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If you've ever felt like an impostor, struggled with insecurities or battled your inner critic, then this podcast is for you, embrace humility and gain access to your real self by unlocking the power within you.
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So here's your host, Dimple Bindra.
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Welcome everyone to your Souls Transformation podcast where today we are joined by the incredible Ella.
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She, she is a best selling author of from Broken to beautifully broken.
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Ella's memoir goes beyond a simple narrative, charting her journey from a life-threatening childhood accident through personal trials, including bullying, divorce and battling and eating disorder.
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Her book is a beacon of hope, teaching us how to find beauty in our struggles and embrace self love through empathy and compassion.
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Ella story is not just about overcoming, it's about transforming pain into power, making her not just an author but a guide to finding happiness in healing.
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Today, we are going to talk about parenting and education and teaching kids how to handle their emotions from the get go.
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This isn't about something over the rough patches.
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It's about equipping our future leaders with the resilience and empathy that they need to navigate life's challenges.
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So we are going to share and not we, but Ella is going to share unconventional strategies and insights for fostering emotional savvy in our kids.
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So forget the old playbook.
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We are here to spark a transformation and how we support our children's emotional well being.
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So simply get ready to deep dive and shake things up.
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Let's get started, Ella help us and kick us off by breaking down wine.
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It's a game changer to get kids on board with emotional regulation and what's at stake for our future or their future.
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So first off, let me, let me start by saying that emotional regulation actually doesn't start with the child themselves.
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In fact, it's very hard for a child to regulate their emotions or have emotional intelligence at a young age.
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It's, it's just impossible.
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Their brain is not at that level of development yet.
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So a child's emotional intelligence or emotional regulation actually begins with us as their parents.
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So we set the tone for how they're going to react to the feelings and emotions that they have.
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So for example, if you are a very anxious person or you know, you're always rushing or you just have this energy of nervousness constantly around you, your child is going to be an overstimulation all the time and then always have those temper tantrums that we'll probably later talk about.
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So the vibe that you set around your Children, the way that you respond to their emotions is really the foundation of how they will then start their emotional regulation later on in life.
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So if we don't equip our Children with these hypothetical tools that they need to handle stressful situations, we're gonna set them up for failure.
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They're gonna have struggles with their mental health.
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They're gonna have struggles with boundaries, substance abuse, self worth.
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I know it sounds very dramatic to say.
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But if a child doesn't understand what they're feeling or associates a specific type of shame with what they're feeling.
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They will do whatever it takes to eliminate that feeling.
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So that could be pushing down the emotion which will later lead to anxiety or depression, they can use substances to override that emotion.
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So they're not feeling what they don't want to feel that in turn.
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And I only know this and I know you called me an expert before, but I'm an expert by default because I went through all of these things.
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And so I only know this from firsthand experience.
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So all of the anxiety and depression, all of those things later on for me led to an eating disorder.
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So a lot of people don't think about children's emotions at a young age, affecting them their entire life.
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And it wasn't until I was in treatment during my eating disorder that I realized that this goes all the way back to when I was a kid had I had these tools as a child, then things may have turned out very different for me.
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And I'm not saying it's my parents' fault because you said it yourself.
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It's the old handbook on how to do things for kids.
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And it's, you know, generational.
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And I think that at some point we need to break this generational cycle because it's outdated and it's not working with the way that Children are today.
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So I think that we really need to control ourselves and that's the initial part of starting a child's learning process of emotional regulation.
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I totally agree.
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I feel like no parent in the world is, is given a manual and most of these manuals are totally outdated.
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So it is with some of those groundbreaking tactics, parents can roll out to guide their kids through this emotional roller coaster.
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What do you think works best?
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The easiest thing at the most basic level that a parent can do for their child is to build their confidence, their self worth, let them understand the value that they bring to the family.
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Let them understand the value that they bring to their community and their friends.
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I feel like if we raise Children who love themselves, they will automatically have this ability to create boundaries to say no later on in life and just to have the confidence, they need to tackle their own emotions.
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If you start off with a lack of self confidence, you sort of question your own feelings and your own emotions and you're already on the wrong path.
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So, first and foremost, I think parents should really just start with building their children's confidence and self worth.
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Secondly, I know a lot of times parents don't love when their Children, I don't want to say talk back because that sounds disrespectful, but when their Children talk back.
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Right.
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So it needs to be done in a respectful manner, but your Children should talk back, they should process what you said.
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And if they don't agree with it, then they should be able to use their voice to say, well, I don't agree with you.
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But why tell me why you don't agree with me, say it in a respectful way and if you're incorrect or, you know, as a parent, you correct them.
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But, you know, sometimes we're so quick to just say because I said so or because the parent and, and my daughter does this to me all the time, she'll rebuttal and I'll be left with my mouth open because I'm like, she's right, like I can't even argue with her.
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So I'm creating a child, I'm helping to build a child that knows how to use her voice and, you know, understand her instincts and understand that her feelings drive that instinct or her instinct drives her feelings.
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So, I think that we need to step back and allow our Children the space to challenge us sometimes.
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And I think another, I guess groundbreaking tactic you can say would be to create a safe space for them.
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If they are in, you know, some sort of sadness or a level of anger instead of, you know, telling them I'll give you something to cry about or big boys don't cry or come on, knock it off with the crying.
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Like, you know, why don't we find out like let's give them the space to express why they're upset without us associating shame or punishment with that emotion.
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So if we can create this safe space and say, OK, listen, I know you're feeling angry, let's talk about it.
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Do you want me to help you find a solution?
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Do you wanna, you know, spit some ideas out at me and I can just listen, you know, maybe they just need you to listen.
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I think that it's really important to create this safe space where the your Children can feel like they can go to you to discuss their feelings without, you know, being reprimanded or have that shame associated with it.
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So I think those are the three major things that we need to start doing as parents from the beginning.
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I love that.
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I wish I wish you had told that to my dad who's up in heaven who would always tell me, you know, whenever he would tell me to do something, I would just talk back and I'll be like, nope, I'm not doing it.
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He was like, you need to listen to me I'm like, I'm not listening to you.
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So and then we would go into an argument or the times that I would cry and I would just shut the door and go into the room and cry because I was not allowed to cry outside.
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I felt so shameful for me to cry in front of my dad.
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But thank you.
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I just hope that parents really listen to this piece where we are actually creating a safe space for our kids.
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We allow them to share their emotions right there.
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And then, and we are not, we are not shaming them, you know, because I feel like most parents are literally shaming their own kids for showing and not knowing it.
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Yeah, it's crazy.
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I mean, it's something that we've learned growing up as Children.
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And so we sort of, you know, project that onto our Children or in some cases, the way that the child is acting is actually triggering us from our childhood.
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And so we're responding in a way that our parents responded to us.
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So we just keep this cycle going and you know, it, it takes a while, but you just need to be present and you need to be aware.
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You know, you need to be aware of your own emotions, take a step back, take a deep breath and then think about how you can help your child in a way that you weren't helped as a child.
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If that makes sense.
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I think what drives me the most is that I didn't have this as a child and I know how things turned out for me doing those things are, are, are really the first three major steps in, in helping create healthy emotions for Children.
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Very cool.
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How about how does coaching kids on, let's say their emotions flip the script compared to the adult world of managing feelings like any secret sauce for the younger crowd.
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The reason I'm asking you this is because let's say my partner gets angry.
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I would always say things like, hey, let's talk about this, you know, and I wish parents can literally do that to their kids and is what you're saying, we need to sit with our kids and do that.
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But give us some simple tips for us to really use with our kids.
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I think the the secret sauce is really the things that I mentioned before.
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It's, it's treating your child as an equal.
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Sometimes we look at it as like a dictatorship, right?
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It's like we tell you what to do and you do it.
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And I think that what we need to do is talk to them like we would talk to our husband or our spouse or wife or whoever, like tell me what's bothering you.
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Can I help you?
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You know, let's figure this out together.
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I think that's the secret sauce.
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It, it's having the ability to give your kids that self worth that confidence, that value that they bring.
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And so also let them know that no matter what they're feeling at that moment, you will always be there for them.
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You will always love them, regardless of what they're feeling.
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You're creating a space where your kids are going to want to express their emotions and the more that they do that, the more that they'll do that as an adult, because I'll tell you right now, I'm 41 years old and I still won't cry in front of my husband or anybody.
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And I've been, you know, and I do talks about this.
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It's a very hard cycle to break, you know, especially after 40 years.
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And so I'm trying to make things different for my kids.
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And I think that that is the secret sauce right there.
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I love that.
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So, have you personally ever witnessed a moment where one of your kids mastery of emotional regulation completely turned the tables, like share a story with us?
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Yeah.
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So during COVID, my son had a very, very difficult time controlling his emotions.
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In fact, all of my, my Children really went through it.
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I, I have an entire chapter dedicated to it in my book.
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But my son was getting to a point where he couldn't control his emotions at all.
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He would cry at any given moment.
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He had this rage inside him.
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You know, he would yell at his little brother for no reason.
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Stay in his room.
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So I knew something was wrong.
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But I had to learn to give him again that safe space where he felt comfortable telling me what was bothering him.
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You know, I had to let him know no matter what you tell me right now, even if it's me that's causing you this anger or, you know, maybe his stepfather was causing me anger or his father, you know, whoever it is, we're not going to punish you.
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If you explain to us why you feel the way, you know, that you feel.
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And once that he realized he was able to talk about what was making him sad.
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You know, his anger slowly started to dissipate here also because anger is unresolved grief.
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So if we can work through the process of what, you know, was bothering him and what was making him sad, then we slowly started to eliminate or regulate the emotions in a way that worked for him.
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, his anger di diminished and,, he's now more vocal.
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He tells us in the moment if, if something is upsetting him because we've set that tone in the house that you can say what you want.
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We're not going to get mad at you for speaking your true feelings.
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And even if it's about one of us and it offends one of us, that's ok.
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I want you to still tell me your true feelings.
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And I think we've come so far from who he was in COVID to who he is now.
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And it was all simply because we let him know that he was free to speak without punishment or judgment.
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Once very simple thing that some people just don't really think about.
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You know, again, it comes from how you were raised and your culture and you know, all of those things definitely play a role into how, how you respond to your Children.
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I love that.
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So let's move our conversation to, let's say school and the role of school in this emotional evolution.
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Are we talking revolution or gentle lunch?
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What's your battle plan for the education system?
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So it's funny you ask because I was a teacher for 13 years before you.
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I actually resigned during COVID because I had to take care of my Children.
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So I think that there's many different roles.
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The school is one, the parent is another and society as a whole is, is the third role here.
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I think it's very important for the communication line to be open between the parent and the teacher, not just for negativity, not just to report the bad things that the kids are doing, but the good things as well.
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So if it teacher sees a certain emotion that a child's going through, report it to the parent and the parent should, you know, have communication with the teachers as well.
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I talk to my son's teachers all the time if he's having an off day, I'll shoot them an email and say, you know, he's, you know, he's a little off, just be aware and, and then they'll, they'll kind of approach him with a gentle or more kind approach.
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, just by having that little heads up.
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But I think as a society we need to eliminate the shame.
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You know, kids don't want to cry in the classroom.
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I saw it as a teacher.
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If they get upset, they're, they're hiding their face, they're running out of the room, they don't want other kids seeing them crying because that makes you weak, that makes you a baby.
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You know, all of those things associated with it.
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And so I think as a school, we need to work with the parents and we also need to work with creating a society that or the school, at least in itself should create a space where there is no shame.
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They have dar programs.
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I don't know if it's called dare anymore.
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But it's like those, you know, the police officers come into the classrooms and talk about not using drugs, not using substances.
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And I think a program like that with teaching Children how to express their emotions would be a wonderful thing to start in the school system.
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That's sort of my, I guess goal in the future would be to create some sort of curriculum or presentation or even just a visit into the schools that talks about you know, emotions and, and regulating emotions for Children.
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I love that.
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I think that I think that approach is going to absolutely work and it's going to definitely change the generational patterns and cycles of how we are just modeling behavior of our parents because our parents didn't know any better and they were modeling their parents.
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So talking about, you know, changing it at the school system, let's move into modeling behavior and how should parents and caregivers strut their emotional intelligence stuff to set the bar for kids, what should they do?
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So kids are sponges, right?
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That saying wasn't made up for no reason, like they actually take in everything around them more so as a child than they do as an adult.
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So how you respond to any given the situation will be the way that your child believes is the way to regulate.
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Like I said before, you personally may have some triggers instead of reacting, you know, when your child's behaving a certain way because it's triggering you, you need to understand your own emotions first.
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So before we can even help our Children, you have to help yourself, you have to understand your own emotions, then you would need to self regulate, calm yourself down and then respond to the situation because you don't want to respond to your child in the way.
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Like you said that your parents had responded to you, kids are gonna copycat you, they're gonna do things the way that you do them.
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So allowing your child to feel seen and heard during an emotional situation, makes them feel more vulnerable.
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And then in turn more open to hearing what it is you have to say.
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So if you can get that level of vulnerability with them, you'll probably have a better outcome on them wanting to hear you out, hear your advice, hear what you would do instead of coming in in like that authority mode as like a parent come in more as like they're equal and make yourself vulnerable so that they feel vulnerable if that makes sense.
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Yeah, totally.
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Oh my goodness.
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This is huge.
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I feel like parents keep acting like, you know, you got to listen to me, you gotta listen to me.
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I'm the parent, you know, like that tone does not really work with kids.
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It makes them fearful, it makes them feel ashamed if you know, like you already mentioned, we judge them.
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I love that.
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This is my last question and I know a lot of parents have this problem where you have kids and then they have a public meltdown.
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So what would be a good protocol?
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So do you have any tactics for parents facing the ultimate test of emotional regulation in public?
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Like or in the wild?
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For example, I hear one of my clients, she always, and she feels so ashamed when she's at a party and her kid is crying and she feels like, oh my God, I got to take him out of the room.
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I'm like, why are you yourself feeling so ashamed to the point where she herself started crying just because her kid was embarrassing her.
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So give us some tactics for parents who feel embarrassed, shamed, angry, frustrated with their kids in public.
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I think first and foremost, as parents, we're like, so we're so focused on fitting into this mold like when we're around other people.
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And you know, if you're at a birthday party and your kid is crying and everyone else is having fun rather than saying, oh my God, I'm like so mortal I have to get out of here.
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Well, try to understand why they're crying.
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There's a reason kids don't even adults, we don't just have an emotional reaction to something for no reason.
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We need to figure out what is triggering that emotional reaction.
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And a child doesn't have the capability to go through those steps and be like, ok, let me figure out why I'm sad.
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That's up to you to figure out as their parent.
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I think it starts before the tantrums can occur.
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OK?
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I think that we have less tantrums.
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If we create the vibe, I was talking about prior, you know, self-regulating, create an environment where your child feels calm.
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Because if your child is again around somebody who's super anxious and yelling all the time and rushing, that's how they're gonna react to something that's stressful to them, which may look like a temper tantrum.
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We need to create boundaries with our Children from a young age.
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They'll likely adhere to those boundaries as it becomes a learned behavior.
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So if we start at a, you know, a very young age saying hold my hands when we cross the street or whatever the case may be of eventually, that kicks in as a learned behavior and you're not going to have the temper tantrum or the kid that's, you know, running, you know, into traffic.
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So I think that it all begins actually before we get to the point of a tantrum, we got to give them that safe space, we have to let them express their emotions.
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And if all that fails and you're in the middle of a meltdown, which I, I have a four year old and he often has meltdowns.
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So I understand that they're not always avoidable.
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There's no like magic fairy dust that will prevent it, but I think you need to really understand where they're coming from, put yourself in their shoes, they're obviously upset about something.
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So you need to approach it in a way calming but also stern, right?
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You know, you're having, I see that you're very angry right now.
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I see you're very upset right now.
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This is not the place to express that emotion.
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I think that I'm getting ready to leave.
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I don't know, let's say you're at the supermarket, checking out.
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I'm getting ready to leave.
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I'm gonna gather my stuff.
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I'm gonna get in the car and I'm gonna go home.
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You're gonna come with me and then when we get home, we can discuss this further.
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So they might continue that tantrum.
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They might go out kicking and screaming, but then you'll go home, you'll talk about it, you'll figure out what triggered them.
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And then the next time when it happens, it will, it will lessen because it will start to become something that they're, you know, becomes accustomed to.
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It's a learned behavior now and again, the temp, the temper tantrums may last for months before this actually becomes something that they're understanding.
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, but it takes patience and I think,, if we can do those things, we'll start to see, I hope we'll start to see less meltdowns because my four year old can really give it to me sometimes.
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I love that.
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It was a wonderful conversation.
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Thank you so much for teaching us how kids can manage their own emotions.
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And I feel a lot of your tips apply to even adults.
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But if adults can start learning, they can help their kids and they shouldn't, they shouldn't complain when their kids are throwing all these tantrums because I feel, I personally feel and I tell my clients this, that it started with you.
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You're doing all this.
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Therefore, the kid is doing all this.
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It's all mirroring monkey see monkey do approach.
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So you and whatever you have said, every word is resonated with what I've been teaching.
24:43
So thank you Ella for actually, you know, saying that because I feel like our society needs to hear you out.
24:53
So where can our audience reach out to you?
24:57
You can reach out to me.
24:58
Probably easiest would be my website, which is LS A dot com.
25:02
On my website, it shows you the different social media handles that I have.
25:08
But there's also an events page which shows where I'll be doing public speaking or live events as well.
25:15
Awesome.
25:15
So if anyone is interested to in meeting with Ella or speaking to her or booking her for any of your events, just reach out to her at Ella shae.com and Ella.
25:30
It was a pleasure having you on our podcast.
25:34
Any last words for us, you can get my book on my website too.
25:38
And if you do purchase it through my website, I do give you an autographed copy.
25:42
So it's a little bit better than getting it through Amazon.
25:45
Cool.
25:46
That's, that's a cool deal.
25:48
Thanks Ella.
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And remember everyone.
25:51
Metamorphosis, not medication.
25:53
No mistake.
26:01
So that's it for today's episode of Supercharge.
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Your soul's transformation.
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Head on over to itunes or wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to the show, one lucky listener every single week that post a review on itunes will win a chance in the grand prize drawing of a $15,000 value private VIP day with Dimple Bindra herself.
26:23
Be sure to head on over to supercharge your soul podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Dimple's Gift and join us next time.