conflict threatens this sense of security within the family. Let me let me repeat that Children have an innate need for safety, security and protection, and part of this theory is also that interparental conflict threatens the sense of security within the family. So you know I have posted about this before. I think one of these reels went viral on Instagram but I've spoken about relationships and having arguments.
Speaker 1:
Now I just want to bring that back in just for a quick second because I've covered this before. I'm going to look for the point. There might have been a podcast around this, but I know there was an Instagram post and the reason why I just want to bring this up is because having arguments is part of a healthy relationship. That's okay. But if there's a, if the argument between you and your partner is leading to your child not feeling safe, even if you're not threatening them, even if the they're not involved in the argument, there's a difference. If words are being used that make that child feel unsafe, if behaviors or violence is is part of this argument, or yelling to the point that the environment for that child, even if they're two weeks old, feels unsafe to their system, to their nervous system, then it impacts our children, Meaning that we have to be more conscious of how we are arguing with our partner and in life we don't have to yell to the point of making somebody feel uncomfortable. We can have a very heated debate or argument with somebody expressing our anger without name calling.
Speaker 1:
I grew up in a home where there was a lot of yelling by my mom because she would just say, like I'm not being heard, I have to repeat myself. Or sometimes she would just yell for not for no reason, but it felt like it like that, felt like it was her first way to kind of get through to us. But now, as a parent myself, I realized that I yell when I feel like I'm out of control. I don't yell to gain authority. I don't yell at my kids because I don't feel validated or not heard. When I yell, it's because I'm dysregulated, it's because I feel like I'm not in control of the situation. I'm trying to regain this control. Yelling I don't do it very often, but when I do, every time I look back there was a different path rather than yelling, and yelling is usually the situation when sure you shock them for a second of like oh, let's listen to mom. But besides that, the better conversations and the better problem solvers. When I am struggling with my kids over something is when I sit down and I have a conversation with them. So it's not any different with an adult. It means that if we're having an argument, we can raise our voice or feel that we're really angry, but we don't need to yell. The yelling won't solve anything more. But deep inside we want to feel bigger, more powerful, so we yell. We want to gain control of the situation, so we yell, but it won't improve anything.
Speaker 1:
So when a child doesn't feel safe in their environment, their behavior and emotions change. We see behavioral issues in children who have a home environment that doesn't feel safe, partly because of stressed parents or a marriage that's not doing well, a relationship within the home. But not only the behavioral issues. We often talk about that and parents often mention that part but there's also an emotional issue. They might not cope with emotions as well as they did when everything felt safe. It's not just about the behavior, and remember I've spoken about this many times if a child is not coping with emotions, we're not going to see it as, oh, you're not managing your stress properly. We're going to see it as a behavioral issue, when in essence it's actually an emotional thing, and inter parental conflict does predict a lot of negative outcomes in children. They internalize problems a lot more. They externalize symptoms. So that's the behavior. The internalizing symptoms means a lot of the emotions. They might not communicate it properly. It might be internalized rather than talking about their own fear or sadness or anger. They're going to internalize that which we know is something that can increase the risk of mental health, and they seem to have less social competence.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to put the link to that article because I know all this information is extremely important for all parents to know, but I'm summarizing it for you If you don't want to read the article. That's what I'm here for. I also want to take a moment to look at this bill over theory from a positive direction. So, yes, we feel it. I know if you've been listening to this and you're probably saying, cindy, come on, I know this. I've seen it in my home. Even if it's just one day of stress, I see it in my child. They change their behaviors different. They act out more and if I'm calm the next day, everybody's calm. I get that. But let's look at this bill over theory from a positive place.
Speaker 1:
I spoke about interparental interactions. There could be some positive ones. So a study was looking at parents who will share good news with each other, share laughter together. The child sees them. I'm having all these positive interactions together, just responding well to each other, laughing and smiling together, and that spills over into the child's well-being and their relationships with their peers. So there's been evidence on both sides. The spillover theory from a negative standpoint, when things are not going well, they've seen that children tend to struggle with the relationships at school when their parents are struggling with emotions at home. On the other side of that, there's also the positive one. A child is seeing positive interactions. They will be more positive in their own interactions in their life. So we need to keep that in mind as well.
Speaker 1:
All right, so here comes the part of the podcast where we take action, where we reflect, because that is part of Kirsten Rohn and, as you know, when it comes to our psychological well-being, we can't just be on automatic and power through everything. We need to take the time to think. Thinking might look different. I gave a workshop at a school the other day and one of the teachers said I don't want to write notes, I don't like journaling, I don't like doing any of that. So does that mean that I can't reflect and work on everything you spoke about today? And I said absolutely not.
Speaker 1:
You could think about these as you're walking. You can write yourself a post, keep it in your wallet, put it in your car, put on the mirror in the bathroom and that's your reflection prompt of the day or the week, whatever you want. As you're working out, as you're driving, go for a bike ride, whatever it is, just do it in the way that feels best for you. If you have a notebook and you want to write about it, go for it. Do whatever feels good. So here's the first thing that I would love for you to do today If you have a notebook, grab it. Even if it's a post it. Who cares? I would do whatever feels good for you.
Speaker 1:
We need to be honest with ourselves. So just start by rating your level of stress in the past. Let's say four weeks. How would you rate your level of stress? Average stress? Obviously there are better days and worse days, but on average on a score of one to 10. Write that down and then think about your child's behavior in the past three to four weeks. How would you rate their level of behavior on a score of one to 10? I'm curious to know if they're close to each other. Maybe you haven't felt stress and maybe your child hasn't been acting out or misbehaving a lot or struggling with their emotions, but maybe you're on the other side as well. Just use this to increase your awareness.
Speaker 1:
Now I want you to make a list of the three greatest stressors that you have in your life right now, but don't write work, marriage, I don't know. Family that's not specific enough, and I tell parents this all the time. When I speak to parents that tell me work is really stressful, I ask them which aspect of work? Is it the workload? Is it your boss? Is it a colleague? Be more specific. Then, once you do narrow it down to your boss, your colleague, your partner, whatever it is, then be very specific. Are you able to say exactly what it is within that relationship or within that activity, your job or task that you have that leads to you feeling more stressed? If it's parenting, which aspect of parenting? Is it morning routine, night routine? Is it weekends? Be specific.
Speaker 1:
Now that you've written three stressors, the biggest stressors in your life, I would like you to write down what would it look like for this relationship or activity, or whatever it is in your life. What would it look like if the stress was reduced? So if, for example, it's work and it's your boss, what would it look like for it to be less stressful for you? Would it be the interactions that they're having with you? Would it be the workload that they're handing off to you? Would it be the way that they speak to you? What is it that would lead to you feeling less stressed for each of these three? So write that down. And now I want you to reflect on would this be possible? So, if you're talking about a boss who is really hard on you and the language that they have is really harsh, is it possible for them to change the way that they're talking to you? And here's what we're gonna do for all three stressors now. So, when we're thinking about if it's possible, we can divide it into three categories.
Speaker 1:
We often think about what we have control over and what we don't have control. So, using that boss as an example, we don't have control over how they regulate their motions or how they communicate, but we do have control over the boundaries we might want to set. We forget about boundaries and how important they are. So if our boss is speaking to us in a way that is completely disrespectful, you have every right to set a boundary and say something around that, so you're able to control the boundaries that you put out there. And although you can't change who that person is, we forget that it's not just about control and not having control.
Speaker 1:
We forget that there's something in the middle called influence. There is, I think it's called the circle of influence and it's a positive psychology activity where you look at, in a certain situation, in a certain situation I'm not editing that out in a certain situation, what do you have control over, what don't you have control over and what do you have influence over? Because that reminds us, sometimes we feel like, oh my God, I don't have control over something. It's stressing me out, it's causing me to feel anxious, and you know that you don't have any control over anything. But we forget that we have influence, so, bringing that boss back into the situation, we have influence over how we can respond to them, how we can set boundaries. We have control over that and we might have influence on how they treat us and speak to us. Although we can't completely change how they are, we might have some influence over that. If we are struggling with certain hours for work or certain projects, we might not have control over having to do that project. We might have control over, again, setting certain boundaries around it or asking for help, but we might also be able to influence, maybe, the workload of our team members within that project. We might be able to hand certain things off or speak to somebody and say, look, I know you don't agree with taking on one extra task, but if you do this, then I can do that next time or whatever it is. We can have conversations that will influence a certain relationship or task or activity or workload and we can't forget that.
Speaker 1:
Lastly, I want to talk about a skill that was brought up in one of the studies I was looking at. Again, that'll be in the show notes, but the skill is called problem focused coping strategies and they found that parents who practiced this skill or these are three different ways to do it and I'll talk about that in one second but parents who problem used problem focused coping strategies for situations that caused them stress rather than emotion focused coping strategies, which I'll describe soon. They had less stress within the home, even if they had started the project with lots of stress and they were seeing spillover with the relationship and the stress levels of their child. They were able to have more of an influence on these stressors. So what problem focused coping strategies are is when you directly try to change the problem that is causing the stress.
Speaker 1:
So if we say work is stressful, like I said before, we're not really addressing that specific stressor. We need to get into the specific. My workload is causing me to feel stressed and that's why it's important for us to be very specific. There are three ways that you can cope using this problem focused strategy and includes positive reinterpretation, active coping and planning. What positive reinterpretation is is, for example, when you not really changing the situation itself, but looking at the situation in a different light, so seeing it as something more positive. So something might feel stressful to you and there's been lots of work around that and research. I had interviewed Dr Susan King from McGill University, I think two or three years ago now, and she had studied a lot of these natural disasters and how it impacted stress levels on moms, expecting moms and the women who had less stress by not because of the situation, it was more of the subjective stress. That's the stress where it's your interpretation of the situation. Those who had higher stress because of that had more of an impact on the stress on the baby. But those who experienced exactly the same thing as other moms but perceived it very differently and decreased the stress level because of how they perceive the stressor, they had less of an impact. So that reminds us that we do have the power to look at things very differently and influence the amount of stress that that event causes.
Speaker 1:
An active coping strategy is when you just take direct action and you try to get rid of the problem. If it's a person in your life, can you set a boundary to not talk to them as often? Can you set a boundary to not see them as often? I know that holidays can cause a lot of stress for parents because they see certain people. Well, if you're in that room with a certain person that causes you to feel stress, can you avoid them a little bit or as much as possible to reduce that level of stress? And the last strategy is called planning, and this is when you think about how to cope with the stressor. So how can you handle this problem? How can you make an action plan? It's really taking the time to write out an action plan and I know it might sound silly, but it really does help because once you write it out, like you did before, and you start writing like what are the steps to get to that level where I would feel less stressed, you realize that you do have some influence on some aspects of the stressor and that you can take action. So those are the skills and the tools that somebody can have to reduce the stress in their lives.
Speaker 1:
I just want to quickly contrast this with the emotional coping strategies that I talked about, because perhaps these are some strategies that you tend to lean towards, and that's okay, where it's all about awareness today. So if you do lean towards these emotional focus or these emotion focused coping strategies, it looks like venting of emotions, which is just letting all of your negative emotions out. It's been shown that that doesn't necessarily help Once it does in the short term, but again, because you're not problem solving through the stressor or with the stressor and trying to alleviate it or reduce it or remove it, you're actually not doing anything that's going to be helpful in the long run. Then there's denial, refusing to believe that what is happening. That's another emotional focused or emotion focused coping strategy. And the last one is behavioral disengagement. So that refers to reducing one's effort to deal with the stressor or even giving up the attempt to attain the target goal that has caused the stress to begin with. So, whether it's your relationship and you just kind of tap out and you're like well, that's it.
Speaker 1:
Not taking the time to speak with somebody and say this is what's causing me a lot of stress within our marriage and I want to make this work. How can we do this together? That's just an example, but we need to make sure that we can address the stressor. I hope that this episode was helpful to you. I really think that the spillover theory is interesting and although we know it intuitively that when we're stressed, it spills over to our children, just knowing that you know or being aware of it and saying, okay, this is, this is part of psychology and neuroscience and social science as well. What can I do to make sure that I reduce the impact of this? Yes, I'm feeling stressed at work. Can I problem solve through it, or can I at least be more aware of it? So when I come home I'm not taking it out on my kids. I want to increase your awareness around this. I hope you all have a beautiful and lovely week. I'm sorry that I published this episode a little bit later.
