122: Fear Less with Dr David Coleman: Are We Raising Anxious Kids?

A practical and honest conversation with clinical psychologist Dr David Coleman, author of Fear Less, on childhood anxiety. We explore why anxiety feels so common in children today, the difference between normal fear and something more serious, and how parents can support their child without overprotecting them. From the science behind anxiety to simple tools that actually work, this episode focuses on one key idea: your child doesn’t need to be fearless, they just need to know how to handle fear. Proudly sponsored by www.happytummy.ie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

This show is part of the Head Stuff Podcast Network.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

Welcome to the Baby Tribe. I'm your host, Afi Felkafash, neonatologist, pediatrician, and lactation consultant, and my co-host is Anne Deharty, obstetric anesthesiologist. This episode of The Baby Tribe is sponsored by Happytummy.ie and Biogaia Arland. Biogaia contains the probiotic Lactobacillus Ruteri, the only clinically proven probiotic to help infants with colic. They also have probiotics suitable for the whole family, like Biogaia Prodentis for oral health, one of my favorites. Let's get on with the show. Welcome to the baby tribe. Every parent wants a confident child, one who walks into a room, makes friends easily, sleeps without drama, and isn't afraid of the world. But here's the problem. Fear is part of being human. And maybe the goal isn't to raise fearless kids, but kids who know what to do when they feel afraid. Because anxiety is everywhere right now. In school drop-offs, at bedtime, in teenagers who suddenly don't want to go out anymore. And as parents, we're stuck in this constant question: Do I step in? Do I push them? Am I helping? Or actually making it worse? So today's episode is all about that. How we raise children who can handle fear without trying to eliminate it completely. And what we are as parents getting completely wrong when it comes to anxiety. Joining us today is somebody who has spent years working right at the co-face of this. Dr. David Coleman is a clinical psychologist, an adjunct associate professor in psychology at UCD, and someone who has worked with countless children, teenagers, and families navigating anxiety and emotional challenges. He's also just released a new book which is all about helping children understand their anxiety and more importantly, learn how to manage it in a practical, real-world way. David, you're very welcome to the Baby Tribe. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, my pleasure.

SPEAKER_04 2:00

I was just saying earlier that you were the kind of soundtrack to the radio shows when my kids were very young. And also we had one of your very first books to try and uh help me figure out what the hell I was doing at the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

That wasn't today or yesterday either. That was some time ago. It's brilliant, guiding. Guiding, thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

We should warn him much as well. These podcast episodes have a habit of turning into the Anna Fief therapy session. So yeah, and having a clinical psychologist in the room is a very dangerous situation there. So you know, let you know my feet afterwards. Yeah, exactly. We try and keep it above board as much as we can rather than covert therapy.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

You j you just gave away our secret of trying to get free therapy. I know. But before we we go on, I wanted to ask you, and it's a very clever name, is it fearless or fearless?

SPEAKER_01 2:50

It's fearless. Okay. Yeah, very deliberately fearless. Because I think, you know, even the concept like if you can fear less, then you can do more. And that's really, I suppose, at the heart of what I'm trying to help parents help their kids and teenagers achieve. Because I do think there's certainly over the last maybe five or ten years, like with all the the positive stuff that has come with the discourse on mental health, one of the downsides that I see is that normal feelings like anxiousness become pathologized. So I think there's a lot of parents that might perceive when their child becomes anxious that they've now got a disorder, that they've now got some lifelong condition. And it's got to the point now that I have teenagers coming into my clinic absolutely asserting that they have anxiety as if, you know, I have brown eyes, I have anxiety, I have COVID. And so again, they see it as this life-limiting condition that they have that they can't get rid of. And that's just not the way of it when it comes to anxiousness. Anxiousness is just another normal feeling. And so, like any feeling, it can come in, it can come in very intensely, it'll probably pass. But in the interim, there might be things or in certainly in anxieties cases, lots of things you can do to just lower the intensity of it. And so that's really what the book is about, helping parents understand that actually there's loads that they can do with their kids, loads that their kids can do for themselves, then that just allow anxiousness to be a normal feeling that they can move through.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I I kind of always bring it down to uh kind of physical analogies in some ways. So, like somebody who if you're gonna if you're unfit and you're gonna run for like five minutes, you're gonna be out of breath. It doesn't mean you've asthma, you know? And it's normal to be out of breath in that situation, and then you develop the fitness and resilience to actually improve all of that and you can move on. And it doesn't mean that you have a disorder, that you need medications or anything like that. Yeah, um, and I think it's really interesting that do you think social media plays a huge amount in kind of pathologizing normality, or do you think that people need better health literacy, or what is it?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I think it's so it's like anything. The more you talk about something, the more prevalent it appears to be. And so uh, you know, like even you think about, you know, I changed my car recently, and as soon as I considered changing my car and thought about what kind of car I was going to get, I could see loads of them around, and I wouldn't have ever noticed the car, and I was like, oh my god, you know, and I think it's the same when when we start talking about anxiety and anxiousness, like it is ultimately a good thing because I think it does bring people's awareness to it. But the downside, the danger of that is that if some of the discourse is about you know the the problem that it represents, then people might only focus on the problem of it as opposed to sometimes the relevance of it, but also the fact that you know, even if it's a problem or a challenge, it's a it's a manageable challenge for most people in most situations. Um, so yeah, social media social media doesn't help anything, in my view. I mean, certainly when it comes to children and teenagers, like social media phones are a disaster. I mean, I think if we could get back to a situation where smartphones had never been invented, the world would be a better place. And certainly, I know you know there's recent kind of commentary about oh, will we bring in a an under-16s ban on social media? I think we'd be better off trying to ban mobile phones, smartphones for kids under 16. If we could get rid of the technology, never mind just the software, um, but get rid of the hardware, kids would be better off. So, yeah, I mean social media is its own whole problem, but certainly I think it adds to anxiousness for sure.

SPEAKER_03 6:19

I want to chat about social media actually in a little while, because I think it's a topic that comes up all the time, and especially in the kind of recent events of this push to ban social media. I mean, I have some reservations that I might touch on with you in a little while, and I'd be really interested to hear what you have to say about it. But just going back a little bit, can I ask, what actually drew you to psychology in the first place and then focusing on children and anxiety?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

So, goodness, what brought I think when I was going through school, I always had the sense oh, I'd like to do a job that involved kind of helping people in some way. But um, originally I was thinking oh, maybe hotel management. Um, I laugh sometimes as well. You know, I've heard some crazy kind of juxtapositions of different careers. Somebody once wanted to be either a social worker or a botanist, and I was like, Wow, okay, well, that's really difficult. But so mine was hotel management, or what I ended up falling into was psychology. And even when I started psychology, I don't think I fully understood uh the career of a psychologist. So it was only when I'd done postgraduate degrees that I actually came to the point that I realized, oh, I actually want to be in the field of clinical psychology. And I had a great um the director of the course when I was doing my clinical training, um, always said to us, you know, the goal of um becoming a psychologist is just to be in a position to give psychology away. That's all we're ever doing, which I thought, you know, is just a fantastic concept. The idea that if I have knowledge and and understanding, it's pointless unless I can share it with other people. So I think that's what led me into uh the particular job I do now. It's certainly what led me into the media end of it, because uh an opportunity came all those years ago, which I took, but you know, driving that was the idea that okay, now lots more people can have access to the little bits of information or or expertise that I might have. And uh yeah, and so I mean, anxiety and and anxiousness and and phobias and all those things, I mean, they're just they've been around forever. So, you know, I've always worked with children or teenagers who've experienced that over the years. Um, I think the uh like I was saying, you know, the concept that that that every feeling of anxiousness is a disorder, that's more that's newer, you know. And and I think more people maybe perceive it as a problem and feel that they they can't, they don't have the resources themselves to deal with it, and so they come to a someone like me. So um yeah, but I think it's just it's that idea of uh yeah, being able to give psychology away that I think keeps me doing what I do, and well, I mean it's very rewarding sometimes as well. I like working individually with teenagers is intensely rewarding because sometimes they are just struggling, struggling with life, struggling with growing up, struggling with being a teenager, and to help them navigate some of that and and then for them to go away going, Well, that was a good thing. Yeah, okay, great. Yeah, good that that was a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 9:06

And you mentioned that anxiety has always been there. Are we now becoming more aware of it, or do you feel that it's actually increasing as well?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

I think it's more that we're becoming more aware of it, we're labelling it more in a way that we wouldn't necessarily have labelled it. I think you know, children and teenagers will have always experienced some level of anxiousness. So, I mean, I felt anxious before exams, you know. I felt anxious going into certain social situations, I felt anxious about you know, discos and what might happen at the discos and all those things, and and that that wasn't abnormal, nor was it characterized as anything abnormal. And but again, equally, I probably didn't tell too many people about it. I just kind of you know chundered on, kept going, and you know, got through it all and um and didn't talk about it and certainly didn't label myself as having a mental health issue. And and that's the language, that's the terminology that I think is particularly unhelpful for teenagers. Um, and and I mean I never talk about mental health or teenagers or children's mental health. I talk about their emotional well-being a lot, but I never reference mental health because I don't think it's a particularly helpful concept because it's actually when people talk about mental health, they're actually considering it as if it's mental illness, which is not the same thing. So yeah, I think there's a bit of unpacking to do, I think, in terms of you know where that discourse, where that that cultural conversation has gone over the last number of years.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

I think language really matters around that stuff, and I think it's a really good point that mental health, mental wellness, and all that kind of stuff gets conflated with illness all the time. And we definitely need very clear parameters on all of that and a much greater depth of understanding because the breadth is too wide.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

But when is anxiety problematic? Typically when it prevents kids from doing things. Um, and so I think you know, one of the biggest uh you know hallmarks of of problematic anxiety is when it leads children to avoid situations that they perhaps otherwise were able to cope with or felt man they could manage. I think sometimes the the physiology of anxiety as well becomes overwhelming for some children. And so I I hear a lot more teenagers, for example, talking about like a, you know, oh, I had a total panic attack. And so I do sometimes wonder whether their understanding of a panic attack is the same as my understanding of a panic attack in terms of the physiology and what's actually happening to them. But I do think there are children, teenagers who experience that overwhelming, you know, crushing sense in their chest, you know, their heart racing, you know, feeling like they're sweaty, feeling like they might faint, you know, which is all the hallmarks of a panic attack. So if you have a child who's describing that to you, that's probably problematic. If you have a child who develops something like obsessive compulsive disorder, which is an anxiety disorder, that's going to be a problem. And that's probably beyond the the scope for most parents to deal with in in um an effective way. So yeah, I think there are, yeah, I mean, it's it's usually though that kids avoid stuff and then it's like, okay, now it's getting in the way, it's becoming a problem.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

And that's a really important distinction because across different children and teenagers, a teenager with maybe a much higher level of anxiety may be able to continually function and and go on with their life. Whereas a different situation where we would quantify the anxiety as lower, it may be actually affecting what they're doing. And it's a nice way of I guess gauging when to intervene. It's how it's actually affecting what you do day to day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

Yeah, it's not the feeling itself, it's the function.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah, it's how it how it does or doesn't interfere. And I think one of the helpful ways to try and understand that with your own son or daughter is to ask them to rate the level or the intensity of their anxiousness. And if they use, say, a zero to ten scale, the official term for that is a subjective unit of distress scale. I just thought I'd throw in a bit of jargon because I, you know, I don't know much. So when I have it, I should throw it in. But these suds are really helpful because what they offer is some way for a child to try to quantify how bad the anxiety feels. And so if they're rating their anxiety somewhere up at an eight, nine, or ten, where ten is total panic and you know, zero, one is kind of feeling totally chill and relaxed. If they're rating it up at eight, nine or ten, that's going to be getting in the way. That's going to be overwhelming for them. And so they need to find some strategy to bring it down enough that they can, you know, to use the American expression, feel the fear and do it anyway. Yeah. And so that's in that kind of four to seven zone or lower. And so that's what we want, is that's what the book is about as well, is about giving children those skills that they can actually bring their anxiety down. One of the other analogies I sometimes use is is of an oven. And so if you think about an oven, life and circumstance will do the anxiety equivalent of turning on that oven. So you don't get a choice about whether the oven gets turned on. But what you definitely want a child to know is that they have control of the thermostat, that they can turn the oven up or down. So if the temperature gets really hot, they need to be able to turn it down. And so that's what the skills do. They, you know, if they have uh, you know, a technique or a strategy that allows them to lower their heart rate a little bit, you know, switch off the adrenaline a little bit, get their thinking back in order, become a little bit more positive, you know, focus more on their capacity to cope rather than their inability to cope. For example, you know, even those small shifts make a big difference to our perception that oh, this is manageable, I can I can do something about this.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

But there's obviously a spectrum of awareness and self-awareness that people have, regardless of their age. So are there particular kind of um personalities or ages that people wouldn't necessarily have the self-awareness to spot those early signs of anxiety physiologically or even mentally, and be able to identify them and label them?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, so most children can't do that, for example. So most children just experience the world and and they see the world from the inside out, so they have their experience of it and they're looking out into the world and trying to understand it. But once we hit our teenage years, we develop the capacity to have what they call metacognition or thinking about our thinking, so we can see ourselves from an outside perspective, which means we can then begin to judge ourselves as well, which is where a lot of that early self-consciousness comes in for young teenagers, and and it's just about that shift in their in their brains that has allowed them to develop this aspect of their thinking. So that I think is is when children would probably have a greater sense that they feel anxious about things. Although, you know, a younger child is more likely to describe feeling uncomfortable, feeling that they've you know they feel sick in their tummy, you know, just not really wanting to do something, but not necessarily being able to explain why they don't want to do the something.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

I mean, what is happening to the children biologically?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

So it's a lot to do with our brain architecture and uh how our brains function. So to simplify it, um Dan Siegel, have you come across The Whole Brain Child by Dan Siegel and Tanya Byrne? Anyway, great book, but um they talk about to be readless. Yeah, I would put it on it. It's really good, it's really helpful. But they'd they simplify the brain down to an upstairs brain and a downstairs brain, where the upstairs brain is the neocortex, the thinking part of the brain, the rational thinking part of the brain that we'd most be common with. So that's all the kind of stuff up in the the top part uh of your brain. But then your brain stem is what they consider the downstairs part of the brain. And so the brain stem is the bit that does all the um subconscious or the automatic processes. So we're sitting here, we're breathing, we're not telling our lungs to breathe, that's happening automatically. We're digesting our food, that's happening automatically. Thank you for the chocolate biscuits, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 16:27

The rest of them will be gone by the time we get in the house because the two kids are in there gone.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Well, that's life. Um I'm glad I got in early. Um, and so yeah, so so the the downstairs part of the brain is the bit that would be first um kind of uh set off when it comes to uh understanding or recognizing some kind of danger. And that's because you know, whatever we touch, whatever we see, it travels in through the um, you know, the senses and and the first part of the brain that receives that information is the downstairs part of the brain, the brain stem. And the brain stem makes an automatic immediate judgment about whether there's danger here or not. So our risk system is just automatically uh you know put into play. And so an example of that would be if you've ever, you know, if say you have an induction hob or a glass hob and you put your hand down and you don't realize that the hob has been on, you don't have to go, oh, this is really hot. If I keep my fingers here, they're going to burn. Like automatically, your hand just will jump up off the hob. That's because the downstairs part of your brain perceives the temperature, goes, that's dangerous, and lifts your hand off before you've even thought about it. Afterwards, you think, oh, holy God, Jesus, that who left the hob? You know, and then we start thinking about the fact that the hob was really hot. So that's how our danger response system works. But that'll be the same if you're walking down a road and you hear a footstep behind you. You don't have to think, oh, I wonder if that's somebody who's coming to mug me. Straight away you'll assume that that's somebody coming to mug you. Your brain, your downstairs brain. Afterwards, the upstairs part of your brain gets the same information. And if the signals from the downstairs part of the brain aren't too strong, the upstairs part of your brain can start to rationalize it. So, again, the best example of that would be if you were sitting in your sitting room watching television, you don't hear somebody coming into the room, they go, Oh, what are you watching? And you go, Jesus, you know, and you clutch at your heart because you've been startled by the fact that I didn't realize anybody was in the room. Then you see who it is. Ideally, it's someone in your family who loves you and you love them, and you know, you're not in danger. And so straight away you start to kind of almost talk yourself down from that fright that you got. And that's the upstairs, rational thinking part of your brain clicking into gear. But if the signals from the downstairs part of the brain are particularly strong, and then that they, you know, trigger the release of adrenaline, and then adrenaline sets up its own whole cycle of heartbeating. The more your heart beats fast, the more your breathing seems short, the more you feel tension in your muscles, the more you think, oh, I'm in real danger. And so it sets up its own kind of really powerful cycle. That means the upstairs part of the brain just ends up just not being able to think clearly. And so that's the bit that we have to try and first with children and teenagers get them is to try to calm the physiology, try to get, you know, reduce the adrenaline a little bit so that they can kind of broaden out their thinking then. So that's the key bit. And once they can broaden out their thinking, then they can maybe move into positive affirmations, positive self-talk, all the things that we need them to be able to do, um, but they can't access it initially because if the downstairs signals are really strong.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

And I'd say there's an awful lot of adults as well that really can describe that mental tunnel vision that you get when you're just super duper anxious and you cannot see the wood for the trees. Okay. Um, so it's a useful set of skills for everybody and for parents with kids who are in an anxious phase in life to be able to model that. It's it's useful for everyone, you know. Um and the book does talk about that, a few different coping techniques, like box breathing breathing for kids and stuff like that. I use it all the time at work when I get patients coming in super anxious for their C-sections. And we do box breathing while we're just waiting to go in. Yeah. And it just it just starts to help.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Yeah, totally. Or any kind of a grounding exercise, you know. So, like a great one is just to grab an ice cube out of the freezer if you have one, you know, give it to your child to hold, and so they'll notice that, you know, initially it feels cold, then it feels burning, then they get water dripping. And so those physical sensations again just distract a little bit away from that zoning in on the anxiousness. So it almost interrupts their negative cycle of thinking enough that you can then maybe suggest them, okay, let's do some breathing now, let's get your heart rate down, you feel how how high your heart is going, let's see if we can measure that. And even measuring their heart rate can be good because it's great for children sometimes to see the juxtaposition between their heart rate being really high, they do a something, and then their heart rate is low. So I know in in my practice, I have where I live, I work from home and there's a small little hill outside the house. So I will often bring kids out. You know, we'll measure their heart rate at the bottom of the hill. I'll say run up that hill and run down to me again. Their heart rate goes up to 110, 120. We do some breathing at the bottom of the hill, their heart rate comes down to 90, and they go, Oh, it works. Yeah. And I go, absolutely. And if it works for this, it'll work whenever you feel anxious. And so it's just that sense that, oh, this stuff makes a difference. Yeah. Um, and so I mean, sometimes, and it's not that I'm uh being disingenuous to my clients, but sometimes it's as much about the confidence that we can instill in them that the techniques work. So there's an element, perhaps, particularly with the younger children, of a placebo effect, because younger children, it's very hard for them to do breathing exercises, but if they believe that it works, it will have the same effect as it actually practically working, in that they'll feel reassured their their heart rate will come down. And once their heart rate comes down, I think that's when everything frees up in terms of the the thinking styles, the thinking strategies.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

I just want to jump in here and maybe summarize what we chatted about because I have to say this is one of the best explanations I have heard about the physiology of anxiety and how it works, honestly. Because oftentimes when you hear of those techniques that people use to regulate. themselves. There is sometimes a degree of scepticism there. You know, this is woo-woo, this is just pie in the sky stuff. This is not going to work. But the way you explained how that works and how those exercises actually help rein in the overfiring of the brainstem. I think make people realize that these relatively simple tools that you can empower yourself with as a parent and then pass them on to your child can really work. And it's it's it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Well, if you have time, I'll give you one more because breathing, box breathing, deep breathing, slow breathing, whatever you call it, is often suggested as you know the antidote to feeling anxious. And most people don't understand why. Yes. But if you think about what your breathing system is doing, it's trying to get oxygen into your body. So we breathe the air in, our lungs have time to take the oxygen out of the air, put it into the bloodstream, and then send that around the body. And so in when we're feeling anxious and we're in fight or flight mode, what our body needs is highly oxygenated blood, more of it in our legs and our arms, ready to run away from or fight against the danger. So if we can maximize the amount of oxygen in our system, our body gets that oxygen quicker. It comes to the muscles in our legs and our arms quicker. They can send the message back to the heart then to go, we're sorted. We don't need you now. You can slow down because we're we have all the oxygen that we need. So that's why breathing slower and deeper, it maximizes both the amount of oxygen that you can take out, but also the time that you have to take that oxygen out of the air. That's why it works. Like it's physiologically functional, you know. So, um, yeah, so so all that and the same too. I think if children understand why they feel sick in their tummy, it's because again, what their body is doing is needing extra blood in the legs and the arms. You can't just generate that instantly. So you have to divert it and you divert it from your digestive system. Yeah. So of course your food is undigested, you feel a bit queasy, and that's why you feel sick in your tummy. And I think when kids get that, they kind of go, Oh, okay. It's not something sinister, it's something explicable and understandable.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

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SPEAKER_03 24:35

Visit happytummy.ie to learn more and give your crew the gift of a happy tummy and a healthy smile. Hey there, Baby Tribe listeners. Did you know that we've got some amazing bonus material just for you? Baby Tribe Shorts is here. Quick evidence-based breakdown of all things science when it comes to mum and baby. You can find it as part of the Headstuff Podcast Network. You can subscribe to Headstuff Plus for as little as 5€ a month. We'll give you quick evidence-based takes on science behind maternal and infant health.

SPEAKER_04 25:04

And the best part is it's just 5 euro a month, which helps support us and supports Headstuff and all the incredible shows they produce.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

You can find all the details on Headstuff Podcasts.com. Anne tells me stories from when she was a child.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

I was one of six growing up in Mayo.

SPEAKER_03 25:41

And it is to me, it's a miracle that they're all still alive because she used to tell me that her mum, she's from Mayo, Ballana, if if if people don't know, and they used to be sent on their bikes to cycle all the way to the beach in Enniscrone, which is a good test.

SPEAKER_04 25:56

That was about a 45-minute cycle. But now, in fairness, we were kind of young teens or early teenagers with an older teen.

SPEAKER_03 26:03

No mobile phone, no way of tracking, and they were like, come back for dinner.

SPEAKER_04 26:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

And that was the norm.

SPEAKER_04 26:08

You brought a pack of lunch and money for an ice cream if you were lucky.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

I can't, I can't, for the life of me, think that I would be able to do that with my children in you know now, even with all of the technology that is available to keep an eye on kids and track them and all of that. But do you feel that the lack of independence that we now instill in our children plays part in anxiety?

SPEAKER_01 26:31

I do. I think parents themselves are more anxious, they're they're more fearful of risk. Yes. Um, so sorry, risk tolerance as a parent has gone right down, and and we perceive more risk out there for our kids, some of which is justified, but not all of it. Um I at least I don't think it's all justified. And I do think that as a consequence, we uh do overprotect our kids. And of course, the difficulty with overprotecting a child is that they never learn the skills that they need.

SPEAKER_04 26:57

And so Orn get the confidence to know that they can pull themselves through.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, and and there's so many ways, you know, in in kind of um the way we kind of think about things. Like when when my children were growing up and and you know, going to their first discos, I I think because I'd worked with teenage clients and I'd heard all about what was going on in the discos.

SPEAKER_04 27:17

You were overly informed.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

I was overly informed, and so I was like, okay, my kids are just never going, you know. And then certainly my poor daughter, you know, when it came to the point that my daughter was going to her first disco, well, she's definitely not going wearing what all I know all the other teenagers are wearing. And yet, you know, I had a friend who's also she's a psychotherapist, and and I was saying, like, oh, I'm just not gonna let my kids go. And she said, No, no, no, no, let them go when they're 12 and 13, because there is way less risk at the disco at that age. Um, and at least then they can grow up into the riskier decisions when they're you know, 14, 15, 16.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

I'm pointing at we had the exact same conversation, and this is what I say all the time.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

So so thank you, David, for literally validating my wife's parenting stuff and and and and and showing me up to be no, we argued about this so much at the time because it was such a hard thing to do. So so I I I grew up in a very restrictive, anxious upbringing, and and there's a lot of reasons for that. Um I grew up in Kuwait, my dad's Palestinian, we lived through the Kuwait war, and my parents were pediatricians, they saw horrors. So after the war in 1990, um 1990, they were super anxious, understandably so. Yeah, like and PTSD stuff, PTSD stuff that you know we weren't allowed to do a lot of stuff, and there's no public transport in Kuwait, so we were driven everywhere and things like that. So I grew up with that, and then when my kids are going up here, with Anne's upbringing of being kicked out of the house, there was free-range parenting. Free range parenting almost.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

There were six of us. Good luck keeping track.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

There was there was a big clash, and you know, what you describe like came up in almost everything where I was I was like, Maggie can't use a bus at the age of 13. Are you serious? This is insanity, Anne.

SPEAKER_04 29:07

And you know she's queen of the public transport network.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Oh my god, she well, I'd tell you a story because I had um uh a client who um was telling me about the system in Switzerland, and in Switzerland, children from the age of six are expected to walk to school without any adult. Yeah, and so now maybe that's because Switzerland is a safer place, but it's also I think just an indicator of a mindset, of a of a sense that children can and need to be semi-independent. And so, you know, I often think of parenting itself as a as a journey of letting go, and that if you think about it, when you have your babies first, of course they're literally stuck to you. You know, you're holding them, you're you're cuddling them, you're um you're holding them close to feed them and and all these things. But from that point on, you're slowly and gently and hopefully gradually letting them go more and more and more and more. And and that's what's not happened.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

That's the biggest challenge as a parent.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Like you want to be able to look at your kids and be so proud of who they are as an independent, really nice person.

SPEAKER_02 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

But if you're still holding them close and feeding them and carrying them around the place when they're 13, you probably have a bit of a problem.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Yeah, because they won't be able to do it for themselves because they just simply aren't learning the skills. And so that's the bit that that I think it is critical for parents to have that confidence that their kids can actually cope with more stuff. And and I often say to you know, my clients' parents that you know, it's very hard to break a child. You know, there are very few experiences that happen to children that we cannot support them with as a parent, with you know, the emotional support that we can offer, and that you know, children cannot become resilient unless they suffer. Yeah, and so an example that I often give, you know, if I'm giving public talks about it, is I'll ask an audience, you know, um, how many of your kids have ever forgotten their lunch going to school in primary school? Exactly. The whole the whole audience have practically put up their hand. And then I say, and how many of you would have brought the lunch to your child? And again, 98% of that same group will put up their hands. And I'm saying, well, what would have happened if you hadn't brought the lunch to your child? And you know, most parents would probably in their head perceive, oh, they'd have died of starvation, when in fact, of course, they won't, they'll have been hungry, or they'll have had to, they'll have had to tell the teacher, the teacher will have had to say, Okay, you know, Sean's forgotten his lunch, we need to share with Sean. All the other kids go, Great, they get rid of all the mushy bananas and the apples. Poor Sean is left with all this horrible battered fruit for his lunch and things. He's not hungry. And also he's learning, I'm never going to forget my lunch again. Whereas if if Mammy or Daddy just drops the lunch in, Sean learns nothing about his own responsibility for his food, for looking after himself. And so, so it's all those small ways, I think, that you know, it's not that I'm suggesting we let kids suffer drastically. We don't want the suffering to be overwhelming, but they have to they have to experience the consequence of some of their own decisions, I think.

SPEAKER_04 31:59

And I think there's a difference, like parents, like nobody wants any parent inflicting suffering on their child because that's wrong. But the other side of it is the world will the world and life will inflict some suffering on your child. Yeah, yeah, right. And the boundaries that you set on how they deal with that will inform their decisions going forward. So, like you know, our son was disastrous on the public transport network because he's not great with details at his age, um, and he has gone the wrong way, and he's had to sit in the rain for a long time waiting until one of us was free to go find him and pick him up. And he learned to read the buses properly as a result, you know, and he was not in danger, but at the same time, that level of discomfort was what he needed. Totally. Um, and it's different, people are different. He has always, since he was very small, decided that you know it will take an awful lot of pain and suffering for him to learn a lesson, and he does inflict it on himself. But you kind of have to let him when he was three.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

This is the therapy bit, isn't it? This is where you want to be reassured. No, no, I don't know if you can this is the confessional component.

SPEAKER_04 33:07

The confessional component, very good.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

When he was three, he used to come to us when he was about to do something bad and ask us if I do this, what is the punishment? And weigh out his options. I kid you not. And then he would say, It's worth it.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

And then whack his sister across the head.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

And he'll go do it, you know, and then he'll he'll hold you to it.

SPEAKER_04 33:25

But you said I'm gonna he'll go do the punishment and he'd come back learning nothing and having suffered nothing because it was all within his control from the outset. He's a disaster. Yeah, he's a nice person, though, I promise. No, we did manage to break him in the end. Yeah. I mean, sorry, and Donimbus.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

Yeah. I I want to ask a bit of a provocative question if that's okay. Ask away. Why can't we apply what we talked about to phones and social media? Allow them to have them when they're early so that they can learn the skills to navigate it.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Okay, because social media is driven by algorithms and by AI, and there are some super smart minds that have created addictive formats which children just cannot cope with. And so, I mean, I've often heard, you know, the argument that, oh, well, you know, if we let them have it at 12, by the time they're 16, you know, they have some skills to cope. They don't, they're just deep into the addiction by the time they're 16. And so, whatever hope a young person has, age 16 or 17 or 18, to manage it because they have the intellectual capacity and the the kind of developmental maturity, they don't have that certainly at age nine, 10, when some kids are getting phones. So, so, you know, so so there's no benefit to having it early. You and I didn't have a mobile phone when we were 10. We function really well with technology now. We can cope, we can master our phone, we can master all the technological things that we need to with laptops and so on. And we didn't have that as children. So, so it's not that you can't learn this stuff when you're older, but you're hopefully better able to manage it. But even look at how many adults are lost to their phones and are totally addicted. And so, why would we put that on a child who just has no defenses against it? I mean, we have some because you know, we have some kind of awareness and so on, potentially, but kids have none. So there's no benefit. It's it's slightly different. It's not, you're not, it's it's not putting them in the way of equivalent risk, in my view. That's okay. But even with that, I mean, I would consider my executive function to be pretty good. You know, when I started doing Instagram reels, um, I knew nothing about it, and I was told to do it by my agent because it's all about the socials, David. And uh, you know, I had to go to my son, who was 18 at the time, and say, How do I use Instagram? How do I get Instagram to work? You have to make these reels, apparently. And he so he said, Oh my god, you know, Dad, you're such a Ludite. And so he showed me how to do Instagram reels, and he said, You know, I've actually taken Instagram off my phone because it's so addictive. Like these reels, they're really bad. Like, you know, you've got to be careful. And I went, Oh yeah, yeah, no problem. He said, No, honestly, he said, You've got to be you know clear that you you don't get high in your own supply here. And so when I started doing reels, I used to be very good. I'd upload a reel, I'd go back and I'd check the metrics and you know the whatever to see how it was performing, and I'd put Instagram away. And then I started watching reels. And now, with all of the awareness and knowledge that I have, I still will sit for 20 minutes or 30 minutes on Instagram suddenly go, oh Jesus, I'm you know, lost to like dross. Yeah, absolute dross.

SPEAKER_04 36:25

I couldn't disable Instagram for long periods on my phone. Yeah, so I think just cleanse.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Yeah, so I think with social media like that there is no way that kids can regulate it themselves. They just can't. And so it has to be regulated externally, whether that be through you know, laws that mean that they actually physically can't access it or via parents who are stepping in saying, I'm going to restrict and limit your time or your access to certain uh different social media.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Let's talk a bit more about the fearless framework, because I guess what you've just telling us now is part of the framework that you lay out in the book. So, what are the, I guess, important things? I mean, I'm seeing recognizing triggers is obviously one of the early steps. Um, can we talk about a little bit about it without giving away what's in the book so people can come and read it? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

So this it's isn't it interesting? Because I, you know, one of the things that has always when I think about, you know, what do I buy and what this is not nothing to do with the framework, I'll come to the framework. But um, I actually think you're better off knowing sometimes what you're about to get. So I'm quite happy to share what's in the book with people uh because I, you know, my potted history today is not going to necessarily give you enough information. There's so much more information in the book. But really, the the key steps for me are that we have to first understand a little bit about the physiology of it and about how anxiety works. Then we have to understand the core principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, which are that how we think, how we feel, how we act, and our physical selves are all interconnected. So if we uh make a change in one of those areas, it will have a knock-on effect in all the others. So if it's a positive change in one of those areas, it'll have a positive knock-on effect. So that's why typically I would suggest starting with the physiology of anxiety, if you can reduce the the you know, the level of adrenaline that a child is feeling, that's good. Then you can move to the cognitive element, and so you can start to help them understand their thinking. And so there's some really good exercises in the book that will help them understand how they can actually be in charge of their own thinking. And then we're trying to move them into some kind of zone of positive self-talk or positive affirmations or reminders that they can cope. So we sort out how they feel in terms of their physical stuff first, then we sort out their thinking, and then we have to encourage them to change what they're doing, to actually put themselves in the way of the thing that they're frightened of. Um, and so then after that, then we can start to, you know, at the same time understand the the feelings behind it. And I think as a parent, for you to suggest to your child, look, you know, there's nothing to be worried, worried about, go ahead and you know, you're fine to go in there. If we don't first acknowledge the level of feeling that our child is experiencing, then they don't trust that what we're suggesting will work. So we have to, in fact, maybe I should have put that near the start. We actually have to help them, you know, let them know that we get it, that we understand how worried they feel. And even though we understand how worried they feel, we still feel that there are things that they can do. We still have this confidence in them. So we we acknowledge the feeling element, you know, we help them feel physically less anxious, we help them, you know, get their thinking into a more positive zone, we encourage them to go out and try the thing, and then we reflect afterwards. And it's that process that will get most children and teenagers through most experiences of anxiousness. And adults, and not all of us, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

I guess on the flip side, uh, and I and I grew up with this, is over-reassurance and avoidance is something to, I guess, avoid or try try and manage. And it's funny because I'm now 47. My parents still do that to me, you know. Um they they're currently so true. Yeah, they're they're they're currently in Kuwait where there's literally a war happening, and I ring them and I hear the air raid sirens through the phone, and they're still saying, Oh, everything's fine, just a couple of little drones are flying over, you know, everything is fine.

SPEAKER_04 40:12

Drone bombs, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

I know, but like this this I guess the i it it I guess it builds on what you said. If there isn't an acknowledgement of what is happening, then there is a bit of an erosion of trust down the line, isn't that right? And I guess it's it's a protective instinct, and you sometimes parent based on how you were parents, and I remember an incident that I'll never forget. I was we were in Toronto at the time, my daughter was three, we were walking down on the on the pavement, and there was a a dead bird in front of us. And she goes, Daddy, what's wrong with that bird? And I said, Oh, it's probably just asleep, taking a rest, trying to avoid, you know, death death. And she goes, No, Baba silly, this bird is dead.

SPEAKER_04 40:56

She was fine with it.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Yeah, yeah. And sometimes I guess we overestimate or not overestimate, we underestimate. We underestimate kids and and how resilient they are.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Yeah, and and I think we have to have that belief in them as well. And and so, of course, our trust in our kids is only going to be based on what they actually do, um, you know, and and but but ultimately if we don't carry a little bit of self-confidence, uh, that we can then help them understand that they can also be self-confident. And if we can't show them that we are confident in them, then they will feel disempowered, they won't feel necessarily able. And and so, even at the heart of self-esteem are two core constructs, you know, feeling lovable and feeling capable. And so we want our kids to feel that they're, you know, just loved and liked for who they are. It doesn't really matter who and and what they are, um, and that they're capable, that they're stuff that they're good at, that they're valued for things that they can do. And I think once you have a child who experiences that, they feel so much more able to go into the world and to take risk. And we want kids to be able to take risk, and that means that as parents, sometimes we have to make sure we're not trying to overprotect them from that risk.

SPEAKER_04 42:01

And as well, just in terms of the capable side of it, like they they're valued for the work that they contribute, not necessarily the achievements that come out because like life isn't fair, you can do all the work, you don't necessarily get the payoff at the end, but the work was really valued, you know. So it's it's the messaging and it has to be consistent. And kids are so good at spotting mismatches in messaging. So if you're saying one thing and doing another, they see it.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

For sure.

SPEAKER_04 42:33

And they don't they they see the mismatch, they know it doesn't line up, and they may never call you out on it, but they register it.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

But the other thing that's interesting, if there is a mismatch between what you're seeing or what you're saying and what you're doing, by default your kids are going to be more guided by what you're doing. And so that means that even though we might say, Oh, it's fine, but if we look and sound terrified about it, our kids are going to realize that we're actually terrified and they're also going to be terrified. So we do have to be congruent and we do also have to make sure that what we say is what we do ourselves, which is why, again, it's so important that we go back to what are we role modelling? You know, how how confident do we seem? Or are even when we're unconfident about a situation, how willing are we to say, Oh, yeah, I was highly anxious going into that, you know. But actually, you know, here's what I did, and and I felt much better coming out of it.

SPEAKER_03 43:19

And that's, I guess, is the difference between trying to fix it versus coaching the child through it. My instinct was always trying to fix, whereas I have to like uh hand it to Anne. She was from the outset, instinctively, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 43:32

I read David's books earlier on, so we're very young, you said.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

Because thank you, Anne. Because because I didn't read it, I have to put my hand up. I have read a good chunk of Jesus. Now he says it. Did you read the new book? Did you read the new book? Are you sure? Yes, I think. I did all the reading years ago. Don't worry. No, uh I don't read books often, but this one really captivated me. It's really easy to read. Thank you. It's it's not overwhelming, it gives you practical tools, but it explains why they work, which is fantastic. It's not ideological, you know, which a lot of books sometimes tend to be. It's empowering parents with the tools to learn to self-regulate themselves, but also then pass on that knowledge to kids. And like I said, I think we may have lost our way somewhat in modern parenting, and a huge part is is is social media. And I really feel for parents of this generation, you know, the millennials and the Gen Zers that are becoming parents that really want information in given in a non-judgmental way so that they can be empowered, but there's a lot of confusion as well as to where to get the information from. And I think your book stands out as a really good solid book on how to manage and there's no labelling.

SPEAKER_04 44:45

Yes, because people need people love labels and boxes and sharp boundaries, and they just don't exist.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for the the compliment. And and actually I have a friend, a very good friend, who um lives down in Claire, neighbor, and uh he says to me every time he hears me on the radio, he says to me, I'm sure David, like honestly, like all you ever do is just talk common sense. It really is just common sense, isn't it? There's like there's nothing special about what you're saying, and to me that's a really big compliment because it is what I try and do, which is to translate what what could otherwise be, you know, per you know, maybe complicated concepts into something accessible and tangible that people can go, oh, that makes sense. I can apply that now. Yeah, and they can see how they can apply it. So if that's what's coming through in the book, well then great. And common sense ain't that common.

SPEAKER_04 45:30

Yeah, no, no, because our childminder used to say to the kids all the time when they did stupid things. Yeah. She was great.

SPEAKER_03 45:37

Before we finish up, is there anything you want to say that we may have not touched on or asked you?

SPEAKER_01 45:42

No, I mean, I think like the like I said at the start, I mean, I think that the whole goal for me is that it, you know, if children can fear less, then they're going to be able to do more. And that's ultimately what we want. We don't want our children to feel restricted or confined because of a feeling that they have. We want them to know that the feeling is going to be A, temporary and B ultimately manageable, and that even when they feel this way, there's still things that they can do that allow them to just get out there and live their lives. And that's the key for me.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

So if that comes through, then and I'm so glad the book is called Fearless, because you don't need a fearless child, you just need a child that is capable of managing their fear and anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. Well, David, thank you so much for joining us on the Baby Tribe.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

Thank you so much for all the free therapy.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

You're so welcome. It's been a pleasure. The Baby Tribe is proudly sponsored by happy tummy.ie, the exclusive distributor of Bayagaya probiotics, providing support for gut and oral health for the whole family.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

This show is part of the Headstuff Podcast Network, a hub for the creative and the curious. Shows are produced in association with Headstuff and the Podcast Studios Dublin. Find out more or become a member at Headstuff Podcasts.com.