Ep 131: Practicing mindfulness in parenting, with Dr Jill Campbell, clinical psychologist

Episode 131 of Ask Dr Jessica with Dr. Jill Campbell, a licensed clinical psychologist, shares her passion for teaching mindfulness to parents. Mindful parenting involves being present, non-judgmental, and empathic in the service of self-understanding and wisdom. By practicing mindfulness, parents can regulate their emotions and respond to their children in a more conscious and compassionate way. Dr. Campbell provides practical tips for applying mindfulness in challenging parenting situations, such as taking deep breaths, using visual imagery, and practicing gratitude.

To find out more about Dr Jill Campell:
You can visit her website
Email her: info@drjillcampbell.com
Follow her on Instagram: @dr.jillcampbell
Or call her and schedule a televisit or in person visit: 818-665-9448
5016 Parkway Calabasas, Suite 212, Calabasas CA 91302

Dr Jessica Hochman is a board certified pediatrician, mom to three children, and she is very passionate about the health and well being of children. Most of her educational videos are targeted towards general pediatric topics and presented in an easy to understand manner.

Do you have a future topic you'd like Dr Jessica Hochman to discuss? Email Dr Jessica Hochman askdrjessicamd@gmail.com.

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The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only. She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals. If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Jessica Hochman, paediatrician, and mom of three. On this podcast I like to talk about various paediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge not only as a doctor, but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Ask Dr. Jessica, thank you so much for being here. Our guest today is Dr. Jill Campbell. Jill is a clinical psychologist, and she's going to talk today about how we can apply the practice of mindfulness into our parenting. Now, a lot of people use the term mindfulness. But if you're like me, well, I should say, if you're like me, before I talk to Joe, you may feel unclear exactly on what being mindful means. So today, Jill defines mindfulness. And she also shares many practical tools on how we can apply a mindful practice into our lives and our children's lives. You guys are going to love Jill and I thank her so much for taking the time to come on. Ask Dr. Jessica. Dr. Jill camp. I'm so happy to have you here. Why don't we first start off by you telling everybody? Who are you? And what do you do for a living? Hi, Jessica. So great to see you. And thank you so much for having me. I am a licenced clinical psychologist and I work with new parents and with maternal mental health. I have been doing this for 25 years now. And why do I do this? I mean, wow, that's a big question. But it all started really when I became a parent myself. And I felt as much as I had been in the field of psychology, I felt there was so much about parenting that felt overwhelming. And you know, of course wanting to raise the best human being I could raise. And so my passion became in self help. I think a lot of times we start with wanting to help ourselves, really learning more and more about mindfulness as a way to be in this world. And then how that applies to raising children. And then my passion became in helping other new parents to be able to use these skills so that they can really enjoy being parents and they can feel good about the choices that they make. You hear so much a parent's going. I'm so upset with how I lost my temper. I wish I hadn't said that. So giving them tools that you know, we're going to, we're never going to be perfect. Our goal cannot be to never lose our temper. But I do believe these tools help so much for us to parents more in accordance with our values and our goals. I think this is really helpful because I think a lot of us can relate to this, that we're all human. So you're never going to be perfect, you're never going to respond perfectly. But we all want to be better. And I think I find as a paediatrician, it's often easy to give advice to families on how to respond to kids when they act up and they tantrum. But the reality is in my own home, when my kids act up, I am definitely not perfect. I always want to be better. But I do think that learning tips and techniques and having them on the forefront of your mind can definitely make a difference. when the time arises when your kids are acting up, you can go to your toolbox. Yeah. And you know, I love everything you just said, because this is what I find so much when we get the parenting books, you know, we get a lot of when your child does this respond this way. And these are great, you know, words, they're very thoughtful, they're important to read and sort of acknowledge, but mindfulness is a practice. And this is what I always tell my parents, you can't say, Okay, I will be mindful when my toddler is having a temper tantrum, you have to practice these mindfulness tools daily, to rewire your brain to go toward that place of being able to respond versus react. So we want to look at this as learning these tools to make them a daily practice. So that in the moment, your child is having a temper tantrum, you're going to be much more likely not to be flooded with stress hormones, and come from that reactive place. So that's like if you look at the definition of mindfulness from Jon Kabat Zinn, who's sort of the pioneer of bringing mindfulness to the mainstream, he said, mindfulness is simply paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non judgmentally in the service of self understanding, and wisdom. And so if we look at mindful parenting, you know, we're looking at to parenting consciously, with awareness of what the present moment requires in service of being empathic and attuned to our child in the world, it's nice to hear you define it because I do feel like the term mindfulness gets thrown out around a lot. Everyone talks about being more mindful being more present. But when it comes down to it, does anybody really know exactly what that means? You know, does it mean having your cell phone off? And you're listening? Does it mean that you're that you're not distracted by things around you? So those are interesting tidbits that you added to the definition about being non judgmental. Being empathic. So what? So yeah, so I know, it's like, like you said, it's like, oh, that sounds really nice. So I how do I like actually do this? Right? So as I was saying, Before, you know, if you say, Okay, well, you know, I'm gonna be really open, listen to my child, and take a pause and take a breath and be curious and try to problem solve, these are all ways to be a mindful parent. But the reality is, you can have the best of intentions. But in the moment that your child may be triggering you, your body is going to respond by feeling like there's a threat going on, right? And that's going to cause your hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis to say, danger, send stress hormones. So it's going to send out cortisol and epinephrine and adrenaline. And when those hormones get released, your brain kind of shuts down. Because it thinks there's a real threat, right. So if we go back to our ancestral days, you know, our body doesn't know the difference of being stressed, because our kid is having a big temper tantrum, or being really oppositional. Versus we're really in danger, like there's an animal coming to attack us or our neighbouring tribe is, you know, coming at us with bows and arrows. So our bodies say, well, we don't need to be curious and thinking right now we need to be doing we need to be going. So it shuts off that thinking part of your brain, and it elicits the hormones that help you to act go do. But our bodies don't realise that this is not the same kind of threat, this is not the same kind of danger. So mindfulness is really a regulation process of the body, it's using our thoughts and our body as tools to regulate, which allows us to kind of send signals to our body, that we're not in danger, which then lets our nervous system, our vagus nerve release, you know, the calming hormones, and it allows our parasympathetic nervous system to turn on, which is our rest and digest system. And then that allows us to think clearly, to be curious to problem solve, to not allow our emotions to take control. So if I say it like that, how I look at the two main tools, is thoughts and body. And what we're going to be working on is creating distance from our thoughts, and creating connection to our body. I'd love to go through an example with you, I want to paint a picture of a real life example where you can help give tools What I struggle with in my own life is my kids constantly fight, they love each other, but they they fight a lot. So sometimes they physically fight. And I find that for me, that's what gets me irritated. It's hard for me to ignore it when I see them fighting. So what would be an example of tools that I could use in that situation? Right, right. So I love this. But let's right so like what I said, if you just try to pull out, like we don't want to go to what is the thing I should say, in the moment that my kids are fighting? What we want to look at is okay, the tools that I just mentioned, let me explain a little how you would use them. And then we can apply it to that situation you just brought up. Okay, so if we look at the tool of distancing ourselves from our thoughts, every day, we have a million thoughts a day. I mean, I'm exaggerating, but I think it is something like 40 thoughts a minute. I've read and a lot of our thoughts are neutral. You know, what are we going to get for dinner? Oh, I have to pick up the dry cleaning. You know that when we are stressed? We tend to go to more negative thoughts. This is a phenomenon called the negativity bias. So again, this is another thing that kind of goes back to our ancestral dates that when we're stressed when we're nervous when we're uncomfortable All, it's a way to help us stay safe, right? So it will would allow me to go, ooh, what that thing can happen. I'm entering new territory, I don't know if there is going to be anything dangerous lurking. So I'm thinking, Hmm, I better be careful. And this bad thing can happen and that bad things can happen. So it can serve us at times, that when we're dealing with our kids having an argument, right, it's not serving us. So if we go to the negativity bias, we're more likely to be flooded with these negative thoughts like, Oh, there they go, again, you know, this is exhausting. Why can't they get along? Am I not doing something right? As a parent, you know, by not teaching them enough? Am I not saying the right things, you know, and now we're flooded with these negative thoughts, which then create what we just talked about the stress hormones in our body, etc, etc. So the first tool is we need to create a little distance and our thoughts we need to work on when we're not stressed, you know, this concept of, let's be the observer of our thoughts, let's watch our thoughts and be curious about that. Right? So if I were to do this, so every day doing a little check in and sort of checking in, what am I thinking right now, if you feel a drop in mood, what was that thought I just had, and seeing if these thoughts are negative, what is the story I'm telling myself, and one of the things I love to pull out is what's called, like a coping statement. So it's having a statement that you can go to, that helps you in the moment to sort of centre and ground yourself. Right. So a coping statement can be something just like, breathe, relax, what is this moment require? Can I be curious right now. So having something like that, that you can pull out in the moment, but you practice that so that we become observer of our thoughts. So if we go back to you, with your kids, the very first thing might be to say, What am I thoughts right now? What story? Am I telling myself? And if I hear myself saying, Ah, you know, here we go again. It's late, I'm tired. You know, can I tell a different story? Can I say, Huh? What just happened here? What is this moment require? What was happening before? Can I be curious about you know, why they're fighting right now? Can I put myself in their shoes? So that's the first thing is the thoughts, then when I said distance from our thoughts that connects to our bodies? So that's where we want to with asking this question and having our coping statement, we want to do some breaths, right? So we want to do a few slow breaths, that help us to calm that nervous system that help our parasympathetic nervous system to go into rest and digest. So we know something like taking in a nice big breath, holding at the top, and then releasing very slowly. We do that a few times, that actually signals to our body that there's, you know, we're not in danger. It's very calming, that allows our body to centre. We could scan our body notice, am I holding any tension? Like when your children do that? Do you can you think now about maybe a an area in your body you feel get tensed up? When this happens? I'm trying to think where I feel tense, maybe I think I might feel tense. If I were to pick a place, maybe my stomach have to next time it happens, I will definitely pay attention and give this some thought because I think you're right, I probably don't have an exact answer because I'm not paying attention to my body. I know I'm feeling irritated. And I know I'm hoping the moment ends sooner rather than later. But I'll have to pay attention the next time it happens. Yeah, that's I love that. So we often do feel it somewhere. There's some type of sensation we feel in our body typically. So a lot of people will describe like maybe a tightness in the stomach or a tightness in the chest or they'll notice that they're scrunching their shoulders or clenching their jaw. So being aware, you know, taking those breaths and then doing what we call like a little body scan, sort of just kind of I like to just take a little like, imagine a little light and just sort of see it coming from the top of my head coming down and noticing if there's any area that I'm holding tension And if there is I just, you know, kind of put that light in that area, and just try to release that tension and breathe into that place in my body. And so that's going to help us regulate our body. As soon as we do that, we're gonna be so much calmer. And that's going to further than allow my brain to go. Okay, I'm having these negative thoughts. But is there a more generous story that I can tell what is happening right now? So if we go back, if you can think back to what you had said, with your two kids having a fight, can you recall a fight and what it was about? And like, let's walk through that. So I mean, I can tell you yesterday, they were fighting over the computer charger, they get a computer for school, and there are a couple of computer chargers. And apparently, our dog chewed up one of the chargers, they were left with one, and they were fighting over the charger, these fights escalate quickly into tears, and it can get physical and then I feel bad because I don't want to take sides. So yes, so yesterday's fight was about the computer charger. Right? Right. Okay, so if if you're you thinking about this now, and you're taking your breaths, and you're being curious, and I always tell my clients, one little tool is whenever I'm trying to be curious, I go, ooh. And there's something about that, like the physical movement. Like, again, it becomes sort of this rewiring our brain and we we kind of can put that little room to being curious. So it'll, it kind of brings it out more. So if I were to say to you, let's be curious, what was the big deal about the computer charger? So you mentioned one was broken. And so they needed to charge their computers to do their homework to watch if something they wanted to watch, like, whatever it was like, this is important to them, like I need my computer, right? And it's not charged. And there's this one charger, and I want to have it or else I won't get my homework done, or I'll miss something or right. So if you start looking at it that way, what is like the most generous story you could tell about that situation? Yeah, and I agree with this. I think generously. I do believe my kids have their reasons. Most of the time. The oldest one felt like her homework was important. And she should get precedent over the charger because she's in seventh grade. And her work is more demanding. The younger one was feeling slighted because she's the youngest. And I went into I never get, you always get what you want, because you're older, and I never get what I want. Because I'm younger, and you get to sit where you want at the table, and you're the first to get dessert and you use your power as the eldest, so I can see her perspective as well. And I went into trying to problem solve. I said, Guys, let's just get another charger on Amazon, what does the charger look like? And they weren't really in the mindset to listen to what I had to say they were just so focused on fighting, and then I get frustrated. But I do agree that while it doesn't fix it in the moment, psychologically, if I can put myself in their shoes and think about where they're coming from it that it definitely softens my feelings. Yes. But look at look at everything you just said. So number one, you said, Okay, I have a lot more empathy for them. I'm also seeing now they're both flooded with emotions. So I can in now having empathy for them. I can say something like, wow, this is a really hard moment. You know, you really want the computer to get your homework done. You're feeling like I need this, this charger right now. And so and so you're feeling Gosh, being the younger one. It's difficult, right? I always have to wait, I don't get things first. Like it's not fair. I get it. You know what, let's all take a breath. Let's all take a pause. Let's all take a moment. Let's all breathe. So you now are going to model this how them centre help them to calm. So I don't know the ages of your children. But like with little kids, I love this little technique called the hot soup breath. So if you have a small child and you're trying to teach them to take these calming breaths, if you have an older child, of course, you can just explain what I just explained to you. But for a young child something like saying, like let's pretend you have a bowl of soup. And it's really hot. And what kind of let's first go What kind of soup do we have? Is it chicken soup, tomato soup, what kind of soup that's not that's breathe and smell the soup. But it's too hot. So we've got to cool it down. So we're gonna breathe in the smell and we're gonna cool off the suit. So that's a way to get them to calm and Read in that moment. And then you did what a lot of parents do is go right to problem solving, let's just fix this problem. But if I'm heightened in my emotions, I first need to feel a connection, I first need to feel understood. So by you're saying, What's going on here? Oh, gosh, you're feeling this, you're feeling that. Let's take a few breaths. Now, hopefully, each child is going to feel more understood and calmer. And then, instead of you trying to solve it, I find what usually works better is allowed them to be curious with you. So it's that carrot. Hmm, what can we do here? We've got one charger and two computers. And you both have really important reasons why you want that charger? So what do you suggest? How can we make this work, I approach it where I want to immediately solve the problem, because quite frankly, I just want the fighting to go away, I want it to end. So I do think I have a tendency to try to jump in and fix it. But I also agree that feeling heard feeling understood feeling validated. That's probably really what they truly want. So I like have you heard of the expression, I have to keep this in mind more, but I've heard the expression, you can name it to tame it. So if you notice that your kids are feeling angry or upset, you can just have that statement, I see that you're feeling frustrated right now. And just stay curious and open. And that will often calm the situation down. But I have to admit, I forget that a lot in the moment. Right? Well, because you're flooded with stress hormones. Yes. And I think that's Daniel Siegel. That's his name it to tame it. And I don't want to misquote, but we all want to feel connection. And we all want to feel seen. So by saying, gee, I get this, you know, I might not always agree. But I understand what you're feeling right now. And that goes a long way. I always say, you know, it's the same thing. Like, you know, if you, you think about, let's say you're upset with your partner, and you're meeting your best friend for coffee, and I go, Oh, my partner did. And you're your best friend just goes, well, maybe you should, you know, have you tried sit you know, that sandwich technique, say something good, and then say what you're upset about, then you're gonna get you're not listening to me. But that answer might not be a bad answer. But first you have to feel understood, validated and calmer. And then, you know, going to, you know, what, what if we order a new charger online? Or what if, you know, you try to talk to your partner by first saying something good, and then putting in what you're not happy with and then ending with something good. Those are not bad problem solving tools. It's just, they're not yet ready for that, as you explain this. I think it's so true that we want to fix things, but almost being heard. Seems to me it's more important. It makes it makes a bigger difference and feeling better than actually fixing the problem. Yes, yes. And one of the sort of the statements of conscious parenting is listen more, talk to us. Right or so like that, you know, that's it saying, don't just stand there do something. You know, when we talk about mindful parenting, we kind of reverse that we go, don't just do something stand. I think about it with with my husband and myself, if I ever have an issue, and I want to talk talk it through with him. He also likes to problem solve and fix things. And we've learned that what works better for us, he'll say to me, is this a listening problem? Or is this a fixing problem? And most of the time I say to him, I just want you to listen. And I think it's I think that's really helped myself and him because that way he knows what I'm actually looking for. It makes sense that kids are just like us that feeling heard and validated. Makes goes a long way. So feeling heard and validated and helping them to take that breath in that moment. And it can also not be just in that moment. I mean, certainly, if you're able to do in that moment, you'll have the ability then to say, Hey, everybody, let lets all of us take a breath right now. But there's ways to also help children build those mindfulness muscles. So you know having mindfulness games like the hot soup game that you could do at times when they're not stressed, or doing a game but I love there's something called a mind jaw. And if you ever heard of it or glitter jar, but it's a jar that you can get that when you Shake it, all the glitter kind of swirls, and then it sort of settles to the bottom. And so when your child's like overwhelmed with emotions, you can get this glitter jar mind jaw and shake it, you could say, you know, the water is your mind. And the glitter and the swirling are all the thoughts and feelings that are going around and around right now. So let's shake it up. And let's just watch it settle, what you're doing is you're grounding them in the moment, which is another really big mindfulness tool. And so if they can take that moment, and just watch all the glitter settle to the bottom, they're doing a visual meditation. For us, I also love doing visual meditation. So if I'm in a moment, and I have my two kids screaming, and I'm flooded, one of the things I can do, in addition to the breathing, is I can round myself and my body. So remember, we talked about, where's the stress or tension, that's that body scan, that I could also just say, I feel my feet on the ground. I'm touching my shirt right now I'm looking around, I'm noticing this picture on the wall, I'm hearing this car go by outside the house, going through any of the five senses, touch, what am I? What am I feeling right now grounding myself in the space, what am I seeing, that's going to immediately calm you down and centre you as well. So that's another thing that you can do in that moment. And it's another thing you can teach your child to do, or your children to do. I like what you're describing, because I think a lot of parents, when kids are showing behaviours that they're not happy with. I think it's easy to want a quick fix, like a medication or something that will fix the behaviours right away. But I think having actionable tips is really valuable for parents. So this is so helpful. So so the first thing just to review, we talked about taking deep breaths, with our kids having visual imagery to help calm their brain down. It's any sense, right? So focusing on any sense, where we do so. Right, remember Jon Kabat Zinn, where we do so in the present moment, on purpose, non judgmentally. Right. So I'm going to focus on a sense in that way. So I can focus on, you know, what are the sense of touch, so maybe I can hold something soft, or just notice my feet on the ground. And notice, like the softness of my sweater, I can focus on vision, what am I seeing around me, let me ground myself in the space, noticing all the objects I'm looking at, I can focus on hearing what are the sounds I'm hearing in the room, if you have a bit of a moment to practice, that's a great way to ground yourself. And then in the moment where you're flooded with emotions. It might be just like, pick one of those or do all five if you can, but it's it's to ground yourself using your senses, which is an embodiment, right? So that helps our bodies to regulate. So yeah, so I'm going off on a tangent over there, but you were talking about, you know, doing the breaths, doing a little body scan, focusing on a sense, these are always, you know, for yourself and for your children, to be able to tell the body, I'm not in fight or flight, I don't have to release those stress hormones. And then that's going to allow me to be more curious, more interested more, you know, connection, better communication, more in control of our words, all of that follows because it opens the part of our brain that's the prefrontal cortex, as opposed to behaving from where the amygdala which is, you know, where the big emotions are housed. Practically speaking, do you find that practising these techniques with our children would be best to have, like maybe before bed or have a discrete time when they're not worked up so that they can actually learn the tips and techniques? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because that's exactly just like us, right? If we try to pull them out in the moment, it's very, very difficult because we're flooded with those emotions. So for our children, like I was saying, the more we practice them, the more in the moment we might be able to guide our children through it, right. So if I'm practising these mindfulness tools, and then my child's in a state of heightened arousal, I can say take a breath, you know, I can help them. But if I also practice mindfulness tools with My child, as a practice, like before bed, I can be teaching them to utilise that themselves. So we have to remember, you know, part of conscious parenting is that we are living the way we want our child to be. So they're gonna get you helping them through something, a ritual at night, which would be lovely. And then also seeing you do it. And then also you've helping them do it. These are all ways in which they're gonna get this information. So one thing I love at night is you can practice you can practice of breathing meditation at night, you know, again, for a little child, something like imagining, you know, their tummy is a balloon, and they're gonna blow up the balloon, and they're gonna let the balloon out. And they could, you know, say what colour their balloon is and how big their balloon is getting. But that's a good visualisation to help them understand what you're wanting them to breathe in, and expand their belly, and then breathe out and let that balloon deflate. So you can practice something like that, at that time, you can practice a body scan with them. And you can use fun examples like, Okay, we're going down and a butterfly just landed on your nose, and you're feeling it on your nose. And, okay, now it just flew off, you're relaxing your face, you know, or, Oh, you're taking a big bite of an apple, ah, or scrunching. And now we're relaxing our mouth. And now up, there's a turtle. And we're going to pretend you are a turtle app, your shoulders, tense your soldiers and now relax your shoulders. So you can take them through their body with like a fun little game that helps them to pay attention and focus on like stressing a muscle releasing that muscle. So then when they feel something stressed in their stomach or stressed in their shoulders, they'll react, they'll connect that to the game you're playing, and they'll be able to release it. So okay, so I had done that with my daughter before the progressive muscle release, but I never added the story to it, I would just tell her to you had work, I'd work down her body, squeeze your eyes, squeeze, relax, could use your mouth, squeeze, relax, and proceed to work all the way down to the toes. But I like adding a visual, it's a nice touch. So thank you for that tip. Yeah. And that's, that's beautiful that you're doing that with your daughter, because that will help her then to be able to tune into her body more easily at times when she is stressed. And it it gives her more awareness of where she might be holding tension when she's feeling anxious or nervous. And then she can consciously release it like she did in the exercise. Yes, we we've used it for when she is not tired at night to get her more sleepy. We'll practice squeezing muscles and relaxing. I think adding some visual imagery to it is a great is it's something that I'll put into practice. And I'll let you know how it goes. Great. Great. Yeah, especially with the little kids, it helps them. They're so so creative and imaginative to begin with. So it just helps bring it to life. I think so. Okay, so I really am appreciative of talking about these tips, because I do think what's hard for me, to be honest, is in the moment, when they're just so upset and worked up, I find those situations, I just have to remind myself that eventually, it's gonna get better, there's really not a whole lot that I can say to make things better. And I find that over time, it tends to resolve so so again, you know, when the moment happens, your body is naturally going to want to go up danger, right? I'm hearing them yeah, I'm seeing them fight this making me uncomfortable. I don't like this. Right. So that makes you go to I just want to get out of this feeling as much as possible. So if we practice those mindfulness tools, and I do have a little like, way to do a check in, if you want me to go over that. I call it the four B's. So if you practice these four B's is like your little check in through the day. That's you building that mindfulness muscle. And that will make you much more likely when you are in that situation. To go, oh, I need to breathe, I need to see if I'm telling a negative story. I need to see if I'm holding tension in my body. I need to ground myself like that will help you to do that so that you don't get flooded with all those stress hormones. So the four B's The first one is breathe, so breathe, and there's lots of different ways to breathe. I like taking in that nice deep breath through your nose and then releasing it slowly through your mouth. That does tend to really help when we're feeling anxious and stressed. Doing that breath a few times. And then doing the body scan second v. So breathe, body scan, just sort of, Am I holding any tension in my body? Let me be aware, let me notice, let me be connected to my body. Third be is Be present. So being present means what's in front of me? What am I seeing right now? What am I hearing right now. So that's a signal to do. You know when to focus on a sense exercise. So be present, I can be present by noticing what I'm seeing, or noticing what I'm hearing or noticing what I'm touching. Or I could do all five. And then the last one is broadcast. So that's when we're going to say out loud, whatever my coping statement is. So if my coping statement is, can I be curious right now? What story? Am I telling myself? What is this moment require of me what just happened here? Whatever you feel would be a good thing for you to say, in the moment, that would signal to you take that breath, and do these mindfulness tools. That's your coping statement. And that statement, you say out loud when you're doing the check in Okay. All right. So this is this is helpful. We have the four B's certainly thinking about this, again, breath, body be present. And the last B was broadcast, say that's like, say out loud, your statement. Okay. All right. And then another thing that I saw you talk about, which I think is really true, in terms of helping to calm down is to practice gratitude, to talk about what they're grateful for, I definitely feel like that can be an antidote to anxiety to high emotions and put things in perspective, can you give some advice on how we can teach our kids to practice gratitude? Yeah. So gratitude is, is an easy way to let to stop allowing critical thoughts to take over, which leads us down the road to the negative thinking, right? So part of what stresses us out, is when we go to that negativity bias, and we start having this isn't good enough, this isn't there, I don't like this, you know, I never get my way, I never get to have a charger first. Like, those are like sort of the negative thoughts, and gratitude, what it does is it really helps us to put a better perspective on those negative thoughts. And the research really shows with one of the highest correlations with overall happiness is when we have a gratitude practice. So it really does help us to combat that negativity bias. So, with kids, it can be as simple as if you get to have dinner together, which I know not all families, as much as we aspire to do that we can't always do that. But like at the dinner table, everybody goes around and says something that they are grateful for today. And we're not going to judge. So sometimes kids will say, you know, I have gratitude for my mom and my dad or a gratitude, you know, for my siblings, you know, which is always so beautiful. But sometimes it's gonna be you know, I have gratitude that I got the charger first, or something like that, and that's okay, it's all good. So just, you know, everybody sharing something that they have gratitude for, is, it's a fun way, it's fun to connect. And it reminds them of that gratitude practice. Another way is just that that task as we're going through our bedtime routine that can be you know, take a bath, read books, do a breathing, meditation, and, you know, say something that you are grateful for today, it is so true that our thoughts really dictate how we're feeling. Like we have a lot of control about how we're feeling. I think these tips on how to help frame our thoughts in a more positive way, is really beneficial, right? And we need a little distance from them. In order to do that. If we're what we call sort of like, infused with our thoughts. It's really hard to even notice, we just think we're our thoughts like, This is who I am. But when we can kind of observe our thoughts, like, Oh, I just thought this, oh, I'm having the thought that this, then all of a sudden, we have that little distance. And then we can say, well, I can then control if I want to be thinking that or not, I can replace that thought. With something more positive, I can replace that negative story with a more generous story. So instead of saying I'm so mad, I don't have this. I might in that moment, say I'm so grateful I have this, this and this. So bringing in that gratitude is a way of allowing our thoughts to change which then is going to have Fact, our feelings, which then is going to affect our behaviour? Yes, I can see how practising gratitude is very helpful. My mom always taught me to say thank you as a kid, it was very important for her. And so I actually think looking back, that was really helpful for me. Now, as an adult, I feel like I have that ingrained in my head to always be thankful and be saying, to be giving thanks and saying, thanks. So if my mom listening, thank you, mom, for teaching me those skills as a young child. Yes. Okay, so these are very helpful tips is there? Are there any other actionable tips that you want to pass on to parents who are listening to maybe help their children when they're upset when they're dysregulated? Well, I think helping your your child in that moment, I think, you know, we touched upon the big ones, we connect to them, when we can validate and acknowledge their emotions, that's going to help them calm down, they're going to feel seen, they're going to feel heard, that's going to really help them. But the one tip I did want to not end this podcast without saying is, is just the tip of giving yourself, Grace. This is a practice we are forever, until we are no longer here going to be practising this, we are never going to perfect it. And so to please remember, you know that you're not going to get it right all the time. And when you don't, you need to give yourself forgiveness. And in parenting, we talk a lot about a beautiful word, one of my favourite words is repair, that we can repair with our children on those moments where we did lose our temper, and we did say something we didn't like, we can go back to them. And we could say, You know what, I really lost my temper before, I'm sorry, that must have been scary. I bet unit like that. And that is so healing for a child. it reconnects you. And it also allows them it models to them that they can do that when they lose it that they don't have to feel that shame, they can come back and say, I'm sorry, I got really mad. So repair for our children is so, so important. But also repair for ourselves. And I working with parents all the time I see them as we talk about it, I see them practice that repair more and more with their kids, which is beautiful. But they don't give that same grace and repair to themselves. They don't come back to themselves and say, you know, I reacted, it's okay, I'm human. You know, it was a hard day, I did repair with my child, I took responsibility for what I could do now. Now I need to let it go. Now I need to forgive myself and give myself that grace. And we want to show our children, you know, like, not just that, that we can go to them. But that that they could see we can forgive ourselves. You know, I think we've learned and I think it's sort of old school thought that when we apologise, then we're the weaker one. Or you know, then we were the wrong one. And we see it as a weakness. And I know a lot of parents can initially feel like my kids won't respect me. If I apologise to them that I think, you know, the truth is they'll respect you so much more and it and it brings about connection. Yeah, we could go back to John Bowlby. And attachment theory is we are all hardwired for connection, we are here to connect. That's what we need to thrive as well. That's really beautiful. And I think I think those are such important points, because it's true, probably somewhere deep down. You might feel like admitting fault makes you seem less powerful, or they might respect you less. But I agree with you. I think it's the contrary that people respect you more when you can admit fault. Absolutely. And if you can, and definitely and apologise to you, how does it make you feel toward them, you know, versus the people who are never going to apologise no matter what. And I also agree that it's definitely in those moments when people apologise, that is a true way to connect, have a deeper relationship, and then you can from there move forward. Well, that's beautiful. Well, thank you, you know, and we're and it's so true. We're all works in progress. So I think one thing my husband reminds me of frequently that I appreciate is he says, you know, Parenting is hard. And so sometimes when I get frustrated with my children or the way they're behaving, I really appreciate when he says that because it's true. Parenting is hard. And that's okay. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's the best thing I've ever done, but it's challenging. And I think the key for me is that when those challenges arise, shift my mindset and look at it with more appreciation and be grateful when we problem solve, connect more and continue on this rite of parenting. Yeah, yeah, you just reminded me of what I often Bringing up and when I would do classes is that Walt Whitman quote is, you know, we contain multitudes. And I love that idea when we're talking about parenting, it can be both and not either or. So you know, we can love our children with all our hearts. And parenting can be really hard and our children can frustrate the hell out of us. And both of these things can coexist together at the same time. They're both real and they're both genuine. And I think we go, oh, well, if I'm frustrated, and right now, I don't want to look at my kid because they're just being such a pain in the butt, then we feel so much guilt like for having that feeling. And then that takes away from us being a good parent or really loving them. And absolutely not like both of these things can exist at exactly the same time. Amen to that. I agree with that. So Gil, tell everybody, where can people if people want to learn more from you if they want to see you? Where can they find you. So I have a private practice. I do both telehealth and in person. I have an office in Calabasas. So if anyone's interested in finding me, they can go to my website, which is www.dr Joe campbell.com. Or they can find me on Instagram at Dr. Joe Campbell is my Instagram account. And they can follow me there as well. And I'm trying to post some little parenting tips and get better at doing that. So I would love it if they would want to follow me that would be great. Amazing. So definitely give Dr. Joel Campbell a follow and I will put all of that information in the show notes below. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This has been really fun. I appreciate it. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is you listen to podcasts. I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr. Jessica See you next Monday.